“But if you… if you ever did care about me, sir, and I am not saying I deserved it, and I am not saying that I was not so very, very wretched to you when you proposed, when you expressed those feelings to me—”
“Well, you had thought things about me, and I—” He shifted on his feet. “That letter I gave you, it was entirely such a foolish thing to do. I have since realized that no one wants someone to send them a five page letter of justifications as to why they should not actually dislike them—”
“No, no, it was not that way. I wasmisinformedabout you, sir. I needed to know the truth. After I read the letter, I was mortified—”
“Mortified?” He touched his chest. “No, the mortification is all mine, and it was so, so—” He groaned. “Miss Bennet, how can you be with some other man’s child?”
She cringed.
“Oh, don’t answer that. I am clearly aware how such things come about.” He was sarcastic. He ran a hand through his hair, rueful. “Saints preserve us, I would never have thought—” He shook himself. “Apologies.”
She swallowed. She did not know what to do with her hands.
He gestured. “Eat, would you? Will you eat, please?”
She did not eat. “I well know what you must be thinking of me,” she said in a dull voice, “but the truth is—”
“Oh, heavens, I don’t think anything,” he said. “It’s not fair, really. I could have gotten some woman with child myself, and there would be no consequence to me, not like there would be for her. Society is crueler to women than to men, and I think it’s unfair because the pleasure of the act seems simpler for men, so they have easier enjoyment and lesser consequences, and women have a harder time finding pleasure and much more dire consequences, and this seems by the design of God himself,which I cannot fathom, truly, why that would be.” He cleared his throat. “I am talking too much.”
Truly, she had not heard him utter so many words and so quickly before, she did not think. She found herself feeling a bit of an affection towards him, for his manner, for his obvious nervousness, now that she knew his behaviorwasnervousness instead of arrogance, and she… it was all awful, really, to feel affection for this mannow. Why could not this have happened earlier, backthen?
“Anyway, I don’t judge you,” he said. “Let he who is without sin throw the first stone and all of that.”
She tilted her head at him. “Oh? Truly? Not, ‘My good opinion once lost is lost forever’?”
He cringed, looking down. “Have I mentioned about being mortified?”
“I am sorry,” she said, but she was smiling. “I am actually trying to request a favor of you, and teasing you, sir, it is not at all going to get me what I want. I repent of it.”
“No, it is only that I understand entirely why you rejected my proposal when I think of the things that I said to you,” he said. “It is only that, you must understand, Miss Bennet, when I am around you, I have trouble speaking.” He moaned. “No, I meant that—”
“It’s all right,” she said. “You must not feel that way now around me, though, seeing what has become of me.”
He raised his gaze to hers, and his expression changed.
She shrugged. “You needn’t be nervous near me anymore, Mr. Darcy. I am nothing now.”
“That’s a wretched thing to say about oneself,” he murmured.
She felt like crying. She bowed her head.
“Oh, Miss Bennet, what is that horrible Miss Bingley doing to you over there?” said Mr. Darcy. “Whatever happened with…I suppose some man made you promises and then treated you ill, so I don’t think you should blame yourself, really. I have just got done saying that it is an unfair world, that God himself doesn’t seem to make things fair, and I…” A long pause. “You are not nothing. You are very much something.” He let out a rueful chuckle. “As I have said, I don’t seem to be able to speak when I’m around you.”
She took a deep breath. “Well, anyway, you will not say anything, then. You will let it be.”
He eyed her. “That is what you wish?”
“There is no better future for me, not now,” she said. “Mrs. Hurst is willing to perhaps allow me to settle in as a live-in companion with the child, she says, and it is the best I can hope for, so I must… if they were to grow angry with me, to abandon me, the alternative would be for everyone in my family to be shamed, and for my child to be ruined, and for myself to be—”
“Quite,” he said. “I do see what you are saying.”
She eyed him. “I cannot believe you have not a word of condemnation for me, sir.”
He laughed under his breath, tilting down his head as if he were embarrassed.
She could not understand why he would be feeling any sense of self-reproach. If he did feel embarrassed about not condemning her, why would that be? Or rather, what would possibly motivate him to excuse her?
He could not still have any regard for her, could he? Not after the way she had denied his proposal, misjudged his character, and been so abominable to him. No, certainly not.