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Elizabeth sat for a while longer. She thought about Lydia at sixteen, raw and trying very hard not to show it, in a situation that should not have existed and which she had nonetheless handled with a tenacity that Elizabeth had quietly admired even then. She thought about Lydia now, everything that tenacity had built and everything it had cost. She thought about what it would take for Lydia to stop managing, and whether Fitzwilliam currently looked like a man worth the risk.
She thought he did not. Not tonight.
“I hate this,” she said.
“I know,” Darcy said.
“I am going to say nothing.”
“I know.”
“It is the correct decision and I hate it.”
“Yes,” Darcy said, and had the good sense to leave it there.
