The silence of the room seemed to refute her logic, but she was quite used to that particular notion.

“Have you refused anyone?” her cousin Lavinia asked with hesitation, the faded, nondescript shade of her hair even more flat in the faint winter light.

Elinor shook her head. “No, cousin. No one has asked.”

There was a general sigh that irritated her, but she said nothing in response to it.

“You’ll feel differently when someone does ask you,” Mary assured her. “I did.”

“So did I,” Joan replied with fervent nods. “Very much so.”

“Oh, good,” Elinor said to no one in particular. “Something to look forward to, then.”

Elizabeth snickered. “Shall we begin parading suitors to see how it feels to be asked?”

Elinor shrugged once. “Why not? It seems that’s all that is necessary to change my mind.”

“And one never knows,” Letitia remarked with a wry smirk that did not suit her plain features, “there are bound to be several balls of mistletoe hanging about Deilingh in the next few days.”

The others seemed to giggle and nod at that, but Elinor had no such inklings. “I am related to everybody currently in the house, cousin,” she retorted, kindly refraining from adding that this particular cousin she was addressing did not have a husband either and was far and away more a spinster than she.

“Cousins marry all the time,” she shot back, completely unperturbed. “And your father is bound to invite local families. It is tradition.”

“Speaking of mistletoe,” Elizabeth said quickly, seizing Elinor’s arm and forcing her up, “we did promise to help Emma and Mr. Partlowe with assembling the greenery so that it might be ready for Christmas Eve. Do excuse us. Ellen, come.”

Ellen did so with remarkable obedience, a thing unheard of in her young life, and she flocked to Elizabeth’s side as they left the room.

“Why did I have to come?” the girl hissed. “I didn’t promise.”

“None of us did, you ninny,” Elizabeth replied. “I don’t trust you in that room unsupervised, and they were about to eat Elinor alive. Thank God everyone thinks seventeen too young for a husband in there, or I would be lumped in.”

“I wouldn’t,” Ellen said with a sniff. “I am still a child to everyone, though I am fifteen.”

Elinor rolled her eyes, wondering if this was how Charlotte felt with her on a regular basis. “Fifteen is a child, Elle. The only wives of fifteen are scandalous ones and no one likes a ruined woman, married or not.”

Ellen ignored her. “Was it just me,” she began, “or was Letitia saying she was not above marrying a cousin?”

“She was indeed,” Elizabeth confirmed, shuddering and making a face. “Given the only eligible cousins in the house are Walter and Rupert, I’m surprised she could stomach the admission. What are we, desperate royals?”

“Royals marry cousins?” Ellen gasped.

“Loads of people marry cousins,” Elinor groaned, swatting the air in front of her sister impatiently. “The royals are simply more public about it.”