Page 9 of Penned by Mr Darcy (…By Mr Darcy #3)

“Her lungs are causing her increased discomfort. Her breathing is laboured, her fever relentless. I hold her hand, and it feels as though she burns from within. I do not know how to help her. I always know what to do! I always know how to help her!”

“I am sorry,” he said, quietly.

“Thank you.”

She sniffled, her shoulders trembling. Without thinking, he reached into his coat and withdrew a clean handkerchief, offering it to her without a word.

She looked at it for a moment, then raised her gaze to meet his.

Her eyes, though brimming with tears, held a kind of clarity, a searching awareness.

She hesitated, just long enough for him to sense the weight of her deliberation. And then she reached out.

The brush of her fingers against his sent a jolt through him; sharp, electric, and wholly unexpected. He held his breath.

She dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief, her fingers trembling slightly as she held it. The silence between them lengthened.

“I did not mean to intrude,” he said at last, though he made no move to leave.

“You didn’t,” she replied, her voice quieter now. “In truth… I think I wanted someone to speak to. I didn’t realise it until you arrived.”

He studied her face—pale, tear streaked, exhausted. And yet, to him, she had never seemed more real, more deeply present. There was no artifice in her, only sorrow and a brave attempt to contain it.

“Miss Bennet is fortunate to have you,” he said gently.

“I feel useless,” she whispered. “All I can do is sit with her, wipe her forehead, whisper comfort as if words could cool a fever.” She drew a shaky breath. “It frightens me, how helpless I am.”

He stepped closer. “It is not nothing, what you give her. Presence is no small comfort.”

She looked up at him, surprised by the tenderness in his voice. Their eyes held, and something unspoken passed between them. Recognition, perhaps, or the quiet understanding of two people used to carrying burdens alone.

“I did not expect you to be so kind,” she said at last.

“I am sorry if I have given the impression of cruelty.”

“Not cruelty, sir. Indifference.”

A silence settled between them again, deeper now. Her fingers, still clutching the handkerchief, brushed his as she lowered her hand.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t speak so freely.”

“I wish you would,” he said, before he could stop himself.

She froze at that; her gaze locked with his. Her eyes, though red-rimmed, held a kind of open vulnerability that unsettled him more than any accusation ever could.

“Do you, sir?”

“Yes.”

She held his gaze, and he felt his heart hammer in his chest. If he was a bolder man – a scoundrel – he would push her back against the wall and crush his lips to hers.

He could not say why he wished to do such a thing, why the smallest bit of kindness from her sent him wild with longing, but that was the way it was.

A dangerous emotion, a longing that could never be sated.

“I must return to Jane,” Miss Elizabeth said eventually.

She left with the briefest of curtsies, and he felt her loss keenly.

He shook his head, willing the unwelcome sensation to vanish. He returned to his room, at once taking out his diary. There was a small desk in his bedroom, and though it was not his preferred spot to write, he made do all the same.

I am falling into madness. She has been in my proximity for not three days and I cannot stop these ridiculous thoughts. I long to touch her, to hold her, and I find myself consumed by her opinion of me.

What a thing it is, to crave approval not for vanity’s sake, but because her regard feels like the only judgement that matters. I have been weighed in her eyes, and though I know she once found me wanting, I sensed… something today. A shift.

When she looked at me, I felt as though I stood not as Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley, but as some stripped-down version of myself, a man no longer shielded by name or fortune or decorum. And yet she did not turn away.

Her hand in mine—God, even now I feel the ghost of her touch—was not an act of seduction. There was no artifice, no intent, only warmth, trembling and real. And when she leaned near… when I saw her lips part, her breath catch… I thought for a moment she might kiss me. I feared it. I hoped for it.

I did nothing.

I wanted everything.

What madness is this, that I, who pride myself on reason, should feel undone by a woman who challenges me at every turn, who does not flatter, who does not fall into easy admiration—and perhaps for that very reason, holds my heart more firmly than any woman ever has?

She said I was kind.

I have longed for her good opinion, and to have it at last…

I cannot think like this. I cannot act on this. Not while her sister lies ill, not while Bingley hovers in indecision, not while she herself must still see me as no more than a man of strained civility.

But I write this in the hope that it will quiet my mind. I must master this storm.

And yet, I wonder…if her sister recovers…if time and circumstance allowed…

He set down his pen. It was impossible; marriage to such a woman would be met with disdain by his family.

Her family were to be considered, of course, for they were quite without distinction and behaved in such a way as to be detrimental to the Darcy name.

Save for Miss Bennet, who, from what he could tell, was perfectly refined.

Elizabeth – Miss Elizabeth, he corrected himself – herself was spirited and bold, enjoying nothing more than the chance to challenge him.

What sort of wife would a woman such as that make?

A passionate one, his mind whispered. A woman who would desire more than pin money – a woman who would have your mind, who would challenge your wit to even come close to her own. A woman who would be as fierce a wife and mother as society had ever known.

It was too much to think of – and so, he would simply not think of her at all.