Daniel, his nose bloodied shook his head positively.
Without as much as a word, he took the safer option and left.
***
Elizabeth stood very still.
Darcy turned. He looked at her with the careful attention of someone doing a quick inventory.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Did he touch you?"
"He did not get the chance." She exhaled slowly. "You came back."
"I forgot a document at home." He looked at her steadily. "I am glad I did."
Elizabeth looked at him for a moment. "How did you know he was the guy from saturday? The door is soundproofed. You could not have heard us from outside."
Darcy was quiet for a beat.
"The car," he said.
"What?"
"The night you came home late. The first date." He glanced towards the kitchen. "I was constantly checking through the window to see if you were coming. I saw a car pull up and later spotted your figure in it. I saw the make, the model, the colour." He paused for air. "When I turned into the street this morning and saw it parked outside the house I had a fairly good idea of what I was walking into."
Elizabeth stared at him.
"You looked out of the window," she said.
"Yes."
"You memorised his car."
"I noted it."
"Darcy."
"It was late and you had not been answering your phone and I did not know who had driven you home," he said, with the even tone of someone presenting a perfectly reasonable sequence of events. "It was a reasonable thing to note."
Elizabeth looked at him for a long moment. He looked back without flinching. Then he winced, rubbing his hand.
Her eyes travelled to his knuckles. They were red and already beginning to swell where he had hit Daniel.
"You are going to act like that does not hurt," she said.
"I have had worse," he replied.
Elizabeth laughed despite herself. "Come here."
He moved toward her and she took his hand and led him to the kitchen and sat him down at the counter and got the ice pack from the freezer. She wrapped it in a cloth and pressed it against his knuckles and he sat there and let her.
"I hope you can see why dating strangers off Ember is not the best option," he said.
Elizabeth laughed properly again, genuine and unguarded. "I hate to say I do."
