Page 68 of Mr. Darcy’s Fiery Passion

"I know," said Elizabeth softly. "You told me. In the library."

"I told you half." He looked down at his open hand. "For three weeks I could not hold a cup either. You cut my meat. You dressed my hands, and washed my hair, and buttoned my waistcoat. I needed you in every hour of the day."

"And you hated it." She tried to smile. "You need not pretend otherwise."

"That is what I did not understand until a week ago." He lifted his eyes to hers. "Georgiana told me. My father did not hate needing me. He hated being ill. He told her that my reading to him was the best hour of his day." He paused. "But she only told me what you had shown me first. You did all of it for three weeks, and you never once thought me less for it."

The lane was very quiet. A rook called somewhere out over the fields.

"It was the best hour of mine," said Darcy. "Every night. At two in the morning, with a lamp, and a book I could not hold, and you."

Her fingers loosened on the crutch.

He came the last step. He was close enough to touch now. Still he did not touch her. "My hands are healed," he said. "I can do everything for myself. I can cut my meat and turn my pages and tie my own cravat. Badly." His mouth moved, not quite a smile. "And none of it is any use to me without you."

He drew a breath. "I need you, Elizabeth."

He said it steadily, and he did not look away. There was no weakness in it anywhere. It was the surest thing she had ever heard him say.

Elizabeth could not see him very well. Her eyes had filled. "Not to cut your meat," she said.

"No."

"Not to pay a debt."

"There is no debt. There never was. I never wanted your thanks, Elizabeth. I wanted you." He held out his bare right hand, palm up. "You left this in the conservatory."

It was her hairpin. A plain steel pin, a little bent, lay in the middle of his healed palm.

She looked at it for a long moment. He kept it. He carried it all the way to London and back, while I told myself he was glad to be free.

She took it from his hand. Her fingers brushed his palm. It was warm, even in the cold. The touch struck a spark she had sworn was out. "I thought you offered for me because you owed me," she said. "For the nursing, and the library, and the lane. I thought I would spend my whole life as a debt you had honored. I could not bear that. I would rather have had nothing."

"Your father warned me. He says you have a great objection to being obliged."

"He would know. I get it from him." She laughed, and it came out wet. "Fitzwilliam. Do you truly need me?"

"Every hour."

"Then you had better have me," said Elizabeth. "Because I need you too. I have walked to this ditch every morning for days, because it is where you found me. And I have been very cheerful about it."

He made a sound she had never heard from him. His hands came up and took her face.

They were bare, and warm, and quite steady. He had held her face once before, among the orange trees. That night his hands had been new and shaking. Now they knew exactly what they were doing.

He kissed her.

The crutch fell over in the frozen ruts. Neither of them looked at it.

19

When at last he lifted his head, she was shivering. He frowned down at her. "You are cold."

"I am not in the least cold."

"Your lips are blue."

"They were not blue a moment ago," said Elizabeth. "Whose fault is that?"