Page 50 of The Crown’s Gift

"Is this your only objection?" he asked.

"No."

His expression closed.

Elizabeth thought of Jane at the Gardiners' window, holding Bingley's letter. "I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. You separated Mr Bingley from Jane. You concealed her presence in London. You judged her heart without asking her and congratulated yourself upon friendship."

"I have admitted my error."

"To me. Did you sit beside Jane while she tried not to weep? Did you watch her wonder whether she had imagined every look and word? Your admission did not endure that. She did."

Darcy's jaw tightened. "I did not conceal Miss Bennet's presence. Miss Bingley did."

"And you knew Bingley remained ignorant."

"Not until later."

"Yet you were content when he stayed away."

He could not deny it.

"I believed her indifferent," he said. "I was wrong. I assisted their reconciliation once I understood."

"Because the evidence changed, not because you questioned your right to govern him."

The accusation reached deeper than she knew. Darcy took a breath, but she had not finished.

"And Mr Wickham."

His face transformed. "What has he said to you?"

"Enough to claim that you denied him what your father intended. Papa's inquiries support your account of the living and the money, but there is more. Everyone behaves as though some great danger must remain unnamed. You demand trust while withholding the truth."

"The truth concerns another person whose reputation I will not expose."

"Then say so without treating every question as insolence."

"Wickham is not entitled to your sympathy."

"That is precisely the manner I mean. You do not explain. You pronounce."

Darcy went still.

Elizabeth heard her own breathing. Anger had carried her beyond caution, yet nothing she said felt false.

"If you believed me arrogant," he said, very quietly, "why did you dance with me? Why come to my house? Why allow me to hope?"

The question hurt because it was not wholly unjust.

"I did not know the extent of my anger until you asked me to overlook it. And I did not understand your purpose. You were kind to Mary. You love Georgiana. You apologized for the assembly. I thought—"

She stopped.

"What did you think?"

That he might be better than her first judgment. That she had begun to anticipate his calls. That the sight of him at Court made her feel seen rather than measured.

"It does not matter."