Feverishly, she stripped away his sweat-soaked shirt, uncovered his arms and chest, taking care not to disturb the bandage. She bathed his body with cool water, her touch clinical yet somehow intimate in the flickering candlelight.
“Darcy, you must live,” she told him as she soothed his fevered brow. “You must live. Not for me, but for your sister, Georgiana. For those who love you.”
Without the mask of pride and disdain he habitually wore, his features appeared different—younger, more vulnerable. The strong line of his jaw, the dark sweep of his eyelashes against his cheeks, the curve of his mouth now slack in unconsciousness—all spoke of a man she had never truly seen before.
“Darcy, stay still. Save your strength for healing. You will recover from this. You can’t die and let that cheat get away with this. He’s a scoundrel; you only pretend to be one.” And as she held him still, soothing him with cool compresses and wiping the sweat from his face, she felt tears dripping down her cheeks. “Why did you have to be so arrogant? So demeaning? I might have accepted you had you spoken to me as if I mattered.”
She trailed off, startled by her words.
Darcy made a moaning sound so deep and sad that Elizabeth despaired that it was his death rattle.
“I’m sorry, Darcy, but you have to live so you can explain to me why you asked for my hand when you did not value me. I’m not a failing. I’m Elizabeth Bennet. I’m not a regrettable affliction. I am worthy.”
When his breathing grew so shallow she feared he might stop altogether, she pressed her ear to his chest, listening for his heartbeat. When fever made him delirious, she sang softly to calm him.
“You will find happiness again,” she murmured as his moans grew louder. “You will marry a woman worthy of you. You will be a fine father.”
The words caught in her throat unexpectedly, painfully, knowing his future would be without her.
“You will grow strong, and someday, you might think back on this time, and wonder about me, and these long hours throughthe night. I might still hate you, Darcy, because your cruelty toward my family is unforgivable. But I had a part in this, too. I was but a fool, and if you die, it was because I couldn’t hold my tongue.”
The more she spoke to him, the more the words flowed. It was so easy to watch his face go from anguished and grimacing to relaxed as his fever subsided. Easy to let her words wash over him.
“What are you doing to me?” she asked as morning light filtered through the chamber windows. Something shifted as she cared for him, wiping his brow, tucking in his sheets, and arranging his head on the pillow.
Now that the crisis was over, she could barely keep her eyes open. His breathing eased, and his skin cooled. Elizabeth closed her eyes and thanked the Lord. Relief washing through her that morning had come, at last, with his heartbeat strong and true against her ear.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DISARMED AWAKENING
Pain came first.Searing and inescapable, it flared from Darcy’s right shoulder through his entire body like fire through dry timber. His consciousness surfaced slowly, reluctantly, as though his mind understood that wakefulness would bring the suffering his dreams had mercifully obscured.
Where was he? The unfamiliar ceiling above him suggested somewhere other than his London townhouse or Pemberley. The quality of light filtering through windows told him it was morning, though of which day he could not say.
The second sensation was warmth, not the burning heat of fever, but something pressed against his chest, accompanied by the whisper of breath against his skin and the faint scent of lavender mixed with something uniquely feminine.
Darcy’s eyes snapped open fully.
Elizabeth Bennet lay curled against his bare chest, her face peaceful in sleep, a plain white servant’s cap askew over her curls. His arm—his uninjured left—had somehow come to rest around her shoulders, holding her close in a manner that propriety would find utterly indefensible.
Shock coursed through him, eclipsing even the pain in his shoulder. Why was Elizabeth Bennet in his bedchamber? Whywas she asleep upon his person? Who had authorized such an inappropriate arrangement?
The events returned in flashes, disjointed and jumbled. Netherfield. Wickham’s accusations. The duel at dawn. Elizabeth’s unexpected appearance on Oakham Mount. The bullet—he had been shot. Wickham had fired before the signal.
But the memories that followed were fragmentary, dreamlike—a woman’s hands cooling his burning skin, a voice speaking to him through the darkness. Someone had tended to him through what must have been a serious illness, but surely it could not have been…
Elizabeth Bennet?
Her chestnut curls had escaped their pins, falling in soft disarray around her face. Dark circles shadowed her eyes. Her morning dress, a dull brown servant’s dress, was wrinkled and stained with what he recognized with a shock as his blood.
Gone was the sharp intelligence that usually sparked in her eyes, the satirical smile that had both attracted and unnerved him. In sleep, Elizabeth appeared younger and softer. Her features relaxed into an expression of such peaceful vulnerability that something inside his chest tightened with protective instinct.
More memories surfaced, clearer now. Her voice through the fevered darkness, sometimes sharp with anger, other times impossibly gentle. Had she really bathed his burning skin with cool water? Had she truly held him when delirium made him thrash? The intimate care required for such nursing would have been… improper did not begin to cover it.
I might have accepted you had you spoken to me as if I mattered.
This memory felt more solid, more real, though equally impossible. Elizabeth Bennet would never admit such a thing tohim, which suggested either his delirium had been more creative than usual, or she had believed him insensible when she spoke.
