Swipe Left on Mr. Darcy — Do Not Disturb, Page 13

About this chapter

Still glowing from the warm afternoon at Darcy's estate, Lizzie does something she never lets herself do: she turns her phone face-down and lets herself simply be happy. For one golden hour in the gardens, with her aunt Maddie and uncle Ed nearby and Darcy unexpectedly gentle and open, she lets the fragile new thing between them breathe — and dares, for the first time, to hope. Darcy is changed here: courteous, almost shy, glad she came. The wall she convicted him behind is gone. Then the phone starts to buzz against the stone, once, twice, insistent, and she keeps her eyes on him — until she can't. When she finally turns it over, the day cracks in her hands: a wall of missed calls from Jane, and a truth arriving in fragments — Lydia is gone, nobody can reach her, she left the coast with someone. Then the name lands like ice water: George Wickham. Lizzie alone knows exactly what he is, knows she said nothing to protect him, and now her reckless little sister is out there with him. Undone in front of Darcy, she blurts it out — my sister, and George — and watches Darcy go very still and very grave, pulling back into a formality she reads as the door closing forever. She has to leave. A broken, rushed goodbye on the garden path, the Gardiners rallying around her, Darcy left standing in the golden light. In the car window, the warm house shrinking behind her, Lizzie holds the phone face-up and glowing now — she looked away for one afternoon, and everything fell apart.