Irrepressible Feelings
Though Darcy preferred to think of it as more exposition than argument, their conversation still exhausted him, and he slept until after dusk. Every bit of rest brought a slight improvement, and he awoke to less pain than he had known for several days. It allowed him to better tolerate Elizabeth’s ministrations as she redressed his wound once again. His neck, though still throbbing by the end, did so with less alarming intensity, and his breathing seemed to have settled into a steady, dry rattle.
“How does it feel?” Elizabeth enquired. “Does it hurt any less?”
He held up a hand, his thumb and forefinger an inch apart to indicate the mild improvement, then mouthed, “How does it look?”
“Not much changed from yesterday. Is your head better? The lump has gone down.”
Darcy made the sign for yes; that injury at least seemed to be healing well. “Is there any warm water left?” he enquired, desirous of talking about something other than his manifoldailments. He mimed washing his face and felt a fool doing so. He ought not to have, for Elizabeth’s smile was all sympathy as she assured him there was plenty.
“Let me find you a clean cloth.”
Darcy forestalled her departure with an upheld finger, with which he then indicated the nearby chair. Elizabeth looked in the direction he pointed then back at him, a divertingly sceptical expression on her face. “Truly? After this morning’s disastrous attempt?”
“I shall atrophy if I do not regain my feet soon.”
She shook her head and laughed lightly. “I am not sure what you just said, but I cannot refuse when you look so wretched. I pity the woman you do eventually marry, for I am quite sure that look will rescue you from all manner of trouble with her.”
Darcy was vastly relieved that she walked away as she said this, for he would not like her to see the effect her words had on him. Nonetheless, as he reached for and gulped from his glass of water, almost making himself choke in his haste, he could not expel from his head the notion that this was singularly useful information of which to be in possession.
Elizabeth returned with a washcloth and another garment. “Here is a clean shirt for you, too. This one is Mr Ormerod’s. I am not sure it will fit as well, but it is, at least, less inky.”
He thanked her sincerely and accepted her help sitting upright and manoeuvring himself into the chair. He gripped the armrests forcefully and fixed his eyes on the floor, willing the pain to ebb. The sound of furniture being scraped across the floor bade him look up. Elizabeth was engaged in tugging the round eating table towards him from the fireside. When it was near enough for him to use, she walked around to the other side and gave it another shove forward until it butted up against both arms of his chair, entrapping him in his seat. Heopened his hands wide, palms up, and raised one eyebrow in query.
She grinned a beautifully devilish grin. “This way, if you swoon—which you look in a fair way to do—you will only fall as far as the tabletop. I stand a far better chance of picking you up from there than the floor.” She walked behind him to retrieve the washbowl and ewer from the nightstand, both of which she arranged in front of him. Then she retrieved the table mirror from the floor next to the bed and a candle from the nightstand and placed those in front of him also.
Darcy reviled the sight of himself: drawn, dirty, and unshaven. Whilst he did not consider himself a vain man, neither was he unaware of the advantages nature had provided him, and he was dismayed to discover that, in contrast to his usual careful presentation to the world, he now resembled nothing better than a bedraggled vagrant. Appearing thus in Elizabeth’s presence afforded a singular kind of mortification. He ran his hand over his fully grown beard, and his reflected self sneered back at him in distaste.
“If there is nothing else, I shall leave you now,” Elizabeth said quietly. “Only for ten minutes this time, though. Just in case.”
When she returned with more food, Darcy was washed, changed, and somewhat miraculously still vertical in his seat. Elizabeth would never know how close pulling shirts on and off over his head had brought him to fulfilling her prediction of falling insensate onto the table.
They ate together again, though this time with less conversation. Whilst Elizabeth appeared content to say no more on the matter, their earlier debate had left a pall over them thatDarcy knew not how to alleviate. He could not be certain whether she were angry, distressed, or merely fatigued, yet talkative she was not.
For his part, there was a grave sense of unease. Elizabeth challenged him as no other person ever had, and he disliked enough of what her interrogations revealed of him to be troubled. He held no ill will towards her for doing so. Indeed, he supposed he ought to be grateful that if there really was so much objectionable about his behaviour, she was willing to object to it, for it seemed nobody else would.Though it is probable, he admitted to himself privately,that I would not be as receptive to such critique from any other person.
“What is it?” Elizabeth said impatiently.
Darcy started, mouthing “Nothing” in bemusement.
“Then why are you staring at me in that manner?”
He reached for the pen that had lain on the table next to him throughout their meal and dipped it in the newly replenished ink.
There is nobody else at whom to look.
He held it up for her to see, unable to keep his mouth quite straight, for though it was a most convenient excuse, it was so far from the truth as to be absurd. Were there a hundred people in the room, he would still only wish to look at one.
“Oh,” she said, leaning back into her chair after she had read it. Was that disappointment in her tone? “Well, you ought to know that when you look at things, you appear excessively grave.”
Darcy was not naturally given to cheerfulness, but in any case, his reflections when he regarded Elizabeth were often so consuming that he did not wonder at his appearance of gravity. It was one of the things that had alarmed him most upon firstmaking her acquaintance, for never had he been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her.
Some things require excessive reflection.
This she read, then, with a small huff, she pushed her bowl away and picked up the book she had been lent by one of the other guests. After staring at the same spot on the same page for a minute or more, she said quietly, “I find it intimidating.”
Even had it not been evident in the tone of her voice and turn of her countenance how little she liked making the admission, Darcy would have known. Independence as fierce as hers was bound to chafe against being afraid of anything. After a moment’s consideration, he picked up the pen again.
