Page 196 of A Question of Character

“It is a true one.”

They rode another mile in hard silence.

The road dipped through a small village where a blacksmith paused in his work to watch them pass. Darcy’s thoughts ran too quickly for order. London. Richard. Mrs. Annesley. The maid. Wycombe. Mrs. Younge. Georgiana’s letter.

By the time this reaches you, I shall be a married woman.

No.

Not yet.

Not if he reached her first.

Wickham broke the silence. “When I resolved to change, it was because of him.”

“Wycombe?”

“Yes. I saw in him every comfortable excuse I had ever made for myself. He used my name, and I was outraged. Then I remembered your bills, your father’s kindness, every time I let another man bear the cost of my pleasure. I hated him for doing to me what I had done to you.”

Darcy looked toward him.

“I came to you about the living after that,” Wickham said. “I told myself I was being practical. Perhaps I was. But I also knew I had no right to stand in a pulpit and preach honor to any parish. The law was tedious enough to punish me and useful enough to save me.”

“You might have told me.”

Wickham let out a short breath. “Would you have heard me?”

Darcy said nothing.

“No,” Wickham answered for him. “And I would not have blamed you. I had spent years teaching you not to trust a word I said.”

The honesty of it was intolerable.

“I am sorry,” Darcy said.

Wickham’s shoulder jerked.

“I am sorry,” Darcy repeated, this time with greater steadiness. “For what I believed of you. And for what I said at Longbourn. For placing your future at risk. For refusing to hear you when you offered proof.”

Wickham’s throat moved. “I did not expect that.”

“No. I imagine not.”

“I am not innocent of the past.”

“Nor am I.”

That drew Wickham’s attention sharply.

Darcy stared ahead. “I have acted as if my injuries gave me permission to be unjust. They did not.”

Neither man spoke for several minutes.

The horses labored up a rise, and Darcy slowed the pace until they reached the top. From there the road stretched southward and eastward, ribboning toward London under a sky beginning to bruise with evening.

At the next posting inn, they did found the runaways’ trail.

A maid remembered a young lady traveling in a closed chaise, pale and wearing a veil. An older woman had spoken for her. The gentleman had given his name as Mr. W. No, she did not know whether it was Wickham, Wycombe, or some other. He had laughed when the ostler misheard him and said, “Near enough.”