When she opened her eyes, tears were already running down her cheeks.
The corridor remained empty. The music played on.
Elizabeth spent several minutes crying before she managed to compose herself. She straightened her spine, smoothed her gloves, and returned to the ballroom.
She took part in none of the evening's amusements and was obliged to feign smiles whenever anyone approached her.
Only one thought remained with her throughout the remainder of the evening.
How foolish she had been to trust Mr. Darcy. How foolish she had been to admire him.
SIXTEEN
22ndNovember 1811
Oakham Mount
Darcy
Time passed in a blur. Despite his conversations with Georgiana and Fitzwilliam, it took Darcy eight days after encountering Elizabeth and Wickham together in Meryton to relinquish the belief that she had somehow been complicit. The conviction weakened by degrees, each crack widened by Fitzwilliam's steady reasoning and Georgiana's quiet certainty, until one morning he awoke and found himself unable to sustain it any longer.
What remained was considerably less comfortable than anger. It was the need for an explanation.
He had not attended the ball at Lucas Lodge. He had no wish to see Elizabeth, and he had insisted that Georgiana remain at Netherfield as well. His sister had agreed, though not without a reluctance she made little effort to conceal.
It was Bingley who finally moved him.
Returning from the engagement ball, he found Darcy in the small parlour that had become his preferred refuge since Wickham's arrest — aside from his bedchamber and, on occasion, the library. There was an unusual firmness in Bingley's expression that immediately drew Darcy's attention.
"I wish you would speak to Miss Elizabeth." He waited until Darcy looked up before continuing. "I am weary of making excuses for you. Whatever has passed between the two of you, it ought to be addressed. From where I stand, the injury appears entirely on one side."
Darcy said nothing.
Bingley had noticed his withdrawal from Longbourn and Miss Elizabeth almost immediately and had questioned him more than once. When Darcy informed him it was a private matter, Bingley had respected the boundary, as was his nature. He was not a man inclined to force confidences. That he spoke so plainly now told Darcy that the matter had begun to trouble him deeply.
"She enquires after you and Georgiana every time I visit Longbourn." Bingley held his gaze. "Every single time. Tonight I was obliged to invent another explanation, and I found myself ashamed of it. Miss Elizabeth deserves better than that."
Darcy looked away.
"I do not ask for particulars," Bingley continued more quietly. "But if you mean to end the acquaintance, then end it. If you do not, then speak to her. What you are doing now is unfair."
Darcy thanked him and offered nothing further on the subject.
Yet that night the conversation remained with him.
He lay awake for hours turning it over in his mind and arrived, slowly and with little satisfaction, at the conclusion that Elizabeth deserved the benefit of the doubt. If she was innocent of any design, if there existed an explanation he had not considered, then he owed her the opportunity to provide it.
He rode out the following morning before the household was awake, hoping to find her upon her usual route.
Oakham Mount was empty.
He returned to Netherfield no easier in mind than when he had left it. Having finally resolved what he ought to do, he had found himself unable to do it. Calling at Longbourn was out of the question. To present himself there now, after a week of deliberate avoidance, would invite questions he was in no position to answer. Nor was he eager to place himself before Mr. Bennet whose good opinion he had come to value.
Yet doubt alone could not undo what he knew of George Wickham.
He needed an explanation. Until he had one, Georgiana's safety had to come first.
The following morning he rose earlier still and rode out again, hoping fortune might prove more accommodating.
