Page 10 of Mr. Darcy’s Fiery Passion

"Mr. Jones is not here." She wobbled. She caught the doorframe. "And I could not sleep, and I had nothing to read, and I will not ring for the maid in the small hours to fetch me a book."

"Why not?"

"Because I can fetch it myself."

He looked at her standing on one foot in the doorway. He looked at the book on the floor between them. Unexpectedly, the corner of his mouth moved. "Evidently," he said.

"You are laughing at me."

"I would not dare. Sit down, before you fall."

"I would, if there were a chair within reach. There is not."

He crossed the room. He offered his arm, bent at the elbow, the bandaged hand held against his chest. She took it. She leaned her weight on him and hopped the three steps to the wing chair across from his. He lowered her into it with care.

She was very aware of him as he bent over her. The open collar. The warmth of his arm through the linen. The white edge of the bandage over his ribs, where the fire had burned him because of her.

Stop looking at his chest, Elizabeth.

"Your side," she said. "Does it pain you?"

"It is nothing."

"You are lying."

He looked down at her. For the first time since the bonfire, his face eased. "Yes," he said.

He straightened and stepped back. He looked at the book on the floor. He could not pick it up.

"Allow me," she said.

"You cannot reach it."

"I can, if you push it with your foot."

He looked scandalized. Then he nudged the book across the carpet with the toe of his slipper.

She bent and scooped it up. It was a volume of Cowper, fallen open at The Task. "You were reading poetry, Mr. Darcy?"

"I was attempting to. I had turned one page in an hour. It was the wrong page."

"How very tragic."

"Do not laugh."

"I am not laughing." She was. She could not stop. "Forgive me. I have been sitting in that room all day, being useless. It is a relief to find someone else in the same case."

He looked at the fire. "I am not accustomed to being useless."

"No. Nor am I."

They sat in silence for a while. The fire ticked and settled.

She turned the book over in her hands. "Here is a thought," she said. "You cannot turn a page. I cannot walk across a room. Between us, we have one whole person."

"Miss Elizabeth..."

"Hear me out. I have been thanked all day, and I have thanked everyone, and I am heartily sick of it. So let us make a bargain instead. I shall be your hands, sir, if you will be my feet."