Elizabeth looked...lost. He had not expected her to be this dismayed to find out that Wickham was unworthy of her admiration.
“How could I have been so wrong?” Elizabeth said. She seemed on the point of tears. “I was wrong about everything.”
“Probably not everything,” he said, seeking to lighten the mood and to respond honestly at the same time. His reply seemed to make things worse. She blinked, and a few tears fell. If he had thought the force of her anger had been difficult to bear, her brittle sadness brought him to a new level of discomfort.
Darcy looked about him. Fields that must have been bustling with industry a few months ago were great, lonely patches now. He had spotted just a few people from a distance and encountered no one while riding, though admittedly he had kept off the main road. Still, there would be little to take a man far from his own grounds this time of morning so late in the year. They were unlikely to have an audience for whatever would happen here. He knew his own wishes, but he had to think of hers.
He picked her up and placed her on the wall. Then he sat down next to her. He removed his gloves and tentatively reached out to touch her face where the tears had fallen. “I am sorry if anything I wrote caused you distress,” he said. He felt the wetness of his fingertips and the softness of her skin, and he had to suppress a shiver of delight amidst his concern for her. He dropped his hand and balled it into a fist to get himself under regulation. “I am sorry for your disappointment. I would tell you he is not worth it, but I can hardly find fault with your compassionate nature.”
“My compassionate nature!” She laughed. Her tone was mocking, but she was mocking herself, not him. “Oh, I am disappointed in myself for being taken in so easily and giving ear to his complaints when I had just met him the day before, but that is not what distresses me most.”
“Then what?”
“I showed no compassion at all for you when I sat in my aunt's parlour and listened to that man attack your reputation and blame your supposed dishonourable conduct on jealousy! It is only right that I tell you that Mr. Wickham said very little before first asking my opinion of you. After that, he could not stop talking. To my shame, I did not want him to. I barely hesitated to believe the vilest things about you in that moment! I am not proud of my behaviour, and I thank you for showing me how wrong I was about Mr. Wickham, but what I truly regret is....” She stopped and swallowed, and then that fierce, brave, marvellous young woman looked straight at him with her beautiful eyes. “I regret being so wrong about you,” she said.
The shock he felt at her admission prevented speech. Her tears were not for Wickham but for him, for having misjudged him? He could scarcely believe it. The look on her face was one he had never seen her direct at him before. He opened and closed his mouth several times to no avail. He wanted to do something other than talk, and he could not stop thinking of it long enough to respond sensibly.
“I should not have thrown Mr. Wickham's assertions in your face last night as I did,” she went on to say, looking worried. “I should never have engaged in unseemly, baseless gossip about you in the first place. I will understand if you cannot forgive me.”
Darcy shook his head to clear it. This feeling of lightness and pleasure was all out of proportion to her words. Regret was not respect. An apology was not affection! Yet something was infusing him with a hope that would not be suppressed. It was almost tangible, this new thing between them. It was in her manner as well as her words. She had not flinched or drawn back when he had touched her. She was not repulsed by him. Not repulsed! He wanted so much more than that, and yet it was a comfort.
He needed to pace until he became reasonable again, but he was loath to leave Elizabeth's side, and she still waited for him to speak. “Miss Bennet,” he began, but she stopped him at once with a gesture and a pained look.
“If you are trying to tell me that I have forfeited your good opinion—”
“I am trying not to kiss you,” he said, interrupting her.
Oh....No. He had not meant to say it, just to do it. He squeezed his eyes shut after seeing the surprise in hers.
In the quiet, he felt her touching his clenched fingers, gently prying them apart. “Must you try so hard?” she whispered.
He opened his eyes. Her face was closer to him than it had been before. “I thought you did not like me,” he told her, hoping she would deny it, tease him about it, laugh it away—anything, so long as she kept holding his hand.
Instead, she looked almost shy. Almost. Elizabeth Bennet was not shy. “Did not you say that impressions change?” she asked him.
He stopped resisting.
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