Page 10 of The Cherry Trees of Rosings
Elizabeth shook her head and sat up, carefully drawing the covers up with her, so she could rest against the headboard.
“Your cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, sent news to Rosings,” she said. “The services of a physician from town has been engaged and Lord Matlock has you ensconced somewhere in the Kent countryside. They are hopeful you will heal.”
She paused.
“...at least, that was what was conveyed.”
“Then why am I here?” Mr. Darcy asked her.
They were silent for a moment.
“I must be close to death if nothing else,” he added, and then sighed, looking towards the window. “Perhaps Lord Matlock does not want news of my death getting out. Though, I cannot imagine why.”
Elizabeth watched Mr. Darcy shift on the chair. There was a certain restlessness in his form. It was strange to have him in her room while she was in her bedclothes under the covers. A deep blush erupted over her cheeks.
“How are you sitting on that chair?” Elizabeth asked abruptly.
Mr. Darcy looked at her in surprise.Then he looked at his hands on the chair arms. Almost as if he had not thought of that at all.
“I… am not certain.”
Elizabeth sat forward, careful to cling to the covers. “That day in that copse… when I ran into you…” Her face heated some more. “Did you…”
She cleared her throat.
“Did you… feel something when I…?”
Mr. Darcy looked just as embarrassed as her. He stared at her covers.
“You mean the day you…?” He appeared to be blushing, but Elizabeth could not be certain. “Uh… I did not.”
Elizabeth looked down at hercovers. “Well, right then.”
She could feel the flush spreading right down to her toes. She clutched at the covers more tightly. Mr. Darcy cleared his throat.
“I can walk through doors, in case you were wondering.”
Elizabeth looked up in surprise. And curiosity. Then she tipped her head to one side.
“That must be strange.”
He smiled, still embarrassed. “Yes.”
“And you truly cannot see…” She could feel her face heating again. “...anyone else but me?”
Mr. Darcy shook his head.
“Only you.”
A frisson of something unknowable passed through Elizabeth. Mr. Darcy’s gaze locked on her, and held. Then he looked away.
“I can hardly imagine what that must be like,” she said, softly.
To be the only one in a land of empty houses and empty streets. To not hear a single voice.And the only person one could see was… Miss Bingley?
Elizabeth shuddered immediately.
Of course, she was not Miss Bingley! But she reckoned it must be something like so for Mr. Darcy. After all, he found her barely tolerable.
