"I saw them. From the lane. Wickham and your sister, walking together near the milliner's, not an hour ago. He had his hand on her arm. She was laughing."
"She laughs at everything. It does not mean --"
"He was looking at her the way he looked at Georgiana."
The words fell between them like stones. Elizabeth stared at him.
"You were watching from the lane? You followed them?"
"I was riding back from Forster's. I saw them by chance."
"And what did you do?"
"Nothing. I did nothing, because intervening publicly would cause exactly the scandal Wickham desires."
"Then why are you angry with me?"
"I am not angry with you."
"You are. I can see it. You are standing there vibrating with rage and looking at me as though I have failed to -- to what? Control my sixteen-year-old sister? Chain her to the house? I spoke to my father. I did what I could. What more do you expect?"
"I expect --" He stopped. The iron in him was close to the surface now, dangerous and hot. "I expect that the danger would be taken seriously. Your father agreed to restrict Lydia and then, within the hour, she was walking through Meryton with the man who nearly destroyed my sister. Restriction means nothing if it is not enforced."
"You are blaming my family."
"I am stating facts."
"You are doing what you always do. You are standing in judgment of people you consider beneath you, applying standards they cannot meet, and then expressing disappointment when they fail to live up to your expectations. My father is not your steward. My sister is not Georgiana. You cannot manage us like tenants on your estate."
"That is unfair."
"Is it? Because from where I stand, you look exactly like the man I thought you were before your letter: proud,controlling, convinced that you know better than everyone around you --"
"I am trying to protect your sister."
"You are trying to control the situation. There is a difference."
They were shouting. Not loudly -- neither of them raised their voices above a fierce hiss -- but the intensity was the same as volume, and the garden felt suddenly small, the stone wall too close, the house too near, the entire world compressed into the space between two people who had been tender with each other that morning and were now tearing at wounds they thought had healed.
"You are determined to misunderstand me," he said.
"And you are determined to fix things by force of will, regardless of what anyone else wants or needs. That is not protection. That is pride."
"Pride." He said the word as though she had struck him. "You still think this is about pride."
"What else would it be?"
He moved so quickly she did not see it coming. One moment he was at the wall, the next he was in front of her, his hands gripping her upper arms, his face inches from hers, and the look in his eyes was not anger. It was terror.
"It is fear," he said, his voice cracking on the word. "It is fear, Elizabeth. I am afraid. I am afraid of losing your sister the way I nearly lost mine. I am afraid that Wickham will take another girl I should have protected and break her the way he broke Georgiana. I am afraid that every time I try to keep someone safe, I do it wrong, because I am stiff and controllingand incapable of warmth, and I drive away the people I am trying to help. I am afraid of you. I am afraid that you will see the man your eyes keep finding -- rigid, judgmental, proud -- and that you will decide he is the real one, and the man who held you in the library was the aberration."
She stared at him. His hands on her arms were trembling. His eyes were bright with something she had never seen in Fitzwilliam Darcy's face: naked, undefended fear.
"Fitzwilliam --"
"Do not. Do not say my name in that gentle voice if you are about to tell me I am right. If I am everything you just accused me of --"
She kissed him.
