"I apologize, Bingley. I am poor company this evening."
"You have been poor company for days," Bingley said without rancor. "But I confess, you seem in better spirits now than you were this morning. Did something occur during the walk?"
Darcy considered how to answer. He could not speak of what Elizabeth had accused him of—that was too private, too painful. Nor could he explain the relief he felt at having finally cleared the air between them.
"We spoke," he said at last. "Miss Elizabeth and I. Our misunderstanding was resolved."
"Resolved?" Bingley's eyebrows rose. "wow, that happened faster than I thought."
"It did." Darcy's voice was quiet. "But it is resolved now. At least, I believe it is."
They walked a few more steps in silence. Then Bingley said, more gently, "You do really care for her very much, don't you?"
"Yes." Darcy said with a small smile
"And does she—that is, do you think she might come to feel the same?"
Darcy was quiet for a long moment. "I do not know. But for the first time since Kent, I have hope that she might at least see me as I truly am, rather than as the man she believed me to be." He paused. "That is more than I had any right to expect."
Bingley clapped him on the shoulder. “Then I am glad for you, my friend. Truly.”
He studied Darcy’s expression for a moment before a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Who would have thought the day would come?”
Darcy glanced at him warily. “What day is that?”
“The day I should see my friend, Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley, thoroughly undone by a lady he once declared not handsome enough to tempt him.”
Darcy exhaled sharply. “Bingley, you would do well to cease speaking at once.”
Bingley only laughed, and after a moment, Darcy’s composure gave way to amusement too.
That evening, Darcy sat in his study with a glass of brandy he barely touched. His mind kept returning to the moment he had placed the book in Elizabeth's hands. To the way she had looked at him—no longer with anger or disdain, but with something softer. Something that might, given time, become understanding.
She had the letter now. Would she read it tonight? Or would she set it aside, too overwhelmed by the day's revelations to face more truths?
He hoped she would read it. Everything was in that letter—every detail about Wickham's character, about what he had done to Catherine, about his attempted seduction of Georgiana. About why Darcy had separated Bingley and Miss Bennet. All of it laid out in his own hand, written months ago in the immediate aftermath of her refusal.
If she read it, she would see that he had been trying to tell her all of this in Kent. That his silence in Bath had not been from a desire to deceive, but from the painful knowledge that she had refused to hear him once already.
Darcy allowed himself to imagine tomorrow. He would rise early and visit Mr. Hewitt—he needed to check on his friend, to ensure the old man was improving. The thought of Hewitt's illness still weighed on him, a separate worry threading through his cautious hope about Elizabeth.
And then, after seeing Hewitt, he would call at Camden Place with Bingley as promised. Perhaps Elizabeth would be in better spirits. Perhaps she would have read the letter and would wish to speak with him further. Perhaps—
He stopped himself. It was dangerous to hope too much. He had learned that lesson in Kent.
But still. She had apologized. Had admitted her mistake. Had looked at him without coldness for the first time in days.
Surely that meant something.
Darcy took a small sip of his brandy and allowed himself the luxury of cautious optimism. Tomorrow, he would see her again. Tomorrow, they would speak. And perhaps—just perhaps—she would no longer see him as the proud, disagreeable man who had insulted her at the Meryton assembly and proposed to her with such arrogant presumption.
Perhaps she would see him as simply a man who had made mistakes and was trying to atone for them.
A man who loved her still, and always would, whether she could ever return that love or not.
He sat in his study until the candles burned low, thinking of dark eyes and the weight of a letter that had finally found its way into the hands it was always meant for.
And for the first time in months, Fitzwilliam Darcy allowed himself to hope.
