Darcy smiled, hopeful and wary. Both Will and Gina had been right. Darcy needed to face his own feelings and act on them. Eliot stepped back, pulling his hand from Darcy’s. “No.”

Darcy was quick to hide both his surprise and hurt. That was not what he had thought to hear. Even if he had imagined Eliot rejecting him, he would have expected him to be more polite about it. “That was a very quick answer.”

“My decision needed no thought.”

Darcy nodded, more to himself than to Eliot, and turned to escape the suddenly incredibly awkward situation, but halfway, he turned back. “Can I ask why? If you are so certain that you wouldn’t care to go on a date with me, you must have a reason.”

With a stiff jaw and white lips, Eliot replied, “I might ask why you bothered to ask at all given your clear disdain for me and mine.”

“Disdain? When have I ever showed you any disdain?” Darcy couldn’t help but think how attractive Eliot looked right now, his eyes bright with emotion. That thought only made the current situation feel more unbearable, but he had to know why Eliot felt he had such a low opinion of him.

Eliot spread his hands wide in a shrug of disbelief. “The very first time I encountered you, you were full of nothing but insults for all the work that had gone into creating a beautiful, memorable wedding for your friends.”

“But I hardly knew you—”

“But that I could forgive.” A tear slid past Eliot’s guard, making him pause to wipe it away. Why now? He never cried. Were the pregnancy hormones kicking in? “I could forgive that if you hadn’t ripped Bing and Jane apart, throwing both of them into unnecessary pain.”

Darcy’s eyes widened, and both his posture and tone stiffened as he sought to defend himself. “It was my observation that she was not as interested in Bing as he was in her. An emotionally unequal partnership would be devastating to Bing—”

Eliot snorted. “Your observation? Your observation?” His voice rose dangerously only to fall immediately into a near whisper, forcing Darcy to lean in, against his inclination. “Has it ever occurred to you that you might not be the one responsible for deciding whether or not her affections were real? Jane. Loved. Bing. She loves him still.”

All of Darcy’s fears and guilt about that situation crushed against him, squeezing the breath out of him. “I admit that I may have been mistaken—”

“But it was not only that incident which formed my opinion of you. Your old friend, George Wickham, revealed to us how badly you treated him. What defense can you have of those actions? I find it hard to believe you can claim a difference of opinion or a mistake in perception.”

“A mistake in perception.” Darcy laughed bitterly, his fear and shame burned away in the fire of his ever present anger toward George Wickham. “No, I would never claim a mistaken in perception towards George Wickham. Once, perhaps, but not now. I’m sure he spun you a lovely story. One of tragedy and mistreatment.”

“You laugh, and yet you were the cause of it all!”

“This is what you truly think of me, then?” Darcy said, hands shaking with the intensity of the clash of emotions within him. “And this is what you have thought of me the entire time? Even when we—” Darcy looked away, for the first time, ashamed of having slept with Eliot.

“From the beginning of our acquaintance, you have done nothing to improve my opinion of your character,” Eliot said harshly, unforgivingly.

Darcy stepped back from Eliot. “I’m sorry. It’s plainly apparent that I have been operating under a false understanding. Don’t worry about your position in my mother’s affairs. This conversation will have no effect on it. In the future, I will do my best to keep our interactions to a minimum. Please excuse me.”

Darcy left the room, closing the door softly behind him. He strode down the hallway and walked through the ballroom without seeing or hearing the festivities around him. He saw nothing but the slow lift of Eliot’s lip in disgust before he had begun tearing Darcy apart.

Gina caught him at the exit, grabbing his arm. “You’re leaving? Now? The party isn’t over. What happened? What did mother do?”

Darcy sighed and kept walking, practically dragging Gina with him. “Not now, Gina. Has Mother left?”

“I’d just come to get her shawl, but she’ll send Collins for it if I don’t come back. Stop. Talk to me.”

Darcy plunged stubbornly on, reaching his car.

Gina folded her arms across her chest. “Darcy Fitzwilliam Pemberly, you tell me what happened right now.”

“I asked Eliot to dinner.” Darcy clenched his teeth. He drew in a jagged breath. “He said no.”

Gina stepped forward, her arms open for a hug. Darcy flinched away. “No, not now, Gina. I can’t.” He couldn’t bear a comforting touch just now. Half of him wanted to march back in there and give Eliot a full defense of his actions, and the other simply wanted to run to his cold, lonely apartment and wallow.

Gina stepped back. “You going to unlock the car or what?”

Darcy leaned against the car, giving her a beaten look. “You’re not going back inside, are you?”

“Not on your life, bro. You keep too much inside. The only people you’ll open up to are Bing, Will and me, and I’m the one standing here.”

Darcy hit the unlock button and climbed in, Gina’s door shutting moments after his.

“So did he let you down nicely?”

“No.”

“Was he an ass about it?”

Darcy took a moment to answer her, weaving through several lanes of traffic. “Not from his point of view, I’m sure.”

“I don’t care about his point of view. He’s not my brother.”

Darcy held his silence for several more turns. “He… has some false conceptions about me.”

“Darcy, if you’re campaigning for mayor of Vagueville, you’ve got my vote.”

Darcy took him a deep breath. “He’s heard George’s side of the story, among other things. Eliot thinks I go around destroying other people’s lives.”

Gina turned in her seat to face him. “You told him the truth though, didn’t you?”

“How could I? I’d have to reveal so much about your—”

“Are you kidding me? You didn’t correct him about George because of me?” Gina’s anger echoed in the small car.

Darcy narrowed his eyes and glanced sideways at his sister’s reaction. “What happened with George is a private matter.”

“George embezzling from Pemberley Visions should not have been a private matter. What he did to me… I trust your judgement. I don’t feel the need to protect myself from a story about how I was young and stupid, and I definitely don’t feel the need to protect him.”

Darcy opened his mouth to argue only to be cut off. “Not when it costs you your chance at happiness, Darcy. You can’t hide behind my personal life as a way to justify not being with someone you clearly love.”

“Love is a strong word,” Darcy said as he pulled into his parking spot.

“Darcy, like is a strong word for you. Interest is a strong word. Whatever you label it, you feel strongly about him.”

“Felt,” Darcy argued, getting out of the car, slamming the door with more force than he intended.

“Feel, Darcy. I mean, I don’t want to push you at someone if they are a terrible fit for you, but I’ve never seen you even have a crush on someone before. I worry that you’ll take this one bad experience and swear off relationships for the next decade.” Gina jumped in front of him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I just want you to be happy.”

“Can’t I just be happy with you and work?”

Gina pretended to think about it for a moment, then shook her head.

Darcy sighed and returned her embrace, resting his head on top of hers, grateful he had one person in the world who believed in him no matter what.

“So what are you going to do?” Gina asked.

Darcy released her, wrapped an arm around her back, and guided her to the elevator. “I’m going to sleep on it first of all. And then I’ll decide.”

“Can we have waffles while you’re deciding?”

Darcy shook his head. Gina was an unstoppable force of light and cheer. “I thought that was required for decision making?”

Gina shrugged. “You would think that’s common knowledge, but you continually surprise me with how clueless you are, Darcy.”

He couldn’t argue with her there. He had surprised himself the same way today.