Page 7 of Mr. Darcy’s Fiery Passion

Parrish climbed down from the first with a portmanteau. His face showed nothing at all. "Sir," he said. He looked at the bandages. He looked at the coat Darcy was not wearing. He said nothing more. Parrish had been his valet for nine years, and his father's footman before that. He knew when to say nothing.

He took Darcy into the scullery and helped him into a clean shirt. Darcy stood with his arms held out and let himself be dressed. He could not fasten a single button. He could not even hold the cuffs straight. Parrish did it all, quickly and gently, without once meeting his eyes.

The last time Darcy had stood like this, he had been on the other side of it.

His father had been ill for a year before the end. By the last months he could not lift a spoon. Darcy had been one-and-twenty. He had sat by the bed and watched Parrish and the other men lift him. They washed him and turned him in the sheets. He had watched the maids pity him from the doorway. He had watched the strongest man he knew grow smaller every day. In the end there was nothing left of him but need.

Darcy had taken the accounts of Pemberley at that bedside. He had learned the rents, the tenants, and the timber. His father had signed whatever was put before him, and then one day he could not hold the pen.

"Your cravat, sir," said Parrish.

"Leave it."

"Sir."

"I said leave it." He heard his own voice and regretted it. "Forgive me, Parrish. It has been a long night."

"Yes, sir." Parrish draped a greatcoat over his shoulders instead. "It has."

The first carriage took Miss Elizabeth, with Jane and Mrs. Bennet to hold her steady. Darcy followed in the second carriage with Bingley and Mr. Bennet. Through the window he watched Longbourn fall away into the dark. A thread of smoke still rose from the east end.

It was three miles to Netherfield. Every rut in the road went through his hands.

Netherfield's lamps were lit when they turned up the drive.

When they drew up at the door, the first carriage was already there. A footman had opened it and was reaching inside for Miss Elizabeth. He got an arm beneath her knees and lifted, and her ankle knocked against the step.

She cried out.

Darcy was out of his carriage before it stopped moving. "Let me."

"Sir, your hands..."

"I shall not use my hands." He did not. He slid his forearms beneath her, one under her back and one under her knees. He held his bandaged palms away from her. She was lighter than he expected.

She came up into his arms and her head fell against his shoulder, and she was shaking again. "This is absurd," she said into his coat. "You are injured. Put me down."

"No."

"I am heavier than I look."

"You weigh precisely what you ought."

She lifted her head and stared at him. He looked at the steps and carried her up them, one at a time.

Mrs. Nicholls met them in the hall with a candle. She had made up the morning room with a bed from the lumber room. Miss Elizabeth could not manage the stairs. There was a fire lit. There were clean sheets and a nightgown of Mrs. Hurst's across the pillow.

Darcy carried her in and set her down on the edge of the bed, as carefully as he knew how. It hurt. He kept the hurt from his face.

He straightened. His forearms ached with the memory of her weight.

She looked up at him from the bed, wrapped in his coat. There was soot on her cheek, and her hair hung loose around her shoulders. For once, her eyes were grave. "Mr. Darcy," she said quietly. "Thank you."

He could not bear it. Of all the things he had borne tonight, he could not bear her thanks. "Do not thank me," he said, and left her there.

3

Elizabeth woke to the smell of smoke in her own hair. The ceiling was too high. The bed curtains were yellow damask, not the faded blue of home. Gray light came through tall windows onto a carpet she had never seen.