CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #2
To think he had once offered her a love of such depth. His was not the artful flattery of a seasoned flirt, nor the casual regard so freely given and just as freely forgotten. No. His was the rare and precious offering of a reserved man and an honourable heart.
He had offered her a difficult, earnest confession — the hard-won esteem of a man who did not bestow his affections lightly. And she had foolishly spurned it, mistaking the treasure for an insult, repaying the honour with scorn, and throwing his sincerity back in his face.
She understood now the true worth of Darcy’s heart, with its loyalty, its integrity, and its astonishing capacity for a love as deep as the power he commanded. She knew what his heart was worth now, understanding its value precisely because it was gone.
The wrenching feeling in her chest was no longer just remorse, but a keen sense of his absence, made all the more acute by the fact that he stood mere inches away.
A ludicrous urge rose in her to reach out, to smooth the lines of pain from his brow, to offer some inadequate comfort. What a ridiculous fool she was! To wish to soothe a wound she herself had so viciously inflicted. Had there ever been a sillier creature?
She must have betrayed something of her thoughts, for his gaze, which had been lost in memory, suddenly sharpened on her.
Darcy tensed almost imperceptibly, stepping back from the pianoforte and clearing his throat as if to physically dislodge the emotion that had settled there.
“Pray, excuse me,” he said, “I have kept you too long with my recollections, and I shall not keep you further. I have some pressing estate matters to attend to before I retire.”
Before Elizabeth could form a reply, before she could find the words to keep him from becoming a stranger to her once more, he offered a formal bow, turned, and strode from the room.
For some moments thereafter, perhaps even for some hours, Elizabeth sat frozen on the bench, her mind lost in the painful unraveling of her thoughts and memories.
How quick she had been to condemn! To judge him as unfeeling, as incapable of tender sentiment, when all along he had carried such grief, such love, so carefully shielded from the world.
Her wounded vanity had painted him with arrogance and disdain, and she had believed her own artistry without question.
Eventually, after taking a few slow breaths that did little to calm her, she made a decision, a decision that felt both terrifyingly bold and absolutely necessary. She would go to him.
She did not know precisely what she would say, what words could possibly mend the hurt that lay between them, but she knew, with absolute conviction, that the silence between them could not be allowed to stand another moment.
Elizabeth allowed no room for the chorus of hesitations that immediately rose in her mind. The potential for his rejection or the sheer, mortifying awkwardness of the encounter was rendered irrelevant by the overriding need to speak with him.
Tonight. Now.
He had said he had estate matters to attend to. How much time had passed since then?
She rose from the pianoforte bench, the music and the colonel forgotten, her thoughts entirely on the confrontation ahead. The walk from the drawing room to his study felt like the longest of her life.
Her heart hammered against her ribs as she finally reached the heavy door. It presented an intimidating barrier, but Elizabeth, her courage rallied by challenge, knocked, first softly, then after receiving no response, again, a little louder.
Still there was silence.
Taking a breath that helped not one bit to steady her nerves, Elizabeth tentatively pushed the door inward. It yielded without a noise.
The room was shrouded in gloom. A single, sputtering candle on the massive desk did little to dispel the darkness. The stone hearth, which usually radiated a comforting warmth, now held only the dying embers, their ruddy glow almost entirely extinguished.
Elizabeth paused in the doorway. Perhaps he had already retired for the night, overcome by exhaustion and brandy.
But as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw him.
He was seated behind the desk, yet an uncharacteristic stillness enveloped him.
He was not reading, not writing. He was merely staring, his gaze unfocused.
He appeared so lost in the labyrinth of his anxieties and responsibilities that he had evidently not even registered the fire’s demise, nor the encroaching chill of the late hour.
It did not appear he had heard her enter. She took a hesitant step further into the room. “Mr Darcy?”
Darcy started sharply, the sudden movement betraying the depth of his preoccupation.
As he turned, and his gaze fell upon her, Elizabeth registered with a small, internal lurch that he was in his shirtsleeves, both his waistcoat and his jacket discarded over the back of a nearby chair.
The fine linen of his shirt did little to conceal the powerful lines of his shoulders and the strength of his arms. She found herself instantly discomfited, a strange warmth rising to her cheeks and her mouth dry.
Then, almost as if sensing her gaze, or perhaps merely an engrained reflex to her presence, he stood and reached for his jacket.
As he did so, Elizabeth saw a swift, almost fractional stilling of his features, a flicker of something guarded passing across his countenance before settling into an expression of polite enquiry.
Yet, subtle as it was, she recognised it: the almost instinctual tightening of a man accustomed to scrutiny, perhaps even to censure, particularly from her.
A fresh feeling of guilt pierced Elizabeth.
He was, she suspected, steeling himself for what further accusation she might have come to lay at his door.
He drew on the jacket, and the action seemed to restore a measure of his customary reserve. Elizabeth felt a magical shift in the room as the fire rekindled itself under Darcy’s direction. The faint scent of brandy seemed to cling to the exhaustion she could now see clearly in his face.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he said, his voice low, a little huskier than usual.
Elizabeth clasped her hands tightly before her, her courage wavering briefly under the intensity of his gaze.
But then she looked past him, to the fire crackling in the stone hearth, and focused with deliberate intent. The flames, which had been dancing merrily, faltered, and then, with a soft whoosh, vanished completely.
In the next breath, she reached for her magic again. A single spark danced on the logs, then blossomed into a golden flame, which grew into a blaze, bathing the room once more in light.
Darcy stared at her, his earlier weariness completely forgotten, replaced by a look of absolute disbelief. Surprise, followed by stunned comprehension, wrote itself slowly across his face.
“How?” he finally managed, the word a jagged, amazed whisper.
Elizabeth’s gaze did not waver. “I have been practising,” she said simply.
She saw a flicker of something — was it hurt?
— cross his features at her admission of secrecy, and her own voice softened.
“I am sorry I did not inform you earlier. Though you must not think my control is anything but fragile. This small success is the extent of my mastery for now — ”
“Do not call it so,” Darcy interjected softly, “I see it for the accomplishment it is.”
“ — but I assure you that your previous instruction gave me the tools to accomplish this. The fault was never in your teaching.”
He shook his head. “You are far too generous. I can claim no merit for a success that is entirely your own. I understand why you sought to keep this from me. I confess, I have long held my own want of patience to account for our failure.”
A smile, one that held more sadness than amusement, touched her lips.
He was already preparing to take the burden of her struggles, to add them to his own ledger of failings, and he was so completely, honourably wrong about the cause.
“Mr Darcy, I know it is your first instinct to claim every failure as your own, but I must insist you relinquish this one. The source of our difficulties was never your instruction, but my own resistance to it. I had to practise alone to break that destructive pattern.”
She paused, gathering the courage to explain the rest. “It was a vicious cycle of my own making. Your instruction would stir an old terror in me, and my magic would lash out in response. I was resisting you to avoid facing myself. And in that stubborn state, I believe a part of me would rather have failed on my own terms than succeed on yours.”
The words, once spoken, seemed to solidify in the quiet room. Her confession laid bare in its simplest terms: her own petty pride, set against the survival of a nation. To admit such a failing of character before a man who was the very embodiment of duty was a mortification beyond words.
She took a final, steadying breath and said, “And that is why I have come tonight. To offer you a long overdue apology.”
Darcy drew a breath as if to form a word, and a wave of panic seized her. If he spoke now, if he offered some justification, or worse, some noble objection, she knew her resolve would shatter. She had to speak first.
“I must apologise for many things, but chiefly, I believe, for the consistent injustice of my own judgement against you. From our very first acquaintance, I allowed my vanity, my hasty conclusions, to erect a wall of prejudice so high I could not see beyond it.”