Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites (53 page)

He could sponge Elizabeth himself and inspect her injuries both thoroughly and in private. He withdrew his waistcoat, wadded it in a loose ball and threw it toward the corner. Then returning to fetch her, he rolled up his sleeves as if preparing for a particularly difficult duty. Which it would be. He knew if she was able to bear it to happen, he must be strong enough to witness the result.

When he sat her in the tub, she gasped, the hot water stinging the long red scratching welts that streaked her thighs. It was just with the sternest of wills that he could bring himself to look at them. Hence, whilst murmuring words of love to her, he silently tortured himself with recriminations.

As a man with considerable conceit of his own understanding of humanity’s shortcomings, he was incredulous that he had been duped by such scurrilous trickery. How could he have kept the brother of a man he beat from service still in his employ? Of course, there would be bad blood. Mr. Rhymes should have dismissed them both. Had he allowed his overseer or the bailiff to see to the matter, as he should have in the first place, instead of taking it upon himself to…

He made himself cease. Self-recriminations were of no particular help to her reparation that he knew. Hence, he denied himself additional
mea culpas
. His mission was to see to his wife.

Not noting a wound that needed binding, he dried and gowned her, then carried her to the bed, covering her with the bedclothes. Outwardly, she appeared but to be bruised. He sat heavily upon the bed, his head in his hands, awash with relief.

But quickly, relief that her body was not mortally wounded was replaced by the memory at just what outrage had been perpetrated against her.

Telling her he should not be gone but a moment, he rose to seek the solitude of his own dressing room. There, suddenly very weary, he splashed water upon his face in vain attempt to restore his flagging strength. Before that day, the only death he had ever witnessed was the gentle passing of his father. Never had he seen a man killed. From that day forward, he would have to live with the knowledge that he had taken three lives. He had slain them without remorse.

That had not been a thought until he looked down at the water in the basin. It was tinged pink. He gave a silent prayer of thanksgiving it was not Elizabeth’s blood he washed from his person.

Looking at himself in the pier glass, he felt not a twinge of regret. Awash yet with rage, his singular wish was that there were three more to kill.

He sank heavily onto a bench, hoping to find enough energy to remove his blood-bedecked shirt, whereupon he heard Goodwin at the door. (Thenceforward of his inopportune intrusion, Goodwin knocked before entering Mr. Darcy’s dressing room.) Drawing his shirt off over his head, he hastily wiped his face and neck clean of any remnants of spattered blood with it.

Thereupon, he thrust the garment into Goodwin’s hands through a mere crack in the door and silently motioned him away. Appalled at the state of the shirt and affronted to have it unceremoniously dumped in his hands, Goodwin looked with repugnance upon it, for he reckoned whose blood it was. Hence, he held the vile garment from his person with a thumb and forefinger and carried it off. Darcy tugged off his own boots, donned a fresh shirt, and then went back to Elizabeth. However, before he lay down upon the bed next to her, he released the tasselled rope cord holding back the baldachin that draped from the canopy. The soft folds of glistening fabric encapsulated their bed.

He was uncertain what she might need of him just then. He would have done anything, gone anywhere, brought her anything. He simply did not know the extent of her discomposure. She had allowed him to help her bathe, but otherwise she refused to be attended. A denial of the physician’s ministrations was not unexpected. But refusing Hannah’s was unprecedented.

He thought that if she would but allow him to hold her safely in his arms, he would be unable ever to let her go.

She had been lying upon her back, her arm across her face but she removed it as he sat beside her. Afraid to touch her face, he finally reached out and stroked her neck with the back of his fingers.

“Pray, if I take care, may I hold you?”

She nodded her head and pressed her face against his chest as he kissed the top of her head.

His lips imbedded amidst her tresses, he beseeched her, “How can you ever forgive me? I know I shall never be able to forgive myself for allowing this to happen…”

Reaching out, she pressed her fingertips to his lips, effectively shushing such entreaties.

“Where in this is your part? The fault is not with you—no one could have known that danger was about.”

“But Lizzy, I should never have left you.”

Telling him what she knew he feared but dare not ask, she said, “He did not defile me and my bruises shall heal. It was you, husband, who rescued me from them.”

The serrying of her body against his relieved him of the necessity of hiding his relief. True, he had not wanted to inquire if Reed had penetrated her (the ogre’s intentions were flagrantly exposed), lest she believe if the man had, her husband would find his own insult. He hoped himself most concerned for the degradation she, alone would feel. Nevertheless, when she told him that she had not been violated, he could not say unequivocally that the relief he felt was for her alone.

In time, he thought he might consider why it should be that the woman absorbs the assault and the husband somehow believes himself the affronted party.

He started to speak again, but held his tongue and stroked her hair instead. Her shoulders began to shake and he knew she was crying.

“Do not think of it,” he bid her, knowing even then that was not possible.

Putting his fingers under her chin, he endeavoured to get her to look at him, but she hid her face as if ashamed.

“But shall you ever desire me again?”

“Lizzy, how could you even suggest…” he was speechless.

She hesitated, then spoke, not looking at him yet, “I fear each time you look upon me you will recollect…what you saw.”

It was true that vision was seared now and forevermore into his memory, however, it just made him want to hold her more dearly. Softly, he took her face in his hand and turned it back to his.

“Every time I look upon you, I shall see my beautiful, intrepid Elizabeth and nothing more.”

“Perhaps we are both beyond reason at this moment.”

Then, as if in reassurance of that, she bid the astounding.

She did not cry again, but her voice began to quaver as she said, “I want you. I want you inside me. I want that man erased from me…I want you in me now.”

With a strength that defied the extent of beating she had undergone, she gripped his shirt in her fists, cleaving against his chest. Having been frightfully reluctant even to lie next to her, the ferocity of her desire took him especially unawares. That and that she desired him at that moment at all. Had she never wanted to be touched again, he thought he would have understood. It was the first time he had ever had to rise to the occasion, so to speak, for he truly did not feel arousal. He felt exhausted, angry, guilt-ridden, horrified, and, yes, even frightened. Once she was safe, the wrenching fear he had felt for her had overtaken him.

No, he was not aroused. Nevertheless, he could be. He realised that when he felt her hands upon his body, urgently seeking which caress or stroke would bring the fever to
his blood. So impelling was her touch, he cast everything else from his mind and he let himself think of nothing but his love of her. She needed his reassurance then, not the next day nor the day after. Then.

It was an unusually warm night, but he would not open the windows nor draw back the heavy drape that surrounded the bed. No breeze reached them. The air was humid and still in the bedchamber. Although there was a slight breeze in the air, they suffered the heat rather than open themselves to the night.

By morning, her gown and his shirt were drenched in shared perspiration, for neither allowed the other to leave their embrace.

Eventually he betook himself from Elizabeth’s side, but it was midday before he did. When he came down, Georgiana was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She had been sitting for hours upon a bench in the corridor waiting to hear his footsteps.

It was not until he saw her that he was reminded what trauma she had endured. Not entirely certain it true, he, nevertheless, answered her anxious enquiry that Elizabeth was well. Georgiana was insistent he heard the entire history of the event.

“What extraordinary bravery! Not only did Elizabeth put herself betwixt us and the highwaymen, she fought them! We were all struck with terror, but Elizabeth would not have it,” she shook her head incredulously.

She wanted to talk more about it, but he could not bear to relive it so soon and shook his head.

“Yes, we were all terrified, Georgiana.”

She looked at him a little quizzically. She had thought it probable, however bravely she behaved, that Elizabeth had been frightened. Not until that moment had she considered that her imperturbable brother was. Thereupon, she ascended the stairs and repaired to her room. No one knew she spent much of the next few days furiously scribbling once again in her journal.

Darcy watched Georgiana take the stairs and closed his eyes in a brief prayer of thanks that she appeared not to be permanently traumatised by the event. It was at that precise moment that the Derbyshire High Sheriff, accompanied by not just the constable, but the coroner as well, all bearing successively apprehensive countenances, arrived to interview Mr. Darcy, the women, and the servants.

Duelling in the face of a man’s honour was still overlooked by the magistrate, but the killing of three men, even by such an illustrious personage as Mr. Darcy, could not be ignored.

“Mr. Darcy,” began the High Sheriff, before uneasily clearing his throat, “you understand that it is not I, but the King, who demands an accounting of these unhappy events be delivered to the magistrate. It is imperative that we question you and Mrs. Darcy.”

“You may query me. I do not deny my actions. However, under no circumstances shall you speak to Mrs. Darcy. I am quite implacable. I will not have it. She has been distressed enough.”

“You must understand. We cannot compleat an investigation without her testimony of the offence.”

Not remotely interested in entering into a test of wills with Mr. Darcy (who at that moment appeared to be quite ready to bestow a full understanding to the High Sheriff upon what implacability meant), the sheriff shifted about. Upon Elizabeth’s abrupt appearance at the head of the stairs, all discourse ceased. Was there was any doubt of offence, it was cast aside by those witnessing her battered face.

Her descent of the stairs began a little shakily. Darcy took them two at a time, with each step entreating her to return to bed.

“I shall speak with the man in the library,” she announced with firmness of voice not mirrored in her step. “Pray, alone.”

With considerable reluctance, Darcy agreed, but stood sentry outside the door with his arms crossed glowering at the coroner and constable as if daring them to plague his wife. It was but a matter of minutes when the sheriff reappeared.

Ducking his head with even more deference than when he came, he thanked Darcy for his time and apologised for the intrusion upon his privacy.

Darcy went in forthwith to Elizabeth to help her regain the upstairs. He did not ask her what she said to the sheriff.

On the third day after their return, Elizabeth felt strong enough to join Darcy and Georgiana at breakfast. This did not actually elicit the response from them for which she hoped, for she wanted to reassure them she was just fine. They both graciously acknowledged this attempt, but it fell short.

Howbeit the swelling had ebbed and the cut upon her lip was healing, she was severely bruised yet.

Hence, breakfast commenced with Georgiana paying the one compliment she could honestly think of, “You do not look half so bad as you did, Elizabeth.”

It was not lost upon Elizabeth how dreadful she looked, for her looking-glass did not lie. Even a generous dusting of powder did not hide the contusion upon the side of her face that had turned a rather royal shade of purple. However, she had been cooped up in her room for three days and she was desperate to breathe some fresh air. She bid her husband to escort her upon a stroll after their breakfast.