Chapter Twenty-five
Darcy
Darcy leaned against the study door, his breathing measured against the storm building inside him. He thought again and again about the letter and its implication.
Even if it were true that Elizabeth hadn’t set out to benefit from their meeting in Ireland and, like him, she’d been stunned by how everything unfolded, what possible explanation could justify her correspondence with those women?
The next available assumption, garnered from the little he’d heard her say, was that she’d acted from misguided compassion for her friend, concealing the correspondence because she feared his reaction would damage their bond.
But even that explanation wounded in a different way.
It suggested she trusted him so little that honesty seemed more dangerous than deception, that she believed him incapable of understanding mercy or extending compassion even when circumstances might warrant it.
The possibilities cut deep in different ways. Both suggested fundamental failures. Hers in judgement or honesty, his in creating an environment where she felt safe enough to confide difficult truths.
He moved to the window, staring sightlessly at the grounds washed grey by overcast sky. Rain threatened, clouds heavy with moisture that matched the pressure building inside him.
He loved her. That was the terrible, inescapable truth he could not deny no matter how much easier denial might make this entire situation.
He loved how she made him laugh, how their conversations ranged from playful to profound with ease that felt effortless, and the comfort of her presence that had become essential to his happiness.
Despite everything, despite the letter, which provided solid evidence of betrayal, he could not make that love disappear. It remained stubbornly, achingly present making every passing second hurt in a way he had no name for.
He could not contemplate separation. The thought of sending her away, of ending their marriage through whatever legal means might be available, of never seeing her again, felt impossible.
Elizabeth had become woven into the fabric of his existence too much to be extracted without destroying the whole.
But did she love him? Or merely the security his fortune represented?
The question struck at his deepest vulnerability.
The fear he had carried since youth, since the first fortune hunter had set her sights on him at seventeen and he had learned the bitter lesson that his wealth would always colour how others perceived him.
Mr Darcy of Pemberley, an eligible bachelor whose worth was calculated in pounds rather than character.
He had thought—foolishly, perhaps—that Elizabeth was different. That her agreement to their hasty marriage reflected complicated circumstances rather than opportunistic manoeuvring and that these past weeks of growing closeness indicated authentic feelings developing between them.
But what if he had been wrong? What if her animation in conversation, her laughter at his observations, had been feigned?
His stomach churned with nausea at the thought.
He sank into the chair behind the desk with a sigh. He had been so certain of his judgement, dismissing Lady Catherine’s warnings as prejudiced disapproval.
Once again, he had misjudged character and allowed sentiment to blind him to reality. He’d valued what he wished to be true over what evidence suggested actually was true.
Rain began to fall, drops striking glass with increasing intensity until the world beyond the window became distorted into unrecognisable shapes. He watched it absently, musing over the same agonising questions without finding resolution.
Night came with rain still drumming steadily against the house.
Darcy remained in the study, too exhausted to sleep.
He paced the confines of the small room until the pattern of his steps wore invisible tracks into the carpet.
Sat. Paced again. Read the damned letter until phrases burned into memory.
Dawn arrived grey and cheerless. He slipped from the study long enough to bathe and change in one of the spare chambers, avoiding his own rooms where Elizabeth’s presence lingered in displaced objects and the faint scent of lavender.
Then he returned to the study immediately, barricading himself behind closed doors and mounting paperwork he had no real intention of actually reviewing.
The entire world had narrowed to this single room and the emotions that consumed him. Nothing else seemed to matter, not estate business or the social niceties that typically governed his behaviour.
Food held no appeal and his stomach had become a tight knot impervious to hunger.
A knock interrupted his brooding sometime mid-morning.
Richard’s voice carried through the door. “Darcy? Might we speak?”
“Go away.”
“I am concerned—”
“I said go away.”
Darcy stared at the letter spread before him, its words no more enlightening on what must have been the twentieth reading than they had been on the first.
Another knock arrived shortly after. It was Lady Matlock this time, her tone gentle with maternal concern.
“Fitzwilliam, dear, you have not eaten all day. Please allow me to bring you something, even if you will not come out and join us.”
“I am not hungry.”
“Even so, you must maintain your strength.”
“Please leave me alone.” The pleading tone that coloured his words bothered him but it could not be helped. In a way, he was indeed pleading for peace and quiet.
She departed with audible reluctance. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until colours bloomed behind closed lids. He was being unreasonable. He could recognise his own irrationality with the detached part of his mind that remained capable of objective observation.
But the alternative of facing his family’s pity, their well-meaning advice that could not possibly help because they did not understand, not in practice, seemed unbearable.
Lord Matlock tried next, his approach more direct.
“This sulking serves no purpose. Come out, discuss the matter rationally, and allow clearer heads to provide perspective.”
“I require no perspective beyond what the facts provide.”
“The evidence may be susceptible to interpretation.”
“Good day, Uncle.”
Then Arthur arrived. He deployed the sort of honesty that made him at once a desirable confidant and an uncomfortable one.
Even Lady Catherine knocked, her tone full of concern. “I take no pleasure in being proven correct, nephew, but you must now face the reality I attempted to illuminate. The sooner you accept this truth and take appropriate action, the better for you.”
“Leave me alone.”
She huffed indignantly but departed, her footsteps sharp with offended dignity that suggested she would make her displeasure known to anyone willing to listen.
Darcy returned to pacing, to staring at rain that had finally ceased, leaving everything grey and dripping.
Evening shadows lengthened across the study.
He lit candles, then stood watching flames flicker as his mind offered no resolution or escape from his anguish.
He felt hollowed out, scraped raw, as if hurt, anger and love had taken turns carving pieces out of him until nothing remained but aching emptiness.
There was another knock, lighter this time and more tentative than the others had been.
“I told you to leave me alone.”
“I know. But I brought food. You have not eaten all day, and your family is concerned. As am I.”
She was here. Standing just beyond the door, close enough that he could hear her breathing if he strained to listen.
She was close enough that opening the door would bring them face to face for the first time since he had asked, begged even, for her to leave him alone while he attempted to understand evidence that seemed to destroy everything he had believed about her.
He should tell her to go. But he remained silent, frozen between the desire to see her and the fear of what seeing her might make him feel.
He stood between the need for answers and the dread that those answers might destroy what fragile hope remained that this was all some terrible misunderstanding.
“Fitzwilliam?” Her voice carried an uncertainty that matched his own internal state.
“I understand if you wish to continue being alone. But you need to eat something. Even if you will not speak with me, even if you cannot bear to see me, please at least accept the tray. Your family is very worried, and I—I am worried too.”
He stood motionless, paralysed by conflicting impulses.
Part of him wanted to fling open the door, demand explanations and grant her the opportunity to defend herself against accusations that had been eating at him for what felt like eternity compressed into mere hours.
Another part wanted to maintain this separation indefinitely, to avoid confrontation that might confirm his worst fears.
There was much he wished to say, but words would not come. The love that refused to die despite everything he knew — that was the thing he could not reason his way past.
Even if he chose to speak, what could he possibly say that would encompass the chaos of his thoughts, the war between his heart’s certainty and his mind’s doubt?
Nothing. There were no words adequate to this moment, to this impossible situation where love and betrayal existed in the same space.
So he said nothing at all.