CHAPTER TWO
A Promise in the Grass
Elizabeth had chosen the lane because it was quiet.
Jane had been subdued at breakfast, though she insisted she was perfectly well, and Mrs. Bennet had spent twenty minutes railing against the Bingley party for abandoning Netherfield without so much as a farewell dinner.
Lydia and Kitty had begun an argument over which officers might attend an assembly the following week.
Mary had attempted to improve the moment by reading aloud a sentence concerning the dangers of worldly attachment.
Elizabeth had put on her boots. She knew Jane was hurt.
That was the worst of it. Jane’s pain was so gentle that careless people might mistake it for the absence of pain altogether.
Elizabeth wanted air, distance, and enough solitude to think wicked things about Charles Bingley’s sisters without saying them in front of her mother.
She did not expect to find Mr. Darcy sprawled in the lane.
At first she thought he was dead. Her stomach dropped so violently she felt it in her knees. “Mr. Darcy?”
His eyes opened. They were unfocused. “Miss Elizabeth.”
She reached him and immediately saw the leg. “Oh, Lord.”
A tear in his breeches below the knee was dark with blood. Worse, the shape beneath the cloth was wrong. Darcy attempted to raise himself on one elbow.
“No.” Elizabeth put a hand against his shoulder. “Do not move.”
He stared at her hand as if it were an object of profound interest. “You came.”
“Yes. Entirely by accident, I assure you.”
“I knew you would.”
“That is flattering confidence, but at present I need you to lie still.”
His skin was cold beneath her fingers, yet there was already an unnatural heat in his face. His lips had lost colour. Elizabeth leaned close, trying to judge his breathing. Darcy looked directly into her eyes. “I love you.”
She froze. The wind moved dry leaves along the edge of the lane. “What?”
“I love you,” he repeated, very distinctly for a man who looked half-dead. “You must know it.”
“I most certainly did not.”
“I have been very poor at it.”
“At loving me?”
“At everything.” His brow drew together. “You laugh at me.”
“Frequently.”
“I like it.”
Elizabeth stared at him. This, she decided, was what severe injury did to a man’s brain. “You are injured, sir.”
“Yes.”
“Very badly.”
“Yes.”
“And therefore you must stop attempting conversation.”
“Marry me.” Elizabeth sat back on her heels. Darcy caught at her wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong.
“Mr. Darcy.”
“Marry me.”
“You are delirious.”
“No.”
“You are lying in mud with a broken leg and have just informed a woman whom you have scarcely managed to address civilly for two months that you love her. I feel reasonably secure in my diagnosis.”
His eyes narrowed with grave offence. “I addressed you civilly.”
“Then your memory is worse than I feared.”
A ghost of something passed over his face. Amusement, perhaps. Or pain. Then he tried to rise. Elizabeth shoved him back with both hands. “Stop that!”
“You have not answered.”
“Answered what?”
“My proposal.”
“This is not a proposal. This is a medical emergency.”
“I asked you to marry me.”
“You did.”
“Then answer.”
“Mr. Darcy—”
“Elizabeth.” He had never used her Christian name. The sound of it in his low, roughened voice unsettled her more than the absurd declaration had. Darcy shifted again. His injured leg moved perhaps an inch.
He went white.
Elizabeth’s heart lurched. “Very well!”
He stilled. She seized the moment as she might have seized a fractious horse’s bridle. “Yes.”
Darcy stared at her. Elizabeth leaned closer. “Do you hear me? Yes. I will marry you. Now you will lie still, you will not move your leg, and you will allow me to find help.”
Something in his whole body released. “Good.”
“Yes, excellent. We are all delighted.”
“My Elizabeth.”
“Temporarily, if you continue behaving.”
He smiled.
It transformed him. Elizabeth had seen Mr. Darcy smile before, but rarely and usually at his sister’s name or some private thought.
This smile was unguarded and almost boyish.
Before she understood his intention, his hand slid from her wrist to the back of her neck.
He lifted his head and kissed her. It was not a polished kiss.
It was scarcely more than the warm pressure of his mouth against hers, made clumsy by pain and his awkward position on the ground.
It shocked Elizabeth from the crown of her bonnet to the soles of her muddy boots. She made a small sound into his mouth.
Darcy sighed, as if something long denied had finally been granted. Then his head fell back. “Mr. Darcy?”
No response.
Elizabeth’s outrage disappeared. “Mr. Darcy.” She touched his cheek. “Sir?”
He was breathing.
Thank heaven. She sat very still for one second, two, with her fingers against his throat and her own lips tingling in a manner she deeply resented.
Then practical necessity returned. The nearest farm belonged to the Gouldings’ tenant, Mr. Barnes, perhaps half a mile across the fields.
Longbourn was nearer than Netherfield by road from this point, though not by much.
She could not possibly move Darcy herself.
Elizabeth pulled off her scarf and folded it beneath the side of his head where the ground was hardest. She took off one glove and pressed it briefly against his cheek.
“I am coming back,” she told him, though he could not hear. “And when you are well enough, I intend to be extremely angry with you.”
She ran. Ten minutes later she burst into the Barnes farmyard so breathless that the farmer’s wife dropped a basket of eggs. “Miss Bennet!”
“A gentleman is hurt in the lane. Badly. His horse threw him. His leg is broken and he is unconscious.”
Mr. Barnes came out of the cowshed wiping his hands on a cloth. “Where?”
“The lower lane by Mr. Goulding’s east field. We need a flat wagon. Blankets. Men enough to lift him without moving the leg more than necessary.”
The farmer’s eyes sharpened. “Who is it?”
“Mr. Darcy of Netherfield.”
“Lord above.”
“Precisely. Please hurry.”
Within minutes a farm wagon had been stripped of sacks and lined with quilts. Two labourers came with Barnes. Mrs. Barnes thrust a blanket into Elizabeth’s arms and insisted upon sending her eldest boy for Mr. Jones.
“No,” Elizabeth said. “Send him to Longbourn first. Tell my father Mr. Darcy is injured and we are bringing him there. Then he may fetch Mr. Jones.”
“Longbourn, miss?” Barnes repeated.
“It is closest, and he cannot endure a longer journey.”
Nobody argued. When they returned to the lane, Darcy had regained some degree of consciousness. His eyes found Elizabeth immediately. “You came back.”
“I said I would.”
Barnes crouched beside him. “We’ll get you up, sir. Easy as we can.”
Darcy’s gaze remained on Elizabeth. “She is to be my wife.” The two labourers went very still.
Elizabeth closed her eyes. “Mr. Darcy.”
“I asked.”
“Yes, I recall the ordeal.”
“She said yes.”
Barnes looked at Elizabeth.
Elizabeth looked at Barnes. The farmer, who had five daughters and an instinct for survival, abruptly became fascinated by the wagon wheel.
“Let us first keep you alive,” Elizabeth said sweetly. “We may discuss the rest later.”
Darcy considered this. “A sensible wife.” One of the labourers coughed into his sleeve.
Lifting him was terrible. Even with four men and a blanket used as a makeshift litter, there was no way to prevent all movement.
Darcy did not cry out. His jaw clenched so hard Elizabeth feared his teeth might crack.
When they settled him on the wagon, sweat stood on his forehead despite the cold.
Elizabeth climbed up beside him without asking anyone’s permission.
He found her hand. She allowed him to hold it.
Only because he was injured, she told herself.
Only because his fingers were cold. Only because every jolt of the wagon made his face tighten and his grip become desperate.
Longbourn appeared through the trees with its familiar brick front and smoke rising from the chimneys.
Mrs. Bennet came flying out before the wagon had stopped. “Lizzy! What in heaven’s name—Oh! Mr. Darcy!”
Behind her came Jane, Kitty, Lydia, Mary, Hill, two maids, and Mr. Bennet at a considerably more dignified pace. Darcy opened his eyes at the commotion.
He saw Mrs. Bennet.
He saw Mr. Bennet. Then he looked at Elizabeth and murmured, with perfect solemnity, “I believe your mother is displeased with me.”
Elizabeth laughed before she could stop herself.
His mouth curved faintly.
Then he fainted again.