The pen fell from Darcy’s hand. He reached after it instinctively, jarred his neck, and flung himself back onto the pillows only to receive another burst of pain from the lump on his head. He held himself rigid, exasperated by debility and wheezing in agony.
Elizabeth retrieved the pen from the floor and removed the paper from his lap. “I am perfectly safe, Mr Darcy,” she said softly. “There are eight people here other than you and me, and they have all been exceedingly kind. You need not concern yourself for my well-being.”
Darcy smiled weakly but earnestly. “Good.”
Without further word, Elizabeth once more knelt on the edge of the bed and held out her arms for him. He accepted her help and allowed himself to be pulled forward. Rather thanremoving the extra pillow, however, she surprised him by letting go of his arms, crouching to the floor and sliding the chamber pot from beneath the bed. Had Darcy been any more alert,he would have been better able to express the extent of his mortification. As it was, all he could manage was a level stare and a vaguely disbelieving look.
“As I told you,” she said, “I am not one to shy from real life. You need my help to sit up—therefore, either I help you, or, well—” A simple shrug said all that was needed. “I shall send Master John up presently to fetch it.” She indicated the offending article with a nod. Then she reached to move the extra pillow from behind him, gave him a small smile, and left the room.
Darcy rubbed his face with both hands. Then he grabbed the nightstand as he had earlier in the day, though he stopped short of attempting to pull himself to his feet, forced to acknowledge that he could not even sit up unaided, let alone stand—had done himself untold damage attempting it once already. And what was the point in any case? They were snowed in. Even were he able to walk, he would get no farther than the front door. He had not the slightest hope of being rescued, for he had informed nobody of his intention to travel this way. He let go of the nightstand and struck it forcefully with his fist. The movement jarred his neck, and he bared his teeth in pain and vexation.
How had it come to this? The last few years had brought him more than his share of misfortunes, but never had he thought to end up bloodied and enfeebled in a dilapidated hovel with Elizabeth Bennet positioning a pot at his feet in which for him to piss. To think, when they had stayed under the same roof at Netherfield, he had considered the struggle to suppress his feelings for her the worst form of torture! He struck the nightstand again, twice, and welcomed the pain itoccasioned, for he was helpless in every other respect; he may as well triumph in his despair.
Why her?He railed to himself. Why, of all the strangers in the country, must it be she with whom Fate had abandoned him in this state? And, worse than her seeing him dishevelled and unshaven, worse than his vomiting blood over her, worse than her bandaging his grotesque injury or setting the damned pot at his feet, was that she did itallwith such captivating élan. He barely had the strength to see straight; how was he ever to find the strength to resist her? Even if he escaped this place alive, which he was entirely unconvinced he would do, he would never leave it unscathed. A man wouldneedto be dead to survive such close confinement with Elizabeth and remain indifferent.
He did not have energy enough to hit the nightstand again. His anger had all been spent or smothered with fatigue. With an intolerable feeling of futility and no other recourse, he submitted to simply relieving himself as he had been instructed to do. He was asleep and sunk into dreams plagued with shame and longing before anyone returned to the room.
Chapter 5
Confined and Unvarying Society
He slept better for having eaten. Indeed, other than occasionally bestirring himself to sip some water, Darcy did little but sleep until the sun was high in the sky the following day. He still felt sore and weak, but less confused each time he awoke. With better clarity of mind, however, came the full dawning of the seriousness of his situation, and though his recovery was naturally uppermost in his mind, other considerations soon began to intrude.
Though they had separate rooms, Elizabeth was presumably known by all at the inn to be nursing him unattended. It mattered not whether it was presumed she was a single woman or somehow entangled with him; either circumstance had the potential to wreak havoc on her reputation. His own, therefore, was in equally grave danger, for the most obvious solution was to sacrifice it and marry her.
His heart quivered staccato-like in his chest at the prospect, and he ignored it, as he had done many times before. To marry so far beneath him—into the Bennet family in particular, with its total want of either consequence or connexions—was impossible. Of this, he had already convinced himself a hundred times over. He cast his gaze about, unreasonably anxious that Elizabeth should somehow deduce his thoughts from the heat in his face. She was not there, and his folly made him cross.
Animated by vexation, he heaved himself a little farther upright and reached for the stack of writing paper sticking out over the edge of the nightstand. The pen rolled off it towards the floor, but he caught it without wrenching his neck quite as painfully as last time. Stretching to dip the pen in the ink proved less bearable, and he resolved the matter by bringing the well down from the nightstand and wedging it against the pillow atop his shoulder. Thus armed, he began furiously scribbling questions in the hope that the answers might ease his sense of helplessness—or perhaps melt the snow from the damned roads or banish the confounded feelings that flickered unobligingly in his chest at every other moment.
His efforts were to little avail, for even when an entire page of questions lay before him, he was convinced the answers to all of them would still not provide him with the level of information to which he was accustomed. Writing the list all but exhausted him, increasing his concerns for his state of health, as did the unrelenting pain in his throat occasioned by holding his head at the angle required to see what he wrote. Ignorance and weakness were two things Darcy had never tolerated well, and they, along with his growing concern for Elizabeth, began to well and truly sour his mood.
Where she was, he could not suppose. He did not think she was in her room, for the only sounds he had heard since waking were his own hoarse breathing and the odd muffled clatter from below stairs—but even if she were that close, he was powerless to discover it, for he could not call to her. He could not so much as squeak without succumbing to virulentand excruciating spasms. And if she were farther afield, what then? He would barely be able to help her were she sitting at the end of the bed—there was nothing he could do to protect her if she had been foolish enough to venture out of the inn.
His concerns were on the cusp of taking a far darker turn when Elizabeth abruptly appeared at the door from the landing. Fuelled in part by relief and in part by the worst of his fears, he dashed off another hasty question at the top of the page.
“Good day, Mr Darcy,” she greeted him, and her tone instantly trebled his concerns. She was very evidently tired and, judging by the paleness of her countenance, possibly distressed. Her attire was ruffled and muddied, proving shehadventured out of doors, yet she wore neither bonnet nor gloves. Any stable hand, vagabond, or potboy could have mistaken her for a serving girl and treated her accordingly.
“I see you are feeling much more like yourself today,” she remarked, walking across the room to put down something she had been carrying.
“Are you in good health, madam?” Darcy demanded, eager to know.
Elizabeth came closer, watching his lips as she approached him. He repeated his question, and, at length, she confirmed that she was tired but not unwell. Glancing at his list, she added, “What have you been writing that has put you in such a fine humour?”
“Questions,” he replied, though he did not feel it was an easy word to lip read and pre-empted her bewilderment by simply handing her the top sheet of paper.
The list might have felt inadequate to Darcy, but it did at least have the immediate effect of returning some colour to Elizabeth’s cheeks. She dropped her hands to her sides withher fists clenched, blithely crumpling that which had taken nearly all his reserves to compose.
“Where‘the devil’have I been?” she quoted in an angry tone.
Ruing the hasty addition of such an ill-tempered question, Darcy mouthed an explanation. “I knew not where you were.”
“No, indeed, for I did not tell you. I am afraid you will not find me as complying as some of your other friends, Mr Darcy. I shall go where I please when I please, and I require neither your permission nor your persuasion to do it.”
Puzzling at her meaning, he replied, “Of course you do not require my permission, but you might have informed me. I was concerned for you. For all I knew?—”
“I cannot understand what you are saying—and neither do I wish to!” she interrupted, before turning on her heel and striding to her bedchamber, slamming the door behind her. Darcy instinctively reached after her, despite how it wrenched his neck. He scarcely managed to lift himself clear of the pillows—only far enough that the inkwell slipped from his shoulder and spilled its contents over his bandages, shirt and bed sheets. He swore—or tried to. Swearing was much less gratifying when no bloody sound came out. Instead, he thumped a fist onto the bed—an equally dissatisfying gesture, for the mattress absorbed what little force he could muster.
With a bitter sneer, he tossed all the writing instruments back onto the nightstand and attempted to regulate his breathing, for the more agitated he grew, the tighter his throat seemed to close. The bandages around his neck felt even more restrictive and suffocating than usual. The spilt ink pulled the skin of his shoulder taut as it dried. He felt filthy. He longed for a hot bath or a change of clothes. To simply get out of bed and walk about the room would be a relief. He rubbed hishands over his face and said a silent prayer begging for release from his ever-worsening misery.
