Page 15 of Tempted (Heart to Heart Collection #2)
Chapter 15
I t must have been nearly one in the morning when Darcy at last retired. Sleep would be a reluctant friend this night, but bodily rest was something, at least.
A faint sound as he was passing other rooms made him pause. It almost echoed in the way of a child’s whimper, but there had been no children resident at Pemberley since Georgiana. He squinted into the darkness, listening, and again, a hollow cry pierced the night. It sounded for all the world like someone begging for help! He held his breath. A few seconds later came another, and this time, he could tell whose room it was coming from.
Elizabeth’s.
Instant alarm rippled down his spine, though he counselled himself that there was likely no need for concern. A dream, perhaps… but the cries were multiplying. Once, he heard her call out, “Stop—please stop!” Scuffling, thrashing sounds joined her vocalisations, and before he was quite aware what he was doing, he had burst through her door in search of some… oh, some ruffian or darksome villain who would torment a woman in her own bed.
She was alone in that dusky chamber, but oh! The state she was in chilled his very bones. It was as if she were trying to tie herself in knots or wrestle the blankets. She sat up, her arms beating the air wildly and incoherent gasps sounding with each punch. “Please!” she was gasping. “Leave me!”
“Elizabeth!” He raced to her and grasped her shoulders, but she did not seem to notice him. She blocked his hands with her forearm and battled on, tears streaming down her face. Again and again, she smashed her fists into his hands, and any efforts of his at quieting her were hampered by fear of what he might accidentally grab.
“Elizabeth, listen to me,” he insisted, as loudly as he dared. “Wake up!”
Her body froze, and though her eyes had been open before, now they seemed to focus. She stared briefly at the ceiling, then, in a dazed sort of terror, swept them to his face.
“Oh, dear God!” she whispered. She flung herself back against the headboard, clutching the blankets to her breast.
“Do not fear!” he assured her in a raspy voice. “I am not here to harm you. Are you well?”
She put a hand to her forehead, closing her eyes. “Was I having another nightmare?”
“Something of the kind. This happens often?”
She swallowed and used the heel of her hand to mop away the sweat. “Please…” She sighed and swallowed again. “Please leave me be.”
“Elizabeth, this is no time for modesty. I will go as soon as I know you will be well. Shall I call your sister?”
She shook her head and stared at the counterpane covering her feet. “Please, Mr Darcy,” she whispered again. “I beg you, please leave me.”
He fell back, surprised at how dismayed he felt. So many creatures could have spoken to him from that bed—a blushing young woman, astonished at finding a man in her chambers; an irate madam, demanding penance and justice for the way he had breached her sanctity; or a humbly laughing confederate, such as she had been that very afternoon, willing to be amused at a simple misunderstanding. This fearful waif, hiding her face in shame, was the last being he had thought to encounter.
She had crawled under the covers and pulled them over her head by the time he reached the door. “Rest well, Mrs Fitzwilliam,” he said before he pulled it closed behind himself.
She made no answer.
“M ay I speak with you a moment, sir?”
Darcy looked up from his morning paper in some surprise. He was well accustomed to the ladies staying above stairs far longer than himself, and, in fact, had learned never to look for them until well after nine on an early morning. He glanced at his pocket watch.
“It is scarcely seven, Mrs Fitzwilliam. I hope you slept well.”
She edged carefully into a seat at the breakfast table and started to reach for a teakettle when the footman pre-empted her and poured it. She waited for him to finish, smiling uncomfortably all the while, and then stared at the cup.
“Sir,” she began again, “last night…”
“I hope you were not up reading into the wee hours,” he interrupted. “Sure to harm your eyesight, Mrs Fitzwilliam.”
She was looking at him quizzically, but he flicked his eyes toward the footman, and she drew a breath as if she understood. “I am afraid I was up far later than I should have been, sir.”
“Must have been a particularly engrossing book, I imagine?”
She sampled her tea, lingering over it a moment before answering. “Gripping, I should say. Quite terrifying—I really ought to try different reading material before bed.”
“Ah, well, no harm done,” he assured her, and folded his paper. “Perhaps we can find in my library a better means of comforting you to sleep, but first, I suggest some exercise to clear your head. Samuel—” He gestured to the footman. “Will you please go to the stables and ask John to saddle my hunter this morning? And have the side-saddle placed on the bay mare, as well.”
E lizabeth shivered in the autumn damp as they set out over fields still kissed by frosty dew. How vastly different the English chill was from the dry, biting cold of the plains she had once called home. No wind tormented here for nine months of the year, but the grey sky overhead was just as oppressive to the spirits.
“Are you warm enough, Mrs Fitzwilliam?” Mr Darcy asked from beside her.
“I will be soon. Mr Darcy, it was kind of you to think of my amusement this morning, but if you have other business, I hope I do not keep you long.”
A smile tugged at the near side of his mouth. “On the contrary, I can think of no more invigorating start to my morning. In my youth, I was in the saddle by dawn, rain or shine, and always the more contented afterwards for having taken a bit of exercise before other affairs commanded my day. I have missed that habit. You will probably find it necessary to tell me when you wish to turn back, rather than depending on me to be responsible. For this once, anyway.”
She tried to answer with an easy laugh, but only sat tightly, still trying to disguise her shivers. “Sir, I appreciate your delicacy and patience, but I feel I must speak.”
He nodded but did not turn to face her—a thing she was glad of, for it made him less intimidating for the moment.
“I—I think I said something last night about experiencing nightmares,” she began.
“You have them frequently?”
“They are nothing to be concerned about,” she answered quickly.
“I should think they are. You were in a fearful state last night. Truly, you looked most distressed.”
“Oh, no, it was… that is merely the way of it. Sometimes I recall a… something that happened, that is all. You know, life on a ranch is not so polite as it is here.”
He frowned and looked over at her. “No, I do not know. In fact, I feel I know very little. Tell me what it was like, for I have no picture in my head of your home.”
She clamped her lip between her teeth and thought of what she could safely tell him. “Well, I… I suppose it would seem very primitive to you. We had two wells, with a pump in the kitchen, so we were thought quite well to do. Papa raised the very finest bloodstock around, and we could afford enough help that we girls did not have to tend the herds, but we chose to. Jane and I did, that is.”
“And you were the savage one,” he guessed with a teasing smirk.
“As to that, I did have something of a… a reputation.” Her brow creased, and she looked off to the horizon.
“Mrs Fitzwilliam, does it distress you to speak of it?” he asked gently.
She cleared her throat. “Distressed is not the right word. I miss them so!”
“I could not account you a rational person if you did not. Please, tell me anything that comforts you, but do not feel obliged to relate that which might be troubling to you. Why not tell me something of pleasant memories?”
“But are you not hoping to learn why I was thrashing about last night?”
That careful smile reappeared on his face. “That is what I was hoping, but if it is too much…”
She shook her head dismissively, trying to make light of it. “No. I… perhaps you wish to know how we lost everything.”
“I am curious, yes.”
Mr Darcy listened attentively as she detailed for him the history—the sickness that had wiped out the herds, their finances, and finally, their spirits. Her father’s come-down from respected cattleman to eccentric blacksmith. Her sisters, and her good uncle, and how they had made a new home in town with their dignity a shattered fragment of what it had been.
“I think I should like to meet your uncle,” Mr Darcy said when she had finished.
“My uncle!” She laughed. “You are teasing me, sir. He is not someone I would take for a friend of yours.”
“But he was a friend to you,” he insisted. “He sounds like a good soul, and your father intrigues me as well. I think of what might come if I were to lose all and be forced to make ends meet in whatever way I could.”
Elizabeth could not help a sputtering snort. “You! ‘Make ends meet!’ Forgive me, but I find the notion of you hoeing potatoes or shovelling coal rather comical.”
“What, you do not think I could do it? I have a strong back, Mrs Fitzwilliam.”
Elizabeth pulled the glove from her closest hand and reached toward his horse. “Very well, humour me. Show me your palm.”
He looked amused but removed his glove and gave her his hand across the space between their mounts. Elizabeth turned it over and traced her fingers over the smooth skin. Once, Mr Darcy seemed to flinch as if she had tickled him, but he straightened his fingers again and permitted her to continue her exploration. The inner parts of his fingers were warm, the ridges and planes of his palm sculpted with muscle, but…
She jerked her hand as a titillating spasm shot through her middle. What sort of foolish idea had possessed her, taking his hand like that? Her fingers were tingling, and she replaced her glove as quickly as possible.
“Blisters,” she pronounced in answer to his questioning expression. “You would be nothing but blisters from the first hour you were required to work for your living.”
He was replacing his glove more slowly. “Surely, they would soon give way to callouses,” he reasoned. “Others have done so.”
“Yes,” she clipped back, sounding more irritated than she felt, “but I doubt you would impress anyone whose good opinion you desired with your callouses.”
A strange look crossed his features, then he pursed his lips and looked straight ahead. “I did not mean to offend you. I merely suggested that a man can make himself what he must—I admire your father, that is all.”
Elizabeth was staring at the ground before her horse’s feet, her stomach twisting oddly. “You might be the first person ever to say that.”
“Then, the praise is long overdue.” He waited a moment before speaking again. “Richard liked him.”
Elizabeth could not account for the sting that came to her eye, and she squinted and blinked behind her riding veil. “Yes,” was her simple answer.
“Mrs Fitzwilliam—” He stopped himself, tilted his head as if conducting some inner argument, then forced a lighter expression. “I hope you will forgive me one question, if I may. I had assumed the answer would be apparent by now, and I believe it is, but I wish to be sure—to know if better caution is warranted regarding… regarding your health.”
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes curiously, then observed the redness to his cheeks, the way he could not look at her as he asked, and her face heated. “You ask after Miss de Bourgh’s assumptions,” she guessed.
“I do not wish to make you uncomfortable,” he hastened to add. “You appear… well to me, but…”
“I am not with child.”
He seemed to draw a long breath. “Thank you for telling me. It was naturally among our concerns.”
“You needn’t worry on that score. It will be much easier to send me away now that you know the truth.”
Mr Darcy halted his horse and stared incredulously. “You are very harsh today, Mrs Fitzwilliam. I hope I have never given you any such impression. My only concern, and still a valid one, has been to look to your welfare!”
Elizabeth stiffened her back and cast her gaze to the clouds. “I am sorry, sir. I do not know what my trouble is today! My tongue, I fear, has grown barbs, though you have done nothing to deserve them and everything to merit my gratitude.”
He nudged his horse forward again. “It is forgotten. I expect you slept little last night, and as you say, you are sorely tested in your spirit just now. Would it ease you if I were to summon a doctor? Not for the body, but there are doctors for the mind—”
“No!”
“Come, now, there is no shame in it. We could keep such a call discreet. I mean only to help comfort you.”
She shook her head, vehemently. “I will not be drugged into docility. Please, if you find me so burdensome, just say the word, and I will go elsewhere.”
“Here, now, Mrs Fitzwilliam!” he protested, his voice beginning to sound truly irritated. “I’ll have no such talk ever again. You are free to go wherever you wish. I will not hinder you, but neither do I desire for you to feel unwelcome. If I seem displeased about present circumstances, it is only out of concern. I have never known anyone to have such a nightmare as disturbed you last night, and to learn that they are commonplace troubles me very much.”
Elizabeth winced. No matter what devices she employed to distance herself, to make herself feel undeserving of his kindness, he only pressed the more. She said nothing for several minutes, her lips screwed tightly against one another to stop up the sob of sheer confusion and grief that threatened at any moment to undo her. At last, Mr Darcy tugged a handkerchief free of his coat and held it out to her without a word.
She blinked as she accepted it, and that was when she felt the tears coursing down her cheeks under her riding veil. She tried to thank him, but her mouth was so numb that whatever came forth sounded little like speech. Trembles and shudders took her, more because of her defiance of sorrow than the exhaustion of her feelings, and it was a long while before she could command herself again and cease wiping her face.
All that while, Mr Darcy had ridden in respectful silence, glancing at her now and again in sympathy, but not asking for her to be calm, never pressing her to collect herself before she was ready. “Mrs Fitzwilliam,” he said at last, when she had returned both hands to the reins and was breathing regularly again, “perhaps you can tell me what would comfort you. You have spoken of boredom, and while I cannot exactly employ you, perhaps we can seek some meaningful occupation to give you purpose.”
She sniffed and nodded. “That would be just the thing. Maybe I could help Mrs Reynolds, or occasionally look into the stables, or—”
Mr Darcy cut her off with a look that was half admonishment, half reluctant amusement. “I thought more like learning an instrument or a new language. I would be pleased to hire whatever tutors you desired.”
“Oh.” She swallowed.
“It is not an unreasonable notion. Think of it—a soldier’s bride who can speak multiple languages or soothe her husband with music is to be praised.”
She tried to smile, but her lips were not very obedient. “Yes. I suppose that would be gainful employment… for when Richard returns.”
He nodded firmly. “For when Richard returns. And another thing that would be useful to know around this country is how to leap a fence. I take it you have not attempted any hurdles, or at least not in a side-saddle. I thought we could try the rail fence down there, if you are willing to let me instruct you.”
Elizabeth looked down the valley to where he indicated, and something warm kindled in her breast. “I would like that.”
“I understand there were few fences to trouble you, where you come from.”
She chuckled, though there still lurked the threat of dried-up tears behind it. “Not many, no. There were other obstacles, though—holes, of course, and sagebrush. Oh…” She closed her eyes and pulled in a long breath as if she could imagine the sweet zest of it. “That is something I miss, the smell of sagebrush.”
“And what is that?”
“A scrubby bush, more dusky grey than green. Its branches and roots are twisted and ugly, it always sprouts just where you do not want it and the cattle hate it, but that smell—I never knew how I loved it. It is earth and sunsets, miles of rolling emptiness, and freedom. It’s dust hovering in the air just after a good gallop, and a humble sage wood campfire to roast your evening meal, with the voices of all your dearest ringing into the night under a blanket of stars.” The tears had started again, but this time she wiped them gently away rather than fighting against them.
“It sounds positively dreadful,” Mr Darcy decided, but he was watching her as he spoke, waiting to provoke her into a giggle. It worked, and Elizabeth sniffed her tears away into laughter.
“Actually,” he continued, “I wonder if you might appreciate our English Lavender. It is dusky and pungent, like you describe—a flower like no other. Perhaps it would be a passable reminder of your sage.”
She smiled. “It might.”
He gazed steadily back at her, his countenance easy and searching. “Then I shall have some brought to your room. What else? Can you think of anything that would make your residence at Pemberley more enjoyable for you, Mrs Fitzwilliam?”
She lifted her shoulders. “You will think it silly. Vain—wicked, even, and wholly inappropriate.”
“Try me.”
She cringed, an embarrassed grin, and then hopefully; “Would it be possible, at least occasionally, to call me Elizabeth? I mean only as a friend, of course—as friends do. I mean, you call Richard Richard, and I am not trying to say that—”
“Elizabeth,” Mr Darcy repeated. “Just plain Elizabeth.”
“I am not trying to cast off Richard’s name,” she hastened to explain. “But you did ask what would make me feel more at home.”
He nodded. “I see no objections, if it is but occasional, for informal situations. If it is to be so, then you must reciprocate and call me William.”
“Truly?”
He smiled—those perfect white teeth gleaming in his perfect square face as his eyes softened in a way that made Elizabeth’s insides feel like molten butter. “Truly. Come, are we to take that fence today—Elizabeth?”
She did not dare continue gazing at him, and she did not trust her voice to make a steady answer. Instead, she turned her horse’s head and galloped down the field, with William hot on her heels.