She stopped. She did not turn around.
"It became something else."
The strain in his voice caught her despite herself.
"I need you to know that. Whatever it began as, it became something else entirely. I was going to tell you. I had decided to tell you. Then I saw you with Wickham in Meryton and believed you were befriending the man who had spent years tormenting my family. The man who nearly ruined Georgiana." He paused for a while. "I withdrew because I thought you were connected to him. I came here this morning intending to ask for an explanation. I know now that I was wrong. And I know I have handled this badly from beginning to end."
Elizabeth closed her eyes.
"You thought I was friends with him?" The question escaped before she could stop it.
"I did."
She laughed again.
It sounded nothing like amusement.
"So while I was wondering what I had done to offend you, you were deciding whether I was capable of assisting a villain."
The silence behind her was answer enough.
Something inside her hurt more at that than she cared to admit. "I see."
"It became something else," he repeated quietly. "That much is true, whatever else you choose to believe."
Elizabeth stood for a long moment with her back to him, the valley spread before her and the cold morning air pressing against her cheeks.
Then she continued down the path without looking back.
She walked all the way to Longbourn at a pace that had nothing to do with the cold. She did not cry. She did not stop. She told herself very firmly that it did not matter what it had become.
She was not entirely certain she believed it.
SEVENTEEN
24thNovember 1811
Longbourn
Elizabeth
There was only one church in Meryton. A small Church of England parish that served both the village and several of the surrounding communities. The Bennets attended it with their neighbours, as they always had. Since their arrival, the Netherfield party had done the same on occasion.
Elizabeth hoped she would not encounter Miss Bingley or Mrs. Hurst that morning, for obvious reasons. If Caroline Bingley knew about her hearing problem, she had almost certainly told her sister. Or perhaps Darcy had told them both. Elizabeth doubted it. From the few occasions they had all been together and her single visit to Netherfield, it had been plain enough that Caroline Bingley admired Mr. Darcy. She placed herself beside him whenever possible, attempted to complete his thoughts, and smiled at him with a transparency that would have been almost pitiable had it not been so deliberate. It seemed far more likely that something had passed between them in confidence than Mr. Darcy telling both of them. Or so Elizabeth had been telling herself for the past four days, because the alternative was that Miss Bingley had overheard something she ought not to have heard, and that possibility raised questions Elizabeth was not yet prepared to examine.
Much to her relief, none of the Netherfield party attended church that morning.
On the walk home, Elizabeth found herself dwelling upon an entirely different disappointment.
She missed Georgiana. The realization surprised her.
As angry as she remained with Darcy, she could not persuade herself that Georgiana had been complicit in any of it. Miss Bingley had said Darcy acted for his sister's sake. Not with her. And Darcy himself had admitted as much upon Oakham Mount.
More than that, Elizabeth found herself returning repeatedly to something he had said during those final moments before she walked away.
…Nearly ruined Georgiana.
The phrase had lingered.
