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One of his eyebrows quirked upward. “But surely you do not want me to reveal the truth?”
Elizabeth reluctantly shook her head. “I prefer that you not tell Mr. Collins, but it is unlikely the question will be put to you.”
“Sophistry does not become you.” He slashed an inoffensive leaf with his walking stick. “A lie of omission is still a lie.” His jaw was set, and his eyes were trained on the road.
Elizabeth wanted to upbraid the man for his black-and-white view of morality but would not increase his anger. He could do great harm to the Wileys if he revealed everything.
Elizabeth sighed. There was some truth to the accusation that she was asking him to violate his own principles. “Mrs. Wiley has been evicted from Longbourn.”
Mr. Darcy gasped. “On what grounds?”
“Failure to pay rent, of course. Her husband died, and Mr. Collins would not allow her to hold the lease until her son was of age.”
“That is unconscionable.” Mr. Darcy had increased his pace, tugging on the reins impatiently.
“Indeed. She and her children had nowhere to go; they were destined for the poorhouse. I have hoped to find another landowner who would take them in, but in the meantime, they inhabit an abandoned cottage in Longbourn’s woods. I supply food which the other women take to her.”
“Surely Mrs. Wiley did not devise this plan herself?”
“No.”
He flicked the walking stick in her direction. “It was your scheme?”
“Yes.”
“And your sisters?”
She wanted to protect them by proclaiming their ignorance, but for some reason she felt most uncomfortable lying to Mr. Darcy. “They know, but they are merely accommodating my plan; it was not of their devising. My mother knows nothing.”
He shook his head. “You are taking a great risk.”
“I know.”
“And I suspect it is not the only one.”
She sucked in a breath. He was a clever man; what other suppositions had he made? “I do not know what you mean.”
He whirled to face her. “Do you not? You are lying to Longbourn’s true owner—and scheming without his knowledge about matters involving his estate.”
She said nothing, but her heart twisted in her chest. How much had he guessed?
“This is your family’s land no longer.” His hands gripped her shoulders as if somehow that would help her better understand the situation.
“I am very much aware of that,” she said through gritted teeth.
“You only live here on Collins’s sufferance! He could revoke that at any moment.”
Ripping her arms from his grasp, she stepped away from him. “Thank you, sir, for reminding me of a basic fact of my life. It might have slipped my mind for a minute!”
He flinch
ed as if she had slapped him. “Of course…you are right.” He scrubbed his face with one hand. “I imagine such thoughts are ever-present for you.”
Elizabeth crossed her arms over her chest and said nothing. At the moment it was difficult to imagine a positive outcome from this conversation.
“I am simply concerned for your well-being,” he said in a low tone.
A voice at the back of Elizabeth’s head rejoiced—loudly—at evidence that Mr. Darcy cared for her. Irritably, she yanked her attention back to the conversation. “And you care nothing for Mrs. Wiley’s? Or her children’s?”
