Darcy did not look at her.
Bingley shifted. “Caroline—”
“No, I am quite serious,” she continued. “There is a certain impropriety in it. One must know one’s place, must onenot? And to parade one’s… difficulties, as though they were distinctions—”
“That is enough.”
Darcy’s voice cut through the carriage with authority.
Miss Bingley fell silent at once, more from surprise than obedience.
He turned his gaze toward her then, his expression composed but unmistakably firm.
“You will cease such remarks,” he said. “Miss Bennet is a lady entirely undeserving of your censure. If you cannot speak of her with kindness, you will not speak of her at all.”
The words settled heavily in the confined space.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Bingley leaned back with a grin that was both relieved and approving. “Bravo,” he said. “I have been waiting to hear that.”
Miss Bingley flushed. “I did not suppose—”
“No,” Bingley said, more sharply than was his habit. “You did not suppose. That is precisely the difficulty.”
He turned toward his sisters. “If Hertfordshire society is so disagreeable to you, you are most welcome to return to London. I shall not detain you.”
Mrs. Hurst’s brows rose slightly, though she made no reply. Miss Bingley pressed her lips together, her expression tightening, but she said nothing further.
The remainder of the journey passed in silence.
Netherfield received them with its usual efficient order.
Darcy did not linger in the common rooms. He offered his sister a brief word, assuring her that he would see her in the morning, and withdrew to his chambers with more haste than he would ordinarily have allowed himself.
Once there, he did not immediately sit.
He crossed the room once, then again, his thoughts unsettled, refusing to arrange themselves into anything approaching clarity.
He had been mistaken.
Not in feeling. Never in that. But in understanding what those feelings required.
Elizabeth Bennet would not accept admiration framed in terms of endurance. She would not be comforted by assurances that she bore her circumstances well. She had no wish to be measured by what she had overcome.
She wished—
Darcy stopped. He did not yet know precisely what she wished. But he knew what she did not. He came to a halt near the window, his gaze turning outward though the light had already begun to fade.
He would not leave matters as they stood. To do so would be to confirm her worst assumption.
No. He must show her. Not through argument or contradiction. But through action that left no room for doubt.
His decision, once formed, settled him.
He would walk out on the morrow.
The weather might be poor. The roads uncertain. It did not signify.
