Greetings, my dear friends! Thank you all so very much for the warm welcome for this new story. Sometimes, when the Muse starts ranting, a writer just has to listen. So when a story idea grabs a hold of me and doesn't appear to want to let go, I go with it until it does, lol.

We all know how Darcy explained things to Elizabeth in the original novel. I decided to take his letter and turn it into a conversation instead. Much of the letter's original text is in this chapter, but I broke it up into sections of prose and sections of dialogue, with points where Elizabeth interrupts and offers her own thoughts. I hope it works out for you like it did in my head!

Chapter Two

Elizabeth spent the whole of the evening and half the night in a state of continual agitation and vexation.

After Mr. Darcy's quitting the parsonage, the tumult of her mind had been so painfully great that she'd felt genuinely weak and had needed the support of a chair. Immediately upon falling into the nearest one, she had cried for half an hour. Every review of what had passed increased her astonishment—she had received an offer of marriage from Mr. Darcy! He had been in love with her all these months, so much that he could no longer ignore the objections which had led him to prevent Bingley's marrying her sister. It was incredible—and yes, gratifying—that she had inspired, even unconsciously, so strong an affection.

And he had kissed her! More than that, she had kissed him back—what on Earth had possessed her to do so?! Much to her surprise, she had liked being kissed by him. It frightened her to think what enjoying the kiss meant and reminded her that she was no less guilty than he, so she pushed all thoughts of it to the back of her mind to be dealt with later. Or maybe never.

What vexed Elizabeth even more than the kiss was Darcy's pride. Oh, that abominable pride, and his shameless avowal of what he had done in respect to Jane! His conduct there, and the unfeeling manner when mentioning Mr. Wickham—the cruelty he had not even attempted to deny—soon overcame what little pity she had begun to feel for Darcy which the consideration of his attachment had for a moment inspired.

On hearing Lady Catherine's carriage approaching sometime after, Elizabeth knew she was unequal to Charlotte's observation, so had hurried to her room. There she remained through dinner and supper, unable to recover her spirits. It was impossible to think of anything else, though on determining to go down to breakfast the next morning, she forced a smile to put off any questions which Charlotte or Maria might ask and proclaimed herself much better. Mr. Collins said nothing as he had been too busy stuffing himself, then he hastened off to Rosings immediately after he finished eating. Still unable to put the events of the previous afternoon from her mind and finding herself quite unequal to any form of useful employment, Elizabeth declared her intention to go for a walk. Mrs. Collins and her sister merely smiled over their needlework, knowing as they did her predilection for long walks.

She found herself proceeding automatically to her favorite path until she recollected that Darcy had often met her there. Though feeling he likely had as little desire to see her again so soon as she did him, Elizabeth nevertheless turned away and went up the lane that led her father from the turnpike road. She had gone two or three times along the lane when tempted by the fine weather of the morning to stop at one of the gates to the park. It was five weeks now that she had been in Kent, and the passage of time had made such a difference in the country that every day was adding to its beauty. It was on the point when she would have continued her walk that she noticed a figure in the grove that edged the park walking toward her. It was a gentleman and, suspecting it to be Mr. Darcy—with whom she still felt herself insufficient in equanimity to meet—Elizabeth turned away in retreat.

Her steps were not quick enough; it was Darcy, and his calling her name proved he had seen her. Civility halted Elizabeth's progress and she turned back to him, hoping that her countenance did not show her anxiety.

"Miss Bennet, I am glad to meet you," said he. "May I walk with you? I have some things I must say."

Suppressing a sigh, Elizabeth inclined her head. Darcy stepped through the gate, and they started back toward the parsonage in the most awkward silence. A good distance was gone over and still he spoke not a word; she began to wonder if he would speak at all when he said,

"First, I should like to apologize for the kiss. No matter which of us initiated it, we are equally guilty of misconduct."

Elizabeth sighed—it appeared she would not escape thinking of the kiss after all. The memory surged to the forefront of her thoughts, and she could feel her cheeks heating as she recalled how good it had felt to be held by him, how much she had enjoyed kissing him…and how she had dreamed of kissing him again.

"I will concede on that point, sir. I am sorry as well," she said.

"Last night you laid to my charge two offences which are by no means equal in measure," Darcy went on, "and I regret that in explaining my motivations for each action you may again be offended. But I must speak, Miss Bennet."

So you said, Elizabeth thought sourly. Get on with it, then.

Get on with it he did. Darcy told her in slow, deliberate sentences how he had no real notion of Bingley being genuinely attached to her sister until the ball at Netherfield, as he had often seen his friend in love before. Sir William Lucas's letting it slip that Bingley's attentions to Jane had given rise to a general expectation of their marriage had inclined him to observe them both more closely; in his friend, he soon realized that indeed, there was a partiality that he had never seen before. In Miss Bennet, however, he claimed to find no symptom of peculiar regard, though her look and manners were as open and cheerful and engaging as ever they had been.

"I was convinced, from the evening's scrutiny," Darcy said, "that though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of sentiment."

Elizabeth, unable to keep her rising ire in check any longer, stopped and turned to him. "How ridiculous you are!" she cried, raising her hands to her hips. "Are not most women taught almost from birth to be modest in their manner, so they are not labeled as too forward? Do not their mothers tell them that they may smile at a gentleman but do no more unless he has declared his intentions? How is it then when you meet such a woman, who behaves with all the modesty and grace a young lady ought, that she is not demonstrative enough?!"

Darcy blinked and drew a breath as he clasped his hands together behind his back. "If you are not mistaken, then I have been in error. Your superior knowledge of your sister must make the latter probable. If it be so, if I have been misled by such error to inflict pain on her, your resentment has not been unreasonable. But I shall not scruple to assert that the serenity of your sister's countenance and air was such as might have given the most acute observer a conviction that, however amiable her temper, her heart was not likely to be easily touched."

Elizabeth threw up her hands and stalked away from him with a groan; Darcy caught up in only two strides. "Just because she did not put her feelings on display for all the world to see does not mean that my sister did not feel deeply for Mr. Bingley! And he clearly had no thoughts of doubting her regard—or his success—until you suggested it."

"I did not believe her to be indifferent because I wished it; I believed it on impartial conviction, as truly as I wished it in reason," Darcy replied.

"Oh yes, and I have already been acquainted with why that is," Elizabeth snapped. "Your dear friend Miss Bingley was so kind as to inform my sister, for whom she so often professed her affection, that it has long been your desire that your families would be united through the marriage of her brother to you sister."

This made Darcy stop and stare at her with incredulity. "Miss Bingley said I wished her brother to marry my sister?"

"I have just said so."

He shook his head. "Then she has greatly misunderstood and will be disappointed. Georgiana is not yet sixteen years old and will not have her debut for another year, perhaps two. And while it is not uncommon for a young lady of society to marry without having a Season in London, my sister will not be such a one. I have introduced her to very few of my friends—and then only those with sisters—in the hope of my sister being friends with theirs and dispelling that tendency toward shyness which we are both of us unfortunately plagued with. I… I do not wish her to suffer among strangers as I do."

Darcy turned and started off again, and she reluctantly fell into step beside him. "Bingley, as you know, is a very amiable young man. His liveliness is almost universally infectious, and it was my hope in introducing him to my sister that she might be inspired to cheerfulness. That is all. They have met perhaps two or three times since the start of my acquaintance with the Bingleys, and that was two years ago. It would hardly be a kindness to either party to encourage an attachment when the young lady in question is nowhere near mature enough in age or temper to be a wife. The young gentleman, being of an age to wish to marry, can hardly be expected to wait for her."

He went on to say that his objections to the marriage of Bingley and Jane were not merely those which he had last night acknowledged to have required the utmost force of passion to put aside in his own case; the want of connection could not be so great an evil to Bingley as to himself. No, there were other causes of repugnance; causes which—though still existing, and existing to an equal degree in both instances—he had endeavored to forget, because they were not immediately before him. These causes must be stated, he insisted, "though briefly." Elizabeth listened with a growing mixture of vexation and embarrassment to his assertion that the situation of her mother's family, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison of that total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by Mrs. Bennet, her three younger daughters, and occasionally even by Mr. Bennet.

"Pardon me, it pains me to offend you," said Darcy in a low voice, no doubt in response to her increasing color. "But amidst your concern for the defects of your nearest relations, and your displeasure at this representation of them, let it give you consolation to consider that to have conducted yourselves so as to avoid any share of the like censure is praise no less generally bestowed on you and your eldest sister than it is honorable to the sense and disposition of both. I will only say, farther, that from what passed that evening my opinion of all parties was confirmed, and every inducement heightened, which could have led me before to preserve my friend from what I esteemed a most unhappy connection."

Pain again lanced her beneath her breast, and Elizabeth fought the sting of embarrassed tears as she wrapped her arms about herself. Her long hours of reflection after their row had already given her much uneasiness, having been forced to accept that he had some justification for his caution. Her mother and sisters were too often vulgar and uncouth in their behavior, and in finding too much pleasure in the folly of his wife and daughters to check them, her father only showed the world how little respect or feeling he had for either.

Darcy next spoke of Bingley's leaving Netherfield for London the day after the ball. Elizabeth recalled his having spoken of his intention to return soon. But his sisters' uneasiness matching Darcy's own was soon discovered; and, believing no time was to be lost in detaching their brother, they shortly resolved on joining him directly in London. There the three readily engaged in the office of pointing out to Bingley the certain evils of his choice. Darcy had enforced his belief with assurances of Jane's being indifferent to him. Bingley had before believed her to return his affection with sincere, if not with equal, regard. But his friend had great natural modesty, Darcy assured her, with a stronger dependence on the latter's judgment than on his own. To convince Bingley that he had deceived himself was no very difficult point. To persuade him against returning into Hertfordshire, when that conviction had been given, was scarcely the work of a moment.

"I cannot blame myself for having done this much. There is but one part of my conduct, in the whole affair, on which I do not reflect with satisfaction; it is that I condescended to conceal from him your sister's being in town. I knew it myself, as it was known to Miss Bingley; but her brother is even yet ignorant of it. That they might have met without ill consequence is, perhaps, probable; but his regard did not appear to me enough extinguished for him to see her without some danger. Perhaps this concealment, this disguise, was beneath me. It is done, however, and it was done for the best. If I have wounded your sister's feelings, it was unknowingly done; and though the motives which governed me may to you very naturally appear insufficient, I have not yet learnt to condemn them."

Elizabeth's emotions were again stirred into fury. "Oh, of course you have not," she said. "You still think your judgment the superior because your position in society is of greater consequence, which only serves to prove my point that you do not care at all about how other people feel—only what you feel is right."

From the corner of her eye, she noted Darcy reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. He was vexed with her, she was fairly certain, though she was still too much put out with him to care.

They had come to a point on the road where a grassy lane—more a footpath, really—lead off into that favorite walk which Elizabeth had earlier avoided. She decided to turn that way in the hope of still finding some measure of peace in her exercise. Darcy could surely have nothing further to say to her—he'd explained his reasons for interfering with Bingley and Jane, but not at all to her satisfaction. Indeed, there were no words he could have said to dispel her anger there. Not even the recollection of Charlotte having once observed that Jane might want to show more than she felt—which admittedly stung a little in light of Darcy's similar judgment of her sister's behavior—could make her believe that Jane had done anything wrong.

"Will you hear me further?" Darcy asked her.

"Have I any choice in the matter?" Elizabeth retorted.

"You do," he replied evenly. "However, I asked that you allow me to address the two offences of which I was accused. I have done with one but not the other."

"Oh yes—your cruelty to Mr. Wickham," said she, glancing sidelong at him. "Pray make as poor an attempt to justify how you wronged him as you have wronged my sister and Mr. Bingley."

Darcy sighed…and then launched into a narrative which stunned Elizabeth to her core. That Wickham had grown up on the Pemberley estate as the son of old Mr. Darcy's steward, that he had been Mr. Darcy's godson and supported with a gentleman's education at Cambridge, she had heard from Wickham himself. The first difference in their stories to give her pause was in the handling of the living. Darcy explained that his father had hoped Mr. Wickham would make the church his profession, for his manners were even then so engaging as to give the elder man the highest opinion of him and so had intended to provide him a living.

"As for myself, it is many, many years since I first began to think of him in a very different manner," said Darcy in a bitter voice. "The vicious propensities, the want of principle, which he was careful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself, and who had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which my father could not have. Here again I shall give you pain—to what degree you only can tell. But whatever may be the sentiments which Mr. Wickham has created, a suspicion of their nature shall not prevent me from unfolding his real character. It adds even another motive."

The living, which Wickham had told Elizabeth he was promised, was to be his only if he took orders. Darcy told her that, about six months after the death of both their fathers some five years before, Wickham had written to say he had resolved against taking orders and instead wished to study the law. Knowing that Wickham ought not to be a clergyman, he thus hoped rather than believed the declaration to be sincere. Wickham's letter said he hoped Darcy should not think it unreasonable for him to expect some more immediate pecuniary advantage in lieu of the preferment, as the interest of a legacy of one thousand pounds, left to him by old Mr. Darcy, would be insufficient to support the pursuit of that career.

"Wickham resigned all claim to assistance in the church," Darcy continued, "were it possible that he could ever be in a situation to receive it and accepted in return three thousand pounds."

Elizabeth could not stifle the soft gasp that erupted from her. Four thousand pounds, a combination of his legacy and compensation, was no trifle!

Her companion went on without acknowledging her surprise. "All connection between us seemed now dissolved. I thought too ill of him to invite him to Pemberley or admit his society in town. In town, I believe, he chiefly lived, but his studying the law was a mere pretense; and being now free from all restraint, his life was a life of idleness and dissipation. For about three years I heard little of him; but on the decease of the incumbent of the living which had been designed for him, when his dissolute style of living had rendered his circumstances desperate, he applied to me again by letter for the presentation."

"But… You said he willingly gave it up in exchange for money," Elizabeth remarked. "I… I will admit to being rather surprised he ever thought that you would be of a mind to grant him that over which he had no longer had any semblance of rights to claim, even if you had no other person to provide for."

She cleared her throat and, now feeling the first stirrings of shame, looked down at her feet as she said in a lower voice, "He told me you had denied him the living out of spite and jealousy, against the wishes of your father."

"Allow me to speculate that you were the only one with whom he shared this confidence until after I'd left Netherfield?" When Elizabeth nodded, Darcy snorted softly. "I am not surprised. When it was still possible I might refute his claims and prove him a liar, he limited the number of his confidantes to one, then my absence—and ability to both blacken his character and defend my own—loosened his tongue. Nor does it surprise me he was as violent in his abuse of me to others as in his reproaches to myself. You will hardly blame me, in light of this knowledge, for refusing to comply with his entreaty, or for resisting every repetition of it."

"N-no, sir, I cannot," Elizabeth confessed. "I… Four thousand pounds gone in only three years? How can anyone be so irresponsible?"

Darcy drew a breath and said, "Though I have thus far said enough, I think, to acquit me of wrongdoing in regard to Mr. Wickham, I have more to say that will completely open his real character to you."

Unable to think of what other lies she had foolishly believed that might be revealed as such, Elizabeth wordlessly gestured for Darcy to continue. Her mortification at having believed Wickham's claims, so inappropriately communicated to a person he had only just met, paled immeasurably in comparison to the horror she felt on hearing how—in league with Miss Darcy's former companion—Wickham had pursued the much younger girl to Ramsgate, where she had been taken on holiday. Darcy was to join her there but had been delayed, and Wickham had availed himself of the opportunity to attach himself to her and persuade Georgiana Darcy that she was in love with him, and that they ought to elope to Scotland. Darcy, his business concluded earlier than expected, went on to Ramsgate without sending word of his coming and thus arrived before the day of the planned elopement. Georgiana, unable to support the idea of grieving and offending a brother whom she looked up to as almost a father, acknowledged the whole at once.

"You may imagine what I felt and how I acted. Regard for my sister's credit and feelings prevented any public exposure; but I wrote to Mr. Wickham, who left the place immediately, and Mrs. Younge was of course removed from her charge. Mr. Wickham's chief object was unquestionably my sister's fortune, which is thirty thousand pounds; but I cannot help supposing that the hope of revenging himself on me was a strong inducement. His revenge would have been complete indeed, and my sister's happiness ruined forever."

Elizabeth felt herself unequal to making any reply; indeed, she found herself feeling rather ill. How could she have been so very blind?

"Miss Bennet, are you well? You've gone rather pale," said Darcy then, and the concern in his voice—that he could even feel concern for her after all that had passed between them—only served to heighten her agitation.

"Come," said Darcy, taking her gently by the elbow. "Come, you must sit down."

He guided her over to a fallen tree at the side of the path, and Elizabeth sat upon it with a shaky breath. "I… I had no idea he was…"

She looked up at him. "And this is a faithful narrative?" she asked, then instantly feared that she had offended him further by asking—why would he have involved his sister in the tale were any part of it false?

Darcy nodded grimly. "You will, I hope, acquit me henceforth of cruelty towards Mr. Wickham. His success in deceiving you is not to be wondered at, ignorant as you previously were of everything concerning us both. Detection could not be in your power, and suspicion certainly not in your inclination."

"No," she replied with a mirthless chuckle. "No, my inclination was to be happy in having found someone who disliked you as much as I did."

Elizabeth looked up at him again. "Why did you not tell me all of this last night?"

"In light of the vexation I felt at your rejection of my offer and the manner in which it was delivered—as well as my utter confusion as to what had motivated me to kiss you—I was not then master enough of myself to know what could or ought to be revealed. However, for the truth of all this, I can appeal more particularly to the testimony of Colonel Fitzwilliam, who, from our near relationship and constant intimacy, and still more as one of the executors of my father's will, has been unavoidably acquainted with every particular of these transactions. If your abhorrence of me should make my assertions valueless—"

Elizabeth quickly held up her hand. "No, sir, that I could not… that is… I must confess that when you asked to speak with me, I had had no idea at all what you might say. And now I am so overcome with my own feelings that I at present know not what to say myself, except to own how blind, partial, prejudiced, and absurd I have been."

In fact, she was quickly growing absolutely ashamed of herself. How despicably have I acted! she cried silently. I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! Oh, why did I not listen to Jane? Why did I disdain her advice to me? How humiliating is this discovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away where either were concerned.

"Until this moment, I never knew myself," she whispered.