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Chapter Thirty-One

T he door closed behind them.

No music here. No candlelight. Just the faint thud of dancers’ heels through the floorboards—every sound felt indecently cheerful. In here, the fire breathed and cracked and said nothing. Shadows leaned long across the carpet.

He had pulled Bingley out like a man dragging someone from a blaze—not for safety, but to reckon with the spark that started it.

Darcy turned, ready. But Bingley shocked him by speaking first. “Darcy… is it true? The rumors?”

No demand. No fury. Just a question trying not to shake.

Darcy narrowed his gaze. “You will have to narrow that down, I am afraid.”

Bingley took a step forward, blinking fast. “The things they are saying—about Miss Elizabeth. About the pamphlets. I tried to ignore it, I did. Who would believe such a thing, and about a lady? But it is everywhere. I heard her name twice tonight before I crossed the ballroom. And Miss Bennet—my poor Jane is growing pale every time someone speaks.”

Darcy’s shoulders locked, and he glanced toward the door.

“I know you know something,” Bingley said. “You two were always—” He broke off, then gave a helpless sort of half-smile.

Darcy did not flinch. But his breath did something sharp in his throat.

“I thought,” Bingley continued, quieter now, “if anyone could explain what is happening—why people are saying these things—it would be you.”

Darcy’s fists clenched. “Explain?”

Bingley raised both hands, the way a man did when walking into a storm. “I am not blaming her. I am trying to understand. Tell me the truth, Darcy. Is it her?”

Darcy sighed. “What have you heard?”

Bingley stepped once toward the fire. Not accusation—confusion.

Deep and growing. “The pamphlets, Darcy. My sisters and their callers have been full of talk—laughing, shaking their heads, spinning tales as if it were all some parlor game.” Bingley hesitated, then added, “But it is not. Not to those involved.”

He looked down for half a breath, then met Darcy’s eyes again. “The way Miss Bennet looked tonight. Like she was standing trial.”

Darcy’s hands had gone cold.

Trial.

If only that were the worst of it. She was not just standing trial—she had been stripped of a defense. And every witness laughing in the gallery.

He closed the distance to the hearth, jaw tight, breath sharp. “It is her,” he said. “And it is not.”

Bingley blinked. “What does that mean?”

Darcy turned, gaze like flint. “The styling was hers. The theft, the publication, the cruelty—none of that was.”

Bingley reeled back a step, as if the air itself had struck him.

His hand came up to his temple, dragging across his brow like he could scrape the thought away.

He turned, slow and disbelieving, and braced himself against the mantel with both hands, shoulders rising once in a shallow, stunned breath.

“I did not want to believe it.” Bingley’s voice was low, almost stunned.

“Not Miss Elizabeth. Not Miss Bennet’s sister. ”

He shook his head, slowly, as if the idea itself resisted settling.

“But you—” His eyes met Darcy’s, searching. “You were always close with her. The two of you—there was always something. Not improper, I do not mean that, only… something understood. You knew, did you not?” His hands opened at his sides, helpless, as if hoping Darcy would deny it.

Darcy’s fists curled. “Not all of it. Enough.”

The quiet that followed was not stillness. It was heat. Movement. The slow collapse of Bingley’s expression from worried to wounded. “So… she wrote those things?”

Darcy drew a breath. “She wrote… something. Private reflections. Never for publication.”

“But the things printed—Darcy, they are not gentle.” Bingley’s voice faltered. “Some of them are cruel.”

“The original ideas were hers,” he said tightly. “The shape of them—the rhythm and clever turns of phrase. But the framing, the venom… even down to making them recognizable no. That was not her.”

“Then… I do not understand. If she wrote them but then did not, how did these things get out into publication?”

Darcy’s gaze did not waver from the flames. “They were taken. From her journal.”

“Taken?” Bingley echoed it. “By whom?”

He said it before he could temper it. “Your sister.”

“Caroline?” Bingley’s face… the only way to describe it was to say that it… broke.

Not confusion. Not disbelief.

Recognition.

Bingley’s breath escaped like it hurt to keep it in. He stepped back, then forward again, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.

“And you said nothing to me?”

“What would you have had me say? That your sister took a friend’s private words and dressed them for slaughter? That your drawing room has been a stage for theft and spectacle?”

“You knew my sister did something so heinous to others and you said nothing to me? You… you what? Thought to ignore it long enough for it to go away? And what about your 'friend,' or whatever she is, Miss Elizabeth? You let her be humiliated rather than speak to me!”

Darcy’s hand slammed against the mantel with a crack.

The glass shuddered on its rim. “Do you think I did not know that?” he hissed.

“Every hour I did nothing, I saw her humiliated again—stripped and hung for sport while I smiled at guests and let it pass as gossip! I sought to check its spread before it caught fire.”

Bingley stared. “And what does that mean? What did you do?”

“I helped her prepare a quieter exit. Someone whose name would not draw attention. A future lived beyond the reach of the worst of it.”

Bingley’s expression twisted. “Marlowe.”

Darcy gave a single, grim nod.

“You were arranging her escape.” Bingley’s voice dropped. “Before the truth was even spoken aloud.”

“She never had the chance to deny it,” Darcy said. “The city had already made up its mind.”

Bingley’s arms dropped. His jaw shifted once, then again, as if something inside him had to be physically swallowed.

“And Miss Jane Bennet?”

Darcy froze. “What about her?”

“You think I have not noticed?” Bingley stepped closer. “She does not laugh the same. She does not meet my eye the same. I have been writing the words in my head for weeks—how I would ask her to marry me. And now—this? Darcy, why in Heaven’s name did you not speak sooner?”

Darcy’s shoulders drew back, spine locked. “Because the only way to stop it was to expose it. And by the time I knew what she had done—by the time Miss Elizabeth told me—it was too late. The first had already circulated.”

“But still! You could have said—”

“Could I? If I had come to you then, what would have happened? Miss Bingley would have denied it, of course. But not quietly. She would have taken offense—publicly, vindictively. You know how she is when cornered.”

Bingley opened his mouth, but Darcy did not let him speak.

“She would have published again. Not from Elizabeth’s words—those would have been already spent—but from her own.

With names this time. With implication and venom.

She would have made it a campaign. And if I had warned you quietly—do you believe you could have stopped her?

Do you believe she would have obeyed you? ”

Bingley recoiled—just slightly. But he did not answer.

Darcy met his eye. “You would have tried. But I judged—wrong or right—that the quieter course might buy us time to end it before it reached what it has become.”

“And now?” Bingley asked, voice raw.

Darcy’s mouth opened, then closed again.

There was no answer that would make it right.

He probably should have gone to Bingley, despite his pride, his expectation that he and Elizabeth could manage alone.

Perhaps blasting the top off this thing might have let in some air and light, kill the festering decay before it spread further.

But it was too late for such regrets now.

Bingley’s breath left him in a slow, shaken exhale. He stepped back, as if needing space to think—and then seemed to decide something instead.

“Then she can explain herself.”

Darcy looked up sharply. “Miss Elizabeth? I think you—”

“No, I mean Caroline. She is presiding over the party, is she not? In my house. Wearing a gown I purchased and smiling at my guests and laughing at the damage she has caused.” Bingley turned toward the door. “Let her face what she has done. And let her victim hear her apology to her face!”

Darcy moved faster than he meant to, intercepting him with one hand outstretched. “Bingley—”

Bingley’s eyes were bright with fury, but his voice—when he spoke again—was clear. “You think I do not want to burn it all down? I do. She has made a mockery of someone I admire. She has mocked you, and lied to me.”

“And which lady do you think will suffer the more for your actions?”

Bingley exhaled hard, then shook his head once.

“Quite right. If I drag Caroline into the fire, I drag my dear Jane with her. Everyone knows I mean to court Miss Bennet. They will say she is sister to a scandal, tied to a woman who slandered her own sex for sport. No one will come out clean—not you, not Miss Elizabeth, and certainly not Miss Bennet, so long as her name is associated with mine.”

Darcy hesitated. The truth of it hit low. Miss Bennet’s name, dragged into the scandal not by word, but by association—just enough to leave a stain. Just enough to reach Elizabeth.

He wanted vengeance. He wanted names named, reputations overturned, and Miss Bingley banished from every drawing room south of Mayfair. But all he could see was Elizabeth’s face—worn, wary, and already enduring too much.

“Very well,” he said. His voice was ice. “No spectacle.”

Bingley’s jaw clenched, and for a moment, Darcy thought he might shove past him, anyway. But then his friend exhaled, slow and sharp. “You are right. A scene would only make it worse.”

He began to pace. “But this will end. I shall speak to her in private. I will make it clear what she has done—and that she is finished. No more parties. No more guests. No more influence in this house, or any house I have the care of.”