Leaving Mr Darcy (The Unwilling Vows of Elizabeth Bennet #1)

Chapter 1

Mr Darcy

I do not know when you will receive this letter, but I must tell you not to search for me.

Perhaps I should start from the beginning, so you may know why I am leaving, and also, it is only now that I have the opportunity to speak to you as I have never had in all the months of our marriage.

I begin where we began: the Meryton assembly, where you proclaimed me merely tolerable, not handsome enough to tempt you and that I had been slighted by other men.

All my life my mother has bemoaned my inferiority to Jane in beauty, so I cannot dispute your judgement on those grounds.

What offended me then, and still does, was your carelessness in voicing it so publicly among people I had known since childhood.

Even then, before I knew the full measure of your pride, I understood that you held me in contempt.

Nothing in the months since our marriage has contradicted that first impression. Indeed, every day has confirmed it.

I have tried — heaven knows I have tried — to become the wife you did not want, the mistress you did not choose, the woman your position and consequence demand.

Each morning I have risen determined to fulfil my duties with perfect composure and unfaltering patience, so perhaps you might be moved to grant me some small acknowledgement.

A kind word. A single gesture of regard.

I told myself that duty conscientiously performed must eventually soften even your obdurate heart.

I was wrong.

I was mistaken, too, that night at Netherfield when I came to your aid in the darkness.

When I saw you set upon by Mr Wickham and his confederates, I acted without thought — and that want of thought has cost me everything.

Had I not assisted you, I would not now be paying for my intervention with a lifetime of silent exile within your house.

Where would you be? Perhaps I ought not to consider that.

Perhaps I should not care. Yet I find I am only human, and the question persists.

You are not openly cruel — I acknowledge that. You do not rage or strike out. But there is a cruelty in what you withhold that is no less devastating than any violence. You do not see me. Not Mrs Darcy. Me.

You barely speak in my presence. The restrictions you have placed upon my movements, my correspondence, my acquaintance, any access to pin money — each one is a silent proclamation of your revulsion that I inhabit your home and bear your name.

My presence is unwelcome.

My absence, when noticed, will go unremarked.

I hope I have many hours before any of the staff report that I am gone. Do not be angry with them, none of them are to blame.

I rejoice that I will no longer bear another day beneath the crushing weight of this name that was forced upon me — the name of a man who would never have chosen me, just as I would never have chosen him, had either of us possessed any choice in the matter.

This marriage is a prison for us both, and I am finished with pretending otherwise.

So, I am leaving. By the time you discover this letter, I will be beyond your reach.

I repeat: do not search for me. I would sooner lie alone in an unmarked grave than endure another day of this hollow mockery of marriage.

I have no wish to spend eternity beneath a headstone bearing your name — the hated name I have been forced to carry in life, but which I refuse to carry in death.

Today is the twenty-first anniversary of my birth. Overlooked by everyone here, of course. I am sure my family are unhappy that I can still neither send nor receive correspondence, even on this special day.

From this day forward, there is no person on earth who may command my obedience save you alone. But you will never find me. I am determined on that.

I do regret that you must wait seven years to have me declared dead before you may marry a woman worthy of your consequence and better suited to your pride, but this is the only way I have to remain anonymous, both in life and death.

For so long I have felt that any desire of my own is considered an unforgivable selfishness. Very well. I will permit myself this one selfish act: to live free of you, whether that life proves long or short.

Farewell.

Elizabeth Darcy

Signed this fifteenth day of May, of the year eighteen-twelve, and the last time I will ever sign this name.

Darcy stared in disbelief at the paper in his hand. Almost automatically he bent to see what it was that had fallen from the folds as he opened it.

It lay on the floor; a slim gold band. The wedding ring he had pushed too hard onto her finger in his fury. The plainest, cheapest one that could be sourced.