Chapter Twenty-Four #2
She would have laughed if laughing did not threaten to shatter her into pieces. Instead, she leaned back the smallest fraction; it was either lean or fall. He was warm—warmer than she, at least—and she snuggled closer.
They rode.
The moon went in and out behind the clouds. Elizabeth became absurdly aware of how close she was to Mr. Darcy, how his breath warmed the side of her head, how the beat of his heart would have lulled her to sleep were shivers not still wracking her body.
They reached the house and Mr. Darcy dismounted, reaching up to grasp her around the waist and set her on her feet. Elizabeth swayed; his hand steadied her as if he had expected it.
“Inside,” he said, low and firm.
Elizabeth allowed herself to be guided, because her pride was as frozen as the rest of her. The door opened and Mr. Darcy nearly carried her inside.
“Oh, this is very like it!” Mrs. Hobart declared as they entered. “Assault! Outrage! I am tied like a common—Sir Reginald, do you hear me? Common!”
A deeper voice grumbled. “If you do not stop your mouth—”
Elizabeth blinked.
Four people were bound in chairs. Sir Reginald’s jaw was swollen and his expression affronted. Mrs. Hobart sat upright as a queen. Mr. Gregory’s expression was sullen, and his wife sat beside him, cheeks mottled with something Elizabeth thought might be shame.
Mrs. Hobart’s eyes fixed on her at once. “There she is!” she cried, as if Elizabeth’s mere presence were a personal betrayal. “There is the ungrateful creature!”
Sir Reginald attempted to smile, but with his bruised countenance it appeared sinister. “My dear princess—”
“Sir Reginald,” Mr. Darcy said quietly, “if you speak again, I will regret that I struck you only once.”
Elizabeth gazed up at Mr. Darcy. He had struck Sir Reginald? Her mind was so sluggish that she could not comprehend it.
Mrs. Hobart gasped. “Threats! Do you hear? Threats from a gentleman!”
Mr. Darcy did not reply. Instead, he led Elizabeth to a chair near the hearth, settled her there, and began building up the fire, coaxing flame from embers, laying kindling and then a log, until the heat spread and deepened.
All the while, the commentary continued.
Mrs. Hobart, never one to waste an opportunity to complain, declared, “I shall have the magistrate! I shall have the bishop! I shall have everybody!”
“You will have my foot if you keep on,” Mrs. Gregory grumbled.
“Woman’s voice could curdle milk,” her husband added.
“Mr. Darcy,” Sir Reginald began, “this is all a misunderstanding—”
“A misunderstanding,” Mrs. Hobart repeated, triumphant. “Exactly! We were merely assisting, merely guiding, and now we are tied up like sausages!”
Heat licked at Elizabeth’s skin in painful waves as sensation returned; her shivering grew suddenly worse as the cold began to work its way out of her bones.
Mr. Darcy turned from the fire and came to her at once.
“Hold out your hands,” he said.
Elizabeth obeyed. He examined them, then rubbed them briskly between his own, as if he meant to command blood back into her fingers.
“This is entirely scandalous,” she whispered, because it seemed important to register outrage even while being grateful.
“Yes,” Mr. Darcy said drily. “It is. Quite shocking.”
Mrs. Hobart leaned forward as far as her bonds allowed. “And whose fault is it? Hers! If she had only been reasonable and remained above stairs—”
Mr. Darcy’s head turned slowly toward her.
Mrs. Hobart’s voice faltered.
“Madam,” he said with terrifying calm, “you will cease speaking.”
Mrs. Hobart bristled. “Well, I never—”
“That is speaking,” Mr. Darcy replied.
She fell silent.
Mr. Darcy laid out everything before the fire to warm. He took a blanket draped over the back of the settee and wrapped it around Elizabeth, then, as if deciding that was insufficient, he sat down beside her and drew her against him, one arm firm around her back.
Elizabeth stiffened on reflex. The reflex lasted two seconds. Then her body, traitorous and sensible, leaned in.
It was only for warmth, of course. Entirely practical.
Mrs. Hobart stared at them with a sort of scandalised fascination, her mouth hanging open. “Mr. Darcy!”
He turned his head to look over his shoulder. “Anders. Johnson. Kindly remove them.”
Elizabeth had not realised that Mr. Darcy’s coachmen were in the room with them.
Mrs. Hobart shrieked. “Remove us? Where? You cannot!”
“I think you will find that we can,” Johnson said pleasantly.
“You could not stop yapping, could ya?” Mrs. Gregory cried. “And now look! This is all your fault! You had to come here, even when you wasn’t wanted!”
Johnson hauled Sir Reginald upright, then tossed him over one shoulder like a sack of grain. Resigned, Sir Reginald said only, “Mind my coat.”
“Mind it yourself,” Johnson said flatly.
Between them, Anders and Johnson shepherded the entire bound party back towards the kitchen. Mrs. Hobart’s commentary did not cease even as she was dragged along.
Mr. Gregory muttered. Mrs. Gregory did not speak at all. And then they were gone.
The house felt suddenly quiet.
Anders returned. “We’ve put ’em in the pantry, sir. Johnson and I will take turns watching the door,” he said simply. “No one’s leaving that room.” He motioned to Mr. Darcy’s left arm. “Ought to let me clean that,” he said.
Mr. Darcy grunted.
Elizabeth noted a few drops of blood on his shirtsleeve. Foolish man, to be lifting her with his arm still injured.
“Very well,” he said, “but do not dawdle.”
The coachman fetched water and linen and made quick work of cleaning the wound and bandaging it again. The stop of Elizabeth’s shawl and her handkerchief were consigned to the fire, for there would be no saving them.
“Thank you, Anders,” Mr. Darcy said when it was done. His attention returned to Elizabeth as Anders nodded and left.
“Are you warming?” he asked, and the question sounded almost reluctant, as though he did not trust the answer. He reached his hand out to her boot, then looked up at her as if requesting permission.
Elizabeth tried to speak and discovered her teeth were chattering again. She simply nodded.
Mr. Darcy accepted her nod and bent to the task with a gravity that left no room for embarrassment.
He unlaced one boot with careful fingers, drawing it off gently, then the other; the damp leather came away with a faint sucking sound.
“I am not—” she began, meaning to say I am not an invalid, but the words shattered into another shudder.
“I am checking your toes,” he said, very firmly, in the tone of a man explaining a simple fact to someone determined to make it complicated. “If you have frostbite, I will not rub them.”
And then, before she could decide whether to be appalled, he nodded at her, motioning to her thigh. He paused only long enough to look up again, the briefest question in his eyes. She shook her head and indicated he should turn his head. He did.
Elizabeth rolled the stockings down over her ankles and carefully tugged them free. Her feet, pale and blotched with cold, met the air; she drew a sharp breath and quickly lowered her skirt.
Mr. Darcy turned at the sound. He waited for her to nod, then took one foot in his hands, his thumbs pressing the skin, first her toes, then the ball of her foot, then her heel—methodical, no doubt searching for numb hardness, for a waxen look.
“No,” he murmured at last, the single syllable sounding relieved.
“Good.” And then, because his relief must be put to work, he gathered one foot into his hands and began carefully rubbing warmth back into them with firm strokes and steady pressure, coaxing her blood to move.
Then he placed that foot down near the fire, covered it with the blanket, and did the same for the other.
Then he placed her stockings before the fire to dry.
“There,” he said, still frowning as he finished the task. He sat beside her once more and drew her closer to him, his arm firm, his body warm, the fire steady now and bright.
“Allow me,” he said.
Elizabeth was too weary to protest. She rested her head against him.
“I met your father and your uncle while we were searching for you,” Mr. Darcy said as he worked. “They sought you on a different road but we were meant to meet up tonight. They will certainly come looking for us in the morning. They will recognise my carriage and know that we are close.”
“And you?” she asked because she could not help it. “You are—” She searched for a word that would not betray how afraid she had been when she imagined him hurt. “You are well? Sir Reginald did not harm you?”
Mr. Darcy’s gaze held hers. “I was delayed,” he said, and then, after the smallest pause, “But I am well.”
Elizabeth looked away quickly toward the fire because the fire was safer than the expression in his eyes.
“We began searching here at the house,” Mr. Darcy continued quietly, his voice low and steady.
“When we found you gone, we searched the grounds first, then worked our way toward the road, checking every tree, every shadow. It took time.” His arm tightened fractionally around her.
“I am glad you thought to wait in the carriage.”
She would not tell him she had been there only a brief time before he found her.
Warmth crept slowly through her, painful at the edges. Her eyelids grew heavy. She fought the humiliating desire to sleep like a child by the hearth, but the day had been too long, the evening too cold, and Mr. Darcy’s steady presence beside her was too . . .
“You should sleep,” he murmured.
“I cannot,” Elizabeth protested weakly, her voice still hoarse but growing stronger. “I am in a house with four villains tucked away in a cupboard.”
“Villains in a cupboard,” Mr. Darcy echoed, and there was a flicker of humour at last, a ghost of amusement that made him sound like himself again. “It is a proper place for them. They will keep.”
“We are staying the night, then?” Elizabeth asked.
“We must,” he said simply. “It is nearly two hours back to the main road, and the night is growing ever colder. We will retrieve my carriage in the morning and return you to your family.”
Elizabeth tried to smile and gave up halfway. The thought of morning, of explanations, of returning to the world—it all felt impossibly distant.
Elizabeth listened to Mrs. Hobart’s muffled complaints wafting through the walls for a moment and then she drifted away while Mr. Darcy kept watch over her.