Elizabeth was shown into a bedchamber tucked under the eaves. It contained a narrow bed, a small washstand, a smaller writing desk, and a window that offered a magnificent view of a brick wall. The sounds of the street below filtered through the glass, loud and chaotic.
Lydia was already complaining about the size of the wardrobe in the adjoining room.
Elizabeth closed her door and sighed.
She stood in the centre of the tiny chamber and listened to the exclamations of her sister and her hostess echoing through the thin walls. She thought of the peaceful, green hills of Hertfordshire, and her cancelled trip to the Lakes. She thought of the twelve hours she had just spent listening to a woman scrape an apple with a single tooth.
Elizabeth removed her bonnet, placed it carefully on the bed, and sincerely questioned every choice that had led her to this exact moment.
Chapter Two: A Matter of Penance
Fitzwilliam Darcy sat in the vast, silent perfection of his London study and contemplated the ruins of his life.
The room was a masterpiece of mahogany, leather, and authority. It smelled of expensive ink and old money. It offered absolutely no comfort whatsoever.
Every time he allowed his mind to wander, a piercing ache bloomed squarely in the centre of his chest. It was a physical manifestation of the nameElizabeth Bennet. She had stood in a Kentish parsonage, looking magnificent in her fury, and comprehensively dismantled his character piece by piece.
She had called him arrogant and proud, accused him of ruining her sister’s happiness, and charged him with destroying an innocent man’s prospects.
He had been devastated and angry. Also, unequivocally wrong.
Since his return from Rosings, Darcy had embarked on a painful campaign of self-correction. It was an exhausting process. He much preferred his previous state of unbothered superiority. Unfortunately, his conscience had been awakened and fervently refused to return to sleep.
His first act of penance had involved Charles Bingley.
Darcy closed his eyes, recalling the encounter in Bingley’s London study three weeks prior. He had arrived with aregretful heart and a carefully prepared speech. He had confessed his interference, laid out the truth of Jane Bennet’s presence in London during the winter, and his own deliberate concealment of that fact.
Bingley had reacted with a level of rage Darcy had not believed the amiable man capable of.
His face turned the colour of a deep, mottled red. “You kept this from me? You decided she did not care for me? How could you?”
Darcy kept his posture rigidly straight because he deserved the anger. “I believed I was acting in your best interest. I was mistaken. I deeply regret my actions, Bingley. I hope you will forgive me.”
Bingley picked up a crystal paperweight from his desk and threw it across the room with shocking force. The crystal struck a priceless Ming vase on a side table and shattered into a thousand pieces of ancient porcelain.
“You presumed to decide for me! For her life! And I, idiot that I am, listened to your counsel!”
Darcy watched the ceramic shards settle into the weave of the carpet. He mentally calculated the cost of the vase and decided Bingley was justified in breaking it. “I apologise, Bingley. I am telling you now so you might correct the course before it is too late.”
Bingley’s anger evaporated from his features, replaced instantly by a desperate, brilliant comprehension. He had just remembered the sun existed. “Jane. She is in Hertfordshire. She is at Longbourn.”
He did not wait for a response. He crossed the room in three massive strides, threw open the door and bellowed into the corridor.
“My horse! Have my horse brought round immediately! Do not pack a trunk! I am leaving for the country!”
He sprinted down the hallway, barking orders at his valet, his groom, and his housekeeper, forgetting that there was a guest standing in his study. The front door of the townhouse slammed shut a mere two minutes later.
Darcy was left alone, staring at the broken vase, feeling a sense of relief mixed with abandonment.
However, his departure from the Bingley residence had been infinitely more harrowing than Bingley’s wrath, because he had been forced to navigate the main drawing room to reach the exit.
Caroline Bingley was in residence.
Miss Bingley had arranged herself on a settee, offering a smile that revealed too many teeth. “Mr Darcy! Charles just bolted from the house like a madman. Whatever were you discussing? Shall I ring for tea? We could converse about the dreadful state of London society. I find everyone so terribly provincial this year.”
Darcy edged to the door and moved with the careful, measured steps of a man encountering a venomous serpent in the wild. “Your brother had urgent business in the country, Miss Bingley. I have an urgent appointment with my solicitor. I bid you good day.”
He had sprinted to the safety of his carriage.
