Page 9

I looked at him and could hardly hold back the tears threatening at the memory of that horrid night, but I was not about to give that man the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

“Do you know what justification Bennet gave for forcing this—” I swept my hand around, encompassing the parsonage and my entire life “—on me?”

He just shook his head.

“When I rejected Mr Collins’ suit the next day, my former father said, ‘I used to think I had three silly daughters, but now I see I have raised the five stupidest girls in England. You cannot be trusted to make your own decisions.’”

He looked like he was about to explode.

“Why would he say that?”

My tears were still threatening, and I had very little strength left to stop them; but I finally decided that if I had to tell one person in the world, it may as well be him. At least I would not have to face him afterwards, and it was not as if I had any other confidants.

I spoke with little emotion.

“Jane fell in love with a handsome and amiable rake, who abandoned her after assiduously making love to her almost daily for six weeks without even taking his leave. He said he would be gone a few days, then disappeared entirely. She got nothing but a nasty letter from his sister. That rake was your particular friend, so that does not reflect well on him or you. Then Mr Wickham tried to elope with my fifteen-year-old sister, Lydia, the night of the ball, and would have ruined her if Mary had not stumbled upon them. Kitty seemed like she knew the couple was up to something but did nothing. He was yet another rake friend of yours.”

I glanced at him briefly, to judge his reaction, and he was staring disconcertingly.

“I favoured Mr Wickham at the time, since he at least had the good grace to refrain from insulting me in the first half-hour of our acquaintance, and never once called me ‘tolerable enough’ or ‘not handsome enough to tempt him,’ nor did he compare my beauty with my mother’s wit. When his true nature was revealed—a nature which you could not be bothered to warn us about with anything other than inscrutable riddles—my father thought me about as stupid as Lydia, and he may have had a point.”

Now he was looking at his own boots, or what was left of them after my chickens finished their sport.

“When Bennet asked Wickham why he did it, he said it was because I danced with you. He claimed the two of you had a long-standing rivalry and frequently went after sisters to see who could succeed faster. Most likely, he was lying through his teeth, just as with everything else; but his story, coupled with your almost universally bad manners; the fact that you clearly and obviously looked down on me, my sisters, and all our neighbours; and the entire Netherfield party’s decampment the very next day with nothing but a letter asserting Bingley was courting your sister, made the Bennet sisters seem well and truly unmarriageable. Your party seemed most ungentlemanly, an opinion that your behaviour two days ago did not help.”

I paused a moment but did not allow him to answer.

“A year later, I imagine the rest of my sisters are still unmarriageable, but since our correspondence lacks any depth whatsoever, I am only supposing. I imagine they have had a trying year of gossip as well. I distrust you, because you have well and truly earned my distrust!”

I wanted to get it all out once and for all.

“I suspect Mr Bennet suffered an apoplexy or something of the sort, because he changed completely and abruptly from the amiable but neglectful father of my memory, to a vengeful and controlling man overnight. He was never the same after that ball, and I have no idea why.”

I gave him the hardest stare I was capable of.

“After the ball and Miss Bingley’s letter, Mr Collins proposed marriage. I rejected him five times, in the strongest possible language, yet my former father jumped on the offer like a hawk on a hare. Perhaps they did not know just how bad it would be, but he did know Mr Collins, or Lady Catherine, or both, would try to crush my spirit, yet he played his hand for his own comfort, and retired to his library. My former mother spent the next three weeks running around the neighbourhood crowing about the success of getting one daughter well settled, while I was locked away in Longbourn awaiting my execution. Bennet even kept my sisters away from me before the wedding to try to prevent anything from going wrong; aside from the obvious problem of the wrong bride, of course.”

Trying to just be done with Mr Darcy for the last time, with my mask firmly back in place, I delivered my final word, absolutely certain it would send him running.

“Bennet was only right about one thing. I am quite possibly among the stupidest women in England. I have scars, in places only a husband should know about, because I did esteem two handsome and amiable rakes despite ample evidence of their true nature, and I did not have the good sense to decline dancing with a man who despised me.”

With that, I was exhausted and well and truly done with him. Without a backward glance, I walked back to the parsonage, satisfied to be finished with at least one of my unpleasant acquaintances.

Insistence

Wed 2 December 1812

Darcy

“Good afternoon, Elizabeth.”

I knew I was tempting fate using her given name, but it seemed better than either of her despised surnames. Considering the depth of the hole I had dug for myself, I needed to tread carefully.

Elizabeth looked me over in annoyance. Her mask was sufficiently in place to hide all deeper emotions, but annoyance was one she was not averse to showing. She appeared to have been entirely satisfied with my absence during the two days after our previous altercation. Her adieu was the type of statement that wars might be fought over. It seemed the ultimate irony that my ungentlemanly behaviour and lack of basic good sense a year earlier seemed likely to ruin the lives of at least several people, possibly forever. She looked as if she would be even more satisfied if I were absent two months, two years, or forever. I could imagine, with her entirely justified displeasure with Bingley, she wanted her sister to encounter me even less.

She replied with a hard edge. “Mr Darcy, I thought all our business was concluded satisfactorily.”

“Perhaps you were satisfied; I was not.”