“Did you doubt I would?” The question came out more uncertain than he intended.
“Not for a moment.”
The certainty, the absolute faith, struck him.
She glanced around at the curious faces surrounding them. “We have an audience. May we speak privately?”
“Come with me.” It was not a request but an urgent need.
Setting down her glass, she took his offered arm as he directed them toward her father. The three left the ballroom for Bingley’s study.
Voices rose behind them in speculation. He did not care. Let them talk. Let them wonder.
Elizabeth’s hearthad not stopped pounding since she saw him enter the ballroom. Fitzwilliam. Windblown. Urgently scanning the room with an intensity that made her breath catch. When his eyes finally found hers, the relief that washed over his features was so profound it made her throat tighten with emotion.
He had come. And now, as he closed the study door behind them and turned to face her, she could see the concern etched in every line of his face. The tension in his shoulders. The fear in his eyes.
“Elizabeth.” He crossed to her immediately, while her father settled in a corner chair. “Are you well?”
The care, the genuine worry, eased her concerns. “I am well,” she said softly, reaching for his hands. His fingers closed around hers immediately, gripping tightly as if she were his anchor. “Truly. Nothing terrible has taken place. However, some events happened while you were in London that you need to know.”
“Wickham,” he said flatly. “This is about Wickham.”
“Yes.” She squeezed his hands. “Before I tell you what he said, Fitzwilliam, I need you to understand this. He very nearly succeeded. What he told me was convincing, specific, and was confirmed by evidence. For days, I struggled with doubt—doubted you and myself.” Her grip tightened. “In the end, I chose to trust the man I have come to know rather than the villain Mr. Wickham tried to paint. That is what you need tounderstand—not that I never doubted, but that I chose you anyway.”
Confusion flickered across his features. “Elizabeth, what did he do?”
“He told me terrible things about you. Lies designed to drive me away from you. But he failed, Fitzwilliam. He failed because I have seen your heart in eight drawings of a chess game that changed my life.”
“Tell me what he said.” His expression darkened.
Elizabeth took a deep breath, gathering her courage. What she would say would hurt him, wound him deeply. However, he deserved the truth.
“He told me there was a pattern,” she began, observing his face. “That you have done this before. That you single out challenging women who initially dislike you and then relentlessly pursue them until they fall in love with you. Then you abandon them without explanation. That it is a game to you. A conquest.”
The color drained from his face. His hands went slack in hers before tightening again, as if he needed the contact to remain standing.
“Elizabeth…”
“He gave me names,” she said, needing to say it all. “Three women from Rosings Park. Olivia Mason. Margaret Smythe. Constance Hampton. He said you courted all three of them, then left them heartbroken and damaged. He said”— her voice caught— “he said I was simply the next victim in your pattern. That you were playing the same cruel game with me.”
“Good lord!” Darcy breathed, staggering back. His face had gone from pale to ashen. “Did you…did you believe him?”
“At first, I did not know what to believe. The details were so specific. He appeared genuinely troubled by what he was telling me. He acted as if he truly cared about my welfare. And then…”She had to force the next words out. “Then Colonel Fitzwilliam confirmed that all three women existed. That they had been at Rosings Park. That they had all left.”
Darcy made a sound like he had been struck. His free hand went to the desk beside him as if he needed support. “Richard confirmed…” His eyes widened with dawning horror. “Elizabeth, those women are servants. Mason is my aunt’s housekeeper. She must be sixty years old at least. Smythe is the cook’s daughter who married the village butcher two years ago. I attended their wedding and gave them a crown as a gift. And Hampton…” His jaw hardened from anger. “Hampton was dismissed from my aunt’s service for theft, not scandal. She was caught stealing jewelry from my cousin Anne. All of which Richard can confirm.”
Hearing the reality behind Mr. Wickham’s twisted fiction made the last vestiges of doubt dissolve completely.
“Elizabeth, I would never—the very idea that I would use women so callously, that I would toy with hearts for sport—it is anathema to everything I am. Everything I believe as a man.”
“I know,” she said quickly, stepping closer to him. “Fitzwilliam, I know. That is why I am telling you this now.”
Darcy stared at her as if she had spoken in a foreign language. “If you knew he was lying, then why…” He struggled with the question. “Elizabeth, given what Wickham told you and Richard confirmed, the evidence is damning. You had every reason to believe the worst of me. Why did you not… how did you…?”
She whispered so her father could not hear. “Because you told me about Miss Darcy.”
Darcy went absolutely still. “What?”
