A Continued Affection

Part 26

"I believe this is the first time in all our acquaintance we have spoken to one another without an audience, Miss Elizabeth."

Mr Wickham's voice was smooth, brimming with confidence, but the way his eyes darted this way and that suggested, to Elizabeth, that at least part of his bravado was an affectation. Her eyes narrowed but she struggled to conceal her suspicions. If he could play the part of a jovial former friend, then so could she.

"I do not know that we have ever had cause to, Mr Wickham." She tilted her head to one side, surveying him shrewdly. "We are not well-acquainted."

"Perhaps not," he conceded, smiling tightly in her direction and fixing her with a look that she expected would have melted Lydia. It had little effect on Elizabeth, for she had not taken to Mr Wickham upon their first introduction, years earlier, and considering the welcome he had received in Hertfordshire from both Mr Darcy and Mr Egerton, she did not think her first impression mistaken.

"We might become so, though, for I am a little acquainted with your family." His voice grew lazy. "Your sister is certainly spirited."

Lizzy glanced ahead, knowing even without looking that he referred to Lydia, whose voice rose and fell like music, quickening in its pace as they drew close to the entrance to the assembly rooms.

"My sister is not renowned for being a good judge of character," Elizabeth responded, almost before she could stop herself.

"Now, Miss Elizabeth! You oughtn't to dismiss Mr Denny like that. I assure you he is the best man of my acquaintance. Far better than me."

With this last, Mr Wickham's voice had grown so serious that Elizabeth looked at him, surprised to see the engaging smile was gone and an altogether starker expression in its place. He slowed to a stop as they reached the door, so that her family were ushered inside without them.

"Mr Wickham," she began, urging him on, but he pulled her out of the forward-roaming line, pleading with her for a moment's quiet interview.

"I ought not to leave my sisters -" she began, grateful to note that they were still surrounded by revellers, even though she was not sure she wished to be found, alone, in the presence of George Wickham.

"Twill be but a moment, Miss Elizabeth. I wished to tell you - something. To confide." His voice dropped. "To confess."

"Confess?"

Elizabeth's heart was in her throat. All of his teasing about Lydia and now this. She dreaded to think what would come next and thought she might be able to tell the truth just from looking and determine his secret even without needing to wait for him to speak.

"When we met...before." He paused, before meeting her eyes. "When Darcy was here."

His lips quirked as he managed the name Darcy, betraying what Elizabeth had long suspected, though she was light on the details. There had been some falling out between the pair, some rift that was far from mended. But what? It had not been evident when they met, although, now she thought on the matter further, she recalled how unwilling Darcy had been for her to spend time with his friend Wickham. She had grown to attribute it to shame, on his part. That he did not wish his friend to know of the attachment they had formed: that he, Darcy, was ashamed to confess to feeling any affection for Elizabeth Bennet. It had prickled at her, and she had buried the feeling, hiding it away in her heart with her memory of Fitzwilliam Darcy, only for it to burst upon her again now. Could it be that it had not been Elizabeth Darcy was ashamed of, but Wickham? And could Wickham be about to share why?

He appeared to be debating something with himself, weighing his words and lingering over them so that, impatient to know the whole and not disparate parts she would be forced to piece together at a later hour, Lizzy frowned.

"Mr Wickham, please say whatever it is you wish to say and let me go to join my family. They will miss me."

"They will." Wickham straightened, her swiftness of manner deciding him. "Very well, it is only that I must confess an...error I made, some years ago, that I feel certain, now, has wronged you. Darcy, too, although he will never hear my explanation. Very well, Elizabeth. It is a small thing. A folly I dare say you have never even thought of since. It is only this. That summer, Darcy was called away from London. He entrusted me with a note explaining his departure and asked me to pass it to you. Unfortunately, circumstances conspired against me and I..." He paused, a strange glint flashing in his eyes that gave Elizabeth pause. "I was unable to deliver the note. There, that is all."

He smiled, but the expression did not quite reach his eyes, those same eyes that were so swift and sly, so untrustworthy, even now, in the midst of a so-called confession.

"He did write a letter," Elizabeth repeated, praying she had got the story straight, now, even though she could not entirely trust its source. "And you lost it?"

"I was unable to deliver it," Wickham said, correcting her words with his own carefully-constructed story. She did not believe for an instant there was not some reason for this, but she was in no mood to linger any longer with Wickham when she might, at last, speak to Darcy as she had longed to for so many weeks. This, then, was the answer, the explanation. He had written her: he had not abandoned her, nor been ashamed of her, nor merely used her to escape an existing engagement. She had not ignored his note: she had never received it, and now, she had proof, if he needed it, that she had not been the one at fault. Her heart lifted and she turned towards the door.

"Mr Wickham, I hope you will be willing to stand by your explanation to Mr Darcy. I am sure after so many years he will not hold one small mistake against you."

She was not, in fact, sure of this, and the shadow that crossed Wickham's face suggested the same.

"I am afraid, Miss Elizabeth, that this is the very least of the mistakes Fitzwilliam Darcy can and does hold against me to date. But perhaps, if you were to speak to him on my behalf -"

Lizzy sucked in a breath. This she had not anticipated, nor did she know, rightly, what to say in response. Defend George Wickham to Darcy, when her position was so precarious in that man's affections? She hesitated, but Wickham read her answer in her eyes before she ever had to give it. He dropped his head.

"Yes, it is too much for me to ask. No matter, Miss Elizabeth. I will not keep you any longer, although -"

He was unable to finish his thought, for a movement at the edge of Lizzy's line of vision made him tense and straighten, and when she turned to see what had startled him, her heart sank, plummeting heavily into her stomach. Approaching them was a party of people she recognised, and one she did not. Georgiana Darcy chattered happily as she walked beside a tall, broad-shouldered stranger, and behind her, her brother. Elizabeth was not quick enough to move, nor was there any chance of escape, before all three pairs of eyes locked on her, on Wickham, and all their smiles slid from their faces.