Page 78 of His Pride and His Prejudice

He shook his head and thoroughly crossed those last words out, because he would not have done any different, Darcy knew that. He had acted on what he had believed were the best interests of those he cared for. And so, he signed it with his name instead and sealed it up. He had it in hand some hours later as he waited at the river for Elliot to arrive. A half hour later and he did.

He looked tired…sad…and Darcy wished he could comfort him in some way but desisted from attempting any such thing. It would not be his job to do that now, no matter how much Darcy had wished it to be.

How dearly he had hoped for it.

How desperately he had longed for it.

“I have been waiting here for some time in the hope of meeting you,” Darcy said softly instead. “Will you do me the honour of reading this letter?”

Elliot looked at him silently before holding out a hand to receive it. Darcy gave it to him and then, resisting entirely the urge to take Elliot’s hand one last time, he gave a slight bow, turned and was soon out of sight.

Home to Pemberley.

For there was nothing else left to him now.

Thirty-Nine

Elliot had been certain that his heart had broken yesterday. He had felt his chest tighten, had felt that horrible, curious coldness fill his heart, and he was sure that it had somehow shattered it, leaving him breathless and sad beyond anything he had ever experienced.

Elliot had been wrong.

His heart had perhaps begun the process of breaking, but it was now most certainly complete, and perhaps from there on in, now irretrievably so.

Sat on the edge of his chair in Charlie’s particular room, Elliot read through Darcy’s letter again and then again. By the end he was speechless and for the first time in a very long time he cried. The tears were silent, but they flowed down his cheeks, so that when Charlie entered the room, he knew immediately that something was wrong.

“Whatever is the matter, Elliot?” he demanded.

“I do not know how to begin,” Elliot said and held out the letter.

Charlie shut the door and took it. “We will not be disturbed in here,” he said, and he began to read. A few moments later he looked up at Elliot.

“What would be ‘a repetition of those sentiments or renewal of those offers which you have refused’,” he asked and when Elliot told him, he gasped.

“Elliot, have you any notion how many in society would wish for a marriage proposal from Mr. Darcy?”

“If you had asked me that in Hertfordshire, I would have said none at all, but now, after these last weeks, I understand that it is many.”

“And not just for his fortune and rank.”

“No, Darcy is…he is an extraordinary man,” Elliot said.

“More extraordinary than either of us realised,” Charlie said as he finished the letter. “And Mr. Wickham! A fraud!”

“I cannot find it in myself to be surprised by that,” Elliot said, his chest hurting from the words. “Wickham gave me his own account of what had happened between him and Darcy and when I shared it with Jack, he did not wholly believe it. I think,” Elliot said slowly, “that I only did because I…” He paused. “I wanted to. It fitted the narrative I had made of Darcy. That he would act in such a way. That he would behave so shabbily.”

“Why had you made such a narrative?” Charlie asked.

“I do not know,” Elliot said.

“Yes, you do,” Charlie replied, and Elliot shook his head because Charlie had always been far too perceptive for his own good.

“I had started to have feelings for Darcy,” he said. “Feelings I did not wish to have.”

“When?”

“I do not know,” Elliot said, and he held up a hand. “Truly, Charlie, I do not. Was it when he called me ‘barely tolerable’ in that scathing tone of his? Was it instead when he refused to dance with me? Or perhaps when we did finally dance? I do not know. I know only that I found myself wanting to see him, to talk to him, to hear his voice, and when they left Netherfield, I did not know who I was most sorry for, Jack or myself.”

“You are in love with him,” Charlie declared.

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