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myself Perhaps, colonel, you need a break, too"

She left with a quiet swish of her skirt Back to work She was the work She was

Rats She’d had a sweet little hope that she was the treat, the rest fro out with Miss Erstwhile was reason to sigh with

exhaustion

Did Mr Nobley feel the same way? Could he have been the unseen smoker? Tomorroas the ball She’d channeled all her hopes into the ball, where she

would face the fantasy of Mr Darcy and somehow… somehow just knohat to do?

She was all befuddled The ball had to be her closure, her triumph But reetting hard to keep her eye on the ball She was

not who she’d thought she was No one was

When she got back to her room, her self-portrait’s eyes stared back, startled, even

lum That was the sound her feetGlulum, as she walked alone at the back of the line of

precedence into the dining room It sure felt cold back there She sniffed and rubbed her

arer Hall and the two older Miss

Longleys as well," Aunt Saffronia was saying, her conversation as endlessly full of

naot-whoht,

you recall Mr Bentley? Still single and has four thousand pounds a year Takes such

good care of hisher food around Her mother

would’ve been shocked It was not often that Jane was truly and absolutely despondent,

and tonight she felt enslaved by that word It shouldn’t ht of her,

she reame, and when she won it would be her victory She

just had to dig in her heels and keep playing But the reality of thebored by

her, paid to pretend to like her, intruded too ht, coupled with the

dread that she wouldn’t be able to conquer her obsession before her time in Austenland

was up

Jane tried to keep the despondency to herself, though Mr Nobley seeood eye on her, as usual She took another bite of poultry of some

sort?and decided she’d pull the headache excuse out of the bag and dismiss herself to

bed as soon as the dinner torture was over She hated to waste a single moment of her last

days, but she felt pulled inside out and couldn’t figure out how to right herself She returned Mr Nobley’s gaze His eyebrows raised, he leaned forward slightly,

his ed He frowned

When the woentlemen to their port and tobacco, Mr

Nobley rose as well and etic way to Jane’s side