Mr Darcy listened attentively as she detailed for him the history—the sickness that had wiped out the herds, their finances, and finally, their spirits. Her father’s come-down from respected cattleman to eccentric blacksmith. Her sisters, and her good uncle, and how they had made a new home in town with their dignity a shattered fragment of what it had been.
“I think I should like to meet your uncle,” Mr Darcy said when she had finished.
“My uncle!” She laughed. “You are teasing me, sir. He is not someone I would take for a friend of yours.”
“But he was a friend to you,” he insisted. “He sounds like a good soul, and your father intrigues me as well. I think of what might come if I were to lose all and be forced to make ends meet in whatever way I could.”
Elizabeth could not help a sputtering snort. “You! ‘Make ends meet!’ Forgive me, but I find the notion of you hoeing potatoes or shovelling coal rather comical.”
“What, you do not think I could do it? I have a strong back, Mrs Fitzwilliam.”
Elizabeth pulled the glove from her closest hand and reached toward his horse. “Very well, humour me. Show me your palm.”
He looked amused but removed his glove and gave her his hand across the space between their mounts. Elizabeth turned it over and traced her fingers over the smooth skin. Once, Mr Darcy seemed to flinch as if she had tickled him, but he straightened his fingers again and permitted her to continue her exploration. The inner parts of his fingers were warm, the ridges and planes of his palm sculpted with muscle, but…
She jerked her hand as a titillating spasm shot through her middle. What sort of foolish idea had possessed her, taking his hand like that? Her fingers were tingling, and she replaced her glove as quickly as possible.
“Blisters,” she pronounced in answer to his questioning expression. “You would be nothing but blisters from the first hour you were required to work for your living.”
He was replacing his glove more slowly. “Surely, they would soon give way to callouses,” he reasoned. “Others have done so.”
“Yes,” she clipped back, sounding more irritated than she felt, “but I doubt you would impress anyone whose good opinion you desired with your callouses.”
A strange look crossed his features, then he pursed his lips and looked straight ahead. “I did not mean to offend you. I merely suggested that a man can make himself what he must—I admire your father, that is all.”
Elizabeth was staring at the ground before her horse’s feet, her stomach twisting oddly. “You might be the first person ever to say that.”
“Then, the praise is long overdue.” He waited a moment before speaking again. “Richard liked him.”
Elizabeth could not account for the sting that came to her eye, and she squinted and blinked behind her riding veil. “Yes,” was her simple answer.
“Mrs Fitzwilliam—” He stopped himself, tilted his head as if conducting some inner argument, then forced a lighter expression. “I hope you will forgive me one question, if I may. I had assumed the answer would be apparent by now, and I believe it is, but I wish to be sure—to know if better caution is warranted regarding… regarding your health.”
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes curiously, then observed the redness to his cheeks, the way he could not look at her as he asked, and her face heated. “You ask after Miss de Bourgh’s assumptions,” she guessed.
“I do not wish to make you uncomfortable,” he hastened to add. “You appear… well to me, but…”
“I am not with child.”
He seemed to draw a long breath. “Thank you for telling me. It was naturally among our concerns.”
“You needn’t worry on that score. It will be much easier to send me away now that you know the truth.”
Mr Darcy halted his horse and stared incredulously. “You are very harsh today, Mrs Fitzwilliam. I hope I have never given you any such impression. My only concern, and still a valid one, has been to look to your welfare!”
Elizabeth stiffened her back and cast her gaze to the clouds. “I am sorry, sir. I do not know what my trouble is today! My tongue, I fear, has grown barbs, though you have done nothing to deserve them and everything to merit my gratitude.”
He nudged his horse forward again. “It is forgotten. I expect you slept little last night, and as you say, you are sorely tested in your spirit just now. Would it ease you if I were to summon a doctor? Not for the body, but there are doctors for the mind—”
“No!”
“Come, now, there is no shame in it. We could keep such a call discreet. I mean only to help comfort you.”
She shook her head, vehemently. “I will not be drugged into docility. Please, if you find me so burdensome, just say the word, and I will go elsewhere.”
“Here, now, Mrs Fitzwilliam!” he protested, his voice beginning to sound truly irritated. “I’ll have no such talk ever again. You are free to go wherever you wish. I will not hinder you, but neither do I desire for you to feel unwelcome. If I seem displeased about present circumstances, it is only out of concern. I have never known anyone to have such a nightmare as disturbed you last night, and to learn that they are commonplace troubles me very much.”
Elizabeth winced. No matter what devices she employed to distance herself, to make herself feel undeserving of his kindness, he only pressed the more. She said nothing for several minutes, her lips screwed tightly against one another to stop up the sob of sheer confusion and grief that threatened at any moment to undo her. At last, Mr Darcy tugged a handkerchief free of his coat and held it out to her without a word.
