Darcy had not only been aware of Mr Bingley’s courtship of her sister, but had actively and deliberately intervened to destroy it. This was an unforgivable interference.
So this was the measure of Darcy’s ‘unselfishness.’ This was the nature of his ‘principles’. To destroy the lives and happiness of others, all because of whathedeemed suitable.
“I must beg your indulgence, Richard,” she said, her voice struggling to maintain its composure, “It is cold, and I should like to return to the house.”
And without waiting for his reply, without another word, she turned and fled, the snowflakes stinging her face like a thousand tiny needles.
The oppressive gloom of Pemberley, which Elizabeth had sought to escape from, seemed to redouble its hold upon her spirit as she re-entered the house. Every stone of Pemberley now seemed to echo with his arrogance and his monstrous presumption.
She had hoped to retreat to a place of sanctuary, to wrestle with this new knowledge in private, but Darcy, it seemed, had other intentions. He intercepted her in the main hall. There was a new, almost restless energy about him.
“I have just received a communication from the Lord Magister. As of last evening, the ley line at Buxton has begun failing precipitously. The Blight’s encroachment is accelerating rapidly there. We have been instructed to attend to it without delay.”
Elizabeth felt dread mingle with the simmering fury in her heart. After their repeated, dispiriting failures to achieve even the most rudimentary magical harmony in the controlled environment of the library, the prospect of confronting a corrupted ley line filled her with an almost nauseating sense of foreboding.
Yet, the images conjured by his words – the suffering populace, the accelerating decay – pricked at her conscience, anunwelcome reminder of the immense responsibility that bound them.
“When do we depart?”
“The carriage is being prepared as we speak. The journey to Buxton is some two hours, I believe.” He paused, took a half-step closer to her, and it was all she could do to not step back. She felt his gaze upon her, an assessment that seemed to catalogue the melting snow on her shoulders and the damp strands of hair clinging to her cheek. “You appear fatigued. I understand this is a lot to ask from you, given the recent, considerable expenditure of magical energy.”
Fatigued? Elizabeth had to suppress a humourless scoff. After the callousness she knew him capable of, this sudden display of trivial concern was a preposterous absurdity. “Thank you for your solicitude, Mr Darcy,” she replied, her voice emerging cooler than she had intended, “But I assure you, I am entirely equal to the task.”
The journey began in a state of fraught and silent tension.
Elizabeth stared resolutely out of her window, her heart a hard knot of anger, disillusionment, and a sense of betrayal. She replayed Colonel Fitzwilliam’s words, Darcy’s calculated destruction of Jane’s happiness, his cold abandonment of his own sister. Each thought was a fresh twist of the knife.
Darcy, opposite her, did not even pretend to engage with the letters that lay, untouched, upon the seat beside him. Elizabeth, through the haze of her own anger, noted that his gaze, when it was not fixed on some distant point beyond the carriage window, occasionally flickered towards her, not with its usual scrutiny, but with a troubled rumination made plain by the way his fingers worried at his signet ring.
A quiet clearing of his throat signalled his intention to speak. Darcy’s voice was low, aimed deliberately at the empty space between them.
“This impasse between us is untenable,” he began, “It hinders our ability to fulfil the duties that have been thrust upon us.” He paused, his jaw tightening. When he spoke again, the words were precise, as though spoken through a great effort of will. “I have…I confess I have engaged in some considerable introspection since our last unsuccessful attempt in the library. And I believe that the fault for our failure to achieve the necessary magical harmony may lie, at least in part, with me. That is to say, it lies with an internal conflict that I had not fully acknowledged.”
Elizabeth turned slowly from the window as her pulse began to thud with apprehension.
Darcy continued, “I find against all reason, against all will, that you have evoked feelings within me. Feelings I neither sought, nor desired, nor, frankly, can entirely comprehend or control.”
Feelings? He was admitting tofeelings? After weeks of quarrels and thinly disguised disdain? Worse, he spoke of them as an affliction, a regrettable failing of his superior judgement. He was not offering his heart; he was lamenting its capture.
“Elizabeth,” and here, on her name, his voice roughened, “I believe it has become a constant distraction. Perhaps even from the beginning. As inescapable, it seems, as this Concordance itself.” He ran an agitated hand through his dark, impeccably arranged hair. “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. And this internal battle, this struggle with an attachment I cannot seem to conquer…it has fractured my focus.”
A hysterical laugh clawed its way up her throat, threatening to erupt.
She found her voice at last, though it trembled with a indignation so fierce, it almost choked her. “Love, Mr Darcy?Youpresume to speak to me of love? You, whoseunderstanding of its most sacred bonds is so remarkably deficient? You, who would stand by, with such cold, unfeeling pride, and allow your own sister, your own flesh and blood, to be left to Mr Wickham — ”
“Wickham?” Darcy interjected coldly, his eyes suddenly sharp as flint, “What do you know of that gentleman?”
“My point, sir, is that she was a young, impressionable girl! Your sister! And you, her guardian, stood by and allowed her to be swept away — ”
“Allowedher?” he scoffed, a harsh, grating sound. “Shechoseto remain with him. She defied her family, her duty, every tenet of honour, to be with him. Is that to be termed a lack of intervention on my part? Or the inevitable consequence of her own disastrous judgement?”
“A judgement born of youthfulness!” Elizabeth cried, her own anger surging to meet his. “She is your sister! Did your precious honour not demand you find a way to protect her, even from her own missteps, rather than merely condemn her and then cast her out to the mercy of the world alone?”
“Protect her by condoning her scandal? By seeming to approve of her connection to that reprobate? There are principles, madam, that cannot be compromised. She made her choice.”
The sheer heartlessness of his words stole Elizabeth’s breath. This, then, was the man who claimed to love her.
And with that, her restraint regarding her own sister finally broke.
