Elizabeth managed a wry smile. “You are very kind, Mr. Bingley. I confess I have little experience with forgiveness in matters of such complexity. Perhaps time will prove you right, though I cannot imagine how such a tangled situation might ever be unraveled.”
CHAPTER SIX
A SISTER’S CONSCIENCE
Darcy supposedboredom was preferable to controversy. Weeks had passed since Aunt Catherine had dispatched Collins to Hertfordshire to ensure the Bennet version would stay discredited while respect for the Darcy and de Bourgh names would prevail.
So why did he feel like a complete scoundrel at this turn of events?
Elizabeth Bennet had fired the first shot by divulging his most private conversation to his worst enemy, and together they had conspired to ruin his reputation—with the truth, no doubt heavily embellished. Yet the justification felt increasingly hollow with each passing day.
Darcy rolled his neck to dispel the stiffness. He was trapped.
Had been trapped at Netherfield Park, at the backwater estate Bingley rented not three miles distant from Longbourn and Elizabeth Bennet. He was as much a prisoner of this botched affair as she. He couldn’t appear in London without encountering the smirks and whispers of theton, and even Pemberley was not safe from speculation.
Instead, his strategy of braving the winds of conflict by facing them down at Netherfield seemed as futile as trying to hold back a storm with his bare hands.
Bingley was holding another garden party. The July morning had dawned clear and warm, and the servants prepared games and competitions—shooting for the gentlemen and lawn games for the ladies. Half of Hertfordshire had been invited, with the notable exception of the Bennet family.
Meanwhile, Charles had continued his private calls to Longbourn with the persistence of a man courting social suicide. Neither he nor Charles’s sister, Caroline, could dissuade him from visiting Miss Jane Bennet.
Jane, of course, was not at fault for Elizabeth’s transgressions, but for Charles to align himself privately with the Bennets showed a considerable lack of discernment.
His jaw tightened at his friend’s neutrality and insistence that Elizabeth was repentant.
She broke down completely, as Bingley had reported two weeks prior.Genuine tears, Darcy. She acknowledged her fault in sharing private matters and expressed honest regret for her indiscretion. She said she wished the entire affair at Hunsford had never happened.
Darcy had refused to hear Charles’s report, but the words haunted him. The image of Elizabeth Bennet reduced to tears? He found it hard to believe. She, who had faced down his proposal with such magnificent fury? Yet Bingley was not given to exaggeration, and the genuine distress in his friend’s voice had been unmistakable.
She’s barely twenty,Charles had persisted.I have five sisters—I know how young ladies react to poorly delivered proposals. Your honesty about struggling with your feelings, however well-intentioned, must have felt like a catalog of her inadequacies.
Darcy rankled at the suggestion that his proposal had been poorly delivered. He had meant to highlight the difficulties he’d found himself in—having to answer to society’s demands while assessing his feelings, of the condescension he had to extend to a woman whose family was of little consequence, lacking a dowry and the manners required to secure esteem with those higher echelons.
A prediction fulfilled when Elizabeth ran to the basest of all men and sought comfort in his words, if not his arms.
“Brother?” Georgiana’s soft voice interrupted his brooding. “You look as though you’re contemplating something quite dreadful.”
He turned to find his sister approaching with the careful expression she wore when venturing into difficult territory.
“Nothing that needs concern you, my dear,” he replied, though he suspected she would not be easily deterred.
“Perhaps we might walk a little?” she suggested. “The gardens are quite lovely, and I find myself in need of quieter company than the main party provides.”
Darcy glanced at Caroline Bingley in deep and speculative conversation with Mrs. Long, one of the neighborhood’s most pernicious gossipers, while Sir William Lucas held the attention of Colonel Forster. Georgiana was right—whatever company his sister provided would be less contentious.
Together, they moved to the secluded paths that wound through Bingley’s carefully tended grounds.
“Brother, do you think often about Elizabeth Bennet?” Goergiana began.
Darcy felt his shoulders tense. “Georgiana?—”
“I liked her. When I met her in London with her aunt and uncle, she was kind to me. She spoke to me as a person, not as your sister or as an heiress. She asked about my music with genuine interest.”
“One pleasant conversation hardly reveals a person’s true character,” Darcy said, more harshly than he intended.
“No,” Georgiana agreed with unexpected firmness. “But neither does one misstep reveal a person’s entire worth. You taught me that, William.”
The gentle rebuke struck deeper than any argument could have. After Wickham’s near-seduction of Georgiana, Darcy had indeed counseled her that a single error in judgment did not define her character or her worth. That good people could make poor choices in moments of vulnerability.
