Hannah squeaked, bobbed a third curtsy, and fled down the corridor with her tea tray rattling. Darcy watched her go, torn between exasperation and something that might, in a less guarded man, have resembled amusement. The servants were already composing ballads. By this evening, half the county would have heard a highly embroidered version of yesterday’s events, and by week’s end, he would be cast as the hero in a tale he had never sought.
His gaze returned to the connecting door. Behind it, Elizabeth was awake, asking for tea, and no doubt, making dreadful faces at Mrs. Reynolds’s remedies. He would wait another quarter of an hour before going to her. And so, he stood by his window, watching sunlight creep across the east lawn, counting the intervals between the magpies chattering and the wrens scolding.
When he finally knocked, Clarice admitted him with her customary lack of expression and withdrew to the dressing room, leaving the door pointedly ajar.
Elizabeth sat propped against pillows, her hair loose around her shoulders. The breath stopped in his chest. She was still too pale, and the fever lingered in the hollows beneath her eyes,although her eyes themselves were bright. She was awake, and she looked at him as though his arrival were the most ordinary thing in the world, when in fact it felt like nothing ordinary at all.
“I see you survived the night without drowning,” she said, her voice rougher than usual. “I commend your fortitude, Mr. Darcy. The perils of Derbyshire weather are not to be underestimated.”
“The household managed tolerably well. Mrs. Reynolds assures me that no one drowned, no roofs collapsed, and Thomas only bit the housemaid once.” He settled into the bedside chair. “You look less like a drowned cat than I had feared.”
“High praise indeed. Georgiana set the bar rather lower. She informed me that I resembled a ghost dragged backward through a hedgerow, which I thought showed admirable restraint for a girl who once compared my morning hair to a startled hedgehog.” Elizabeth shifted against the pillows, wincing slightly. “I prefer your assessment, unflattering as it remains.”
“I might have said tempest-tossed, if I were feeling poetic.”
“You? Who carried me up the stairs like a sack of particularly damp grain?” Her eyes glinted. “I understand from Hannah that your heroics have already achieved legendary status below stairs. She appeared at my door this morning with enough romantic speculation to fuel a three-volume novel.”
The heat rose to his face before he could prevent it. “The servants talk too much.”
“On the contrary, they are poets in disguise.” Elizabeth shifted, wincing, though her eyes sparkled. “At Longbourn, we performed plays for Christmas. My father would read the stage directions in a voice of profound suffering while my mother criticized everyone’s costumes. My sisters would choose their own characters—even Hill and Cook joined in. I once playedLady Macbeth so convincingly that Kitty would not speak to me for a week.”
“We do not put on plays at Pemberley.”
“How terribly dull of you.” Her expression suggested this was a deficiency she intended to remedy. “I shall have to introduce the tradition. Thomas can play the young prince—he has the requisite gravity—and Georgiana the romantic lead, naturally. Hannah can manage the chorus of sighing maidens, and Jamison shall narrate.”
“And what role do you envision for the master of the house?”
“The brooding hero, naturally. You shall stand in the corner looking severe while everyone else has all the good lines.” Her smile widened, a touch impish. “I understand it is a role you have been rehearsing for years.”
He ought to have been offended. Instead, he felt his own mouth curve in response. Her intention to create new Pemberley traditions showed she did not plan to abandon him and Thomas the moment Longbourn’s roof was repaired and her father regained his robustness. “I see the fever has not diminished your impertinence.”
“Illness strips away all the polite dissembling. You are seeing the essential Elizabeth—unvarnished and entirely unrepentant.” She held his gaze, the teasing edge softening into something more vulnerable. “I ought to warn you that this version speaks her mind with alarming frequency and very little filter.”
“I find I prefer your authentic speech.”
The words slipped out before he could recall them, and he saw surprise flicker across her face along with a softer expression that unsettled his pulse. She looked away, fingers restless on the coverlet.
“Mrs. Reynolds would disagree. She has been attempting to polish me with salt water gargles, and I have been an exceedingly ungracious patient.” Her voice lost some of its defensive edge.“She is a formidable woman, your housekeeper, and I suspect she could command armies, were she so inclined.”
“She has commanded Darcys for thirty years. Armies would prove considerably less obstinate.”
“Then I shall consider myself warned. You need not hover, as I am perfectly capable of recovering without an audience.”
“I am paying a call on my own wife, which is an entirely different occupation.”
“An honorable distinction for hovering with excellent posture,” she remarked, her eyes tracking his face in a manner that made him want to look away.
“I should send for Dr. Mountford,” he said. “He is well-regarded in the county.”
“You should do no such thing.” Her chin lifted with that stubbornness he was beginning to recognize as immovable. “I have endured quite enough medicinal torture for one illness, and I have no intention of submitting to draughts of dubious efficacy from a man who will recommend precisely what I am already doing. Bed rest, light broths, and avoidance of excitement.” She gestured at the quiet chamber, the crackling fire, and the single chair containing her single visitor. “Unless you intend to provide excitement of a scandalous nature, I believe I am adequately following medical advice.”
Darcy felt the heat climb his neck. Elizabeth’s expression remained perfectly innocent, but the glint in her eye suggested she knew exactly what she had implied.
“I shall endeavor to remain appropriately sedate,” he said. “Perhaps a reading of poetry or a leisurely game of backgammon.”
“Poetry would require you to commit to dramatic reading, which you have already confessed is beyond your abilities.” Elizabeth’s lips curved. “And backgammon demands a steadierhand than I currently possess. I should hate to lose through mere physical incapacity rather than genuine strategic failure.”
“A convenient excuse for future defeats.”
