“Yes,” Elizabeth said coldly. “And then you dressed them up in scandal and sold them like trinkets to the highest bidder. Do not mistake cowardice for courage just because it paid well.”
Miss Bingley’s lips parted—to argue, to deny—but no sound came. For one beat—just one—Caroline Bingley looked shaken.
Then Jane stepped forward. “Mr. Bingley.”
He turned toward her at once. “Miss Bennet—Jane—I never wished—”
“You hurt me,” she said. “Or if not you, then the force that keeps you silent.”
Miss Bingley shifted with a theatrical sigh, the kind meant to suggest boredom but laced with triumph. “If we are to continue in this vein, I see no further need for my presence.”
Elizabeth almost laughed. “Heaven forbid you witness the consequences of your own schemes.”
Caroline Bingley had nothing to say to that. A brittle smile for the room, a sweep of her skirts, and she was gone—clicking her way into the hall like a woman who had just won a particularly vicious hand at cards.
The click of the door was too quiet for the size of the triumph that had just swept out behind it.
Miss Bingley gone. Not vanquished, no. That woman would not be vanquished by anything less than a guillotine. But shehad left. Marched her way out the door to the carriage waiting outside. That was something.
Elizabeth did not move.
Jane’s voice cracked the silence like a dropped plate. “You could have spoken for us sooner. You could have stopped her.”
And there it was.
Mr. Bingley turned, slowly, as if the words had winded him. Perhaps they had. His mouth opened, then closed again. One step closer. Two.
“I still might,” he said.
That was it. No vow, no indignation. Just the faintest tremor of resolve from a man who had spent too long pretending he had none.
Elizabeth looked away. She could not bear to watch Jane try to sew her heart back together with thread that fine.
But she felt the heat return—sharp, rising, treacherous. Not the kind that flushed one’s cheeks, but the kind that scorched from the inside, searching for something to burn.
Caroline Bingley had done her damage well. She always did. No grand performance, no histrionics—just the slow, methodical unraveling of a family’s good name, one rumor at a time. And Elizabeth had played right into it. She had written the words. She had refused to burn them when she should have. She had made it so very easy.
“I never meant for any of this,” she said. The words came before she knew they were forming. “But I cannot pretend that it was not done.”
She was tired of pretending. Tired of playing the clever girl who never broke, who always had a line ready, who smiled through betrayal and humiliation like it was all a delightful jest.
“You did not know what your sister was about. Not at first. I believe that.” Her voice turned flintier. “But ignorance has a shelf life, Mr. Bingley. And yours expired days ago.”
His gaze fell. “Indeed.”
“But you know now. You have known for better than two weeks. And still—she lives under your roof, enjoys your protection, your company.”
Jane stirred beside her, face flushed. “My sister is not perfect, Mr. Bingley. She trusted the wrong people. She made mistakes. But she has owned them. She has paid for them.”
Elizabeth felt the burn behind her eyes and looked away.
Jane’s voice broke, not from weakness, but from the force of it: “Your sister has done worse with pride and malice—and declared she would do it again.”
Elizabeth felt the burn behind her eyes and did not look away this time. Let him see it. Let them all see it. She was not ashamed of the hurt. Only of having trusted anyone not willing to share it.
Bingley looked as if he wanted to vomit. His mouth remained silent, but his face shifted, like a thread pulled too tight beginning, finally, to fray.
A pause. Not long. Just long enough for the truth to take root.
