“There was nothing to say,” Elizabeth replied. “Not in front of everyone.”
“You had a thousand things to say,” Jane returned, moving closer. “I could see it in your face. Each time he looked at you, I thought you would speak—and yet you did not.”
Elizabeth sank onto the settee, her composure crumbling. “I could not find the words, Jane. After everything—after Bath, after his letter, after all these weeks of rehearsing what I might say—when the moment came, I simply stood there like a fool.”
Jane sat beside her and took her hand gently in her own. “He will call again tomorrow. Mr. Bingley has already made certain of it.”
“What if I cannot speak tomorrow either? What if I—” Elizabeth’s voice wavered. “What if I have already lost my chance?”
“You have not lost anything,” Jane said firmly.
“He spoke of his friend’s death so calmly,” Elizabeth whispered. “He must be grieving still, and here I am thinking only of myself—”
“You are thinking of both of you,” Jane interrupted kindly. “As you should. Tomorrow, when they call, you will find your words. And if not within these walls, then out of doors. You will walk with him, and you will speak. Youmust, Lizzy.”
Elizabeth blinked back tears and managed a faint, tremulous smile. “When did you become so very wise?”
Jane laughed softly. “You are forever asking me that, Lizzy. And if you must know, I shall maintain that I have always been so.”
Elizabeth’s lips curved into a true smile at last. “How immodest you have grown, Jane.”
“Only with you,” her sister returned, her eyes warm with affection.
***
That night, Elizabeth lay awake long after Jane had fallen asleep.
Her mind was on one person only. Mr. Darcy. He had come. After all these weeks—after Bristol, after the death of his friend, after whatever grief he still bore—he had come to Netherfield. He had walked into her home and looked at her with those dark, steady eyes that seemed to see straight through to her very soul.
And she had done nothing. Said nothing. Simply stood there like a fool, too afraid to speak the words that pressed upon her heart.
I was wrong about you. I am sorry. I understand now who you truly are.
I have read your letter a hundred times. And though you spoke of much in Bath, I see now that you tried to tell me everything long before—back in Kent, when I would not listen. I am ashamed that I ever defended Mr. Wickham, ashamed that I judged you so unjustly.
I am sorry—for Kent, for my pride, for every unkind word I ever spoke to you.
She pressed her eyes shut, shaking away the tide of thoughts that had stirred within her ever since those last days in Bath. After all, she had said none of it. She had allowed him to leave without uttering a single word of consequence.
Tomorrow,she told herself.Tomorrow, when he calls with Mr. Bingley, I will find a way to speak with him privately—to apologise again, properly—to make him understand that I no longer see him as the proud, disagreeable man I once believed him to be.
Tomorrow, she would find the courage.
She must.
TWENTY
Longbourn, Meryton, October 1812
Elizabeth
Elizabeth had been awake since dawn.
She had changed her gown two times, attempted to read the same page of her book severally without comprehending a single word, and paced her chamber until Jane gently warned that she might wear a path into the carpet.
“They will come at eleven,” Jane said, watching her sister with affectionate amusement. “Just as Mr. Bingley promised.”
“I know.”
