Chapter 5
Darcy dressed quickly and slipped from his room, avoiding the main staircase. Servants moved about with trays and candles, preparing for his aunt’s Christmas breakfast. He left through a side door, pulling his greatcoat tight against the biting wind.
The snow crunched beneath his boots as he walked down the path toward the edge of the woods, head bent. He had no clear destination. Only a vague thought: that a walk might clear his mind, or at least make the echo of Elizabeth’s words recede.
Maybe it would be better if I had never been born.
He turned the words over again in his mind as he reached the stream at the far edge of Rosings Park—the same little grove where he had so often gone to escape his aunt’s lectures. The water trickled under a thin crust of ice, dark and cold, like a vein of glass running through the snow.
Darcy picked up a stone and turned it in his gloved palm absentmindedly. All around him, the woods were quiet. The snow was undisturbed but for his own footprints.
He felt cold clear through.
It was not only the rejection. Not only her words. Though those had cut more deeply than he could admit—not even to himself. No, it was something more corrosive still: a slow, crawling doubt that he usually kept buried deep.
He wondered again if everyone he cared about might indeed have been happier without him. I have ruined everything, he thought miserably.
Bingley. Jane.
He had believed—truly believed—that Jane Bennet was indifferent. Her manner was quiet, her expressions mild. But now… now he remembered the way her face lit up when Bingley entered a room. The softening of her voice when she spoke his name. The hope that had flickered—genuine, if restrained.
Had he misread it?
Had he destroyed her happiness out of arrogance?
His stomach twisted. He could see Bingley’s expression now, the last time they spoke. “Do you truly think she does not care for me?” his young friend had asked.
He had hesitated. And lied.
He swallowed hard. His throat burned.
And Georgiana. Wickham.
That betrayal still stung—but worse was the memory of her crumpled letter, her pale cheeks, the way she would not look him in the eye for weeks. She had trusted him. Trusted him to protect her. And he had been so intent on shielding her from disgrace that he never once asked what she wanted.
He looked down at the stone in his hand. His fingers were stiff with cold.
Everything felt wrong. Off-kilter. Broken.
He had tried to act with honor. With good sense. He had told himself his choices were just—admirable, even.
But what if they were just proud? Just self-serving? Just… blind?
“I tried,” he whispered. His voice sounded strange in the stillness.
No one answered.
The snow creaked beneath his boot as he shifted his weight. The cold was in his teeth now, in his bones. He should go back. He would be missed.
But would you really be missed? The taunt rose from the back of his mind. After all, the only person who would express any dismay over your absence only values you as a husband to her daughter.
And so he lingered, allowing the black despair to swirl around him, permeating every fiber of his being until his chest ached.
The pressure was unbearable. He gripped the stone tighter, feeling it bite into his palm. Overcome with anguish, he let out a guttural scream and hurled the stone into trickling water, the sound of shattering ice echoing amongst the snow-covered trees.
Falling to his knees, he buried his face in his hands. “I wish I had never been born!” he said aloud, his voice rough and strange in the stillness.
The words tore from him louder than he had intended. They rang across the empty grove, sharp and desperate. No sooner had they left his mouth than the air changed.
It was not the wind. There was no wind. The trees stood still, their branches heavy with snow. But something moved—an invisible ripple, like the world had inhaled and forgotten how to exhale.
Then—without footstep, sound, or warning—a figure stood across the stream.
Not a man. Not quite.
The man—if he was a man—looked entirely out of place. His hair was pale as frost, though not from age. His eyes—green, sharp, not quite human—glinted with amusement. His clothing was fine, though foreign in cut, and shimmered faintly as though the light bent around it.
“Well,” said the stranger, voice lilting and amused. “That can be arranged.”
Darcy stumbled back a half-step, breath catching in his throat. “What? Who…who are you? Where did you come from?”
The peculiar man quirked an eyebrow. “That is the most interesting thing I have heard all winter,” he said, ignoring Darcy’s question. “So you wish you had never been born, do you?”
Darcy’s pulse pounded in his ears. “I did not— That is to say, I—”
“Oh, you did,” the man interrupted, cheerful as ever. “Loudly. With feeling. And you meant it. I must say, it has been ages since I heard a wish like that made with such conviction. It called me.”
He stepped lightly across the stream. Not onto the bridge—onto the water itself. The ice held beneath his boots without a sound.
Darcy instinctively took a step back.
“I did not call for you,” he said stiffly.
“You did not need to. Wishes are louder than prayers, and much easier to grant.”
The man’s eyes glittered.
Darcy’s breath misted in the cold air. “What is your name?”
The stranger smiled. “Names are very powerful things. But for your sake, let us say I am—hmm…” He tapped a finger to his lips. “A courier. A guide. A... seasonal gift.”
“You are mad.”
“I hear that often,” he said, entirely unbothered. “But you, Mr. Darcy—you are obsolete. Or will be, shortly.”
Darcy’s stomach dropped. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” the man said lightly, “that you wished to have never been born. And so I have removed you.”
“Removed—?”
“From the story. From the equation. From everything.” The man’s smile widened, but his eyes turned sharp. “You shall walk for a time, but none shall know you. No one will remember you. No one will miss you. You will see the world as it would be… without Fitzwilliam Darcy.”
Darcy stared. “You cannot possibly—”
“Oh, but I have,” the man said simply. With that, he looked past Darcy—just over his shoulder—and winked.
Darcy stiffened. He turned, confused, following the line of the stranger’s gaze.
Elizabeth.
She stood half-concealed by the trees, her eyes wide in disbelief, her breath forming clouds in the cold morning air. Her hands were clutched in the folds of her cloak, her bonnet askew as if she had come in haste.
She had heard.
He opened his mouth to speak—but before he could form a word, something shifted behind him.
He spun back.
The stream was empty. The ice untouched. Snowflakes fell in silence, and the woods were still.
The man was gone.
Not a trace. Not a footprint.
Darcy stood frozen, heart pounding in his ears, the world suddenly too quiet.
Elizabeth remained motionless beneath the trees, staring not at him—but at the empty space where the stranger had stood.
She had seen him too.
So it had not been madness.
It had been real.
Darcy turned fully toward her. “Miss Bennet—” he began saying, but the expression on her face caused him to pause.
Not anger.
Not confusion.
Wonder.
And perhaps—if he were not mistaken—something like fear.
∞∞∞
Elizabeth Bennet awoke on Christmas morning in no festive spirit at all.
Her head ached. Her mouth was dry. And her mood was, in every possible respect, abominable.
She had slept badly, tossing and turning beneath too-heavy bedclothes, her mind churning with every word of Mr. Darcy’s astonishing, offensive proposal.
He had come to the parsonage. On Christmas Eve, no less. Uninvited. And asked for her hand in marriage as if doing her a favor, a great honor.
Despite every rational objection…
She threw back the bedclothes with unnecessary force.
If there had been a less gracious way to propose, she could not imagine it. And then to look wounded when she refused him—wounded! As though he were the one insulted!
She did not even wait for the maid to light the fire. She dressed swiftly in the dim morning light, wrapped herself in her thickest shawl and cloak, and crept downstairs, boots in hand. The floorboards creaked beneath her feet, but neither Mr. nor Mrs. Collins stirred.
Good.
She needed air.
Within minutes she had pulled on her boots and slipped out the kitchen door. The snow had stopped in the night, but the clouds hung low and heavy. The world was white and silent, and the biting air hit her like a tonic.
She tramped toward the grove near the stream behind Rosings. Her cheeks burned from the cold, and she welcomed it. It cleared her head.
But not her anger.
“You speak of affection, Mr. Darcy, but your words reek of condescension.”
She muttered the words once more under her breath, half-wishing she had slapped him just to see the look on his face.
Her hands curled into fists inside her muff.
Why had he proposed at all? Why now, after weeks of silence and aloofness?
After encouraging Bingley to leave, after humiliating her sister?
“Perhaps,” she said aloud to the trees, “you truly do believe no woman in England could resist such a prize.”
Just then, she heard a scream.
It was raw and guttural, nothing like the polite voices of Rosings or the occasional calls of gamekeepers. It tore through the frosty air like a wounded animal.
Elizabeth froze.
For a heartbeat she thought she had imagined it, but then came another sound: a violent splash, the crack of ice splintering.
Her heart lurched. Did someone fall into the stream?
Knowing the water was nearby, she ran in its direction. Her breath came in short, sharp clouds as she ducked under tree branches. The snow clung to her hem and soaked through her gloves, but she paid it no mind. She had never heard a sound like that before—not from an animal, not from a man.