Page 65 of Mr. Darcy Forgot I Said No

"Then go and find someone without spots. Kitty, go with her."

Lydia rolls her eyes enormously. But Kitty, who has been looking from me to Mr. Wickham with an expression of growing doubt, takes her sister's arm and tows her off toward the milliner's, sugar plums and all.

The two other officers have drifted away. Mr. Wickham and I are alone on the step of my aunt's house, in the middle of market day, with the whole of Meryton going by.

***

"Shall we walk a little?" he says. "It is very crowded here."

"I prefer to stay where I am. Mr. Darcy will be looking for me."

"Ah. Of course." He glances along the street, toward the draper's window, where Mr. Darcy is still pinned between Mrs. Long and Lady Lucas, his head bent courteously, listening to something about a curate. He has not seen us. "He is a lucky man."

"Yes."

"I wish him joy. I do. Whatever lies between us, I would not wish him anything but happiness." He turns back to me with a look of such frank, rueful kindness that I can almost feel the November version of myself warm toward it. "You know, I hope, that I never meant to set you against him. I only told you the truth, when you asked. It was not my intention to—"

"You never meant to set me against him," I say. "You only told me about the living he refused you. Your father's godson, robbed of what his godfather left him, from mere spite and jealousy. You told me on the first evening of our acquaintance. You told everyone in Meryton the moment he left Netherfield."

His smile holds. "I told you nothing that was not true."

"I have learned a great deal since November, Mr. Wickham."

"Have you?"

"About a living," I say, very quietly, "that you resigned of your own free will. And three thousand pounds that you accepted in exchange for it. And what became of the three thousand pounds."

There it is.

It is the smallest thing. A muscle in his jaw. A tightening around the eyes, quickly smoothed away. If I had not been watching for it, I would never have seen it. But I have been watching for it since the moment he said congratulations.

"Ah," he says. "I see Darcy has been telling tales."

"Mr. Darcy has told me nothing that I could not verify for myself."

"Mr. Darcy," he says lightly, "has always been a great deal too fond of his own version of things. You know what he is. You told me yourself. Proud, and cold, and unforgiving." He shakes his head, smiling, sorrowful. "He has made a great conquest in you, Miss Bennet. I only hope you will not live to regret it."

"I regret only one thing," I say. "That I ever listened to you."

The smile does not falter. That is the worst of it. It sits on his face, warm and easy, and I realize that it has never once in his life faltered, not for anyone, not for anything, and that it does not mean anything at all. It is a thing he wears, like his red coat. Underneath it, there is only the card player, counting.

"How cruel you have grown," he says, very gently. "Kent has changed you."

"Kent has opened my eyes."

"Has it." He looks down the street again, toward the draper's. Mrs. Long has let go of Mr. Darcy's arm at last and is calling to her nieces. Lady Lucas is still talking. He is still listening, with that grave, patient attention I have come to know so well this last month. In a moment he will look up and see us. "And Darcy's eyes? Have they been opened too?"

"I do not know what you mean."

"A blow to the head. A lost day. A proposal he cannot recall." Mr. Wickham ticks them off on his gloved fingers, very lightly, as though he were counting change. "I am only curious, as an old friend of the family. I do recall, Miss Bennet, that in November you could not bear to be in the same room with him. You told me so at your aunt's table. You said you would not dance with him if he were the last man in Hertfordshire."

I go cold.

"And in April," says Mr. Wickham, softly, thoughtfully, "you are engaged to him. And the very next morning he falls off his horse, and forgets the whole of the evening in question." He tilts his head. "It is a very remarkable change of heart. In so short a time. Quite romantic. Your sister is right."

"People's hearts do change, Mr. Wickham."

"Oh, they do. They do." He nods, very seriously. "I only wonder whether yours changed before he fell off his horse. Or after."