The realization settled over her like a warm cloak, terrifying and wonderful in equal measure.
He cared for her. He cared enough to protect even the family members he must find insufferable. He had risked Miss Bingley's displeasure, society's gossip, his own comfort, for her.
And heaven help her, she cared too. For him.
Mrs. Bennet, oblivious to the undercurrents, seized upon Mr. Darcy's intervention with characteristic enthusiasm.
“What a fine gentleman Mr. Darcy is! So noble! So protective! Lizzy, did you see? He defended our Lydia! Ten thousand a year and a kind heart—truly the finest man in England!”
“Mama!” Elizabeth murmured, mortified.
“Such gallantry demands recognition!”
Mr. Darcy's expression suggested he wished to be swallowed by the floor.
Elizabeth caught his eye across the room and offered a small, sympathetic smile.
He returned it with the slightest lift of his lips. And understanding passed between them. Some amusement. The beginning of a shared language that needed no words.
The entertainment wound toward its conclusion.
Elizabeth moved through the remaining hours in a daze, her thoughts consumed by everything she had witnessed. Mr. Wickham's falsehoods cracking under scrutiny. Mr. Darcy's quiet protection. The moment in the alcove when he had looked at her as though she were the only person in the world.
Mr. Darcy was not the man she had thought him. He was better. Kinder. More vulnerable than his proud exterior suggested. He had been wronged by Mr. Wickham—she was certain of it now—and had borne the slander in silence rather than expose whatever secret kept him bound.
And he looked at her with a warmth that made her chest ache.
The carriage ride home was a blur of Mrs. Bennet's raptures and Lydia's complaints and Jane's quiet happiness. Elizabeth sat in silence, watching the darkness stream past, replaying every moment of the evening.
Mr. Darcy's hands beside hers, creating something beautiful.
Mr. Darcy's voice, quiet and earnest:I hope you will believe me.
Mr. Darcy's eyes, dark and warm, holding hers across a crowded room as though she were the only bright thing in it.
There was no denying it now. The proud, disagreeable man she had dismissed had become something else entirely—someone she respected, someone she trusted, someone who made her heart race in ways she had not expected.
She was falling for Mr. Darcy.
The realization should have alarmed her. Should have sent her retreating behind walls of wit and skepticism.
Instead, she found herself smiling.
A NIGHT OF RESTLESSNESS AND RESOLVE
The hoursuntil dawn stretched interminably.
Every time Mr. Darcy closed his eyes, the evening replayed itself in merciless detail: Miss Elizabeth's expression when Wickham whispered his poison in her ear. The softness in her eyes when she thanked him for defending Miss Lydia. The way she had looked at him in the alcove, her voice quiet with dawning trust, sayingI have begun to suspect as much.
And beneath it all, threading through every memory like a golden thread, the warmth in her voice when she spoke his name.
Mr. Darcy.
He could hear it still. Could feel the way his heart had stuttered at the sound.
He was a man pulled apart by contradictions. His desire to protect her warred with his fear of losing her esteem. His rage at Wickham's lies battled against his longing for something he was not certain he deserved. He wanted to tell her everything—the whole sordid truth of Wickham's character—and yet he could not, not without exposing Georgiana to scandal.
When gray light finally crept across the ceiling, Darcy rose and dressed, feeling no more rested than when he had lain down. His valet took one look at his face and wisely said nothing.
