The morning after the storm, Hunsford felt like a graveyard. Eliza woke up with a leaden weight in her chest, expecting to see Darcy at breakfast, ready to exchange cold glares.
Instead, she found a simple, heavy cream envelope on her laptop. No stamp, no address—just her name written in a precise, architectural hand. Inside was not a letter, but a high-end encrypted thumb drive and a single note:
"I do not write this to ask for your forgiveness, for I suspect I do not have it. I write this to provide the 'data' you so value. Once you have seen the truth, you may do with my reputation what you will." — W.D.
The Files
Eliza retreated to a secluded corner of the Rosings grounds, her heart racing as she plugged the drive into her laptop.
The first folder was titled "Wickham_Internal." It wasn't a story of a cheated inheritance. It was a series of legal depositions, bank statements, and security footage from five years ago. It showed George Wickham—not as a victim, but as a systematic predator. He hadn't been "denied" startup capital; he had gambled away the initial $200,000 Darcy’s father had given him within a month.
Then came the footage that made Eliza’s blood run cold.
It was a video from a London hotel lobby. A fifteen-year-old girl—Darcy’s younger sister, Georgiana—looking small and terrified, being led toward a private car by Wickham. The accompanying police report detailed an attempted "elopement" that was actually a kidnapping for ransom. Darcy had arrived just in time to stop it. He hadn't "buried" Wickham out of spite; he had paid him to disappear to protect his sister from a public scandal that would have destroyed her.
The Jane Revelation
The second folder was titled "Sky-Bound_Correspondence." It contained logs of Darcy’s conversations with Charles Bingley.
Darcy: "Charles, be careful. She is perfectly polite, but I see no spark in her eyes when you speak. She looks at you like a pleasant acquaintance."
Bingley: "She’s just shy, Will."
Darcy: "Perhaps. But her mother is already talking about your net worth in the middle of the bookstore. I fear she is being pressured into a match she doesn't want."
Eliza closed her eyes, a wave of guilt washing over her. She remembered Jane’s "golden rule"—to never show her heart too early. To Darcy’s cynical, protective eyes, Jane’s modesty looked like indifference. He hadn't sabotaged them out of malice; he had done it out of a misguided, fierce loyalty to a friend.
The Mirror
Eliza looked out at the mist-covered mountains. Every "fact" she had used to build her hatred of William Darcy was a half-truth or a flat-out lie. She had accused him of having no feeling, yet he had carried the burden of protecting his sister in silence for years. She had called him a corporate shark, yet he had protected Bingley from what he thought was a predatory marriage.
She looked at her laptop screen—at the file she was supposed to send to Wickham today. The "Zero-Day" exploit that would crash Pemberley’s servers and leak Darcy's private life to the world.
Wickham wasn't her ally. He was the monster she had been helping.
The Choice
Her phone buzzed. A text from Wickham:
"The window is open, Eliza. Send the files now. Let’s watch the Ice King melt."
Eliza’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. Her entire "My Star" instinct—the one she had honed for vengeance—screamed at her to finish the job. But for the first time in her life, her prejudice failed her.
She didn't hit Send.
Instead, she highlighted the entire folder Wickham had sent her and hit Permanently Delete.
She then pulled up her email and drafted a message to an address she had memorized from the Rosings directory.
To: William Darcy
Subject: I was wrong.
I have seen the files. There are no words for my regret. I have ended my association with Wickham. I do not expect a reply, but I needed you to know that the 'tolerable local' finally learned how to look at the truth.
ns216.73.216.134da2
and then Add to home screen.