Page 46 of Mr. Darcy Forgot I Said No

She comes at eleven.

I am waiting in the little sitting room that opens off the blue bedchamber, because Anne says that is not technically my chamber and therefore not technically forbidden, and Anne has become a great authority on what is technically anything. Mrs. Collins is with her, and goes at once to the window with her sewing, as though she has been told there is a great deal to see in the stable yard.

Elizabeth stops in the doorway when she sees me standing.

"You are dressed," she says.

"Everyone says that as though I had been going about in a bedsheet."

“You have been walking your aunt’s park in your oldest coat, with a neckcloth tied like a bandage.”

“Lowe chose the neckcloth. He says it was medically necessary.”

Her mouth curves. She comes into the room, and I watch her come, and I think that I could watch her come into rooms for the rest of my life and never tire of it.

"You look well," she says. "Better. The bruise is going yellow."

"Lowe says I look like a quince."

"Lowe is very candid."

"Lowe has known me since I was nineteen. He has given up pretending I am a great man." I take a breath. My heart is going fast. Faster than I would like. "Miss Bennet. I have written a letter. I want you to read it."

Something goes across her face, so quick I nearly miss it. Something like fear.

"A letter?" she says.

"To Bingley. Here." I hold it out. "But first I must tell you something, and you will not like it. Will you sit?"

She does not sit. She stands very straight in the middle of the room, with her hands folded tight in front of her.

"Tell me," she says.

So I tell her.

I tell her all of it, the way I told Fitzwilliam. Netherfield, and her sister's smile, and my great confidence. The ball, and her mother's loud plans, and my conviction. London. Miss Bingley's help, which I did not discourage. Her sister calling in Grosvenor Street, and my silence.

I do not spare myself. I find I do not want to. I want her to see it plainly, every ugly piece, so that whatever she thinks of me afterward, she will be thinking of the real man.

She listens without a word. She does not interrupt once. She does not look away from my face. By the end her own face has gone quite white, and her lips are pressed so tight together they have nearly disappeared.

"I did not know her," I finish. "I did not try to. I looked at her and decided I knew what she was, and I was proud of my judgment. And your sister has been walking out before dawn all winter because of it." I hold out the letter again. "I cannot undo it. But I can tell him the truth. Will you read it?"

She takes it. Her fingers are not steady.

I watch her read. It takes no time at all; it is only a few lines. I watch her eyes go down them, and stop, and go back to the top, and come down again more slowly.

Miss Bennet loves you. I was wrong to say otherwise. Go back.

She makes a very small sound.

"You are angry," I say. "I knew you would be. You have every right. I would be angry, in your place. I would be furious."

"I was," she says. Her voice is very strange. "Furious."

"Was?"

She looks up quickly. "I mean—when Jane came back from London. When she was so quiet. I was furious with whoever had done it. I did not know." She stops. "I did not know it was you."