Page 160 of A Question of Character

He nodded. “Ramsgate.”

“You cannot understand why he believes you were there.”

“No. Nor why he will not permit me to prove otherwise. I have given him names, places, dates. He rejects them before they are spoken. That is unlike the fair friend I once knew.”

“Fair?”

“Oh, yes.” Wickham gave her a wry look. “Do not let his severity deceive you. Darcy was always proud, always too certain, and sometimes intolerably exacting. But he was fair. If a master accused a boy unjustly, Darcy would speak. If debts were to be paid, he paid his own first. If he gave his word, one might build upon it. That is why this puzzles me. Anger I understand. Distrust too. But refusing proof?”

Elizabeth’s loyalty to Darcy rose defensively, only to collide with every reasonable word Wickham had spoken.

She knew more than Wickham did.

She knew of Georgiana’s summer. She knew Darcy believed his sister had been nearly ruined. A single sentence might explain everything.

Miss Darcy thought it was you.

No.

Elizabeth pressed her lips together.

That secret was not hers. Darcy had trusted her with it, however reluctantly; she would not betray him now merely because Wickham’s confusion moved her.

Still, silence had begun to feel like complicity.

Mr. Wickham watched her too closely. “You know something.”

“I know that Mr. Darcy is in pain.”

“I do not doubt it.”

“And that he believes himself justified.”

“I do not doubt that either.”

The generosity of the answer made the matter worse.

Lydia’s footsteps sounded in the hall, then retreated again as she called to Kitty about missing thread.

Elizabeth seized the brief delay. “I will speak to him.”

Wickham’s brows rose. “To Darcy?”

“Yes.”

“I would not have you quarrel with him on my account.”

“I do not require assistance to quarrel with Mr. Darcy. I have shown aptitude from the beginning.”

That surprised a laugh from him.

Elizabeth allowed herself a little smile before growing serious again. “He must speak with you. Civilly. If there is proof, he ought to hear it. If there is accusation, you ought to know its shape.”

“I would be grateful.”

“I cannot promise he will agree.”

“No. I know Darcy well enough to expect refusal first and reason later.”