She could not look at him. She wanted to say things, so many things, but she could not say them in a crowded drawing room. She could not tell him how conceited she thought him, how selfish she found his disdain for the feelings of others. She quickly excused herself and made her way into the hall, relief flooding her as soon as she escaped the stifling room overfilled with his presence.

As suddenly as it came, her rage left her and she was filled with a deep sadness as she moved into a dark corner to have a moment of privacy.

She had been right all along about him. Of course her mistaken assumptions about his past with Mr. Wickham had been proven false, but her impression that he was rude and unpleasant and thought himself above his company was depressingly accurate. He could be kind when he chose to, she herself had been the recipient of his kindness, but that made it all the more deplorable when he was so rude to her relations. He knew better and she knew he could do better, but he simply wasn’t willing to take the trouble to be kind to people he thought beneath him, no matter their relation to her. Not even for her sake.

She spared a moment for the irony of it all. She was considered beneath him by many, yet he had offered for her! Why would he do such a thing if he were so concerned about his precious connections? Had he not thought this would happen? That he would be thrown into the company of lowly tradesmen? She feared she had been right when she sent him that first letter. They would not suit. It was too late now; they would be married in the morning. She would be bound forever to a man who hated the very people she loved most and who disdained perfectly worthy people not because of their actions or behavior, but because of a silly sense of rank and entitlement.

She felt sick and warm all over and had the disturbing feeling that she was about to cry.

She forced herself to calm and took deep breaths, feelings of vindication in being right warring with a desperate desire to be wrong. She didn’t want to be right about this; after all, she was bound to him now, there was no escaping it.