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Prologue

Elizabeth

The fire had burned low, and Elizabeth had not rung for more coal. She had been walking the length of the parsonage parlour for the better part of an hour, and she supposed she would go on walking until the others came down from Rosings.

She ought to have gone with them. Mr Collins had been wounded by her refusal, and had said three separate times that Lady Catherine would be certain to remark upon the empty chair. But she could not have sat at that table tonight. She could not have watched Mr Darcy across the candlelight and made pleasant conversation as though the morning had never happened.

She had claimed a headache and asked her father to attend dinner with only Mary for company, instead of her. It was not entirely untrue. Her head had ached since Colonel Fitzwilliam spoke to her on the path that morning, and it had not left her since.

He had meant nothing by it. That was the cruelty of it. He had been all easy good humour, walking at her side and praising his cousin the way another man might praise fine weather. Darcy took such care of the people he loved, he had said. Why, only last year he had spared a friend a most imprudent marriage. There had been objections to the lady, and Darcy had stepped in at once and settled the matter.

Elizabeth had smiled, and asked what the objections had been, and the Colonel had laughed and confessed he did not know the particulars. Only that the lady’s family was not what it ought to have been. That there were five unwed daughters, and undesirable relations.

She had known the lady in question at once. She had needed no particulars.

Jane. He had been speaking of Jane.

The anger had been building in her all day, quiet and steady, and now it filled the little room until she could scarcely breathe. Four days she had spent in Mr Darcy’s company at Rosings. Four days in which she had softened towards him without meaning to. She had caught herself watching the door for him. Something warm and foolish had stirred whenever he came into a room. She was ashamed of it now. She had been admiring the very man who had reached into her sister’s life and broken it clean in two.

The bell rang.

Elizabeth stopped where she stood. She smoothed her skirts and turned towards the door just as the maid showed the visitor in.

It was Mr Darcy. What in the world was he doing here? He was meant to be at Rosings, for dinner. It was the very reason she had not attended.

He had come on foot, and in the rain. The shoulders of his coat were dark with it, and he surrendered his hat to the girl without appearing to notice he had done so. He advanced three steps into the room and halted.

“Miss Bennet.” He bowed. “Forgive me. I was told you were unwell. I hoped to find you recovered.”

“A little recovered, thank you.” Her voice came out steadier than she felt. “My cousin and my father are gone up to Rosings, and my sister Mary with them. If you have come upon some matter of business, I am afraid you have missed them all.”

“I did not come upon a matter of business.”

She said nothing. She did not trust herself to.

Darcy moved towards the fire, then seemed to think better of it and turned to face her. Something in him was unsettled. She had never seen him so. He had always been the most composed man in any room, and now his hand kept straying to the cuff of his coat.

“Miss Bennet, I have been some days trying to find the words for what I wish to say to you. I find I have none of them ready, and so I must simply —”

“May I ask you a question, sir?”

He stopped. “Of course.”

“Is it true that you persuaded Mr Bingley to give up my sister?”

The colour drained from his face, and then came back into it. For a moment he did not speak at all.

“I — I beg your pardon.”

“I think it a plain enough question. Did you counsel your friend to quit Netherfield in the autumn?”

“Who has told you this?”

“Your cousin. He did not mean to — he thinks the world of you, and spoke of it as a great kindness you had done a friend. He said you had rescued the gentleman from a most unfortunate match. A country girl with objectionable connections.” She lifted her chin. “Unless there is some other friend, sir, and some other lady with a family to be ashamed of, in which case I shall beg your pardon most sincerely and say no more about it.”

“I will not tell you what is untrue.” His voice had gone very low. “Yes. I believed the match imprudent. I believed your sister indifferent to him. I watched her a whole evening and saw nothing beyond ordinary civility. I did what I judged to be right for my friend.”

“What you judged to be right.” Elizabeth’s laugh held no warmth in it. “Do you know what you did, Mr Darcy? My sister passed the entire winter believing she had lost the only man she would ever love. She went into London and waited for a call that never came. She wrote to me that she had been mistaken in him, and that no one was to blame. That is exactly what Jane says when her heart is breaking and she will not trouble anyone with it.”