CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #3
The words tumbled out now, raw and unadorned.
“I never afforded you a chance. I was so quick to find fault, so determined to believe the worst, that I remained wilfully blind to your good qualities. I either dismissed them or twisted them to fit my own biased narrative. My words to you, particularly in the carriage, were harsh, cruel, and fuelled by that same deeply engrained, unfair perception.”
She took a shaky breath, the confession costing her a great deal, yet also feeling like a necessary, if painful, unburdening.
“For my persistent refusal to see the true character of the man before me, and for allowing my pride to become the greatest hindrance to our mission when it mattered most, I am more sorry and more deeply ashamed than these words can convey.”
The silence in the vast, shadowed study, when her voice finally trailed off was absolute.
Darcy remained motionless, his gaze still fixed on her face.
Elizabeth’s heart pounded in her chest, a desperate mixture of fear, embarrassment, and a terrifying vulnerability churning within her.
He had once shown her this same vulnerability; now, she could only hold her breath and pray his heart held more grace than hers had.
Then, gradually, the defensiveness in his eyes gave way to a raw emotion that stole her breath. He took a hesitant step towards her, then another.
“I do not know what to say,” he murmured, his gaze searching hers. There was a slight sluggishness in his actions, a deliberation that spoke of the brandy still making its presence known, or perhaps, of a mind struggling to process the enormity of her words.
“Elizabeth,” he began again, his voice low, almost a whisper, the use of her Christian name sending that strange shiver through her, “I thank you for your words and accept them in the spirit that they were offered. But if apologies are to be tendered, then I fear mine must be more deeply owed than yours.” He raked a hand through his dark hair, a gesture of weariness and unsettling introspection.
“You spoke truly in the carriage. My pride, my arrogance…they have been my constant, and I now see, my most damaging companions. I have spoken to you, and of you, in ways that were unpardonable.”
He paused, considering, then said, “I regret my interference in matters concerning your sister. It was an act of unconscionable presumption to believe I understood her heart on the basis of observing them together on no more than one or two occasions.”
He looked down for a moment, as if considering the root of that failing.
“And that presumption,” he continued, his voice softer, “was born of a greater fault. You accused me of a pride that placed you entirely beneath my notice, and I realise now the undeniable truth in that charge. I stood in judgement of you from the first. In my arrogance, I found you wanting, never once considering that it was my standards, and not your character, that were so fundamentally flawed. I did not grant you the consideration and the respect that you were due. For my poor behaviour, I can offer no excuse.”
She should not have been surprised, she thought, that when Darcy apologised, he would do so with the same absolute and unflinching thoroughness that he applied to all things. His words, so unexpected, so utterly sincere, dismantled the last of her defences.
“You must stop your habit of gathering every fault for yourself,” she said, unable to stop a small smile, “Not when the greater share is so clearly mine. My prejudice was a poison I nurtured long before your interference with my sister.”
“My refusal to see you as an equal provided the evidence for the judgement you formed against me,” he countered, his voice low and earnest, “That was my failing, and it set the course for all that followed.”
“You could have been the model of every virtue, but my ill opinion was already so entrenched from the moment of our first acquaintance, I would have found some fault to condemn.”
Darcy was looking at her with a searching intensity that held her fast, and she was aware of nothing but the beat of her own heart.
“From the moment of our first acquaintance?” he repeated slowly, as if sampling the words.
She saw it then, in the sudden focus of his gaze. He was too intelligent a man not to have understood; he had followed the thread of her confession back to its very beginning. There was no accusation in his eyes, only an unfolding, painful comprehension.
A shaky laugh escaped her, a desperate attempt to deflect the intimacy of his understanding. “What an absurd contest this is. To quarrel over which of us may claim the greater share of the blame.”
“And yet, the foundation of your ill opinion,” Darcy said quietly, his voice full of regret, “I believe I laid it myself, that first evening.”
Elizabeth felt the colour rise in her cheeks. “So much has passed between us since that night. We can hardly lay the blame at the feet of a single insult.”
He shook his head, closing the final distance between them until he was barely a breath away.
“My remark that night was the remark of a fool,” he said, his voice dropping to a murmur.
“A man so terrified by the light in your eyes that he sought to immediately extinguish it with the cruelest words he could find. When I first saw you, I saw a spirit so vibrant it seemed to crackle in the air. I felt...a jolt. A connection so immediate and so potent that it utterly unnerved me.”
“I did not know what to do. I could not bear the feeling of being so instantly, so thoroughly, lost. So I spoke those words. A desperate, clumsy, and unforgivable attempt to build a defence around myself, to convince myself that you were of no consequence.
“You are not ‘tolerable’, Elizabeth,” he whispered, his voice thick with an emotion that made something deep within her tighten, “From that first moment…”
He was so close now, his presence an overwhelming tide to her senses.
“…I have never seen you as anything but captivating.”
She was suddenly, very, very aware of the scent of him, a heady, disorienting essence.
It was a clean fragrance of linen and a subtly scented soap, overlaid with something uniquely, undeniably masculine.
Perhaps a lingering trace of the brandy on his breath, the warm, almost spicy note from his shaving things, and beneath it all, the distinct and unexpectedly compelling scent of him.
She had never, in all her life, stood in such proximity to a man, not in this intimate way.
And it was not just his scent that was so disorienting.
The scant inches that separated them radiated with the warmth from his body.
She could sense the solid strength of his shoulders and the breadth of his chest beneath his coat.
It was a powerful, almost unnerving awareness of his sheer physicality.
Elizabeth found herself wondering, with a sudden, almost reckless flutter in her chest, if he would kiss her.
The thought, so unconceivable just days before, now felt almost inevitable.
Almost desired. She saw his gaze drop, for a fleeting instant, to her lips, and a corresponding shiver, fear and anticipation and wanting, curled down her spine.
His head began to lower, just slightly, his eyes, filled with intent, still holding hers…
But before the moment, so filled with unacknowledged possibilities, could resolve itself, before either of them could speak, or act, or bridge the remaining distance between them, a knock on the study door shattered the moment, making them both jump back as if struck.
Darcy groaned softly, a low, frustrated sound deep in his chest, his head dropping for a fraction of a second as if in silent protest against this ill-timed intrusion. The magic of the moment, so new, so delicate, so painstakingly achieved, was broken.
“I…I had sent for a supper tray,” he said, his voice once more carefully controlled, though a hint of frustration, and perhaps something akin to disappointment, laced his tone. Elizabeth recalled then how little he had eaten at dinner, his thoughts clearly elsewhere.
She was not fully conscious of her own movement, but a subtle, almost instinctive retreat must have registered, for his intense gaze, which had held hers with such compelling force, now released her.
Whether a small step backward or a slight inclination of her head, she could not later say for certain what her movement had been.
His attention shifted to the door. “Enter,” he called out, his voice more firm now, his posture straightening, the Master of Pemberley reasserting himself.
The door opened, and a maidservant entered bearing a laden tray, the aroma of warm bread and savoury stew suddenly filling the room, a mundane intrusion into a moment that had felt anything but.
Elizabeth felt a blush creep up her neck. The intimacy of the last few minutes, his nearness, the almost-kiss, felt suddenly exposed, almost illicit, under the servant’s oblivious gaze.
The maid set down the tray with a quick curtsy and departed.
But the spell was well and truly broken.
Elizabeth hesitated, a swirl of conflicting emotions – embarrassment, a strange disappointment, relief, confusion – warring within her.
For a fleeting instant, she sensed a hesitation in Darcy as well, a moment where he might consider asking her to stay, to share this late repast. Her own heart gave a ridiculous leap at the thought, wondering how she might respond, what such an invitation might signify.
But the moment passed. The engrained habits of formality, the immense weight of all that still lay unresolved between them, reasserted themselves.
“You ought to eat. I should retire,” she said, her voice a little breathless. “It is late.”
Darcy nodded, his expression once more reserved, though not unkind. “Indeed. You must be fatigued.”
His tone was courteous, impeccably so, the correct response of a gentleman to a lady at a late hour.
Yet, as she turned and left the study, Elizabeth found herself missing the rougher, more vulnerable timbre his voice had held just moments before.