Elizabeth paced.
He must say something. He could not allow Elizabeth tothink. She was thinking the wrong thing. “Lizzy, please, come here.”
“That is all I am?Mr. Darcy. A pretty creature at your control? You think mypassionscan drive me to irrationality. You think you have right to dictate to me.”
Darcy bit his tongue. “I will always respect your wishes.”
“Add notliesto thine faults. Your very manner of standing shows you do not respect me. You plan to allow me what freedom your whim gives me, so long as that whim remains your whim. But no respect.”
“The philosophies of Wollstonecraft will move me no more than Georgiana’s tears or your earlier arguments.”
“You do not desire a marriage of equals. You plan to make me your object.”
“If I desired a pretty thing to play with, I would have chosen a very different woman. Your mind is your chief attraction.”
“No. Not now! I’ll not listen to your flattery. Your low voice will not enslave me once more.”
“It is not flattery it is—”
She pulled her ring off her finger. The gift from him, to symbolize their engagement, and she threw the gold band on the breakfast table. It bounced harshly and leaped off and rolled against the wall with a clang.
“Theatrics will not lead me to relent. My position is final: Georgiana shall not be permitted to marry Mr. Peake.”
“You think this is theater? That I jest?”
Everything froze in his stomach.
“The irony is you were right: My head said I could not trust you. But my heart” — she tapped her bosom, above that organ — “demanded you. My passions overrode my reason — and my father’s advice.”
“Elizabeth, stop this.”
“Yes, my father — he was cautious in how he said it, but he believed I made a mistake. But herespectedme far enough to do no more than to advise me to think carefully upon a match with you. Ha! If I’d been guided by my reason and my male relatives, I never would have even considered your offer. How does that make you feel? To be the poor lusty choice of husband.”
“That is nonsense.”
“You are so vain. I am not going to marry you. I am jilting you, abandoning you, think however ill of me as you wish. I will not marry you.”
“No…no, Elizabeth — you love me. I — no! You cannot. I love you. I adore you. After how we kissed. You feel it too. You still feel it.”
He grabbed her shoulders and tried to kiss her. She wrenched herself away. “No.”
“You are too serious of a woman to do this. To break an established engagement. Please — I…I always will keep you and protect you. Georgiana’s position has nothing to do with it. You—”
His guts were frozen. Elizabeth began sobbing.
“I do not wish to hurt you. But…Mr. Darcy, my reason tells me I cannot be happy with you. You have behaved in…intoogentlemanlike of a manner. I will not be happy with you, and in the end my unhappiness would become your unhappiness. Good bye, and…and God bless you.”
“No. Lizzy.” Darcy grabbed her arm to keep her from leaving. “You cannot — you will be happy. You will!”
“Not if I am under your control. Not with a man who does not respect me. Not with you.” She ripped her arm away, and fled through the door before he could catch it again.
Chapter Twenty
When Elizabeth stormed out of the breakfast room, Mr. Peake stood with his shoulder leaning against a door post in Netherfield’s entry hall. He had a defeated expression.
Bingley stood there awkwardly making desultory conversation with Peake.
She shambled past them to the coat rack, and she jerked her heavy blue winter coat from the wooden hook. Elizabeth forced her arms into the coat, and then she yanked away from the housekeeper when Mrs. Nicholls approached Elizabeth to help smooth the coat on. Elizabeth ordered the woman, “The carriage. Bring it. No delay.”
