An Overdue Apology (Pride and Prejudice)

Chapter 1

Late the morning after his disastrous proposal, Fitzwilliam Darcy found he could not bring himself to quit Hunsford without one final walk through the grove where he had so often encountered Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

The world had the washed-clean look of early spring after a brief shower, the air sharp with the scent of wet earth and budding hawthorn.

He only wished he felt as fresh as the morning, but in truth, he was very troubled.

He told himself he walked merely to clear his thoughts before he returned to Rosings, yet each step only seemed to bring forth the memory of her voice as she had answered him the night before. It had been firm, angry, and devastatingly final as she rejected his offer of marriage.

Although he had thought himself to be a man of reason, impervious to foolish sentiment, her refusal had stripped him bare, exposing every flaw he had so carefully concealed beneath pride and reserve.

“…I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”

The words returned to him again and again, their every syllable exacting and inexorably final. He could not decide which stung more—her rejection of him or the truth behind it, especially her accusation: had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.

To counter her accusations, he had spent the previous night in a form of restless torment—he had written, destroyed, and then rewritten a letter.

Each draft had been written in agony, as he weighed and considered each word he wrote, for he had determined that if she were to think him ungentlemanly, she should at least know the truth of it from his own pen.

In the end, the very act of composing that letter had served as yet another confirmation of her charge: that he was scarcely a gentleman at all, governed as he was by passion and wounded pride.

Yes, the letter had contained his defence, but it had become something more than mere justification.

It had become a confession—of his arrogance, of his interference, of the blindness born of his own conceit.

In those pages he had laid himself entirely bare, stripping away the armour of reserve he had worn for so long.

He had told her of Wickham’s deceit, of his sister’s near-ruin, and of his own shame in the matter.

That she might despise him all the more for not only writing it, but also in admitting to his faults, had not escaped his notice, yet he could not remain silent and allow her to persist in false belief.

Whether she would see it as such—a gesture born out of his love and trust in her rather than pride and resentment—he could not know. Her response, whatever form it might take, would decide his fate as surely as any judge’s verdict.

That morning, he had sought her out, compelled by desperation and a fierce need to defend himself against her accusations.

He had all but forced her to accept the letter, knowing even then that he was placing his heart—and his honour—entirely at her mercy.

Now it rested in her possession, that fragile testament to all he had felt and all he had failed to express clearly the night before.

It was, quite literally, all in her hands: her choice whether to believe his words or to cast them aside. She held the power to destroy him utterly—and in so doing, to doom her sister to the very misery he had fought so hard to prevent.

After handing Elizabeth the letter early that morning, he had returned to Rosings, hoping that some occupation might draw his thoughts away from the pain of her refusal.

For a time, he succeeded in losing himself among the ledgers and accounts spread across the desk; but before long, his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, appeared in the study.

As the cousins were to depart on the morrow, Fitzwilliam proposed that they call upon the Collinses to take their leave, specifically mentioning his desire to see Miss Bennet once more.

Darcy could endure being in the same house where she was residing for only a short while, even if she herself were absent, and after the requisite fifteen minutes, he excused himself and departed to return.

Upon leaving the parsonage, he found himself drawn instinctively toward the grove—the very place where he had given her that letter only hours before.

Though he avoided the precise spot, he still wandered the familiar path, his steps slow and without purpose, his thoughts too heavy to notice where they led.

Part of him had been relieved not to face her again so soon after her rejection the night before, and after handing her that letter that morning.

Yet the relief was hollow. His pride still smarted, and his heart remained raw from the knowledge that the woman he loved had never even liked him.

The truth of it—the realisation that he had lost the only woman he could ever have loved—cut far deeper than he could have imagined.

And yet, despite reason—despite every argument he had made to silence his own folly—he had hoped to see her once more. Foolishly, impossibly, he had longed for it.

Just for a moment.

Long enough to read her expression, to know whether she had read his letter, and to see if she believed him.

To learn whether, in some small measure, she might think a little less ill of him now.

But fate had not granted him even that small solace.

She had not been at the parsonage, and so he had taken his leave with a civility she might not have believed him capable of after the previous evening.

His cousin had preferred to wait a while longer, both because he appeared to genuinely enjoy the company of the ladies, but also, Darcy thought, he wished to avoid his own ill mood.

Rather than return at once to Rosings and his aunt, he wandered instead, lost in thought—thoughts that circled endlessly back to Elizabeth, and how disastrously wrong everything had gone.

Even now, he could still see her as she had stood in the parsonage the previous night—her eyes bright with anger, her cheeks flushed with indignation rather than the tender affection he had so foolishly imagined.

He had thought his declaration would astonish her, perhaps even move her; instead, her every word had struck him like a blow.

And yet—God help him—he had never admired her more than in that moment when she refused him.

There had been such fire in her spirit, such honesty in her reproof, that even through his mortification he had recognised her courage and integrity.

How it had burned. The pride that had sustained him all his life, the conviction of his own consequence, had crumbled beneath the force of her words.

Her accusations, every one of them, misguided though some of them had been, still, they had struck home.

They had revealed to him a man he scarcely recognised, and the reflection had been unbearable.

He was still dwelling upon that scene, the humiliation of his proposal, the echo of her voice, the sting of his own folly, when a sound broke through his reverie.

Lifting his head, he startled and saw her at some distance across the field.

She moved quickly, unaware of his presence, the wind tugging at the ribbons of her bonnet and the hem of her gown brushing the damp grass.

For a moment, he stood motionless, his breath caught between disbelief and yearning. He knew he ought to turn away; indeed, every rational thought urged him to leave her in peace. But his heart, stubborn and disobedient, refused to obey.

The sight of her, her dark curls loosened by the damp air, her bonnet held carelessly in one hand, the ribbons trailing behind her as she walked, was enough to steal his resolve.

Against the fresh green of the grove, her figure stood out as she moved with a brisk, determined grace that rendered him momentarily breathless.

There was something in her carriage—an energy, a vitality—that he had never ceased to admire, even as it reminded him how very unlike himself she was.

He hesitated, torn between prudence and longing.

His reason urged him to turn away; his heart refused.

If she had read his letter, she might despise him all the more for what it contained.

Yet if she had read it and believed him, if she thought him sincere in his words, and he did not take what might be his last opportunity to see her, he would remain in ignorance.

He would never know whether his words had softened her opinion or confirmed her disdain.

The uncertainty of it gnawed at him, more cruelly than her rejection itself.

Something within him, whether it was pride, hope, or that ungovernable longing he had so long denied, compelled him forward.

He told himself it was only to learn whether she had read his letter, only to see if she believed him.

But the truth, though he scarcely dared name it, was far more dangerous.

He wished to see her again—to look upon her face, to hear her voice, to know if even a trace of the warmth he felt for her might be returned.

He was desperate to know.

Careful not to make a sound, he approached her. Drawing closer, he continued to watch her; his letter was in her hand and her brow furrowed as she read a part of it, before dropping it back to her side with an indignant huff.

* * *

Seemingly unaware that she was being watched, Elizabeth paused beside a low stone wall and pressed the folded pages to her lips as if steadying herself.

“You pompous man,” she murmured under her breath, though there was less venom in her tone than there had been yesterday.

“Why must you always be right when I would wish you would be wrong?”