Page 13 of Mr. Darcy’s Honor (Darcy and Elizabeth Forever: Pride and Prejudice Variations #1)

CHAPTER TEN

ONE-SIDED CONFESSIONS

A peculiar tightness settled in Elizabeth’s chest as she stood at the threshold of Darcy’s sickroom, like the moment after a door closes and you realize you cannot open it again.

She adjusted the plain white cap that kept slipping over her ears and smoothed the coarse servant’s dress that hung loose around her waist—Caroline’s deliberate choice, no doubt, to suggest what everyone whispered about.

The house had grown unnaturally quiet. Her family’s voices, which moments before had filled the corridor with anxious chatter and tearful farewells, had faded with their departure.

Even Jane’s final, worried glance echoed from another life.

They were gone—back to Longbourn, back to their ordinary concerns—while she remained in this strange limbo, charged with tending to the very man who had maligned her in the worst way.

Elizabeth slipped her hands into the deep pockets of the apron, seeking something to anchor herself, and focused on the only certainty left: Darcy’s labored breathing from the bed beyond.

His skin was ashen against the crisp white linens, and his hair plastered on his forehead. He had lost a lot of blood and was blessedly unconscious.

“Well, Mr. Darcy,” she said aloud, settling into the chair beside his bed, “it appears we are to be companions once again. How fortunate that you are incapable of expressing your disdain for my company.”

Silence greeted her observation, broken only by his shallow breathing. She dipped a cloth into a basin of cool water and placed it on his forehead, noting how the fever had already begun to warm his skin.

“The great Fitzwilliam Darcy, felled by a duel over a woman he considers beneath his touch. How mortifying this must be for you.”

His breathing remained shallow but steady, his eyes firmly closed. The smallest flutter of his eyelashes caught her attention.

“Can you hear me, I wonder?” Elizabeth leaned closer, studying his face for any sign of consciousness. Finding none, she straightened with a bitter smile. “Of course not. How convenient. You seem to have a talent for avoiding difficult conversations.”

A knock on the door interrupted her monologue. The surgeon entered, carrying his leather case.

“Miss Bennet, I trust our patient remains stable?” His voice was kind but distant.

“His breathing is steady, though his skin feels warm,” Elizabeth reported.

“The fever is beginning, as expected. It will worsen before it improves.”

“Will he survive it?” The question escaped before Elizabeth could prevent it.

“That depends on your diligence. And on his will to live.” The surgeon’s eyes met hers directly.

“Your feelings are irrelevant to his recovery. He needs cool compresses when the fever rises, regular cleaning of the wound, and water or broth whenever he can swallow. The first forty-eight hours are most critical.”

“I understand.”

“I have left laudanum for the pain. Three drops on his tongue when he shows signs of waking. Not more than every four hours.” The surgeon paused at the door. “Miss Bennet, may I speak frankly?”

Elizabeth steeled herself. “Of course.”

“Whatever the circumstances that brought you to this role, I urge you to set aside your personal grievances. Mr. Darcy’s life may well depend on your care.”

“You need not concern yourself with my ability to fulfill my duties,” Elizabeth replied coldly. “I am quite capable of separating my feelings from my responsibilities.”

The surgeon’s expression remained neutral. “Very good. Then I bid you good day.”

As the door closed behind him, Elizabeth returned to Darcy’s bedside, examining his pallid features.

“Did you hear that, Mr. Darcy? My feelings are irrelevant.” She replaced the compress on his forehead, her fingers inadvertently brushing against his hair. The dark strands were softer than she had expected.

“Did they matter to you when you denied your proposal? Did you care how I would feel when you suggested I carry Wickham’s child?”

Elizabeth dipped a clean cloth in warm water and began cleaning the dried blood from his neck. His skin was already warm with developing fever, and she tried to ignore how the intimate task made her acutely aware of the breadth of his shoulders.

“I could tell you all manner of things now, couldn’t I? And you would be powerless to respond. What a novel experience—to speak without interruption, without judgment, without your perpetual frown of disapproval.”

His labored breathing was her only answer.

She supposed she could grow to enjoy this one-sided conversation. She could subject him to all sorts of abuse, and he would be powerless to rebuke her.

She moved to check his bandages, gently pulling aside the linen to examine the wound. The skin was inflamed and hot. She soaked a clean cloth in wine spirits and dabbed the area.

Darcy’s face tightened with unconscious pain. His breath caught, a small sound of distress escaping his lips. Elizabeth hesitated, her hand stilling. She had not expected him to react, had not anticipated how the sight of his pain would affect her.

“I suppose even you do not deserve to suffer.” She gentled her touch. “My mother believes you fought the duel for my honor. But what honor is there for you to believe I could have any association with Wickham? I’m curious when and where you suppose this alleged liaison was to have occurred.”

A knock on the door announced Caroline Bingley, who entered without waiting for permission. “Miss Eliza, I thought I might relieve you for a short while. You must be exhausted.”

Elizabeth smiled thinly. “How thoughtful, Miss Bingley. But I assure you, I am quite capable of fulfilling my responsibilities.”

Caroline approached the bed, her gaze lingering on Darcy’s face with poorly disguised longing. “He looks so pale. Has there been any change?”

“The fever is rising, as predicted. But his breathing remains steady.”

“Poor Mr. Darcy.” Caroline sighed dramatically. “To think he should be reduced to such a state, and over such a misunderstanding.”

Elizabeth held her tongue. Caroline would like nothing better than to rehash the improprieties that led to this unfortunate sequence of events.

“Are you certain I can’t relieve you?” she asked again. “You must rest and avoid stress in your delicate condition.”

“My condition is of no concern to you, Miss Bingley,” Elizabeth replied coolly. “You cannot tend to Mr. Darcy without risking your reputation. I, on the other hand, am considered ruined by the fact that he fought a duel over my supposed condition.”

Caroline paled. “I merely meant…”

Elizabeth ignored her, continuing with the cold compresses.

After a moment of tense silence, Caroline inclined her head in reluctant defeat. “Very well. I shall inform my brother of Mr. Darcy’s condition.”

“Please do,” Elizabeth said. “You might also inform your visitors that Mr. Darcy is not a spectacle for their entertainment.”

When the door closed, Elizabeth exhaled slowly. The confrontation had left her drained yet strangely invigorated. At least in this one domain—this sickroom—she retained some measure of control.

She turned back to Darcy, noting with satisfaction that he remained unconscious throughout the exchange with Caroline.

“I imagine you would be appalled to know how fiercely Miss Bingley desires to take my place,” she told him. “She would gladly trade her unmarred reputation for the opportunity to tend to your feverish brow.”

Elizabeth checked his temperature and prepared a fresh compress.

“She hangs on your every word, you know. Agrees with your every opinion. What a perfect match you would make—two proud, disdainful people looking down on the rest of humanity from your matched pedestals.”

As the afternoon wore into evening, Darcy’s breathing became more labored, and his temperature rose steadily. Elizabeth found herself checking on him more frequently, adjusting his pillows and smoothing the sheets.

“You know, I had begun to understand why you might have denied your proposal.” She sat in front of him, watching his chest rise and fall. “It was a rather regrettable performance on your part.”

She touched his brow, noting how the fever burned beneath her palm. His hair had fallen across his forehead again, and she smoothed it back gently.

“I should not have trusted Wickham.” She lowered her gaze as shame flooded her. “I thought of him as a friend. He always had something amusing to say, and I knew he would give me an ear. And when you hurt me so terribly with your words… he offered sympathy.”

Darcy let out a moan, as if her words had pummeled him more than her fists ever could.

A maid brought dinner on a tray—a bowl of soup, bread, and a glass of wine. Elizabeth thanked her absently. She tried to spoon soup into his mouth, but he could not swallow, so she set it aside.

His fever had spiked dangerously. His skin burned to the touch, and he had begun showing signs of delirium—muttering incoherent words and moving restlessly despite his weakness.

“I should not have made a jest out of your proposal,” she admitted between more cold compresses.

“What you said burned me. Hurt my vanity. I know I’m not worth much in your eyes.

No dowry. No connections. We’re a loud and rowdy bunch.

Longbourn is unkempt. But did you have to show such disdain?

Act as if I would accept a man who saw his regard for me as a failing? ”

Following the surgeon’s instructions, she mixed vinegar with cool water and soaked cloths to place on his wrists and neck—the pulse points where the cooling effect would be most beneficial.

As she worked, Darcy stirred, a low moan escaping his lips. His head turned restlessly on the pillow, and his brow furrowed in evident discomfort.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” Her hands lingered on his skin. “I’m sorry.”

She checked the wound again, carefully removing the bandage. The area around the entry point was angry red. She poured brandy onto a clean cloth, wincing as Darcy flinched at the contact.

“Stay still,” she said. “I must do this. I don’t mean to hurt you.”

His delirious mumblings increased as his temperature rose. His breathing became shallow and erratic, and his pulse grew thready beneath her fingertips. Elizabeth watched in growing alarm as the man she had thought indestructible seemed to slip away before her eyes.

“Eliz… beth,” he muttered, tossing his head back and forth. “My fault…”

Elizabeth froze, straining to understand. “What is it? Darcy, what are you saying?”

His response dissolved into incoherent murmuring, but something in his tone made her chest tighten. Did he blame himself? Perhaps regretted his words and actions?

His fever was not abating, and Elizabeth remembered what her father mentioned, that severe fevers could be treated by cooling the entire body. The servants had left large basins of water. The compresses on his head weren’t enough.

Feverishly, she stripped away his sweat-soaked shirt, uncovered his arms and chest, taking care not to disturb the bandage. She bathed his body with cool water, her touch clinical yet somehow intimate in the flickering candlelight.

“Darcy, you must live,” she told him as she soothed his fevered brow. “You must live. Not for me, but for your sister, Georgiana. For those who love you.”

Without the mask of pride and disdain he habitually wore, his features appeared different—younger, more vulnerable. The strong line of his jaw, the dark sweep of his eyelashes against his cheeks, the curve of his mouth now slack in unconsciousness—all spoke of a man she had never truly seen before.

“Darcy, stay still. Save your strength for healing. You will recover from this. You can’t die and let that cheat get away with this.

He’s a scoundrel; you only pretend to be one.

” And as she held him still, soothing him with cool compresses and wiping the sweat from his face, she felt tears dripping down her cheeks.

“Why did you have to be so arrogant? So demeaning? I might have accepted you had you spoken to me as if I mattered.”

She trailed off, startled by her words.

Darcy made a moaning sound so deep and sad that Elizabeth despaired that it was his death rattle.

“I’m sorry, Darcy, but you have to live so you can explain to me why you asked for my hand when you did not value me. I’m not a failing. I’m Elizabeth Bennet. I’m not a regrettable affliction. I am worthy.”

When his breathing grew so shallow she feared he might stop altogether, she pressed her ear to his chest, listening for his heartbeat. When fever made him delirious, she sang softly to calm him.

“You will find happiness again,” she murmured as his moans grew louder. “You will marry a woman worthy of you. You will be a fine father.”

The words caught in her throat unexpectedly, painfully, knowing his future would be without her.

“You will grow strong, and someday, you might think back on this time, and wonder about me, and these long hours through the night. I might still hate you, Darcy, because your cruelty toward my family is unforgivable. But I had a part in this, too. I was but a fool, and if you die, it was because I couldn’t hold my tongue. ”

The more she spoke to him, the more the words flowed. It was so easy to watch his face go from anguished and grimacing to relaxed as his fever subsided. Easy to let her words wash over him.

“What are you doing to me?” she asked as morning light filtered through the chamber windows. Something shifted as she cared for him, wiping his brow, tucking in his sheets, and arranging his head on the pillow.

Now that the crisis was over, she could barely keep her eyes open. His breathing eased, and his skin cooled. Elizabeth closed her eyes and thanked the Lord. Relief washing through her that morning had come, at last, with his heartbeat strong and true against her ear.