He tried to salvage it, of course. “I thought… if you preferred to withdraw, I would understand.”
She almost laughed. He was offering her freedom as if it were a gift—forgetting, perhaps, that it had never been hers to relinquish in the first place.
“I think,” she said, as evenly as she could, “that I would not accompany you to Eastbourne, much less Gibraltar.”
He exhaled, the sound more relieved than pained.
They stood there, facing one another like diplomats signing a treaty neither of them quite understood. He bowed—graceful, regretful—and she dipped her head in return.
Then she turned away.
She did not look back.
Not even when the church bell finally rang.
A gust of wind tore past her, and she blinked against it, suddenly aware of the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.
Not now.
Not in the street!
She turned toward Cheapside, the gray rooftops clustering ahead like sentinels, her shoulders drawn tight and her jaw set.
Captain Marlowe had offered her an escape. A quiet, distant life in another country. A marriage of ease, of manners, of mutual absence.
She had said no.
Not out of pride. Not even entirely from regret. Simply because she could not imagine walking another moment beside him through the park—let alone the rest of her life.
And now she was alone.
Darcy had offered her nothing.
And still, somehow, she had never wanted anything more.
Her boots struck the pavement in even, measured steps, but every breath felt jagged. She did not look back. There was no use. Captain Marlowe would not follow. He had wanted her approval, not her affection—and when she could not give either, he had taken his dignity and left.
It was, perhaps, the kindest thing he had done.
He had given her the final, polished ending to their paper-thin engagement. All good sense. No affection. A gentleman, to the end. And still—still—she could not find it in her to be sad. Not for the loss of him.
Only for the man she could not stop loving.
The one who had offered her nothing.
And she had never wanted anything more.
At the corner, a costermonger shouted prices over the heads of a gathering crowd. Elizabeth weaved past them with her bonnet dipped low, catching the breeze. The fine gloves she had purchased for the wedding—ivory silk with mother-of-pearl buttons—lay crumpled in her pocket, the fingers wrinkled from too much folding.
She would never wear them now.
In a nearby chapel—somewhere in Mayfair, by every scrap of knowledge she possessed—Mr. Darcy was making his vows. Shedid not know the hour, but the day was etched into her with cruel precision.Tuesday. The twenty-first of January.
She had once memorized it out of idle curiosity. She would not forget it now.
Perhaps there would be no bells. A quiet affair. Dignified. Ashford was a tasteful man, and Darcy would not want spectacle. But still she felt it, like a shifting of weight in the world. A new truth settling.
He would be married before the hour turned.
