Page 107 of Near Pemberley

More than that, she had written of them.

I cannot regret that we met again.

The sentence returned to him with particular force.

There was no ambiguity in it. Elizabeth Bennet was too honest a woman to write such words lightly, particularly in a letter she had plainly struggled to send. Indeed, the entire letter bore evidence of that struggle. He could almost see her seated at her desk at Longbourn, pausing over certain lines, setting down her pen, taking it up again. More than once, she had admitted she ought perhaps not to write at all, and yet she had continued. Pride, propriety, shame – she had named them all in the opening sentence and then ignored them one by one.

A faint smile touched his mouth despite himself. It was, he reflected, a very Elizabeth thing to do.

The smile faded as another thought occurred to him. He lowered the glass and turned from the window.

The letter had been written some weeks ago.

Not yesterday. Not after their meeting at Gracechurch Street. Weeks ago.

He stood perfectly still.

She had sent it. Naturally, she must have believed he had received it. The realisation altered the entire character of the afternoon.

Darcy walked slowly back towards the desk and looked down at the pages again. He saw now what he had entirely failed to understand only hours before. The searching glances, the hesitation. The curious disappointment that had appeared and vanished so quickly that he had scarcely had time to notice it. Even her gratitude now seemed different. Elizabeth had stood before him, believing him already in possession of every sentiment contained within these pages.

And he had given her nothing.

Not through indifference. Not through caution. Through complete ignorance.

He remembered her studying his face whilst thanking him for Lydia. At the time, he had attributed it to anxiety and exhaustion. Now he was no longer so certain. She had been looking for some acknowledgement, however slight. Some indication that he understood what she had written. That he… still cared.

Instead, he had spoken to her as though the letter did not exist.

A mixture of amusement and mortification stole over him. Fitzwilliam Darcy was not often accused of being oblivious. Yet, on this occasion, he had conducted an entire conversation whilst remaining ignorant of information that would have transformed every word exchanged between them.

His gaze drifted once more to the signature.

Elizabeth Bennet.

The name alone seemed capable of stilling every other thought.

Near the end of the letter, the handwriting had become less steady. He noticed it now in a way he had not upon first reading. Whether the change was the result of fatigue, emotion, or simple uncertainty, he could not know. Yet it affected him unexpectedly.

I am sorry I saw you too late.

He read the line again. And again.

Not because he doubted its meaning, but because he found himself unwilling to leave it behind.

For months, he had believed himself alone in regretting what might have been. Now he knew he had been mistaken.

The knowledge ought perhaps to have filled him with triumph. Instead, it left him humbled. Miss Elizabeth had written those words at what she believed to be the worst moment of her life. She had believed her family ruined, Lydia lost, and every possibility between them extinguished forever. Yet even then, she had found room to think of him.

Darcy sat down once more and carefully folded the letter.

The difficulties before them remained exactly as they had been an hour earlier. Lydia was still unmarried. The scandal had not vanished. Society would not become kinder merely because Elizabeth Bennet had written a letter.

And yet it was impossible to persuade himself that nothing had changed.

Tomorrow she would come.

For the first time since Lambton, Fitzwilliam Darcy found himself looking forward to the morrow with something dangerously close to hope.