Page 61 of Yearning

“I swear, when you sent me that letter, the one I sent back, I did not know about your husband, and when I found out, I came to you, but he was there—”

“It’s like some horrid comedy of errors,” she moaned, shuddering.

“Well, it is, but it is also my own fault. I could have come to you, but I didn’t, and that is the face of it.”

“You left me without saying goodbye,” she said. “You left me and you never spoke to me again. You simply disappeared.”

“Your husband seemed to think that if I was awful to you, it would be easier for you, and I agreed.”

She sat back down. “You schemed with the baron to do this?”

“He came to me. He entreated me to leave you be, and I knew that I should. You cannot say that I should not have.”

“I…” She sighed. “No, I suppose it would have come to the same thing, regardless, but to have the two of you deciding it for me. Men.”

He only blinked at her.

“You did not even ask me,” she said.

“I know what you would have said.”

“But that is not the reason you ask a person. It is about courtesy. It is about communicating to them that you value them. It is about giving them a chance to say goodbye. You have done this often, Fitzwilliam. Over and over again when it comes to me. And if we are going to do this together, I shall have a promise from you that you do not make decisions without consulting me, not if they affect me. I want a voice in my own life. I want to decide if you are part of it or not.”

He bowed his head, rubbing the back of his neck with his good hand. “All right, I can agree to that. I am sorry.”

She waited.

He was silent.

“Your ability to apologize is really wretched, Fitzwilliam Darcy,” she said.

“I am sorry,” he said. “No, everything you said, I can see why you thought it, and yes, it would have been better if I had spoken to you, or written you a letter or responded to one of yours. It was only that the baron had asked me—”

“I am going to strangle you.”

“What?”

“It is not an apology if you say the whole apology but then follow it up with an excuse as to why you did what you did!”

“That is not the way I meant it!”

“I think it is.”

“No, I promise you, I am aware of how much pain I am sure I have caused you, because it has caused me pain as well. You have no notion how much pain, how I missed you, how I wished liked anything to be able to read your letters—simply read them, not even respond to them—but I felt I must make it as complete a break as possible. I knew it was difficult for both of us. It was agony for me.”

“But you like that, because you are a masochist,” she muttered.

“I don’t enjoy being in pain,” he said. “But this was necessary. I can bear pain if there is a good reason for it, and your happiness—”

“You have just got done saying that you knew it caused me pain!”

“Right, I suppose not your happiness, necessarily, but your good name and your reputation and… and… you had a better life without me in it.”

“You see, that is the crux of the matter,” she said, shaking her head. “That you seem to continually think that is the case. And it is never the case.”

“Is it not?” His gaze softened as he looked her over.

“No, Fitzwilliam. No.”