Page 36 of Mr. Darcy’s Fiery Passion

Her throat shut.

"They will not turn bad if he keeps them still," Mr. Jones went on. "He will not. He let me look at nothing but the hands, and he refused the laudanum again. You are a pair. I said so on the night of the fire." He shook his head. "Good night, Miss Elizabeth."

Her mother came after supper. Mrs. Bennet had recovered from her faint in time to eat a great deal of it. She told Elizabeth she might have been killed. She told her Mr. Darcy might have been killed. She remarked that no gentleman carried a girl a mile for nothing. After that she went up to bed in excellent spirits.

Jane stayed until eleven. She sat on the edge of the bed and held Elizabeth's hand, and did not scold. "Mr. Darcy did not wait for anyone," she said at last. "He took a lantern and went straight to the old lane. He told me you would not be found by anyone who did not know where to look."

Elizabeth turned her face to the wall.

"Lizzy..."

"I am very tired, Jane."

Jane kissed her forehead and went up. The house grew quiet, one door at a time. Elizabeth lay in the dark and listened to it.

She could not stop seeing his hands.

They had hung open at his sides in the candlelight. The linen had been red to the wrists. He had carried her up six steps on them. He had set her down on the bench and stepped back, and said nothing.

She had not thanked him. She had opened her mouth, and nothing had come.

I will not be a burden. Not to you.

She had said it in the lane and meant every word. And then she had been exactly that. She had been his weight for a mile, on burned hands. His blood was on Mr. Bingley's floor because of her.

The clock in the hall struck one. Then the half.

He will be in the library, she thought. He is always in the library.

She could not go. She had no crutch, and Mr. Jones had forbidden her a single step. And if she went, she would only be one more thing for him to hold up.

The clock struck two.

She pushed back the covers.

She found her wrapper by feel and got it on. She sat on the edge of the bed and set her good foot on the floor. The boards were cold. The bad ankle hung thick in Mr. Jones's bandage, throbbing with her pulse.

This is madness, she told herself. Mama would have hysterics. Mr. Jones would have worse.

She stood on one foot and reached for the wall.

It was four hops to the door. She managed them. She got the door open and leaned in the frame, breathing hard. The passage was dark except for a line of firelight under the library door, ten steps down.

She put her hand on the wall and hopped once.

"Elizabeth."

She nearly fell. She caught the doorframe.

He was there in the passage, a few yards off. He had been walking toward her. He wore his shirt and an open waistcoat, and no cravat. He had stopped dead at the sight of her.

"You were coming to me," she said.

"I was coming to see to your ankle." His voice was low. "I knew you would try to come down. I could not sleep for knowing it."

"And with what were you going to see to it?"

The library door stood a little open behind him. The firelight came through it and fell across his hands.