For a few moments, she did nothing but stand still, as though the quiet might restore what had been unsettled. But her thoughts would not be so easily arranged.
She had attempted, more than once, to arrange them into some orderly form, to consider events with the calm discernment upon which she had long prided herself. Yet every such attempt dissolved almost immediately, undone by the vividness of recollection.
Mr. Darcy.
The name, which had once carried with it little more than offence and contradiction, had of late assumed a very different consequence.
She moved toward the window, though she did not look out.
She had once thought him proud. And perhaps he was. But she began to suspect that she had not always understood the nature of that pride, nor distinguished it from something far more difficult to dismiss.
She smiled faintly. It was not so easy, she now believed, to judge fairly where one had already decided.
Her thoughts turned.
It had been no moment of confusion, no thoughtless indulgence to be dismissed with a blush and forgotten by the next day. She had been fully sensible of his nearness – of his intention – andof her own. There had been no surprise in it, no alarm; and when his lips had met hers, she had not withdrawn. Nor, when it ended abruptly, had she wished it undone.
Elizabeth pressed her hand lightly against the window frame, as though to steady herself against the admission.
Such a reflection ought, she knew, to have occasioned some degree of shame. It was, by every standard of propriety, a circumstance to be regretted, concealed, perhaps even repented. Yet she could summon none of those feelings with any sincerity.
Instead, what returned to her with the greatest force was the interruption.
Wickham.
The very name, which not long ago she would have spoken with unguarded warmth, now brought with it a most unwelcome discomfort. His sudden appearance, his evident observation of what had passed – and more than that, the expression with which he had regarded them, her – would not sit easily.
For Mr. Wickham to have witnessed that moment… it was not to be borne. It had been hers – entirely hers. It should have been only between Mr. Darcy and her.
And to have it thus observed, and then later alluded to, with that same insinuating manner… She shivered.
That man had meant to use it. Of that she was now persuaded. To turn it to his own advantage; to lessen her in Mr. Darcy’s estimation; perhaps even to wound them both.
To think that she might have served as a pawn in such a design was intolerable.
Her thoughts shifted at once to Georgiana. Poor Miss Darcy had clung to her with a force that spoke of more than mere alarm. There had been real fear in her manner – and something like distress at being recognised.
Was there more in that history than she yet understood?
Mr. Wickham had addressed her with a familiarity wholly unjustified. That alone would have been sufficient to condemn him.
For that reason, if for no other, Elizabeth had not allowed herself to appear intimidated. She would not have Georgiana suppose herself unprotected.
She drew a breath. It had been, she must own, a relief beyond expression when Mr. Darcy appeared.
She could not help but smile at the recollection – how he had at first ordered her away, and then, upon finding her still beside him, had accepted it without much reproach.
And yet… She grew more thoughtful. She had been afraid.
Not of Mr. Darcy, nor even wholly for herself, but of what might have followed had they been left alone together. There had been something in Wickham’s manner – something unrestrained – that suggested he might not have stopped at words.
Mr. Darcy was strength itself. He acted not with haste, nor with anger, but with a resolution that admitted no opposition. How she admired that.
There had been no display. No raised voice, no attempt to triumph. He had not argued – he had decided. And Wickham, for all his ease of manner, had yielded. It was not merely authority, though he possessed that in abundance. It wassomething steadier, something that did not seek to impress, and therefore could not easily be resisted.
He had protected, without claiming the act. And that, perhaps, affected her more than anything.
She had been very certain. Too certain.
