Page 44 of Mr. Darcy’s Fiery Passion

"Charlotte was so good as to listen to him all afternoon," said Jane at dinner. "I thought it very kind of her."

Elizabeth thought so too, and was grateful, and thought no more about it.

Mrs. Bennet took her drops at ten, with a great deal of noise. She would sleep till morning.

At two o'clock in the morning, Elizabeth opened her door.

Mr. Darcy was in the passage. She had known he would be.

He held out his arm without a word. She took it. They went the ten hops to the library. He settled her in her chair and sat down on the footstool at her feet.

For a while neither of them spoke.

"You heard my mother," she said.

"I heard her."

"She cannot keep me. She has said so, one way or another, since I was a child." She looked at the fire. "It is not cruelty. It is only true."

He was quiet. Then he said, "You called me today."

"It was that or marry Mr. Collins."

"You called me," he said again. "You asked for my arm in front of him. You have never asked me for help before."

His face was grave, and open in a way she had not seen before. "I have thought of nothing else all day," he said.

Her throat tightened. She had no answer to that, so she said the only thing she could think of. "Then I shall ask you for something else."

"Ask."

"Kiss me."

He rose up on his knees and kissed her. It was not slow this time. It was not angry either. It was glad. She wound her arms round his neck and kissed him back, and the chair creaked under them both.

When they broke apart, she was breathing fast. So was he. Her wrapper had come loose. She did not reach to close it.

She took his wrist and drew his bandaged hand toward her.

He let her bring it almost to her breast. Then he stopped, and his arm went rigid in her grip. "Elizabeth." His voice was rough. "I cannot use my hands."

She looked at him in the firelight, at his mouth, and his dark hair, and the want in his face. "Then do not," she said.

12

Then do not.

Darcy knelt on Bingley's hearthrug and could not move.

She still held his wrist. His bandaged hand hung in her grip, an inch from the lawn of her nightgown. The fire was warm on one side of his face. She was warm on the other.

For a fortnight he had hated these hands. They could not cut his meat, or turn a page, or button his own waistcoat. Every morning they had shown him his father. He saw the old man propped on his pillows, holding out his wrists to be washed.

And she had looked at them and said, Then do not.

She had not said it to comfort him. She had said it the way she said everything at two in the morning. It was plain, a little impatient, and entirely sure.

"Elizabeth," he said. His voice came out rough. "Do you know what you are asking?"