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Mr Darcy was still talking, saying something about Lady Rothersea’s soiree, the frailty of reputations, and the importance of unimpeachable character.

Elizabeth sank further into horror and humiliation with every word that crossed his lips.

To think that she had believed his primary objection to her family was a house in Cheapside!

She could scarcely bring herself to contemplate what his real opinion must be.

His name had been associated, by hearsay and speculation, to a woman whose family must now be considered an utterly repugnant connexion.

How he must despise her! That she had thought it conceivable he might entertain an affection for her, when all along he had known this, seemed now the cruellest self-delusion imaginable.

She gave a tremulous cry and came to her feet. “I must go!”

“Miss Bennet?”

Too distressed to remember what end of the room she had come in, Elizabeth ran to the first door she saw and tugged on it, but it was locked.

“Will you not sit down?” Mr Darcy had come to her, his hands out as though to shepherd her into a chair.

“No! You… No!” Her head was spinning, and her breath was coming too fast, making her speech sound staccato.

“I am sorry your sister had to be involved before I would listen. I hope she is not implicated. I hope neither of you are. The rumours are—” The rest of her words were completely swallowed by a sob that she had no power to contain.

She covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.

Mr Darcy touched her arm. “Elizabeth, I… Forgive me, I never meant… Can I get you anything? A glass of wine?”

She shook her head and dashed at her eyes with the heels of her palms. More tears fell to replace the ones she had wiped away.

“The rumours will blow over,” Mr Darcy said. “Once I find Bingley, and your mother is persuaded to go home?—”

Elizabeth looked up in abject dismay. “Is that why we have kept meeting—because you were looking for my mother?”

“You were looking for your mother. I was looking for Bingley.”

“And they were together?”

“So it would seem.”

A sound escaped her, something between despair and hysteria. She felt sick. Her mother had not merely betrayed them once; she was still doing it.

“Will you please sit down. Truly, you look very ill.”

She shook her head and pulled away from him, repeating, “I must go,” as she hastened to the correct door, tugged it open, and ran out of his house.

Benjamin stood up in his seat, his weatherworn countenance crinkling with alarm when she burst through the front door. “Everything well, miss?”

“Yes, thank you. Please take me to Henrietta Street directly.” She climbed into the carriage, pulled the door shut behind her, and waited, fists clenched and breath held, for the horses to jerk into motion. Then she buried her face in her hands to muffle an anguished scream.

“How could you do this, Mama? How could you?”

Mrs Bennet was frivolous and silly, but Elizabeth had never considered that she might be disloyal. Yet, she was also uncommonly handsome, an incorrigible flirt, and—apparently—lonely.

“Oh, what a pernicious combination!”

To trample the happiness of one’s own daughter was unconscionable.

Jane had been so obviously enamoured with Mr Bingley last November.

Her mother had known it, had been trumpeting the match to anyone who would listen!

As for Mr Bennet, he might not love his wife, but that could not eliminate the injury of adultery.

She tore herself to shreds trying to fathom the knot of motives, lies, and complications attached to such a ruinous discovery, so that, when she arrived at Mrs Randall’s establishment, her distress had been completely overtaken by fury.

She pounded on the door with no regard to propriety, her anger only abating—with horrible abruptness—when a complete stranger opened it.

“Who are you?” she asked in alarm.

The woman, whose apron marked her as a servant, crossed her arms. “More to the point, who are you, banging on my master’s door like that?”

“I am Mrs Bennet’s daughter. Is she in? I need to talk to her.”

“No one here by that name.”

Elizabeth’s heart began to thump unpleasantly hard. “Mrs Randall, then?”

A look of comprehension passed over the woman’s countenance. “If you mean Mr Bradshaw’s previous tenant, they ain’t seeing eye to eye these days. She upped and found herself a new protector, and new lodgings to boot.”

Elizabeth took a large breath, which did not even begin to alleviate her panic. “Where?”

“How should I know?”

“Who, then? Who is her new protector?”

“Said I don’t know!” The woman pulled away and slammed the door shut.

Elizabeth staggered backwards, her vision swimming.

Benjamin called out to her with obvious concern, and she knew she needed to pretend that all was well, for he could not know.

Nobody could know. She could tell no one in her family for fear of shattering their happiness; she could tell no one outside of her family for fear of ruin.

She must keep this entirely to herself, yet she had not the least idea what to do with the appalling information.

Shame and anger and panic were crowding her mind, making her feel faint enough that she could not even raise a hand to wave at the coachman.

She thought at first that the thundering sound was in her head, until it stopped, and a horse whinnied, and she recognised it as the pounding of hooves.

Blackness encroached from the corners of her vision, and she felt herself sway—then strong hands took hold of her, keeping her upright, bracing her with a solid yet unfathomably gentle grasp.

Deep, resonant murmurs filtered through the fog in her head, growing clearer as her malaise receded, until Mr Darcy’s voice emerged, repeating words of comfort.

Elizabeth was too entrenched in misery to summon the mortification she ought to feel to be confronted with the only person in the world who did know of her mother’s disgrace.

She was not sunk so deep that the futility of whatever it was she felt for him did not pierce her as sharply as a knife.

She savoured the bittersweet comfort of his grip on her arms as she looked up into his inscrutable countenance.

“I do not know where she is. She has gone.”

“Never mind that now. Let us get you into your carriage.”

Elizabeth submitted to being guided thither, but she had seen his alarm before he hid it, no matter what he said, and his voice had reverted to the strange dispassionate tone she had noticed at his house.

It was clear he resented the obligation of dealing with her, which only made it harder to bear when he climbed in behind her and draped something warm around her shoulders.

“This is my pelisse,” she said stupidly.

“Yes. You left it behind when you ran out.”

“Oh. Thank you. How did you know I would be here?”

“My butler heard you give the direction to your coachman. I guessed you had come to speak to your mother. It seemed the most logical idea.”

He had followed, hoping to speak to Mrs Bennet as well, then. Elizabeth accepted this new mortification with a resigned nod and told him what the servant woman had said about Mrs Randall. “My whole family might be ruined if I cannot find my mother and make her stop.”

“Bingley’s too.”

He did not add, ‘and my own’, though she knew he must be thinking it, for the reports linking their names were an albatross about both their necks. She hung her head in shame.

“I shall wish you good day now,” he said, opening the door. “You ought to be at home. You have had a shock. I shall continue to do what I can to find Bingley and get word to you if I discover anything of your mother’s whereabouts.”

“Oh…yes, I suppose…yes,” she mumbled, despairing to comprehend that his resolve to protect his friends and family from hers meant they must continue to collude. How he must loathe the very sight of her!

“Thank you for concealing this for us,” she said quietly as he climbed down and turned back to fold the step away.

She thought he would not respond, and indeed he did not speak, but he paused to nod before closing the door.

She heard him tell Benjamin, in his most masterful voice, that she had been taken ill and must be delivered back to Gracechurch Street with all due haste.

She closed her eyes, humbled by Mr Darcy’s discretion and consideration in the face of this insurmountable indignity. How she regretted telling him she would never marry him. And how he must be rejoicing that she had promised she never would.