“I’m expected, right now, to be in London. I am expected to be in attendance for my aunt and uncle’s series of late autumn dinners and balls. It’s tradition. I am expected to be preparing my sister for her debut into society, which should likely happen this spring, for she has behaved as if she is ready for such things.I am expected to be doing all manner of things, and yet, I’m here, with them, and with people like you.”
“What does that mean?” she said, offended.
I didn’t care if I’d offended her. “But I am trapped in this house with you. How long have we been here?” I checked the sun, sinking on the horizon. “Oh, yes, quite enough time to have compromised you.”
“Sir!” She seized the door frame for balance. She was appalled.
“If I had,” I said, “you should have no other choice but me. It would be marry me or ruin.”
“Sir, what are you saying?”
“I could justsayI’d done it, I suppose,” I mused. “It would really be the same thing as if I had, from your perspective. Besides, as you said, no one is going to marry you otherwise—”
“You certainly would not have to force me to accept an offer of marriage from you,” she said, her voice shaky.
I chuckled softly. “Oh, yes, of course. No dowry to speak of. No prospects. And I suppose you’d like to find somewhere to house your mother and whatever sisters are unmarried after the death of your father?”
She shook her head at me. “I… you are suddenly being very strange.”
“Yes,” I said. “I suppose I am.” I looked down at where my hands gripped the railing. “I’m very sorry.”
Another long silence opened up, like a yawning chasm.
She was the first to break it. “I think perhaps I should close the door again.”
I laughed again, a soft and sardonic sound. “Have I not just said it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not? I could destroy your reputation with a word. It wouldn’t even affect me. I would go on as I had, and you would—”
She shut the door, and the house trembled again.
I sighed heavily. “Miss Bennet, I apologize. The truth is, there is a man who—not me—another man who did something to a woman I care about, and it has changed everything. Everything is ruined. I saved her reputation, but I thinkIam ruined somehow.”
“You are a very awful sort of man, Mr. Darcy, worse than I thought you were,” came her voice from the other side of the door.
“Oh, come now, Miss Bennet, I would not touch you, I promise.”
“You have just said you would lie about it.”
“Well, I definitely wouldn’t do that,” I said. I blew out a noisy huff of air. “But… if I lied to other people as a reason for marrying you, would you object?”
“What?” she said, opening the door.
“It would make it easier for me, that’s all,” I said. “I should have some sort of excuse—”
“You need an excuse to marry me?”
“You know I do,” I said.
“Never mind, Mr. Darcy,” she said. “Never mind all of it.Iwould not marryyou. I don’t care what you say. I would not marry you if you were the last man in all of England.”
I went to the door and opened it.
She shrieked. “Stay back!”
I let go of the knob and backed away.
“No, do not speak to me anymore,” she cried.
CHAPTER SEVEN
