And Jake Bryson lay groaning on the loading deck, blood gushing from a hole in his chest.
Pemberley
Untilthismoment,Elizabethhad never been terrified of a man who sat absolutely still. Mr Darcy did not curl the fists already locked on his desk, nor did he stir in his seat as she relived the events of that dreadful evening. He spoke not a word. His features never flinched, she could not remember seeing him blink, and he hardly breathed, but his eyes were another matter. They were black as night, yet blazed with a wrath that turned her insides to jelly.
She finished speaking—not because she had a tidy conclusion to her tale. She merely ran out of words and courage. Still, Mr Darcy said nothing, did nothing, and for the first time in all their acquaintance, she was too frightened to look at his face. Instead, she stared at his hands on the desk, waiting for just one of them to twitch.
Eventually, he had to take a breath, and he sucked it between clenched teeth. The fresh air seemed to restore life to his body, and he carefully unfurled his fists, deliberately flexing the fingers as if seeking to control his impulses. In a slow, meditated motion, he pushed back from his desk and seemed to be searching for words.
“I know I ought to have told you this from the very first,” Elizabeth mumbled. “It was wrong of me to—”
“Wrong?” Steel inflected his tone, and his gaze had grown hard.
The final brittle thread of hope snapped in Elizabeth’s heart. She bestowed one last fond look, a farewell of sorts to their unorthodox friendship before the fateful severing, then lost her nerve and stared at the desk again.
“I know it was,” she agreed in a quavering voice. “I concealed something heinous, imposed upon your goodwill for your cousin’s sake, but now he is lost. We will go—all of us. I beg—”
“Elizabeth,” he interrupted, “you have not permitted me to have my say.”
She swallowed. “Of course. It is your right.”
He crossed his arms and studied her. “My right? You have sat there for the last quarter of an hour telling me a story that would have turned my hair white, had I lived through it! You defended yourself from something horrific, and you were forced to commit the unthinkable. And in consequence of these things, yet more trials loomed. You married a near stranger, left all you ever had, and sailed halfway around the world into a situation that was, at best, unknown, only to suffer months of nightmares and discover the only person you trusted was… was gone—and yet, you speak ofmyright to an opinion on the matter?”
“Why should I not? I am guilty of something so awful that people who knew me all my life would watch me hang. Yet, you took me in, afforded me your protection and no small measure of comforts. I will repay you—I’m not sure how, but when I find work—”
“Elizabeth, stop. Why are you so certain I will throw you into the hedgerows?”
Her lip pushed out, and she blinked against the sting of renewed tears. “Anyone else would.”
Measured footsteps rounded his desk, then stopped beside her. She quickly dashed the moisture from her eye—she could not bear the appearance of histrionics—and then turned her chin up to look at him.
“I am not anyone else,” he said in a voice at once kind and forceful. “I thought I was your friend.”
Her words garbled in her throat, and they escaped in little more than a whisper as her eyes filled again. “Friends do not lie to each other.”
“Unless I am mistaken, you never lied.”
“But I was not entirely honest. Is that not the same thing?”
Mr Darcy stretched to his full height and adjusted the buttons on his coat. “You are perfectly right. I wish I had known all this earlier, but not so I could turn you out.”
She tried to laugh. “Are you saying you would not have left me in that London hotel, entirely on my own, if I told you the first day we met that I was fleeing the law? Please, sir, do not make excuses for me just because—”
“Because I have seen your character since then,” he finished. “Because I have found you to be fine and strong and noble in ways others cannot even grasp at. Because if I had been in Richard’s place six months ago, I would have done precisely as he did. Yes, I wish I had known something of your trials earlier, because it might have helped me understand you better. I might have gone easier on you in those first days, trusted you sooner, and found better means of restoring your spirits. But that, as they say, is in the past now. I hope you will find me a better friend in your troubles in the future.”
Elizabeth got to her feet, staring at him in open astonishment. “I do not know what to say. I thank you—with all that I am, I thank you for believing me. You cannot know what that means.”
His lips thinned. “I can only imagine.”
She examined his face—the faint new tan lines at his temples, the weary grey under his eyes, and felt an unaccountable urge to rest her hand on his cheek. It was not sufficient to caress him with her eyes—she longed to comfort him, as he had done for her, but every means she possessed seemed either inadequate or improper.
“I am sorry for your loss,” she whispered.
His features twitched as if his mind had drifted elsewhere, and he dropped his head. “Richard was…” He drew a shaken sigh, then met her gaze. His own eyes were suddenly brimming, his mouth working helplessly. After a breath or two, he gave up and simply tightened his chin.
She did the same, trying to offer a smile of commiseration. “He was. I know.”
He nodded, looking back at her for a long moment, then reluctantly gestured towards the door. “Well… we need to speak with the earl tomorrow. I imagine Georgiana is wondering what has become of us—”
