Page 86 of Twice Chosen

Reports later placed him in Ireland and then France.

He did not return to Hertfordshire.

Darcy wrote Georgiana afterward, not to frighten her but to tell her what had happened. He asked what she wished him to say if Wickham ever attempted to use Ramsgate against her.

Her reply came two days later.

Tell the truth, if it becomes necessary. I am tired of being afraid of something I did not do.

Darcy sat with the letter for a long time.

Elizabeth found him that evening at Netherfield and read the final line after he handed it to her.

Her eyes filled. "She chose."

"Yes."

Elizabeth pressed the paper back into his hand. "You gave her room to."

Darcy looked at his wife-not-yet-wife and understood again why finding her sooner mattered.

Darcy's decision to be sociable in Hertfordshire did not make him universally beloved, which secretly relieved Elizabeth. She did not want a transformed Darcy who charmed every room. She wanted the man she knew, only without using reserve as a shield sharp enough to wound everyone who approached.

At one dinner Sir William attempted to draw Darcy into a conversation about court fashions. Darcy endured three minutes, then said with perfect gravity, "Sir William, I fear I possess no useful opinion on feathers."

Elizabeth nearly laughed into her wine.

Sir William, undeterred, moved to coats.

Darcy looked toward Elizabeth in mute appeal.

She smiled sweetly and did nothing.

Later, when they walked home with the Bennets, Darcy murmured, "You abandoned me."

"You survived."

"Barely."

"You were kind."

"I was trapped."

Elizabeth looked up at him. "There is a difference between being sociable and enjoying everyone."

"Thank God."

She laughed.

His efforts were noticed beyond Bingley and Georgiana. Mr. Goulding began asking Darcy's opinion on estate matters. Colonel Forster invited him to dine with several senior officers. Even Mrs. Phillips admitted, after much resistance, that Mr. Darcy was "not so stiff as he looks."

That mattered when Wickham's whispers spread.

People did not dismiss Wickham because Darcy was rich. They questioned the story because the Darcy they had met did not resemble the monster described.

Elizabeth saw how reputation worked in reverse. A single insult had once made Wickham believable because Darcy had given the neighborhood no kinder evidence. Now dozens of ordinary civilities protected him better than rank ever could.

"You see?" Elizabeth told him after Mrs. Long defended him against a particularly dramatic version of Wickham's grievance. "Seventeen minutes about a horse were not wasted."