“Tomorrow is too long.” She entered the room. Her skirts brushed the doorframe as she passed him, and the space between them narrowed to inches.
He closed the door behind her.
“Sit, please.” He gestured to the settee by the fireplace. She sat at one end while he moved to the decanter.
“May I offer you a drink, Miss Bennet?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Do you think I shall need one?”
He paused, the decanter in his hand. He met her eyes, and the honesty in his expression was so plain it startled her.
“Yes, Miss Bennet. I think you shall.”
He poured two glasses. He handed her one and sat at the opposite end of the settee, as far from her as the furniture allowed. The cushion between them was a continent. He turned the glass in his hands and took a sip.
“You said you have information.” Elizabeth’s voice was calm, but her grip on the glass was not. “Tell me.”
He drew a breath and set the glass down on the side table. He rested his hands on his thighs. She recognised the posture—it was the same one he had used at the tea shop on Conduit Street, palms flat, steadying himself before delivering something heavy.
“Wickham is dead.”
Elizabeth stared at him, the glass trembling in her hand.
“He has been dead for years, Miss Bennet. He died roughly four months after he abandoned your sister. In London. He was drunk, crossing the street at night, and a carriage trampled him. He died in the road.” He paused, his throat working. “It was a squalid end, entirely in keeping with the man.”
Elizabeth could not speak. The room was tilting, very slightly, as though the floor had shifted beneath the settee. Wickham had not disappeared, not fled, not living some comfortable life elsewhere while her family starved in Somers Town. Dead. In a gutter, drunk, run down by horses, and nobody had told them.
“How—” Her voice cracked. She started again. “How do you know this?”
“I have had reports on Wickham’s movements since he left Hertfordshire. They were irregular and often delayed, but I maintained them. By the time I learned of your sister’sruin, it was already too late. And by the time my man tracked him to London, he was already dead.” He paused to meet her eyes. “I did not know your family’s direction. After your father’s death and the loss of Longbourn, I had no means of reaching you. The information has sat with me for years, Miss Bennet. I should have found a way. I apologise.”
She could barely hear him. The brandy was in her hand, untouched. Her mind had seized on one fact and would not release it.
Four months after he had destroyed Lydia, destroyed her family, and shattered her father’s health, he had stumbled drunk into a London street and been trampled by a carriage. He had not suffered, he had not paid for his crimes. He had simply ceased to exist, stupidly, pointlessly, the way a candle guttered when no one was watching.
“He was not merely a fortune hunter, Miss Bennet. He was a man of considerable depravity. Debts in every county he went to. Women ruined before your sister, though none of gentle birth, which is why nothing was spoken of publicly. He was a liar, a cheat, and a predator. He operated with impunity because he was charming and handsome, and men of better character—” His voice hardened. “Men such as myself failed to expose him when exposure might have prevented the harm.”
“No.” The word came out low, fierce. “No, no, no. This cannot be true.”
“I am so sorry, Miss Bennet.”
“I had sworn—” Her breath caught and she pressed her hand to her mouth. The glass in her other hand was shaking badly and she set it down before she dropped it. “I had swornto kill him with my bare hands when I saw him next. I had promised myself. I would find him and I would make him answer for what he did to us. To Lydia. To my father. To all of us.” Her voice broke. “And now you tell me he is dead? He destroyed us all and went and died? He is gone and there is no one to hold to account, no one to rage at, no one to—”
She could not finish. The tears came, sudden and furious, not the quiet weeping of grief but the hot, blinding tears of rage. Seven years of swallowed fury, bitten tongues and the slow, grinding work of survival. She had been hating a ghost. She had been carrying the weight of a vengeance she could never deliver, against a man who was already beyond her reach. The injustice of it was so vast and so absurd that it broke her open.
“I am so sorry, Elizabeth,” he repeated.
She did not hear the name. She heard the voice and she felt his hand close around hers, warm and steady. The warmth undid her further.
She stood. She could not stay seated, she needed to move, to leave, to be anywhere that was not this room with its amber light, its brandy, and this man who kept dismantling everything she thought she knew. She took a step towards the door and her shoe caught the edge of the rug. She stumbled, blind with tears, and his arms were around her before she reached the floor.
He caught her and held her. His arms closed around her shoulders, firm and careful, one hand at the back of her head. She was pressed against his chest, and she could hear his heart hammering beneath her ear, while she wept. She wept the way she had not wept since her father died—ugly,wrenching, gasping sobs that shook her entire body and soaked his waistcoat. She could not stop, and he did not let go.
He said nothing. He did not shush her, did not murmur platitudes, did not tell her it would be all right. He held her tight and let her rage. His hand cradled her head and his chin rested against her hair. She could smell cedar soap, brandy, and warmth. She hated herself for noticing, but she could not stop it.
Minutes passed until the sobs slowed and the trembling eased. Her breathing settled into something ragged but regular, and the storm inside her chest quieted to a dull, heavy ache. She became aware, gradually, of where she was.
She was in Mr Darcy’s arms, in his chambers, at one o’clock in the morning, her face pressed against his chest. His heart was still beating too fast beneath her cheek. His hand was still in her hair.