Her.
The part of her that questioned. The part of her that noticed. The part of her that refused to accept an easy answer simply because it was convenient.
It was precisely that part that had turned on him today. The same part that had drawn him in, that had made him think—foolishly—that he could speak to her honestly. That he might tell her what he felt.
Darcy gritted his teeth, the memory of her response burning sharp.
It had been outright rejection, delivered with a handful of judgment.
For what?
Wickham. George Wickham?
The name landed like a stone in his chest.
Of course it did.
It always did.
If only she knew.
If only she had any understanding of what Wickham was, of what he had done, of how much damage one charming man could leave behind him while smiling all the while.
Darcy’s jaw tightened.
Where had she even met him? Had she sought him out, or had Wickham found her first? As a journalist, it was not beyondreason that Elizabeth would do her due diligence before dating any man. Was that how they met? A thousand other questions ran through his mind.
Darcy swallowed hard.
Wickham was a part of his past he had thought buried forever. And yet that particular ghost always seemed to find its way back, determined to haunt him.
His mind drifted back to Elizabeth. She thought she had uncovered some great cruelty. Some casual erasure. She thought him capable of disposing of people as though they were nothing.
And perhaps, in her eyes, his silence had confirmed it.
He stared out the window as buildings passed in a blur.
He could explain it. He could lay it out plainly. He could speak of his father, of trust misplaced, of obligations abused, of Georgiana—
But no.
Not in a café. Not under her sharp voice and sharper verdict.
And yet the bitterness of it remained: she had not even allowed him the chance. She had decided, swiftly and absolutely, that he was precisely the sort of man Wickham had described.
It was the only explanation that made sense. If she had not believed it, she would have framed her questions differently. She would have offered him, at the very least, the courtesy of a response.
He exhaled slowly through his nose, his gaze fixed on the passing street as though it were something he could master simply by looking.
His fingers flexed once against his knee, then stilled.
No.
He would not sit here unravelling over a woman’s opinion, however sharp, however unjust. He was not the sort of manwho pursued affection like a boy in a melodrama, scrambling for scraps of attention.
If Elizabeth Bennet rejected him, she rejected him.
That was the end of it.
