Chapter Nine The Truth Revealed （Part II）
DARCY HAD TAKEN EXACTLY twenty steps away from her.
Three steps into the dappled shadows, prepared to carry her hatred for the rest of his life, so long as it was the right kind of hatred.
He had cleared his family's honour, had defended his sister, and had laid George Wickham's ghost to rest in the dirt.
But as the spring grass crunched beneath his boots, a new dread seized him.
He stopped. The momentum of his brutal honesty anchored him to the path. He had told her the truth about Wickham, yes. But Wickham was only half of the indictment she carried against him. The other half—his interference—that guilt belonged irrevocably to him.
If he walked away now, he was still a coward. He would be a man who only confessed when the crimes were committed by another, hiding behind his pride when the fault was his own.
Darcy closed his eyes, drawing in a ragged breath of woodland air. It would be so easy to keep walking. But he could not. He loved a woman who demanded integrity, and he found, to his profound horror, that he wanted to give it to her.
He turned slowly back around.
Elizabeth stood exactly where he had left her, her yellow spencer bright against the timber. Her face was drained of colour, her eyes wide with the shock of the revelations. She was undone by the truth.
When she saw him turn back, her breath caught audibly in the quiet grove.
Darcy closed the distance, stopping a respectful few paces away. He removed his hat, holding it tightly in both hands, a gesture of unshielded surrender.
"I am not finished, Miss Elizabeth." His voice was no longer the commanding bark of a wronged gentleman; it was stripped of consequence. "I have addressed the lie you believed of me. But I must now address the truth."
She blinked, her throat working as she swallowed. She seemed unable to formulate a question, but her eyes demanded that he continue.
"A few days ago," Darcy began, holding her gaze, "you spoke of your sister, Jane. You spoke of her sweet temper, and you deliberately mentioned her location in London. I saw the accusation in your eyes, and you were correct to put it there."
Elizabeth let out a small gasp, her hands curling into the fabric of her skirt.
"It was my doing," Darcy confessed, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.
"I separated them. When Bingley left Netherfield for town, he intended to return.
I followed him. I used every ounce of my influence, every argument of unequal connections and maternal impropriety, to convince him that a match with your sister would be a disaster for his family. "
He saw the flash of renewed pain in Elizabeth's eyes, and he did not flinch from it. He deserved it.
"But that was the excuse of a snob," Darcy continued ruthlessly, refusing to spare himself.
"The true anchor of my argument—the only reason Bingley finally yielded—was my insistence that your sister did not love him.
I watched her at the assemblies, Miss Elizabeth.
I watched her serenity, her placid smiles, and I judged them to be the signs of a heart untouched.
I believed I was saving my dearest friend from tying himself to a woman who felt nothing more for him than a mild, mercenary satisfaction. "
"Jane feels everything!" Elizabeth whispered, her voice cracking with sorrow. "She simply hides it from the world!"
"I should not have done it. My pride blinded me into believing my observation was infallible. I believed I had the right to play Providence with another man's life. I was a fool, Miss Elizabeth. I played God, masked in the guise of a protector."
Elizabeth stared at him, her chest heaving as the turbulent storm of her emotions waged war across her expressive face.
"But recognising a fault is insufficient without attempting to mend it." His grip on his hat tightened until the felt threatened to tear. "Last night, I wrote a letter. An express, dispatched to London before dawn."
Elizabeth's eyes widened further, hope flaring in their depths. "A letter?"
"To Bingley," Darcy confirmed, relief washing over him as he finally laid down the last of his burdens.
"I confessed my interference and my concealment of your sister's presence in London over the winter.
And I told him that I had not a clue about her affections.
I urged him to go to Gracechurch Street the moment he read the missive to find out for himself. "
Darcy took a step back. "It is possible Bingley will never speak to me again. But I imagine he will speak to your sister. I have righted the wrong, Miss Elizabeth, or at least, I have cleared the path for him to right it himself."
Darcy looked at the trembling Elizabeth.
The articulate woman who had sparred with him so effortlessly in Hertfordshire, who had challenged him with a smile and an arched brow, was dismantled.
Her lips parted, closed, then parted again, as her brilliant mind struggled to categorise this impossible shattering of her convictions.
The man she believed to be a jealous villain had sacrificed his own sister's secret to clear his name.
The man she believed to be an unfeeling monster had just destroyed his own pride, confessed his worst sins, and actively plotted to restore her sister's happiness at the potential cost of his own closest friendship.
Darcy watched the tears finally spill over her lashes, tracking silently down her pale cheeks.
She is going to speak, he realised with a spike of fear. What if the confession, even with its attached penance, was too much? What if she turned to him and said, I thank you for your honesty, sir, but I still despise you for the pain you caused my sister?
He could not bear it. He was hollowed out. He had no armour left, no consequence to shield him, no pride to prop up his spine. If she rejected him now, if she looked at him with pity or lingering distaste, it would kill him where he stood.
Before she could draw the breath required to form a single syllable, Darcy moved.
He stepped backwards, cutting her off. "Do not speak, Miss Elizabeth."
She stilled, a tear hanging on her jawline.
"I require no answer." Darcy's voice was rough and hurried, desperate to escape the impending blow.
"I need no forgiveness. You owe me no absolution for the pain I have caused your family.
I only needed you to know the truth. I could not bear...
" He swallowed hard, unable to finish the sentence: I could not bear your hatred.
"Mr Darcy—" she began, reaching a hand out to him.
"Good day, Miss Elizabeth," Darcy interrupted forcefully.
He executed a bow so final that it felt like a physical severing of the tie between them.
He did not look up to see her expression, to give her the chance to reject him, to thank him, or to pity him.
He turned on his heel and marched towards the manor house, leaving her standing alone amidst the trees.
He walked at punishing speed, the air tearing in and out of his lungs. He expected to feel the crushing devastation of surrendering his last hope of happiness.
Instead, as the roof of Rosings Park came into view, the strange, dizzying sensation of lightness washed over Darcy.
The invisible corset of his secrets had been unlaced and discarded in the dirt. He felt as though he had been flayed alive, exposed to the elements without a single layer of defence. But he was free. He was no longer the brooding gargoyle hoarding his resentments.
He bypassed the grand front entrance of Rosings, unwilling to run the blockade of Lady Catherine's inevitable interrogations regarding his flushed face and damp boots. He slipped through a side door and navigated the servants' corridors to his own apartments.
As he pushed open his bedchamber door, Pimms looked up from where he was carefully brushing an evening coat.
The valet took in Darcy's windblown hair, his erratic breathing, and the strangely unburdened look in his eyes. Pimms paused, his brush hovering in mid-air.
"You look, sir," Pimms murmured, his tone carefully neutral, "as though you have either lost a great fortune or surrendered a heavy burden."
Darcy walked to the sideboard and braced his hands on the wood, letting his head drop forward between his shoulders. "It is done, Pimms. The fortress has been breached. I laid down my arms and surrendered the garrison."
"And the lady, sir?"
"I left before she could fire the final shot," Darcy admitted, an exhausted laugh escaping his lips. "I am a coward, Pimms."
"You are a strategist who knows when a retreat is necessary to secure a long-term victory," Pimms corrected, setting the brush down. "You have cleared the battlefield of smoke, Mr Darcy. Now, the lady must survey the terrain with clear eyes. Give her time to do it."
Darcy closed his eyes, the image of Elizabeth's tear-streaked face burning in his memory. Let her survey it, he thought. And pray she does not find the landscape ruined.
IT TOOK HIM TWO HOURS to fully compose himself, change his muddy boots, and don the face required to survive the parlour of Rosings Park.
He braced himself as he descended, fully expecting to find Richard composing poetry or demanding that they organise an expedition to rescue Miss Elizabeth from the perils of the parsonage.
Darcy opened the double doors, and the scene that greeted him was disorienting.
Lady Catherine was seated on her throne-like sofa, her turban bouncing as she loudly lectured the indifferent room on the appalling lack of discipline among the dairy maids.
"I told the housekeeper, if a maid cannot churn butter to a consistent thickness, she is a moral failure!
I shall have to go down to the dairies myself. It is the only way!"
Darcy's gaze swept past his aunt.
Near the tall windows with the garden view, Anne was sitting upright at a delicate table, a palette of watercolours at her side, intensely focused on painting a detailed, rather squat-looking teapot.
And seated scarcely a foot away, on a small stool he must have dragged across the room, was Richard.
Richard was not talking. This, in itself, was a miracle. The man who usually filled every silence with laughter and anecdotes was quiet. He was leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his chin propped in his hands, watching Anne's paintbrush with unblinking fascination.
Darcy stopped in the doorway, frowning.
"Darcy!" Lady Catherine barked, spotting him. "There you are. You look pale. Have you been walking in the wind? I specifically prohibit walking when the wind is from the east. It agitates the bile."
"The wind is from the south, Aunt," he replied automatically, walking further inside. He approached the window, his eyes fixed on his cousin.
"Richard," he called cautiously.
Richard did not look up. "Darcy. Have you noticed how Anne mixes her cerulean?" he murmured, his voice hushed, as though speaking too loudly might startle a bird. "She uses the smallest drop of yellow ochre to give the ceramic a sense of weight. It is quite clever."
Darcy stared at the teapot on the paper. It was, indeed, a well-rendered teapot. But it was a teapot.
"It is a teapot, Richard," Darcy pointed out slowly.
"It is a masterpiece of domestic observation," Richard corrected, still staring at Anne's hands.
Anne dipped her brush into the water cup. She did not glance at Richard, but she addressed him. "If you breathe on my paper again, Richard, you will alter the humidity of the wash, and I shall be forced to paint you into the background as a hovering cloud."
Richard let out a soft, delighted chuckle. He leaned back exactly two inches. "My apologies, Cousin. I am a student at the foot of the master."
Darcy's jaw slackened. He looked from Richard to Anne, and then back to Richard in confusion.
"I thought," Darcy managed, lowering his voice so Lady Catherine could not hear over her own rant about dairy production, "that you were intending to call on the parsonage this afternoon. To inspect the... dampness."
Richard blinked, pulling his gaze away from the watercolour to look at Darcy. For a moment, the Colonel seemed confused, as though he had to mentally cross an ocean to remember what Darcy was talking about.
"The parsonage?" Richard repeated. "Oh. No. No, I think the air there is too brisk today. Besides, Anne has promised to explain the flaws in my aunt's rose garden, and I find myself passionate about botany."
Anne snorted, a sound of amusement that she quickly masked by coughing delicately into her shoulder—a cough that caused Richard to lean forward to check on her, his eyes full of concern rather than the obligatory pity usually afforded to her.
Darcy stood by the window, the madness of his morning colliding with the bizarre tableau before him.
Richard, who had been ready to buy a cottage and shear sheep for Elizabeth twenty-four hours ago, was now content to sit on a stool and watch a sickly heiress paint a teapot.
Darcy looked at his cousin's idiotic profile, and saw a puppy who had discovered a new species of squirrel.
He shook his head. All he had to do now was survive the aftermath of his own honesty and pray that the woman he loved had not decided to close her doors to him for ever.