Not all of these had really been her fault.
But she had believed herself ruined and unmarriageable for so long that she was not sure she could actually accept the fact that she was now married.
Mr. Wickham had done things to her, had told her that he had ruined her, when he had truly only spilled his seed on herpalm, had only coerced her into stimulating him to a climax with her hand.
She had never told Jane that.
She had not told Jane that she had acquiesced to an experience with her husband, before they were married, to show her that such behavior between men and women could be pleasant, because she had assumed she was ruined, and then she’d been naked and stimulated by her husband, and he’d discovered she hadnotbeen ruined.
Now, she was married.
Now, she’d been truly deflowered.
She wondered if she pursued this secret past of her mother so heavily so that she did not have to think so hard at all that had befallen her. In the end, she had been through quite a lot.
And then there was Mr. Darcy to think of.
“Does Mr. Darcy still wish to marry you, Elizabeth?” said Jane.
“No, Mr. Darcy is aware that I am married to his cousin,” said Elizabeth.
“Oh, he knows?” Jane tilted her head. “Perhaps, then, your husband did tell his family, Elizabeth. I know you are convinced he did not, and I know none of them have reached out to you, but if Mr. Darcy—”
“Mr. Darcy knows, but the colonel did not tell him,” said Elizabeth.
It was quiet for a moment.
Jane seemed to be thinking it over. “Mr. Darcy is still in love with you,” she decided.
“No, no,” said Elizabeth. “I don’t know that he waseverin love with me.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Well, he has never really behaved like a man in love,” said Elizabeth. “And it has never made any sense. He doesn’t find me handsome, as we all know—”
“You’re referring to that slight all that time ago at Meryton?” said Jane. “You can’t think that meant anything. If he proposed to you, he had obviously changed his mind!”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think it was ever about that,” said Elizabeth.
“Why, then? Why would he propose?”
“Well, that is why I find the man entirely confounding, I suppose,” said Elizabeth. “At any rate, we need not worry about that, because he has given me his word that he will leave off those sorts of intentions towards me, and he knows I am married. He has said we shall only be amiable.”
“You are saying you do not know why he proposed.”
“I have never known,” said Elizabeth. “I have never been able to make any sense of it at all.” It was true. She knew that the man had been strangely devoted to her, willing to marry her even when they thought there was some chance she could have been carrying Mr. Wickham’s child (though there had truly been no chance of this, not that she had understood that.) She could not say why he had been so devoted, however. Perhaps it was some overinflated sense of duty. Mr. Darcy did seem that sort of man, in the end, duty-bound, serious, willing to do whatever it was that was right, no matter what it cost him.
“Lizzy, I see what you are about.” Jane sipped at her wine.
“What do you mean?” said Elizabeth. “I am not ‘about’ anything at all. You are the one who has brought up this subject and pursued it so faithfully. I should rather not think or speak of Mr. Darcy at all.”
“You have tried to lead me away from the topic I asked about in the first place,” said Jane.
“No, I have not!”
“Indeed, you have. You have not explained to me what he spoke to you about.”
Elizabeth had not told her sister that she might be the daughter of a duke either.
