The room felt impossibly still. The weight of her words hung between them, suffocating, unrelenting. Adele had never felt smaller, never more exposed. She had spoken the truth aloud for the first time, and now it was out in the open, standing between them like a wall of glass—fragile and impenetrable all at once.
Darcy had not moved.
He stood frozen, his breathing uneven, his fists clenched at his sides. She could not bear to look at him, but she could feel his gaze—burning into her, dissecting her, unraveling every last thread of the composure she had tried so desperately to hold on to.
She did not know what she had expected.
Outrage? A demand for explanation? A declaration that none of it mattered?
But this silence—this deafening, unbearable silence—was worse than anything she could have imagined.
At last, he spoke.
"What do you mean, ruined?" His voice was low, tight, controlled. But there was something else beneath it. Something raw.
She let out a breath, steadying herself. "You tell me, Mr. Darcy. What do you think ruined means?"
He took a step forward. Then another.
"For the love of God, Addie, please."
She flinched.
He had called her that for as long as she could remember. Addie. The name was soft on his lips, pleading. It broke something in her.
There was a long, suffocating pause.
And then, she gave him the answer he dreaded.
"Compromised."
His entire body tensed.
"Compromised how?" His voice was barely above a whisper, as if he were afraid of the answer.
Adele turned her head away, her throat tightening. He was not going to let her escape this. He wanted to hear her say it.
She swallowed hard. "I am not chaste," she admitted, her voice so quiet it was almost lost in the vast silence of the room.
She forced herself to breathe, to steady the shaking in her hands. She could not bring herself to look at him—not yet.
But the silence stretched.
Too long.
Too thick.
Too empty.
It was unbearable.
"Mr. D—"
She gasped as he suddenly moved, his figure blurring before her.
A deep bow.
"Miss Bennet."
And then he turned.
No words. No explanations. No hesitation.
Just a swift, desperate retreat.
Her heart stopped.
For a moment, she did not understand what had happened.
And then she did.
Her lips parted, but no sound escaped. The world tilted beneath her feet. The air felt thin, suffocating.
He was leaving.
Of course, he was leaving.
Why had she expected anything else?
YOU ARE READING
The Guest | F. Darcy
FanfictionSecond Book in The Eldest series Adele Bennet had been invited by the newlywed Collins couple to their Parsonage at Rosings Park, Kent, after months of the last dance she shared with a certain someone. She hadn't changed. Nothing had. She was still...
