Chapter Twenty-Six
Elizabeth had the feeling that Darcy still had worse to tell her, something that he was struggling to make himself say aloud. Turning her hand beneath his, she pressed lightly on his fingers.
“There is more, isn’t there? Something even worse, some direct harm he has done to you. Whatever it is, I promise that no other soul will ever hear of it from my lips.”
Astonished, Darcy stared at her. “You are the most insightful soul - I was just about to ask you to hold what I must say next in the strictest confidence.”
“You have no need to ask,” she told him gently. “You have no need to tell me, if it is too painful to speak of.”
“No,” he said, “no, I will keep no secrets from you. This secret is not mine alone, though, and its escape could imperil the future of the person who has always been most dear to me, my sister Georgiana.”
Elizabeth could not help it; she fairly gaped. Darcy gathered himself and told her his darkest, deepest secret.
“Last summer, Mr. Wickham again obtruded most painfully on my notice. My sister, who is more than ten years my junior and who was left to the guardianship of Colonel Fitzwilliam and myself, went with her companion Mrs. Younge, to Ramsgate. It transpired that the colonel and myself were most unhappily deceived in the character of Mrs. Younge, for she had a prior acquaintance with Mr. Wickham, and conspired to meet him there. Georgiana knew nothing of Mr. Wickham’s character; she remembered him only as one who had been kind to her as a child, and he convinced her to believe herself in love with him. ”
Elizabeth’s free hand lifted to cover her mouth in horror. Darcy looked at her with eyes full of remembered pain before continuing.
“It was purest chance that I joined them unexpectedly a day or two before the intended elopement. Georgiana, unable to bear the thought of grieving and offending me, acknowledged the whole to me. In her innocence, she believed that I would be happy for her; that I would consider the whole thing a delightful surprise, to find my sister married to my childhood best friend.”
“Oh, no.”
“Indeed. You may imagine what I felt and how I acted. I could not publicly expose them for fear of Georgiana’s reputation being ruined, but I dismissed Mrs. Younge at once and removed my sister to London.
Wickham’s chief objective was Georgiana’s fortune, of course, which is thirty thousand pounds; but I believe that revenging himself upon me by means of her destruction must have been a not insignificant inducement.
” Darcy bit down on his lip, looked down at Elizabeth’s hand on his, before finally admitting; “Georgiana was, at the time, just fifteen years old, which must be her chief excuse. Seeing the way your younger sisters acted made me understand a little better just how unformed her mind must have been, how little prepared she yet is for the wickedness of which some men are capable.”
Elizabeth could not help herself. She wrapped her fingers around his and squeezed gently, tears welling in her eyes. “I am so sorry,” she said, her voice choked.
“I think that you understand now, what I meant when I said never again will I let a woman I care for be left in ignorance of the wickedness of which George Wickham is capable.”
“Oh, I do, I do understand so much more about you now, and I am so very sorry that I misjudged you so dreadfully!” A tear slipped free and rolled down her cheek. “I accused you of excessive pride, but the fault was mine…”
“No, dearest Elizabeth, it was not,” Darcy squeezed gently on her hand, fished his handkerchief from his pocket and reached to blot the tear tenderly from her cheek. “The more I think on it, the more I realise that I gave you absolutely no reason to trust me.”
“Neither did Mr. Wickham, and I was stupid enough to believe in his lies!” she sobbed.
“Oh, please, my dearest, do not weep. I behaved appallingly in Hertfordshire long before Wickham darkened the county with his presence.” He blotted more tears away gently.
“I have yet one more apology to make to you, in any case. The way in which I spoke of your family was unforgivable. Your younger sisters may be silly, but none of them have sought to elope with a man far below their station in life. Your mother may flutter and display an occasional want of propriety, but she is far less obnoxious in seeking to marry her daughters off well than my own aunt. And your father may sometimes fail to correct his daughters, but at least he is not sending them off unsupervised save for a woman he barely knows, to be seduced by rogues!”
Elizabeth laughed through her tears. “I think we can only say that neither of us have the most perfect of relations. I have my dear Jane, you have your cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam; we must count ourselves lucky and manage the rest as best we may.”
“You are as wise as you are beautiful,” Darcy chuckled at little. “Please do not cry any more, my dearest. Nothing has happened between us that cannot be mended, I hope, with some more efforts to actually talk and listen to each other?” He ended on a questioning note, looking at her hopefully.
His large hand was still holding hers, his fingers warm and strong. Looking down at it, Elizabeth took a deep breath before looking at him.
“Nothing has happened between us that cannot be mended, Mr. Darcy, but you know that I am ruined.”
“You are not!” he said indignantly, and so sternly that she blinked and the tears stopped.
“Mr. Collins was a disgusting excuse for a man, and though I never thought I would say this about another human being, I am glad he is dead. No matter what he did to you, though,” his free hand, still holding the handkerchief, came up to cradle her cheek, “it makes no difference to who you are; you are still Elizabeth Bennet, the most admirable, remarkable lady it has ever been my privilege to encounter.”
They stared at each other for a few moments in silence before Elizabeth whispered “Oh, Mr. Darcy.”
“My name is Fitzwilliam,” he said, “which I concede is rather confusing, so Georgiana and my closest friends and relatives call me Will. If you could possibly consider doing that in private…”
“Will.”
Darcy had to close his eyes for a moment, overcome with emotion. When he opened them, all he could say was “Would that I had the courage in Hertfordshire to speak my heart!”
“I do not think that I would have been any more prepared to hear it then, than I was a few days ago,” Elizabeth admitted.
Another brief silence fell, but unlike every other that had fallen between them, there was no tension, only an ease in each other’s company that had never been there before.
“My timing is, it seems, exceedingly bad,” Darcy said finally. “I want nothing more than to ask you if I may go to your father right now to seek his blessing…”
“That is a truly terrible idea,” Elizabeth could not help a small giggle at the thought of her father’s outrage if Darcy did as he suggested.
Darcy smiled back at her, a most unexpected dimple appearing in his cheek that she had previously had no idea he possessed. She stared at it in fascination.
“Elizabeth,” he said, his voice softer, deeper than before, “I think that you need to stop looking at me like that or I will be the one to compromise you.”
Her breath came more quickly, her eyes widened, but she did not speak. Not until he leaned closer, his eyes locked on hers, and then, only to whisper a soft “Will,” as her eyes drifted closed.
The kiss was the merest brush of lips, Darcy’s fingers lightly caressing her cheek, twining one long dark curl around his finger. He still held onto it when he drew back, looking at her face, her closed eyes, the soft smile on her lips.
“Elizabeth,” he said tenderly.
She said nothing, but she opened her eyes and smiled at him.
“We have to wait,” Darcy said reluctantly.
“I know.”
Slowly, he dropped his hand from her face. “I am sure you will be returning to Hertfordshire soon, and regardless of my feelings for Lady Catherine, I must enter official mourning for three months at least.”
“As must I, for Mr. Collins,” Elizabeth said with a grimace. They shared a mutual glance of distaste before Darcy spoke again.
“Since Georgiana must also enter mourning, I will remove her to Pemberley for the duration of the summer. Bingley, I think, will likely return to Netherfield this autumn and I shall come to visit him there.”
Elizabeth gave him an arch smile as he finally dropped his hand from her face, let go of her hand. “I am sure that many of your acquaintance in Hertfordshire will be delighted to see your return.”
“You know well that there is only one of my Hertfordshire acquaintance whom I hope will be pleased to see me.”
“I am sure that Sir William Lucas will be positively ecstatic to once again talk with you about his visits to St James!”
“Dear minx,” Darcy said fondly, lifting the hand he still held to his lips and lightly kissing her fingertips.
“For your sake I will gladly discuss St James with that old knight until we find some mutual acquaintance he can celebrate, but be assured that in return I will be asking him for stories of the childhood exploits of a certain young lady I know.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “Oh, dear.”
Her expression was so alarmed that Darcy began to laugh. Kissing her fingertips again, he chuckled “I begin to think that you were even more troublesome as a child than I feared.”
The sound of the front door opening and closing made Darcy sigh and let go of Elizabeth’s hand. Standing, he moved away to a respectable distance, and had assumed his usual pose standing stiffly by the window when the parlour door opened to admit Mr. Gardiner and Maria Lucas.
“M-Mr. Darcy!” Maria gasped, dropping a hasty curtsy.
“Miss Lucas.” To Elizabeth’s surprise, Mr. Darcy unbent significantly, smiling gently and approaching Maria.
He reached out to take her hands in his and spoke softly to her.
“I am so very sorry for the loss of your brother. I am sure that it will be a great comfort to Mrs. Collins, to have her dear sister close by at this trying time.”
“Oh,” Maria looked quite overcome. “Thank you,” she whispered shyly at last.
Darcy pressed lightly on her hands again before releasing them, turning back to Elizabeth.
“I invited your uncle Mr. Gardiner to stay at Rosings Park until he has to return to London,” he told her.
“While social calls are of course out of the question, my cousin Anne has indicated to me that she would like to see you - and to meet Miss Bennet - before your return to Hertfordshire. Your uncle’s residence at Rosings will provide an entirely unremarkable reason for your presence, therefore.
May I tell Anne that she will see you on the morrow? ”
Surprised, Elizabeth looked at Mr. Gardiner, who gave her a benevolent nod. “I… yes. Please tell Miss de Bourgh that Jane and I will be delighted to attend Rosings tomorrow.”
Darcy took his leave with a handshake for Mr. Gardiner and very correct bows to both Maria and Elizabeth. Only Elizabeth saw the smile he darted her before he exited the room, though. Or so she thought, until she turned to see her uncle’s hastily hidden smirk.