Page 98 of Dear Friend

Her lips pressed together. “How?”

“There is an explanation, if you will allow me to give it. The first set of letters came into my possession at Willowbrook. I opened it only to discover the writer's direction, intending to inform her that Miss Harding was no longer in residence there. I even began a reply, which I still possess.”

Elizabeth's eyes sharpened upon him. “You were at Willowbrook?”

“Yes.”

“Before coming to Hertfordshire?”

Darcy swallowed against the sudden tightness in his throat. “Yes.”

The answer seemed to settle something within her, and he watched with dread as suspicion became certainty.

“How many of my letters did you read?”

“Elizabeth...”

“How many, Mr. Darcy?”

There was no merciful answer. “All which came to Willowbrook while I was there.”

The colour left her face again.

Darcy stepped forward instinctively, but something in her expression stopped him before he could reach for her. “I know I had no right. I cannot defend it. The first was an accident, but afterwards I became...”

“Interested?”

The word was so quiet that he almost wished she had shouted it.

“Yes.”

Elizabeth looked away, her breathing unsteady. “And after you came here? The letters I continued sending to Julia, where did they go?”

He had dreaded many questions. Somehow he had failed to dread that one enough.

“They were forwarded to me.”

Her eyes closed briefly. “And you read those too.”

“Yes.”

Elizabeth turned her face away from him. The movement was slight, but Darcy felt it more keenly than any accusation.

“You stood before me while I spoke of Julia,” she said after a moment. “You listened while I wondered why she had never answered me, while I feared she was ill or dead, and all the while you knew my letters were still being sent to Willowbrook because they were being forwarded to you.”

Darcy's throat tightened. “I was trying to discover what had become of her.”

“That is not what I asked.”

“No.”

She looked at him again, and there were tears gathering in her eyes now. “How could you?”

He had spent the entire day preparing explanations, yet faced with the hurt upon her face, every one of them seemed contemptible.

“I never intended to injure you.”

“No, I suppose you did not.” Elizabeth drew a wavering breath. “You merely read what I thought of my family, what frightened me, what embarrassed me, what I hoped for. You knew things I had chosen to tell one person in the world because I trusted her with them, and then you came to Hertfordshire and allowed me to meet you as though we were strangers.”