Previously: Now, can we move on to Rosings? I had assumed that there we were getting on rather well but my cousin, Fitzwilliam, tells me quite the opposite. Tell me, Miss Elizabeth, what did you think of me there?"

Elizabeth hummed and hawed. The truth was awkward; especially, when she wanted to win this man, so he'd rescue her from this place, from this position.

Mr. Darcy took pity on her. He said "My cousin was correct, wasn't he?"

Elizabeth couldn't meet his eyes. "Yes" she said.

"When you told me that walk through the oak grove was a favourite of yours, you were warning me off, not inviting me to join you."

"Yes."

"When I did join you on your walks, the questions I asked of you, you thought they were an intrusion on your privacy."

"Yes."

"When you played the pianoforte at Rosings, when Fitzwilliam and I gathered around you, you were not teasing me about practicing, you were mocking me, much as you mocked Miss Bingley."

"Yes."

"You hated me."

"No, no – I was angry at you; I disliked you then because I had been so stupid – to believe Mr. Wickham."

"If you had never met Wickham, if he had never had existed, you still would have been angry at me, disliked me, because I helped separate Bingley from your sister. Which was true, I did do that - because I stupidly believed I could ascertain your sister's inner feelings."

"Then we were both stupid; we've both learned better now; we're even." Elizabeth gave Mr. Darcy an encouraging smile, one you'd give a particularly recalcitrant student who finally learns some aspect of proper behavior, one she had not, regretfully, been able to bestow on her sister, Lydia, all that often.

"You carried your dislike of me from Longbourn to Rosings."

"No, no – when I first heard you were to visit your aunt, I only thought to be amused by how you interacted with her, and your supposed fiancée."

"But your subsequent interactions with me inflamed the hidden ember of your dislike, and it flared into real anger, when Fitzwilliam told you what I had done to separate Bingley and your sister."

"Yes." Elizabeth felt she was slipping down a muddy slope, and they weren't even at the wedding yet.

"The night of the compromise, I attended at the rectory to see how you were, having heard you were taken ill …"

Here Mr. Darcy paused like he wanted confirmation so, to encourage him to complete his thought, Elizabeth said "Yes."

"If I had … if we had not been interrupted, if I had proposed marriage to you then, would you have accepted me?" Mr. Darcy asked.

Elizabeth sighed and shook her head. "No, knowing what I thought I knew back then, I wouldn't have accepted you."

"But after compromise was called you accepted me."

"Yes, everyone I trusted, Jane, my father, my Uncle and Aunt Gardiner, Charlotte, that is Mrs. Collins, all of them told me it was for the best; for me and for my family."

"And then you had a month, while the banns were being read, to change your mind, to break our engagement, but you didn't."

Elizabeth couldn't say anything. All she could do was lift her hands to the level of her breasts in surrender. She could see the bright, sharp point of his next question thrusting towards her heart. She prayed that he wouldn't ask it, but ask it he did.

"So why did you wait until we were standing at the altar to jilt me?"

"I, I …" Elizabeth didn't know what to say. She had been so stupid. She had not been rational. Everyone had told her to marry Mr. Darcy. Everyone; those she trusted; those she didn't care to hear from, but whom had opinions they had to share with her anyway; everyone had told her what a marvelous match it was for her. But she hadn't thought so. She had been so angry at him – because of what she thought he had done to Jane; because of what she thought he had done to Mr. Wickham; because he had insulted her. And coupled with her anger was her conceited independence. Her stubbornness always arose at every attempt to direct her. She would choose for herself. She had a right to choose. If she said 'yes, I do', she would be subsumed in her husband. Gone would be the proud pirate queen Lizzy Bennet, replaced with the meek Mrs. Darcy. No, a thousand times no - to choose to say 'no, I won't marry him', by God, by all that was right, she had a right to do that, even if the heavens fell. And so, to relieve the pressure pushing on her, both within and without, she had refused him, not once, not twice, but the biblical three times. And the heavens had fallen and she found herself condemned to a life of boring servitude, costumed like a pumpkin and reeking of what she imagined was the seraglio. She could not answer him. She put her face in her hands and started to cry.

Something nudged her shoulder and when Elizabeth looked, she saw Mr. Darcy holding his handkerchief out to her. She took it and dabbed at her eyes.

"If it is any consolation to you, you are not the only lady who does not want to marry me. In order to avoid marriage to me, my cousin, Anne de Bourgh, called compromise on us. She actually wrote a letter to the newspaper with all the details plus a few salacious ones she made up." Seeing Elizabeth's wide eyed look Mr. Darcy said "I saw the letter myself – my Aunt Matlock obtained it from the editor of the newspaper. My Aunt Matlock also told me, that because of my ungentlemanlike manner, single ladies of merit amongst the ton, who are not subject to mercenary pressures, and who have a say in the matter, would not have me either." Mr. Darcy chuckled and patted Elizabeth once on the side of her right shoulder. When Elizabeth blinked in amazement at him, he chuckled again. "So don't beat yourself up; in rejecting me you are in good company, although – although I wish you had done it in a less public way. Now I am sure you have been wishing for my absence so I will bid you good night." Mr. Darcy bowed and turned away.

Elizabeth could not just let him leave her like that so she called out "Would you like to walk out with me tomorrow morning? I can show you the park."

Mr. Darcy stopped and turned back to her. "I am sorry, my time is tied up for the rest of my visit."

"When will I see you again?" asked Elizabeth.

"Circumstances being what they are, I do not know."

"I see. Goodbye then." Elizabeth curtsied and in return Mr. Darcy bowed again.

Elizabeth stood, clutching the handkerchief of his she still had, and watched him until he was out of sight.

As she did so, she whispered "Please remember me" as her tears fell afresh, this time for her loss, rather than for her guilt.