Elizabeth was quite ready to offer the prig the set-down of his life.
Mr Darcy looked as if he had seen a ghost; all colour left his face, and his pointing finger trembled like a dry autumn leaf.
Did he believe she was a phantom, or a memory from a different time when they had been deliriously happy? He stood frozen before his outstretched finger touched her cheek. He flinched at the contact and recoiled several steps before he surged forwards to tower over her.
“It is really you,” he determined in a quivering voice. A thunderstorm brewed beneath his calm guise.
“Yes,” she admitted, though she would have preferred to lie. Lydia’s unfortunate situation was by no means resolved and would not be for several weeks, if not months.
“How could you!” Mr Darcy accused in a raised voice that slapped her like a whip.
Her husband’s colour returned tenfold. His cheeks and neck bloomed with angry shades of red.
“Very easily. You cannot proclaim to have acted as a gentleman should.”
Mr Darcy waved his hand like the air was filled with gnats.
“How could you leave me, without a word? First, I thought you dead at the bottom of the Serpentine, then that an accident had befallen you and you were lying injured and forlorn at an obscure and remote location. Why else would you not have the decency to send your husband the barest piece of civility, a note to confirm your wellbeing?”
Mr Darcy’s voice rose with every word. Elizabeth had not expected him to be outraged because she left but rather that he would be relieved to be rid of his irksome, inferior wife.
“I am sorry you thought me dead or injured. Did you not find my letter? Never mind. You were admonishing me for denouncing your status as a gentleman.”
“Do not be a fool,” Mr Darcy growled. “And for the love of God, do not test me because the performance would reflect no credit on either of us.”
That Mr Darcy was furious there could be no two opinions. It was not directed precisely at her but at the circumstances. She knew him well enough to know it was a fury born of fear. He had seen her vulnerable to the scorn, subjected to the derision, and utterly at his mercy.He is afraid of losing control, afraid of being vulnerable, afraid of being at my mercy because he has, to some extent, been at my mercy since the moment we met.
“You know why I left.” Elizabeth mellowed her voice to soft and breathy. “Had I not, Lydia would have been Mrs Wickham by now. I could not sacrifice my sister to that reprobate. You did not demand such a punishment of your own sister. I could not do less for mine.”
Mr Darcy recoiled as if she had slapped his face.
“You cannot deny that you did everything in your power to make Lydia marry a man who had forced the matter.”
“Firstly, both Lydia and Georgiana are our sisters!” Darcy growled, empowered by his rage. “Although there are similarities, you must admit that they differ vastly in disposition.”
“So, by your account, a woman of a vivacious nature is guilty of her own abduction and should expect to be abused in the basest of manners?”
Mr Darcy’s head snapped away from her, his lips pressed into a thin line. When he turned back, his expression had mellowed.
“Lydia entered Wickham’s conveyance willingly,” Mr Darcy argued.
“And Miss Darcy agreed to an elopement.”
Mr Darcy’s face paled a second time.
“How can you imply that only I was at fault? May I remind you that both Mr Bennet and Mrs Bennet were in perfect accordance with me.”
Elizabeth’s resolve wavered, assaulted by a peculiar sense of vertigo. It was true. She held him to a higher standard than she did her own parents. It was not because of his wealth and position but because he was the better man. Her disappointment had, therefore, been much more profound when he did not make the effort.
“If the whole world were in accordance with you, it would not change my wish to save my sister.”
Mr Darcy stared at her with tempestuous eyes—dark like the clouds of a rainstorm—and her skin felt singed. But behind the gale directed at her, there was hurt. When she could no longer bear it, she lowered her eyes to his clenched fists, which reminded her of another matter in need of addressing.
“What have you to say for yourself in the matter of Judge Darcy? I overheard you and that vile uncle of yours discussing our divorce. Not to forget your abominable conversation about infanticide,” Elizabeth growled in disdain.
“It was not I who spoke those dastardly words!”
“No, it was Judge Darcy, but you did not gainsay him, and those who remain silent are consenting!”
