Elizabeth read it then sank heavily into the nearest chair. “You are very good to try and ease my mind. It is not working, but I appreciate the effort.”
It is in my interests. I need you to finish the job.
“Under no circumstances!” she exclaimed. “Look how my hands are shaking!”
You cannot leave me with half a beard!
“It is more like a quarter of a beard now. I daresay nobody will notice.”
“Elizabeth!” he mouthed, beginning to enjoy the matter less—until she smiled and her whole face lit up.
“Very well,” she conceded. “Only be sure not to wriggle this time. Nobody’s looks are such that he requires his face be underscoredtwice.”
Darcy sat as still as he was able while she worked, though his heart tripped over itself as he attempted to discern whether she had intended to flatter him. Nonetheless, he hoped she would finish soon, for his neck still throbbed mercilessly, and now the cut on his cheek stung too. As evasive manoeuvres went, sacrificing one’s face was an excessive recourse, but he supposed it had spared him from the awkward admission of chasing Elizabeth about the country. He smiled to himself. Allhis recent injuries notwithstanding, Darcy was inordinately pleased to have caught up with her at last.
Chapter 12
Confessions in the Dark
The escapade proved disproportionately tiring, and Darcy slept for a good part of the rest of the day, not reawakening until dusk. He lay still, assessing his various aches and pains before attempting to move, but was distracted by the faint and infrequent sounds of rustling and tapping. As he turned his head on the pillow, something small sailed across the room and bounced across the table with a soft noise. He turned his head a little farther to where Elizabeth was slouched in one of the chairs, her elbow on the arm and her cheek resting in the palm of her hand. She lifted her head to rip a corner from the piece of paper in her lap—one of their messages to each other by the look of it—and roll it into a ball between her fingers. This she then threw at the table—nay, at the candle upon it, Darcy thought. It came close enough to make the flame dance sideways, but ultimately missed and skittered across the table to the floor as its predecessor had done. Elizabeth puffed out her cheeks and returned her head to her hand.
Though it was no bad thing that their written communicationsbe destroyed, Darcy reflected ruefully that under better circumstances, were he to be trapped alone in a bedchamber for a week with Elizabeth, he should not like to think that she would be dull for one moment of it. He reached surreptitiously to slide another of their obsolete notes off the nightstand and quietly tore off a corner to make his own projectile. He threw it at the candle and, more by luck than judgment, hit it. Elizabeth whipped her head around to look at him in surprise. He let a small smirk tug at the corner of his mouth. She said nothing but inflicted a tug of a far more insistent nature upon him by slowly raising a solitary eyebrow. He swallowed, relieved that his bandages would disguise his discomposure, and mouthed, “Your turn.”
Elizabeth hit the candle only once and he thrice more before she declared the contest unfair. “You have the advantage lying there—you are at the better angle.”
There was a pause while Darcy fought to suppress the temptation to suggest that she come and lie with him, after which he forced himself to get out of bed and into a chair and promptly proved Elizabeth correct by missing his next four shots.
“Let us stop,” she said after the last. “It is evidently hurting you.”
He did not object. The ache in his throat had worsened, and he did not think it was due to throwing a few trifling bits of paper. To detract from his own disquiet and the concerned manner in which Elizabeth peered at him, he wrote her a note.
I apologise for having been such poor company all week.
“You need not apologise,” she assured him. “You have been very ill.”
How have you passed the time?
“I have talked to the other guests, played cards with them once or twice, read a little.” She grinned saucily and added, “I made a snowman.”
This evidently delighted her, though whether she was better pleased by her own undertaking or his surprise, he would not have liked to say.
Was it a good one?
“No, not really. I got cold before I finished him, so he only had a belly and some arms. I called him Sir William.”
Darcy’s throat clamped closed around the laugh that bubbled up before he could prevent it, but as always, her wit took him by surprise, and she certainly had captured that man’s two prevailing qualities: his paunch and his knighthood. The resulting spasms deprived him of air for longer than was comfortable, and the joke had passed by the time he recovered himself. Nonetheless, he endeavoured to partake in her enjoyment.
I am sorry to have missed that. I have a talent for building snowmen of which I am unashamed to boast. My sister and I make it our business to build one together on the first snow of every winter.
“What a lovely thing to do,” Elizabeth replied, sounding genuinely pleased, even if she looked a little surprised. “It is true, then, youdoenjoy liveliness. I would never have believed it before this week. You did not betray any hint of it in Hertfordshire.”
You did not see me in any places where liveliness was appropriate. It would be entirely impractical to build a snowman at a ball. Too many candles.
She laughed unrestrainedly at this—a sound that lifted Darcy’s heart for knowing he had brought it about.
I am sorry you have had nobody with whom to build your snowmen. It must have been an exceedingly tedious few days. Would that I could have been awake for more of it.
She shook her head. “Truly, Mr Darcy, you must not concern yourself with that. You need to regain your strength, for Master John made it to Spencer’s Cross this afternoon with our letters. The road on the far side of the village is still blocked, apparently, but he seems to think that as long as it does not snow again, it ought to clear within a day or two, and then the post can be delivered. It would be exceedingly vexing if, after all this, you were to keel over just as help arrived. You must concentrate on getting better.”
