Chapter TEN #2
Elizabeth nodded and unlocked her phone. “He finally replied. He told me the nastiest story I’ve ever heard about the ultra-wealthy. He claims they were raised together.”
Jane’s scepticism was immediate. “Hmm.”
Lydia leaned forward instinctively, then caught herself.
“Wait—random men are messaging you now?”
Elizabeth ignored her and handed the phone to Jane. “See for yourself.”
Jane read silently, her expression tightening with every line.
After a moment, she looked up.
“Lizzy… I really hope this isn’t a fake person.”
Elizabeth stiffened. “A fake person?”
Jane hesitated. “I only mean… people can be anyone online. A message isn’t proof.”
Lydia craned her neck, trying to see. “Does he have a picture?”
Elizabeth shot her a look. “Lydia.”
“What? I’m curious.”
Jane turned the phone slightly, and Lydia immediately brightened.
“Oh,” Lydia said. “He’s in uniform.”
Jane sighed. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“I didn’t say it meant anything,” Lydia replied. “I’m just saying men in uniform are… unfortunately compelling.”
Elizabeth’s voice was flat. “We are not discussing his aesthetic.”
Jane handed the phone back gently. “Lizzy, you need evidence. Not just his story.”
“I know,” Elizabeth said quickly. “I’m going to ask him for proof. Something real.”
Jane’s gaze stayed on her. “And Mr. Darcy? What did he say when you mentioned Wickham?”
Elizabeth’s jaw tightened.
“He didn’t.”
Jane blinked. “He didn’t… deny it?”
“He didn’t deny anything. He just went silent.”
Lydia’s eyes widened. “That sounds guilty.”
Jane shook her head slightly. “Sounds guilty? What does that even mean, Lydia?”
Elizabeth’s voice sharpened. “He looked guilty as hell.”
Jane’s tone remained gentle. “Lizzy… what did he actually say?”
Elizabeth swallowed.
“He said it wasn’t a conversation he would have in a café.”
Lydia scoffed. “Classic deflection tactics. He probably didn’t expect you to find out, so he didn’t have a lie prepared.”
“And then,” Elizabeth added quietly, “he asked if my rejection was a verdict too.”
The room went still.
“Was it?” Lydia broke the silence.
Elizabeth grimaced. “What was I supposed to say?”
Jane’s expression softened into something thoughtful, almost pained.
“Oh, Lizzy…”
Elizabeth looked away, her throat tight.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to think anymore. First, I was thrilled I might have the exposé of the year, and then…”
Her voice trailed off as she stared into nothing.
Jane reached across the space and took her hand.
“Then don’t decide tonight,” she said softly. “Ask for proof. From Wickham. From anyone. Just… don’t let a stranger’s story become the only truth you hear.”
Lydia, unusually quiet now, muttered, “Also, maybe don’t go on dates with billionaires again.”
Elizabeth gave a short, strained laugh.
Outside, the city carried on.
Inside, Elizabeth Bennet realised with sudden, unpleasant clarity that the tea she wanted on Fitzwilliam Darcy might have come at a cost she hadn’t expected.
***
The apartment had gone quiet in the way it only did after midnight, when even the city seemed to lower its voice.
Jane and Lydia, unwilling to leave Elizabeth alone for the night, had decided to stay over.
Lydia was already asleep in Elizabeth’s room, sprawled diagonally across the bed as though she had conquered it. Her breathing was deep and untroubled, the kind of peace Elizabeth envied.
Jane, however, had not gone to bed.
She sat with Elizabeth in the sitting room, a blanket folded over her knees, a glass of wine cradled between her hands. The lamp on the side table cast a soft circle of light, leaving the rest of the room in shadow.
Elizabeth kept her own glass close, more for something to do with her fingers than for thirst.
Jane watched her for a long moment.
“You’re still awake,” she said gently.
Elizabeth gave a short laugh. “So are you.”
Jane’s smile was faint. “I’m not the one pretending I’m fine.”
Elizabeth’s gaze flicked to the window. The dark glass reflected her back at herself, all sharp angles and stubbornness.
“I am fine.”
Jane hummed, unconvinced. She took a small sip of wine, then set her glass down.
“Lizzy,” she said softly, “tell me again what the real issue is.”
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened around the stem of her glass.
“The real issue,” she repeated, as though tasting the words, “is that there is no issue here—aside from the fact that some people think they can offer relationships in a condescending manner and expect me to accept it as some kind of favour, simply so that I don’t reveal their true personality for the horrible person they are. ”
Jane didn’t flinch. “That is not what I mean.”
Elizabeth looked back at her.
Jane’s voice remained calm. “You’re angry. I understand that. But anger isn’t the only thing I saw tonight.”
Elizabeth’s stomach tightened. “Jane…”
“Do you like him?”
The question landed too neatly, too directly.
Elizabeth’s laugh came out strained. “No.”
Jane’s eyes didn’t move.
“No?” she repeated, very gently.
Elizabeth set her glass down with more force than necessary. “Of course not. He’s arrogant. Insufferable. He—”
“He asked you out,” Jane interrupted, still mild. “And you looked as though someone had knocked the air out of you.”
“That was shock,” Elizabeth insisted. “Nothing else.”
Jane tilted her head. “And Mr. F?”
Elizabeth stilled.
The room seemed suddenly smaller.
Mr. F.
The name she had not meant to carry out of anonymity, out of screens and careful distance.
The man who had been only words at first—humour threaded unrestrained, intelligence that met hers without trying to outshine it, sweet words that sounded almost flirtatious but not quite, and the kind of silly, private jokes only the two of them seemed to understand—or so she liked to think.
Elizabeth’s throat tightened.
Jane’s voice softened further. “You can’t deny you liked him.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Because she could still hear him sometimes in the cadence of those messages.
She could still picture the way he had listened in the yoghurt shop—Mr. Darcy sitting across from her, and yet, for a moment, feeling indistinguishable from Mr. F—as though her opinions were not merely amusing, but worth holding.
And she hated that part most of all: that even now, knowing exactly who he was, she still found herself missing the ease of speaking to him, still wishing, against better judgment, that she could have him in her days the way she once had.
She forced herself to speak. “I liked… the conversation.”
Jane’s smile was knowing. “Lizzy.”
Elizabeth looked away.
Outside, a car passed, headlights briefly washing the ceiling.
Jane leaned back, quiet for a moment, then said, “Maybe you shouldn’t be so determined to hate him.”
Elizabeth’s head snapped up. “I am not determined to hate him. I am determined to be sensible.”
Jane’s brows lifted. “Sensible?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said, a little too quickly. “He’s Fitzwilliam Darcy. The man who thinks love is an algorithm. Proud, disdainful, utterly self-centred. The man who said I was not ‘handsome enough to tempt’ him. The man Wickham—”
“Wickham is one story,” Jane said gently. “And Darcy is a person.”
Elizabeth’s jaw tightened. “A very wealthy person who can erase people when it suits him.”
Jane did not rise to it. She only said, “I’ve been with Bingley for a couple of months now. One thing I know for sure is that he is a decent judge of character.”
Elizabeth let out a breath that was almost a scoff. “Well, since he managed to land you—and you are the best-behaved of the Bennet sisters—I won’t argue.”
Jane’s cheeks coloured, and she giggled softly, the sound warm in the dim room.
“Perhaps,” she admitted. “But truly, Lizzy… do you think Charles would be friends with Darcy, or invest his money with him, if he believed him to be a bad man?”
Elizabeth hesitated.
Bingley’s openness was not foolishness. Not entirely. He was trusting, yes, but not blind.
She gave a reluctant, noncommittal hum.
Jane watched her carefully. “All I am saying is that you have the wood and nails, Lizzy…”
Elizabeth frowned. “What?”
Jane’s smile was faint. “But don’t crucify him yet, until you know without doubt that he deserves it.”
Elizabeth stared at her sister.
Jane’s gaze was steady, affectionate, but perceptive in a way that made Elizabeth feel seen.
“You liked Mr. F,” Jane said quietly. “You were curious. You were… lighter.”
Elizabeth’s chest tightened.
“And then you discovered Mr. F was Darcy,” Jane continued, “and suddenly you decided you must not feel anything at all.”
“That is not true,” Elizabeth said, but it came out weaker than she intended.
Jane’s hand reached across the space between them and rested over Elizabeth’s fingers.
“Lizzy,” she murmured, “you don’t have to forgive him tonight. You don’t have to trust him tonight. But you do have to be fair.”
Elizabeth swallowed.
Fair.
Darcy’s word had been a verdict, or so she thought.
Her own had been judgment.
She leaned back, staring at the darkened room. The television’s muted glow flickered across the walls, and somewhere in the background a woman’s voice sang softly—an artist Elizabeth didn’t recognise, the sound almost ghostlike beneath their silence.
“I don’t know what I feel,” Elizabeth admitted at last, the confession bitter on her tongue.
Jane’s hand squeezed gently.
“That,” she said softly, “is a much better beginning than pretending you feel nothing at all.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes, wine untouched now, the quiet stretching around them.
And somewhere beneath her anger, beneath her certainty, something unsettled remained—persistent as a question she could not yet answer.
She opened her eyes again, turning her head toward Jane with a faint, strained incredulity.
“Wait,” she said slowly, “is that why you used the wood, nails and crucify reference? Like I’m Pontius Pilate, and he’s… Jesus or something?”
Jane blinked, then let out a helpless laugh.
“Lizzy,” she murmured, equal parts amused and exasperated, “that is not what I meant.”
Elizabeth huffed softly, though the corner of her mouth twitched despite herself.
“I should hope not,” she muttered. “Because that would be entirely too dramatic. Even for Lydia.”