“I believe,” said Mr. Bennet, emerging from the hallway, “that if anyone in this room is causing embarrassment to my family, it is not Mr. Darcy.”
A hush settled over the room again.
Mr. Collins sputtered. “But… but I said! The manisa libertine! I—I merely repeated what I was told by a most reputable—”
“Yes,” Mr. Bennet said dryly, “and with such excellent timing, too.”
Elizabeth glanced sideways at Darcy.
He had not moved. Not so much as blinked.
But his gaze was fixed, unwavering, on the fire. And in his stillness, she saw the tight control of a man who had borne humiliation before. Alone. And who expected to bear it again, the same way.
Something ached deep in her chest.
Not pity.
Something more complicated than that.
And far more dangerous.
Thecarriageridebackto Netherfield was conducted in near-total silence—at least, for the first ten minutes. Darcy sat rigid, jaw clenched, eyes fixed out the window, hardly breathing. The fields of Hertfordshire blurred past unnoticed.
At last, Bingley shifted beside him. “Well,” he said, with painful cheer, “that was… enlightening.”
Darcy did not answer.
“Come now,” Bingley added. “At least it was a man nobody knows or cares about, and not a parliamentary inquiry.”
Darcy closed his eyes briefly. “He is hardly someone ‘no one knows or cares about.’ Do you not know who he is?”
Bingley blinked innocently. “Should I? I suppose I found it odd that he was talking about your aunt. How does he know Lady Catherine?”
“He is her bloody parson! I met him when I went with Richard to Rosings last summer—fool, I, I thought perhaps she would speak to me after ten years, but I could not have been more wrong.”
Bingley frowned and shifted in his seat. “Still bearing that grudge because you were ‘unfit’ to marry her daughter, eh? Look, Darcy, I would not worry about it. Who cares if Collins decides to run his mouth a bit? You saw how Bennet silenced him. I doubt anyone in town listens to a word he says.”
“No, no, you do not understand. If Lady Catherine learns I was not only present in the Bennet household but consorting with—”
“‘Consorting,’ good Lord,” Bingley said under his breath. “You sound like Collins.”
Darcy turned a slow glare on his friend. “If I’d had any ideaCollinswas Bennet’s heir… He will not let this rest quietly, and therein lies the trouble.”
Bingley laughed. “Likely not. He is probably composing a letter to your aunt as we speak. Written on the very finest vellum, in the most atrocious hand, with half a dozen flourishes to call you a libertine without using the word, because I doubt he could spell it properly.”
Darcy said nothing. He felt… hollow.
No, worse.Exposed.
He had spent the better part of the last ten years trying to reclaim his name with caution and calculation—and now, with one blowhard parson and a single vulnerability—thanks to the Prince’s idea of a joke or a test, or whatever this was—it was all unraveling.
And Elizabeth had heard it all.
Bingley studied him more carefully now, all traces of his hopeful sort of humor fading. “I am sorry, Darcy. I know what this means to you.”
“No… I cannot think you possibly could,” Darcy replied quietly.
Bingley sucked in a breath and sat back, chastened. They said nothing else for the remainder of the ride.
