Page 9 of He Insulted My Entire Family Before Proposing

"Is it? Then answer me plainly. Did you tell Mr. Bingley that Jane did not love him?"

Darcy's silence was the answer before he spoke.

"I told him I had observed no serious attachment on her side."

"And my family?"

"I warned him of imprudence."

"Because my mother is loud?"

"Because the connection would expose him to -"

"To us," Elizabeth said. "Use the shorter word. It is less genteel, but more honest."

He looked away.

For one moment, she saw him not as the master of Pemberley, not as the proud man of Meryton, but as a gentleman trapped inside the rules that had always served him. He did not know how to be wrong without ceasing to be himself. The discovery might have softened her on another day.

Not this one.

"You have reduced my sister's heart to evidence," she said. "My family's follies to contamination. My own worth to an exception you are generous enough to make. And now you are astonished that I am not grateful."

"I am astonished," he said, voice low, "by your anger."

"Then you have not been listening to your proposal."

The color came back to his face. "I have never meant to wound you."

"Intentions are poor servants. They always arrive after the damage asking to be praised for the journey."

He looked at her then with something sharper than pain. "And Wickham? I suppose his misfortunes are added to my crimes."

"You have not denied them."

"Mr. Wickham is not what he appears."

"Few people are. You, for instance, appeared to be proposing."

His mouth tightened. "You take pleasure in despising me."

Elizabeth felt the words hit because they were almost true. Not pleasure. Relief. Despising him was easier than remembering that she had once looked forward to his attention against her will.

"I take no pleasure in any of this," she said. "You have made me ashamed of the attention I thought I imagined, ashamed of the pleasure I took in crossing your pride, ashamed that for even a moment I wondered whether you saw me clearly. You did not. You saw me through objections and called it love."

Darcy's expression altered. Not softened. Stripped, for the space of a breath, of defense.

Then he bowed. It was a beautiful bow. Even wounded, the man could arrange dignity as if trained by marble.

"You have said quite enough, madam. Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time."

"Gladly," Elizabeth said, because she was too angry to be merciful and too hurt to be wise.

He turned and left the garden.

She remained where she was until the gate closed behind him.

Then, inconveniently, her knees decided that moral victory had been overrated. She sat on the nearest bench before they could betray her completely.