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Lizzy felt nearly speechless with dismay. Everything in the lives of both Mr and Miss Darcy was terribly wrong. She moved around to where the countess had been standing, and she could see Mr Darcy’s face. It was a study in despair.
But as soon as he realised she watched him, his expression smoothed into the implacable Mr Darcy she had once known. He seemed utterly himself other than his lack of speech. And he had never had all that much to say.
“Mr Darcy,” she began tentatively, “I apologise for my intrusion into your private affairs. I only hoped to—” She broke off, wondering why someone as herself, who had not even the support of her family, could have possibly thought she could be of any help.
She stepped a little closer, determined to reassure him of her respect for his privacy. “Well, it does not matter. I promise, of course, that I shall say nothing of—”
Without warning, his manacled hand grasped her wrist. She had not even realised that he could touch her. A small noise escaped her lips, somewhere between a gasp and a shriek. She tugged her arm, but he had a grip like iron and the strength of a madman.
Suddenly, everything she had been told of his insanity screamed through her brain. Her breathing accelerated, even as she jerked harder against the hand clamped fiercely around her wrist. Stupid girl!
She panted out her protest. “Oh please, sir…please, release me…oh please, please…”
* * *
It grieved Darcy to have frightened her; indeed, he could not bear to, and thus was prepared to humiliate himself completely.
“Bugger a bit,” he said, then turned red with embarrassment. He had tried to say, “Miss Elizabeth.”
But she abruptly ceased begging him to release her. He looked away from her, and though he did not release her hand, he loosened his grip so she could easily pull away. Amazingly, she did not. He closed his eyes and painstakingly enunciated each word, very slowly and carefully.
“No…frigging…fear.”
It was not perfect, but after a moment, when she did not move, he dared look at her again. She was breathtakingly lovely to him. What a fool he had been, when he’d had his speech, his health, and his freedom, not to have used it to court her properly. He took in her puzzled, pretty face, regret swamping him. But there was no time for it now.
“Nugging house slattern,” he said, then cringed.
“Is this why they say you are…senseless? Because you have…troubles…with your speech?” she asked quietly, pronouncing her words precisely.
Hesitantly, he nodded, mortified but determined to meet her gaze.
“But you can understand everything I am saying?”
He nodded again, listening carefully as she spoke, appreciating her careful enunciation.
“Although of course unusual…it is not an unsolvable problem. If I could, in a matter of moments, begin to understand you, anyone could. If I had writing materials, you could simply write out your requests.”
Darcy sighed, shaking his head. He had no idea if he could write a sentence, but it did not matter. The greater problem was that the earl was uninterested in seeing him healed and restored to his former place. And his aunt’s incredible revelations today showed the plans his relations had formed. Marry him off to a wife the earl would presumably control and thus control the Darcy fortune, while still producing heirs and keeping up appearances—a small nod to honour, and probably the most he could expect. He must not allow it. But first things first.
“What the devil…no…” He clenched his teeth, straining for control. “Wh-wh…”
“I will guess your words. Nod once if I am correct. Did you mean to say ‘what’…? ‘When’…? ‘Where’…?”
He finally nodded firmly.
“Where? You do not know where you are? You are at Younge’s, ‘a private establishment for the convalescence of invalids’ according to the sign on the door.” She smiled at him, seeming pleased with herself for understanding, as she believed. He felt even more the idiot.
He shook his head in the negative.
“Oh, but you are. I can assure you—”
He squeezed her hand to recall her attention. “Wh-where house?” He closed his eyes in frustration, for that had been incorrect. At least he had not sworn at her.
“Where is the hospital? Why, in Ramsgate. Did they not even tell you in which town you reside?”
He shrugged. There were more important issues. “Son of a b—” He stopped himself—that, in itself, an improvement. “Son. No.”
“Not son. Father, mother, brother, sister?”
