There was no requirement for her to turn.
“Miss Bennet.” Darcy’s voice.
Of course.She faced him then, though not fully, her posture held in a manner that bordered upon rigidity.
“You should not have followed me,” she said.
His expression shifted, concern overtaking whatever he had intended to say. “I thought—”
“Yes,” she said, sharper than she intended. “You thought.”
He stopped a few paces from her.
There was no offense in his manner. Only uncertainty. Concern.
It made it worse.
“I do not require your concern, sir,” she continued, her voice steadier now, though no less firm. “Nor your defense.”
“I offered neither in a spirit you should find objectionable,” he said warmly.
“You spoke of my ‘challenges,’” she replied. “As though I were something to be commended for managing myself at all.”
“That was not my meaning.”
“It was precisely your meaning,” she said, turning more fully toward him now. “You admire my fortitude. My endurance. You think it remarkable that I am able to exist in society without difficulty.”
“I think you remarkable,” he said.
The words landed between them.
Elizabeth felt them.
And rejected them.
“I do not want your pity.”
The silence that followed was not empty.
It was stunned.
Darcy’s expression changed, not in anger, but in something deeper. Something wounded.
“Is that what you believe this to be?”
“What else should I believe?” she demanded. “You speak of what I have overcome, what I endure, as though that is the measure of me. As though I should be grateful for your notice.”
“I have never—”
“You have,” she said, her voice tightening despite her effort to control it. “You have, and you do it again now. You think to comfort me. To assure me that I am worthy of… what? Consideration? Kindness?”
Her breath caught.
She steadied it.
“I do not want to be admired for what I lack,” she said more quietly. “I do not want to be chosen because I am… pitiable.”
Darcy did not speak at once.
