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Darcy was disheartened to hear her speak so, each of her truths hammering another nail into the coffin of his hopes.

How had he ever thought her unworthy of his sphere?

For all the ton’s pretensions to birthright and breeding, they were only people, susceptible to the same frailties as every other human, regardless of their condition in life.

Elizabeth was worth a thousand of any of them.

“Not everyone in my sphere is that way inclined,” he replied, hating the want of conviction in his voice. More firmly, he added, “I assure you I am not.”

She looked at him sharply, her expression oddly stricken. “Pardon me—I spoke incautiously. It…” She gave a pained sigh. “It is just exceedingly difficult being talked into marriage to someone who despises me.”

“Despises you?” Darcy exclaimed in a heated whisper. “I do not despise you. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Her look of hopeful surprise set off a powerful cacophony of feelings in his breast, but he had no time to dwell on it, for another surge of raised voices went up outside, and someone abruptly barrelled into the door, which was only prevented from swinging wide open because it met with his shoulder, sending him staggering forwards.

A quick look revealed two men, wrestling, both unaware of what they had done.

Darcy closed the door and dragged a barrel in front of it.

He turned to assure Elizabeth that the fracas would soon pass and was dismayed to perceive her distress.

Fool that he was, he had not realised it, for her courage and her anger had disguised it well, but he could clearly see now that she was terrified.

He reached for her, meaning only to take her by her arms as he had done on Henrietta Street when she was faint, but to his astonishment, she stepped into his embrace, curling her shoulders inwards and pressing her head against his chest as she covered her face with her hands. She was shaking with fear.

Cautiously, gently, Darcy wrapped his arms around her and promised that he would keep her safe. It was a bittersweet triumph that she allowed him to hold her. He wished with all his heart that it had not taken terror to push her into his arms.

Her ragged intake of breath and straightening of her spine broke the spell. “Forgive me,” she murmured. “I am out of sorts. I have not slept well these last few days. This has all been excessively fatiguing.”

Darcy loosened his hold and bent to try and see her face, but she kept it downturned.

She was still shaking, still jumping at every noise from beyond the door.

He guided her to the nearest stack of crates and encouraged her to sit down, keeping one arm around her in the hope that it was a comfort and not an imposition.

More shouts from outside settled the matter; she tensed again and curled more closely against him.

He tightened his embrace and tucked her head beneath his chin.

“All will be well.”

She shook her head. “I cannot believe anything will ever be well again. Everything I thought I knew has been turned on its head.”

“It is not irredeemable. If your mother can be persuaded to return home, there is no reason that anyone should discover what has happened.”

“ You will know.” Her voice sounded every bit as fatigued as she had asserted—listless and full of despair.

“As shall I. How shall I ever face my father again? It has been hard enough concealing this from Jane. The worst thing about it is that I must lie to her for the rest of my life. I do not know how I shall bear it.”

Darcy grimaced with regret. “I should not have told you. I am sorry.”

“Do not be,” she mumbled, so quietly it was almost inaudible over the commotion outside. “It should never have been your problem to solve.”

He opened his mouth to say that neither should it have been hers, when a particularly heated quarrel erupted directly outside the door and did not move on.

Voices, some muffled, others as clear as day, all of them obviously in high dudgeon, argued over where Elizabeth and he had disappeared to.

It seemed the man who had helped them was under suspicion.

Darcy sat still, hoping their abetter did not capitulate but prepared to wield the full extent of his consequence—and height, strength, and temper—should an intervention prove necessary.

Elizabeth remained similarly motionless.

He gently rubbed her arm in reassurance, deeply regretting that the situation had deteriorated to the point of her needing comfort but rejoicing that she was accepting it from him.

The voices eventually ebbed away, and still Elizabeth did not move.

In no hurry to let her go, Darcy resolved to continue holding her for as long as she desired it.

Yet, even when the disturbance had fully dissipated, and the inn had returned to its previous loud but not anarchic din, she remained motionless.

He leant sideways to better look at her and was vaguely diverted—but primarily overcome with an intense wave of affection—to comprehend the real reason for her stillness. She had fallen asleep.

He closed his eyes and sighed her name on his next breath.

He longed to press a kiss to her crown, to wake her tenderly and declare himself that very moment, though he had no wish to hasten her towards the mortification he had no doubt she would feel upon waking, nor to curtail the moment if it was never to be repeated.

As in love with her as he was, it was torture to hold her thus and not know whether it was real or would be shattered the second she awoke.

He was still somewhat terrified by the strength of his regard for her.

It was not that realising he loved her had made him feel more—he felt the same passionate admiration for her that he always had.

But in understanding that it was love, he better comprehended her importance to him.

It was reprehensible that he had intended to propose without any consideration for such sentiments, as though she were not a woman worthy of being loved—of being cherished.

Worse was knowing that it had taken the approbation of his circle to persuade him to do so.

The moment Cunningham had convinced him the ton was enamoured of Elizabeth, he had decided he could have her.

It shamed him deeply to admit it, for it ought not—it did not—matter what his family or friends thought of her.

He should—and did—love her for who she was.

And she was everything. He no longer wondered why it had hurt so profoundly to discover that she did not want him.

He could not imagine any greater pleasure nor any greater honour than to be loved by Elizabeth.

Believing that honour had been forever denied him had been painful to bear.

The sound of the door opening and hitting the barrel in front of it brought both of them to their senses with unpleasant suddenness. Darcy tensed; Elizabeth sucked in her breath and sat bolt upright, knocking his chin painfully with her head.

“You in there?” It was the man who had shown them in earlier. With Elizabeth no longer resting against him, Darcy stood up and moved the barrel, rubbing his chin with one hand. The man poked his head around the door, looking between them with an expressive smirk.

“Coast is clear. Go out the back way, though. Don’t want things stirred up again.” He remained in the door, waiting for them to leave. Darcy looked at Elizabeth; she had both hands to her brow, shielding her eyes, and would not look at him.

“I think it best if you forego your plans for today and leave,” he said gently.

She glanced at him fleetingly, her mortification unmistakable, then nodded and walked past him out of the door with her head still bowed. He followed her out and along the passage. Both came up short when a familiar face rounded the corner, almost colliding with them.

“Mrs Randall! What are you doing here?” Elizabeth cried.

Mrs Randall groaned. “You again? What do you want this time?”

“The same as always—to speak to my mother.”

“She is not here.”

“Your maid said she was,” Elizabeth insisted.

Mrs Randall raised an eyebrow. “I told Maggie not to talk to you under any circumstances. Shove your way into my home again, did you?”

Elizabeth cast another quick, blushing look at Darcy, clearly yet more embarrassed.

“No, I did not, and neither was I let in. Maggie merely informed me that my mother was meeting a friend here and shut the door—oh!” Her shoulders slumped.

“She said ‘she’ is meeting a friend. She was talking about you.”

“It looks that way, does it not?” Mrs Randall replied in a condescending tone. With a self-important sniff, she stepped around them and walked towards the taproom.

Elizabeth closed her eyes, her countenance suffused with misery. Darcy hated to see her thus but did not wish to miss the opportunity.

“Wait here for one moment,” he said to her before striding after Mrs Randall, who was seriously displeased to be waylaid again.

“Whom are you here with?” he demanded, certain he already knew the answer.

“I do not see what business it is of yours,” Mrs Randall replied. With a sneer, she added, “Most of us like to keep our personal affairs private, not broadcast them in the newspapers.”

“That is well,” he replied, not deigning to acknowledge her barb. “Perhaps I shall ask Mr Redbridge whom you keep company with when you are not with him.”

Her lips puckered with displeasure. “Have it your way. I have heard you usually do. I was meeting Mr Bingley. Now if it is all the same to you, I have somewhere else to be. Good day.”

Darcy shook his head in disbelief at the trail of carnage Bingley was leaving in his wake. He walked back to where he had left Elizabeth, only to discover that she had gone.

“Devil take it!” He hastened to the end of the passage.

It opened onto the courtyard, which was overrun with people, horses, carriages, luggage, and hay bales—but no sign of Elizabeth.

He had taken but two steps into the yard when a voice off to his left stopped him in his tracks.

There, at the booking office counter, stood Bingley, settling his account in readiness to leave.

Keeping an eye out for Elizabeth, Darcy strode to his side.

Bingley cast him an irritated look, evidently mistaking him for someone too impatient to wait his turn; then he jumped and looked again, shamefaced and wide-eyed.

“Darcy!” Blotches of red flared up on his cheeks and neck as he fumbled a handful of coins onto the counter and stepped to the side. “Why are you here?”

“Strange, I was about to ask you that.”

Bingley blustered for a moment, then blurted, “Damn it, Darcy, I will not keep explaining myself to you—you are my friend, not my father! I do not require your approval.”

“That is fortunate, for you certainly do not have it. Tell me this much—has it been Mrs Randall with whom you have been dallying this whole time?”

“What do you mean?”

“As opposed to her house guest.”

Bingley recoiled. “For heaven’s sake, man, I am not a monster!

That happened once. It was an egregious mistake, which I have not and would not repeat.

” He bristled, his tone growing sharper.

“Frankly, I am growing tired of your sanctimony. By all accounts, you have enough problems of your own to contend with. I suggest you deal with those before berating me!” He squared his shoulders and strode away.

Darcy let him go. He would rather look for Elizabeth than waste his time on an obviously defunct friendship, and he was too angry to treat the man rationally. After a furious search, he spotted Elizabeth climbing into a yellow bounder on the street.

“Miss Bennet, wait!”

She looked over her shoulder, dismay writ plainly across her features. “Mr Darcy, I am not without courage, but even I can only endure so much humiliation in one day. Please let me go.”

“In or out, miss? There’s other passengers waiting,” the postillion called down impatiently.

With a pained glance in Darcy’s direction, Elizabeth said, “I apologise for…before,” then pulled herself up into the carriage.

Darcy wanted, desperately, to tell her not to be embarrassed, how beautiful she had looked asleep, that he would hold her all day and all night if she wished it, but no sooner had Elizabeth’s foot left the step than a boy appeared from nowhere to fold it up and slam the door closed behind her, banging it with the flat of his hand and calling for the postillion to drive on.

Elizabeth was jerked away from the window as the horses heaved the carriage into motion, and she did not reappear.

Darcy watched her go until he heard someone behind him say, “Is that not the chap who’s secretly betrothed to a pauper?” At which point he turned on his heel and strode to his own waiting carriage.

It was enough to make him despair. Bingley had not been having relations with Mrs Bennet after all, his and Elizabeth’s every accidental meeting had been for nothing, and the resulting rumours had boiled up to the almost inconceivable point of them being physically mobbed.

He did not despair, though. Indeed, for most of the journey back to Berkeley Square, a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, daring him to give in to it.

For however disastrous the afternoon had been, surely women did not seek comfort in the arms of men they hated.

It allowed him to hope as he had never dared hope before that all was not lost, and he might yet win Elizabeth’s heart.