Page 99 of Dear Friend

“I should have told you.”

“When?” Her eyes flashed. “At the assembly, when Sir William introduced us and you stared at me so strangely? During the three set of dances at the assembly? When I spoke of Julia and believed you were hearing of her for the first time? When I told you of Willowbrook and suggested someone might go there? Or perhaps when you asked me to permit your addresses?”

Darcy could only meet her gaze. “At every one of those moments.”

The admission silenced her for several seconds. Music had begun within the ballroom, and the cheerful strains seemed almost offensive beside them as guests passed through the hall laughing and talking, entirely unaware that Darcy's hopes for the evening were collapsing within yards of them.

“I meant to tell you tonight,” he said at last. “I had resolved upon it before you arrived. I intended to speak with your father and ask his assistance because I knew I had delayed too long.”

Elizabeth stared at him. “You required my father's assistance to tell me that you had been reading my letters?”

“No. I required his assistance because I was afraid of what the truth might do.”

“To what?”

Darcy hesitated, and in that hesitation knew there was no answer but the honest one. “To us.”

Her expression hardened.

“I was afraid of losing you.”

The words had scarcely left him before he wished them back.

“You feared losing me.” Elizabeth gave a small, incredulous shake of her head. “And so you allowed me to continue loving you without knowing the truth.”

Darcy went still. He saw the instant she understood.

Her eyes searched his face, and whatever she found there made her recoil as though he had confessed something worse than everything which had preceded it.

Elizabeth turned away.

“Elizabeth, I am sorry,” Darcy muttered under his breath.

“Please do not.”

“I must.”

“No.” She faced him again, and this time the tears in her eyes did not lessen the anger there. “You have had months in which to speak. I have had scarcely ten minutes in which to discover that the man I trusted knew me before I ever knew him.”

Darcy fell silent.

“You knew my thoughts before I chose to give them to you. You knew my fears, my foolishness, my opinions, even what I thought of you, and all this while I believed I was discovering you as you discovered me.” Her voice faltered, but she continued before he could interrupt. “How am I now to remember any conversation between us without wondering whether you understood me because you cared enough to listen, or because you had already read what I meant?”

“You made me admire you yourself,” Darcy said, unable to endure that conclusion. “Whatever I knew before coming here, what I feel for you now belongs to the woman I came to know in Hertfordshire.”

“But how am I to know the difference?”

He had no answer.

Elizabeth's gaze remained upon him for another moment before she lowered it. “That is what you have taken from me, Mr. Darcy. I cannot even trust my own understanding of how we came to this point.”

“What I feel for you is real.”

“I do not doubt that you feel it.” Her answer was quiet, almost weary. “But that does not make what you did honest.”

Darcy's chest tightened. “Then allow me whatever opportunity is necessary to make amends.”

“I do not want you to make amends to me.”