They had spoken to Elizabeth then!
“I have stitched the wound itself now,” he went on. “It ought to be more comfortable now that it has had a chance to begin healing.”
Darcy made his customary gesture for yes, but it only provoked them all to peer quizzically at his hands. “It is,” he mouthed instead. “And my voice?” He pointed to his throat to assist Farnham in understanding.
The physician grimaced. “I am afraid I cannot say with any certainty when or whether it will return, sir, but it is not a hopeless case. It was necessary only for me to stitch the soft tissue. Your oesophagus and trachea were intact—severely bruised, hence your difficulty breathing and swallowing—but intact. It would not be unreasonable to hope that once the surrounding contusion heals, your vocal cords will likewise recover.”
This was welcome news indeed. “No other damage?”heenquired, for after a week of the most disagreeable ignorance, he would know every detail possible.
“It does not appear so, sir,” Farnham replied. He began gesturing with his hands as he warmed to his topic. “The musculature of the neck is tremendously thick, designed to protect all the critical structures inside. The mechanism of your injury—a blunt force to this area, here—appears to have ruptured the skin without directly compromising any of those deeper structures.”
“Miss Bennet said I bled profusely.”
Farnham clearly did not understand, but after two more attempts, Fitzwilliam managed to translate for him.
“It was a large gash,” Farnham replied. “There would still have been significant bleeding, but I assure you no major blood vessels were damaged. You would not have survived an injury of that nature.”
“I daresay it was still more blood than Miss Bennet is ever likely to have seen,” Fitzwilliam said.
“I should think it was a good deal moremanthan she is ever likely to have seen either,” Ladbroke added with a lascivious grin.
Darcy pretended to ignore him, but his cousin was not the first to whom that thought had occurred. It had been impossible, whilst submitting to Elizabeth’s ministrations, not to wonder what she thought of his exposed person. Reflecting on her opinion of his appearance only reminded him what he now knew to be her opinion of his character, exacerbating the hollow sensation presently residing just below his ribcage. Nevertheless, the need to discover how she fared lent his actions a fervent quality when Morby returned with writing apparatus. He wasted no time in snatching the pen and paper from his man before inching along the bed closer to the nightstand and leaning upon it to write,
Where is Miss Bennet? And is she well?
He held it up. Fitzwilliam read it, widened his eyes expressively, and, with the flat of his hand, firmly pushed Darcy’s arm downwards until the paper lay face down on the bed. “Thank you, Farnham. That will be all for now.”
“Very good, Colonel.” The physician gathered up his belongings and left.
“We will ring the bell if you are needed again, Morby,” Ladbroke said to Darcy’s man, who waited for a look of permission from his master before following the physician from the room.
“Good God, Darcy, are you still riding high?” Fitzwilliam exclaimed as soon as the door clicked closed. “You have barely escaped this mess unshackled as it is. Show a little discretion, would you?”
Darcy stared at him in consternation for one or two seconds before whipping the sheet of paper back into the air and jabbing it angrily with his finger. “Answer my bloody question!”
“Very well,” his cousin answered warily. “She is returned to her family. And, at the last I heard, in perfect health.”
Darcy could not smile. That she was well was a vast relief. That she was gone back to her family, and away from him possibly forever, made him wretched. “And when did you last hear?”
“Pardon?”
He bared his teeth, slapped the paper back on the nightstand, and scribbled upon it,
Has there been no further word since Monday?
Fitzwilliam came to lean over him and read aloud what hehad written, for Ladbroke’s benefit. There was a pause afterwards. Darcy wished they would cease looking at each other in that irritating way, as though privately communicating how they ought to manage him into compliance. He added a line to his note.
“‘I have lost my voice, not my wits,’” Fitzwilliam read, quickly adding, “That is heartening to know, Darcy. Nevertheless, you do seem uncommonly concerned about the young lady.”
“Perchance more happened at the inn than we have been informed,” Ladbroke remarked.
“What do you take me for?” Darcy mouthed angrily.
His cousin wasted very little time attempting to comprehend him before giving up with a shake of his head. “I can see you are angry, but you must agree it is singularly out of character for you to show such a marked interest in a girl of her calibre.”
The truth of it shamed Darcy deeply and made him more determined to prove Elizabeth’s true worth.
She did much to aid my recovery.
