Chapter Fourteen
Darcy had no notion how long he had been sitting before the fire.
The inn had grown quiet around him. The voices from the taproom had long since faded, replaced by the occasional groan of settling timbers and the soft crackle of the fire.
A single lamp burned upon the table beside him, throwing warm light across the now largely empty decanter of French brandy Mrs Goose had produced with evident pride after supper.
He rarely drank to excess. His father had never approved of strong drink.
"A gentleman ought never to seek escape at the bottom of a glass," he had once remarked after watching an acquaintance make a spectacle of himself at Pemberley.
"If a difficulty cannot be met with a clear head, it is unlikely to improve with a clouded one.
" Darcy had accepted the lesson and scarcely thought of it since.
Tonight, however, he found himself wondering whether even his father might have struggled to face such thoughts entirely sober.
He turned the glass slowly between his fingers, watching the fire catch the amber liquid.
He could not have said whether the brandy had dulled his thoughts or merely slowed them.
Elizabeth's face rose before him regardless.
The warmth with which she had looked at him that morning across the courtyard.
The sudden fear in her eyes scarcely an hour later.
The instinctive recoil when he had touched her.
Had he mistaken gratitude for affection? Loneliness for attachment? Had he persuaded himself that the happiness of one extraordinary night meant more than it ever had to her?
He did not hear Burke enter. He took in the scene with a single glance. "You don't usually drink alone, sir. But when a man imbibes like that, there is usually a woman at the bottom of it. I’ve seen it often enough."
Darcy made a noise somewhere between a growl and a groan.
"I was not aware I required your permission to take a drink."
"You don't." Burke glanced at the decanter and frowned. "But it’s difficult enough to keep you looking respectable enough when you insist on fetching and carrying for the last few days. I’m not sure what will become of your wardrobe if you take to hard drink."
Burke waited a moment before crossing to the hearth. He crouched to settle one of the fallen logs with the poker until the flames sprang higher, then rested both hands upon its handle.
"I've known you a good many years, Mr Darcy."
"So you frequently remind me."
He regarded the fire rather than his master. "I've seen you after your father's funeral. I've seen you after a failed harvest. I've even seen you endure a fortnight at Rosings while being bombarded with your noble aunt’s advice."
Darcy let out a weary breath that was between a laugh and a wince.
"And yet," Burke continued, "I cannot once remember seeing you sit in silence with a decanter for company."
At length Darcy said, without lifting his eyes from the glass, "She would scarcely look at me today."
Burke's expression softened and he let out a low whistle. "Miss Bennet?"
"She could hardly bear my touch."
The words emerged more quietly than Darcy had intended.
Spoken aloud, they sounded even worse than they had within his own mind.
"I have spent every hour since wondering what I did.
" He stared into the brandy. "It appears I have spent eight-and-twenty years overestimating my own judgement.
A lady smiles at me for a single evening and I immediately begin constructing an entire future upon it. "
Darcy took another swallow of brandy. "I thought..." He stopped, shaking his head. "No matter what I thought. I was mistaken."
Burke watched him for a long moment, the easy familiarity that usually marked their conversations giving way to something more serious. When he finally spoke, his voice had lost every trace of humour.
"I don't believe you were mistaken, sir."
Darcy frowned and looked up at him for the first time that evening.
"What do you mean?"
Burke hesitated. It would have been easier to remain silent.
Henderson was gone and the matter could not be undone.
The lady had come to no real harm. Yet every instinct he possessed told him that what had happened that morning lay at the heart of the misery before him.
If he held his tongue now, he would be serving neither Miss Bennet nor the man who had trusted him for decades.
"I think," he said carefully, "there is something you ought to know."
???
Darcy stood for some time at the window of his chamber. The inn yard below lay almost deserted beneath the moonlight. Somewhere a stable door creaked in the wind, then all was still again. Henderson—the villain—had gone.
Burke had told him so almost as soon as the dreadful account was finished.
The captain had quitted the inn shortly after noon and by now would be many miles distant.
Had Darcy learnt the truth an hour sooner, he would have ridden after him without a second thought.
Now there was nothing to pursue but his own fury.
He turned abruptly from the window and began pacing the narrow room.
Every detail returned with merciless clarity.
Elizabeth shrinking from his touch. The tremor in her voice.
The smile she had forced for his benefit whilst believing herself, all the while, diminished by another man's violence.
She had tried to protect him from her distress.
And not only had he failed to protect her, he had left her alone to suffer.
He stopped before the hearth, one hand braced against the mantle.
Had he known, he would never have walked away from her room.
Henderson would have answered for what he had done before another hour had passed.
Instead he had spent the afternoon searching his own conscience, persuading himself that he had presumed too much upon her kindness, whilst Elizabeth had borne the consequences of another man's brutality in silence.
A fresh surge of anger rose within him, so fierce that for one reckless instant he was tempted to saddle his horse and ride through the night regardless.
It would achieve nothing. Burke was right.
Henderson had too great a start, and every mile Darcy rode in pursuit would carry him farther from the one person who truly needed him.
Elizabeth. His kind, brave Elizabeth. That was where his duty lay, where his heart lay.
Whatever shame she believed herself to carry was founded upon a lie.
Nothing Henderson had done could alter her worth, nor diminish the esteem and affection Darcy bore her.
If she imagined herself ruined in his eyes, then he had failed her as surely as if he had stood aside that morning and watched the assault himself.
He would put it right, he must. Tomorrow he would go to her and tell her plainly that his feelings had not altered, that they never could.
If she would have him, he would ask her to become his wife.
If she refused him, he would nevertheless ensure that she was forever safe.
Henderson would bear the consequences of his actions as if set upon by an avenging angel.
He had hurt the most precious thing in the world—and he would pay a high price.