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He shook his head again and I felt terrible for confusing the man. He had been through enough. He did not need to feel as if he were mad on top of everything else.
“So you are courting my cousin?” he said suddenly.
I sat back in surprise. “I suppose I am, though I like to think he is courting me.”
He leaned forward and his elbow knocked something off the small table at his side. It rolled until it hit my foot and I reached down to pick it up. The colonel reached for it at the same time and our hands touched. His head snapped up and he looked me straight in the eye and I knew he knew. There was no hiding it now.
“Colonel, please,” I whispered.
His eyes grew impossibly wider and he continued to stare into my eyes, both of us bent over our chairs only inches apart.
He rose up slowly and I mirrored his action, until he reached out and took my hand in his. He stared at it in awe, and I knew he was feeling himself lighten, feeling his aches dissipate, feeling his muscles relax and his joints loosen.
“Remarkable!” he whispered.
Because I was contrary, I sent a quick jolt of energy into his hand. He jumped in his chair and looked at me with a wide smile.
“How do you do it?”
“I do not know. I have been doing it since I was a child. I simply do.”
He shook his head. “Unbelievable.”
He was still holding my hand and I became aware of the impropriety of our situation. “My hand, colonel.”
“Of course. Forgive me.” He resettled in his chair and fixed his gaze on me. “Does Darcy know?”
“He does not, but I will have to tell him if this courtship becomes serious.”
He gave me a look. “It is already serious. Darcy would not have said a word if he was not serious about you.”
I flushed. “I will tell him, but it is a delicate thing. One does not simply blurt something like this out on a morning call.”
“You are right. You will need to be strategic, but I suspect you already know how to do that.”
“You are very forward, colonel,” I said with a smile. Despite the oddness of this conversation, I liked him very much.
He shrugged as if he had been told so a dozen times and did not care a whit. “I feel as if we are already great friends. Is that a result of,” he gestured to my hands with a swirling motion.
I tilted my head in sympathy. “It is, I am afraid. In very difficult cases, the patient often becomes attached to me.”
“Attached in what way?”
“Well, there is a little boy on my father’s estate who has followed me about since his birth. He is six now, but he says he wishes to marry me when he is grown,” I said with a smile. “Most feel a mild fondness. They are happy to see me when they would otherwise not wish for visitors. Things like that.”
“Was I a very difficult case?” he asked, his eyes tight.
My heart welled with sympathy for him. It was a terrifying thing to come face to face with one’s own mortality. “Yes, you were.”
“I thought so,” he said quietly.
We shared a moment of silence together, the weight of what had almost happened settling over us.
“I owe you a great debt, Miss Bennet.”
“You owe me nothing.”
“I owe you my life,” he said firmly.
