Page 128

Darcy moved as if to stand.

“Not yet,” Elizabeth said.

“I should prefer to walk before I become too stiff to move.”

“And I should prefer you to have something upon your shoulders which reaches below your elbows.”

He glanced at her pelisse. For the first time since the fall his smile held.

“I fear I have spoilt your new coat.”

“It was not made to remain in my wardrobe.”

She ought to have said something wittier. She could think only that she had almost lost him before deciding what to do with the pleasure of knowing him.

Voices sounded upon the path. Sally appeared with a footman carrying blankets, and Sir strained beside her until she brought him close enough to see his master. The dog pressed forward, whining.

“Keep him from the hand,” Elizabeth said.

Sally held the collar while Darcy rested his sound hand briefly upon Sir’s head. Elizabeth took back her pelisse while Foster and the footman helped remove the wet outer coat and wrapped the blankets about him. The lining of her pelisse was damp, but she put it on without attending to the mud.

With Foster upon one side and the footman on the other, Darcy stood. His first step was painful; she saw it in the tightening of his mouth. He tried the leg again and nodded when Foster asked whether he could continue.

They took the upper path toward the house. Sally kept Sir beside her. Elizabeth walked close enough to see the handkerchief Darcy held against his palm, and to hear his breathing.

He turned his head toward her once.

“Thank you.”

She looked at him. There would be questions. She could already see them in his face, held back because every step required attention and because they were not alone. He had watched the rope move. Nothing she said afterwards could make him forget that.

“You may thank me by telling us if you need to stop,” she said.

“I will.”

He kept the promise before they reached the lawn. They stood for a little while beneath the trees, Foster still supporting his arm, and Elizabeth waited without pretending she was looking at anything except him.

Chapter Thirty-One

BY THE TIME they reached the house, Darcy had ceased objecting to assistance.

The short rest beneath the trees had allowed the pain in his hip to settle into a steady ache. He could walk, but he was grateful when Foster took more of his weight at the steps. Reynolds met them before they entered the hall.

“The little sitting room, sir. I have had the fire built up.”

She did not ask whether he preferred his own room. He followed her direction because the sitting room behind the library could be reached without a staircase, and because she had already sent for his valet.

Elizabeth came as far as the door. Her pelisse hung open, with a dark patch of wet upon its lining, and mud streaked one cuff. She looked at the chair being drawn nearer the hearth, then at Darcy.

“I shall wait outside.”

He wanted to ask her to remain. It was an unreasonable wish while his servants attempted to remove his wet boots, and he let her go.

The valet drew the remaining glove from his uninjured hand. Darcy had forgotten he still wore it. With dry clothes laid over a chair and warm water upon the washstand, every ordinary movement became a small difficulty. He could neither unfasten his waistcoat comfortably nor pull a sleeve over the cloth pressed against his palm.

Foster gave his account to Reynolds at the door. Darcy heard the words “bank gone” and “rope round the oak,” then lost the rest while the valet helped him out of his shirt.

He remembered the rope much more clearly than the fall.