“Ah! Do not you worry about that, sir,” came the reply. “A shirt is neither here nor there when a man’s life is in the balance. It really was a most unfortunate accident. We are all delighted to see you recovered.”
Darcy was unaccustomed to such easy camaraderie with strangers. He wondered briefly if his incapacity, or perhaps his present anonymity, might have occasioned it, but he could notfool himself for long. It was Elizabeth they all esteemed, and him only by association.
“Excuse me,” he mouthed. “I must go to Eliz… I must go.” He stood up—and sat back down again heavily as the room whirled about him in great, stomach-churning revolutions.
“Good Lord, steady on, sir!”
More than one voice asked whether he required assistance but in response to them all, he gave the silent lie that he was well. When the room ceased spinning, he pushed himself more cautiously to his feet, mouthed a general thank you to everyone present, and walked unsteadily from the room.
Chapter 15
An Unkind World
Darcy could have sworn the damned bear growled at him as he passed it. Mayhap it was only his own hoarse breathing. Mayhap he was losing his mind. It felt that way—he could make sense of nothing. There were twice as many stairs going up as there had been coming down, and he was exhausted by the time he reached the landing. He did not pause to catch his breath, for such he had not successfully managed since Tuesday last in any case, and instead he strode directly to knock upon the door adjacent to his. There was no answer. He knocked again. Silence.
Would that he could speak, plead to be heard, for the need to lessen her ill opinion, by even the smallest margin, weighed unbearably heavy on him. He knocked a third time and listened so hard it was a wonder he could not hear woodworm chewing the beams—but of Elizabeth, he heard not a murmur. Surely she was above pretending to be absent to avoid him? A flurry of alarm churned his stomach, and he gave propriety little more than a passing thought as he opened the door to look for her.
She was not within, which was not surprising for it was instantly obvious this was not her bedchamber. A man’s clothes lay strewn across an unmade bed. Several Hessian boots, none of which matched each other, were dotted about the floor. An open bottle of liquor stood on the nightstand, and an unemptied chamber pot took pride of place on a chair in the centre of the room.
Darcy backed out and peered along the landing. On this side of the building, there were only two doors. He walked to the other and opened it—his chamber. He walked back to the first and looked inside again—still not Elizabeth’s. He returned to the landing and stared at the wall betwixt the two where the door to her room ought to have been but was not. He knew not what to make of it.
Feeling somewhat detached from proceedings, he returned to his own chamber and knocked instead on the connecting door to the room in which Elizabeth had been sleeping all week. Again, there was no answer and, half expecting to walk into the dream world of earlier in the week, filled with murderous bears and drunken Bingleys, he opened this door as well. He was greeted with no such sight and came up short. He groaned, then choked on it.
He had believed, when Elizabeth dried her hair before his fire, that she had done so as a consequence of her easiness in his company. His vanity truly knew no bounds. She had done so only for a want of her own fireplace. For this was no separate bedchamber with adjoining door. This was but a small storage room, lined on both sides with long, deep shelves piled high with all the accoutrements of innkeeping. The bottom right shelf had been emptied and arranged with a few blankets into a bed. Darcy closed his eyes and attempted to order his miasmic thoughts. This was all exceedingly bad, though he knew not which was worse: that Elizabeth hadbeen sleeping in a cupboard, or that she was not presently in it.
He turned on his heel and walked—slower than he would like but faster than good sense told him was wise—back to the stairs, which he descended leaning heavily against the bannisters. With gritted teeth, he pushed away from the bottommost newel post and walked towards the taproom. He saw before he entered that she had not returned there. He looked beyond those still seated within to the windows that overlooked the road. Surely to God she had not walked out again? Assuming not, he veered through the door to the back of the inn. He made his way down an ill-lit passageway with his hands out against both walls for balance, wary of every jutting flagstone lest it trip him and jar his neck—until he heard Elizabeth’s plea, whereupon all awareness of his injury evaporated.
“Let me pass, sir. Nay, I insist you let me pass!”
Darcy strode towards her voice. She was in the kitchen, backed against a worktable with a jug clutched desperately to her chest. Mr Latimer loomed before her, too close to have anything but wickedness on his mind. Unable to shout, Darcy hammered his fist against the nearest surface to announce his presence. It frightened Elizabeth more than it did Latimer. She shrieked and dropped the jug, sending water and shattered earthenware skittering across the floor; he only glanced to see who it was, sneered, then turned back to his prey.
“Go away, Darcy. This is none of your business.”
“He is my husband!” Elizabeth cried, her evident attempt to sound indignant lost beneath the tremble in her voice.
Latimer laughed at her. “No, he is not. Not unless you have pawned your ring. Besides, I spoke to your man, Rogers, the night you arrived. He didn’t know this prig from Adam.”
Elizabeth sent Darcy a look of sheer panic, but he had already seen and heard enough. He stepped forward, his armextended to force Latimer aside and allow Elizabeth egress, but the man would not budge. He shoved Darcy’s arm away and snarled an obscene directive for him to leave. Despite a thousand tiny stars filling his vision with white light, Darcy gave no ground. He held his arm out again, this time taking Elizabeth by the elbow and guiding her towards him.
“Get off!” Latimer growled, grabbing for her.
Darcy whipped around—something beneath his bandages strained and popped grotesquely—and bared his teeth at Latimer. And with rage roaring in his veins, there he remained, still and silent, glaring savagely until the cur’s bravado visibly wilted.
“She does not even like you, you mute bastard,” Latimer muttered—a parting rebuke that cut far deeper than he could ever imagine as he slunk into the shadows.
Darcy turned away, put his arm gently around Elizabeth’s shoulders, and led her from the room.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
It was too dim to bother mouthing anything in response, and Darcy was, in any case, too distracted attempting to navigate the passageway to hold a conversation. His shoulder brushed a protruding brick, unbalancing him, and he stumbled slightly. He braced himself against the wall to keep from falling.
“Mr Darcy?”
The concern in Elizabeth’s voice and a clatter from the kitchen gave him motivation aplenty to gather his wits and resume walking. Neither said any more as they walked past the taproom door and the dancing bear, up towards the landing. Only when Elizabeth cried out and clutched suddenly athis arms did Darcy become aware that he was moving in the wrong direction on the stairs. He had meant to be ascending, not swaying precariously backwards. He grabbed for the balustrade and gripped it fiercely until he regained his footing.
“You are not well,” Elizabeth said, her hands still upon him as though convinced he would fall. He stared at them, savouring their warmth through his shirt sleeve and vaguely disgusted that the only way he seemed able to secure her tender touch was to hurl himself down a staircase. He stared too long; she withdrew her hands, leaving two spots of cold on his arm.
“I am sorry you had to?—”
