A door clicked open. Darcy lowered his hands but did not move his head, for it hurt too much. When Elizabeth came into view, he was relieved, if surprised, to see that in place of her previous anger, she now looked rather chagrined.
“I apologise, Mr Darcy. I was in an ill humour, but I ought not to have been uncivil.”
Darcy held up his finger in rebuttal, then used it to point at himself. “Nay, I am sorry. It was an ungentlemanly question.”
She squinted at his lips and shook her head. “Where is the pen?” she said, more to herself than to him, for before he could answer, she reached directly over the narrow bed to retrieve it from the nightstand on the other side. She halted directly above him, her arm still outstretched, upon noticing the state of his shirt, whereupon she bit her lips together in an obvious attempt not to laugh, curled her arm back into her side, and eventually straightened again. It was not a moment too soon, for Darcy had been holding his breath since she leant over him and was in dire need of air.
“Oh dear,” she said with a small smile. “You will have to buy Lieutenant Carver a new shirt.”
He recoiled as her remark sent him spiralling from the heady exhilaration of her form all but laid atop his to the deepest mortification. “Lieutenant Carver?”
“He is a guest here,” Elizabeth explained. “He was good enough to lend you a fresh shirt when we arrived.”
“This is not then my shirt?”
“Yours was no longer fit to be worn.”
He continued to stare at her, appalled, and she grew visibly more displeased.
“You had no luggage of your own.Ithought it was very kind of him, but if you th?—”
“You undressed me?”
Comprehension loosened the knot of vexation marring Elizabeth’s brow and widened her eyes in embarrassment. “Oh! No, sir!” she replied with a breathless little laugh. “The gentlemen who carried you up here took care of that while I changed into one of Mrs Stratton’s gowns.”
A torrent of relief was followed by renewed concern, which he attempted to articulate with the clearly enunciated enquiry, “Why change gowns?”
“Mine were all in my trunks somewhere under the snow. Indeed, they still are, for by the next morning when Master John said he would return to fetch them, the snow was too deep to pass.”
“But what happened to the gown you were wearing?” It was necessary for him to repeat this twice more before she comprehended.
“Oh, I see. Well, as I said, you bled a good deal.”
Darcy said a private oath. He had, in the past, allowed himself the occasional luxury of imagining lavishing Elizabeth with the very finest gowns. Now he had ruined the only one in her possession—by bleeding all over it, no less.
“I shall replace it,” he promised. He was not convinced she understood what he said, for she did not respond to it directly and continued to look uneasy.
“Mr Darcy, while we are discussing the matter of debts, I must tell you that I had no choice but to use the money you were carrying on your person, for what little I had with me also remains in my uncle’s carriage out in the snow. I have kept a tally of everything I have spent, as well as everything we have borrowed or consumed.”
“There is no need.”
“There is every need!” she replied indignantly. “I shall notallow it to be put about that I am in receipt of gifts or subsistence from any man who is not my relative.”
Darcy winced at the indelicacy of the further misunderstanding and mouthed exaggeratedly to eliminate any possibility of misunderstanding, “I meant only that I trust you.”
“Oh.” She flushed a little and looked at her hands, as she often did when she was uneasy. After an uncomfortable pause, she took a deep breath and continued. “Mr Timmins has been most generous, but we shall have to pay him for the lodgings, food, and candles at least. Oh, and the feed for your horse. Then there was your shirt from Lieutenant Carver, my gown from Mrs Stratton, the paper and ink from Mrs Ormerod, the?—”
“I shall settle it all.”
“Pardon?”
“I shall—” He stopped and mimed writing something instead. “Any more ink?”
Elizabeth appeared relieved to have some manner of activity, for she moved with alacrity around the foot of the bed to the nightstand on the other side. There she poured a drop of water from the ewer into the inkwell and swirled it around with the pen.
“We do this at home occasionally. It makes for frightful letters, but it lasts longer. You will despise us for it, no doubt, but there it is.”
He did not oblige her by objecting, for she well knew it to be nonsense. On the contrary, he was gratified to have been told as much, as though being privy to such a thing marked a greater intimacy with Elizabeth than others were permitted. He watched her deftly drag the pen around the inside base of the well to ensure no ink went unused and wondered how often she had performed the task. She would never want for ink at Pemberley.
