But Elizabeth was beyond caring about appearances. The rage that had been building for days finally erupted. “How perfectly this situation serves your purposes, does it not? You needed employment, security, and that you had but you needed a place in society—and here I am, handed to you like a prize.”
Darcy blinked in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”
“From steward to master of an estate in a single night. How very convenient that your moment of heroics resulted in such excellent advancement.”
“Lady Elizabeth, surely you cannot believe—”
“What I believe is that you saw an opportunity to elevate yourself through marriage to an earl’s daughter. Now you have both security and status, all at the modest cost of one evening’s convenient heroics.”
The words were cruel and she knew they were likely not true. She had seen his visage when her father announced they had to wed. He hadn’t wanted to any more than she but her anger demanded expression.
“I see.” Darcy’s voice had gone very quiet, very controlled. “You believe I orchestrated my own circumstances deliberately.”
“I believe you are beneath my notice, Mr Darcy. A fortune hunter who used my distress to climb the social ladder.”
The words hung between them. Darcy’s expression became completely shuttered, and for a moment, Elizabeth thought she saw genuine hurt flash across his features before the mask settled back into place.
“I see.” His tone was perfectly polite, perfectly cold. “Then perhaps you should reflect upon what it says about your own character that you married such a man. After all, I did not force you to accept this arrangement. You preferred to save your reputation and that of your family when you could have taken the harder road and risked ruination. There were other options of course. A convent, for one. But that would have been beneath your notice also, I imagine.”
Before Elizabeth could respond, he turned and walked away, leaving her standing alone near the windows whilst the wedding breakfast continued around them. She had won the argument through sheer viciousness, yet victory felt remarkablylike defeat. he also was not entirely wrong. She could have left, joined a convent. Other fallen ladies had done the same. But she had not wished to. Not had she entertained the idea. She had not fought her father very hard either against the marriage. It had been convenient.
She watched Darcy disappear into the crowd as she reeled from the assault of her own mind.
What have I become? I have always prided myself on fairness, on judging people by their actions rather than their circumstances. Yet here I stand, having just accused an innocent man of crimes I know he did not commit.
She knew Darcy was not a fortune hunter, knew he had tried to help her that night. Yet her anger demanded a target, and he was convenient. If she could not have justice against her true attacker, at least she could wound the man who had failed to provide the certainty she craved.
The realisation brought her no comfort. If anything, it made her feel smaller, meaner, less like the woman she had always believed herself to be.
Across the room, Darcy stood in conversation with her father, his posture rigid with controlled emotion. Whatever they discussed appeared serious, formal—perhaps arrangements for their new living situation, or estate business that required immediate attention.
My husband, she thought, the word strange and foreign in her mind. For better or worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.
The vows they had just spoken seemed less like promises than threats—warnings of the long, bitter years that stretched ahead of them both.
The afternoon was fading outside the windows, and soon this wretched day would end. But the marriage would continue, day after day, year after year, binding them together in mutual resentment and regret.
Elizabeth closed her eyes and wondered what manner of woman she would become, trapped in such circumstances. She feared she already knew the answer.
Chapter Sixteen
Darcy
“Beneath my notice.”
The words struck Darcy each time they echoed through his mind. He had endured many insults in his life—whispered comments about his lowly birth, snide remarks about his father’s profession, the subtle condescension of those born to titles he would never possess. But none had cut as deeply as Elizabeth’s pronouncement at their wedding breakfast.
The grandfather clock in Longbourn’s hall struck midnight as Darcy paced the corridors of what was now his home. Each step on the polished wood floors sent the sound reverberating through the silence, a rhythmic accompaniment to his churning thoughts. This house—smaller than Pemberley but possessed of comfortable elegance—belonged to him now through marriage. Lord Hartford had maintained it well during his ownership, though Darcy suspected much of its current charm stemmed from the Bingley family’s recent tenancy. How odd that he should now reside within in its walls, his friend and Miss Bingley relegated to the local inn, until the sale of his estate could be finalised.
The wedding ceremony at the parish church had proceeded with all proper dignity. Elizabeth spoke her vows in a clear voice, though her eyes remained fixed on some distant point beyond his shoulder throughout the entire service. Not once had she looked at him.
But it was the wedding breakfast that haunted him now. The memory of Elizabeth’s face, twisted with contempt as she delivered her verdict on his character, refused to leave him.“A fortune hunter who used my distress to climb the social ladder.”Each word had been chosen with precision, designed to wound where it would hurt most.
He made his way upstairs to his chamber, when a sound came to his ears. A muffled sob, along with soft gasps and hiccups of a woman weeping into her pillow. The sound cut through him, but tonight it carried a different weight than it might have yesterday. She wept not just for her lost choices and stolen future, but perhaps for the cruelty of her own words. He had got to know her slightly before their wedding, before it all went wrong. The woman he spoke to in the apple orchard was not a cruel woman. She was an enlightened one. One who saw the unfairness of their stations. Not the sort to cut a man when he was already down.
Perhaps her tongue had been guided by anger rather than malice. That, he had to hope.
Yet, there was another matter. There was truth to her words, cruel as they might have been. For had he not benefited enormously from this arrangement? Had he not gained a wife far above his natural station, a home grander than any he might have aspired to on his own merit?
