Mr. Gregory muttered. Mrs. Gregory did not speak at all. And then they were gone.
The house felt suddenly quiet.
Anders returned. “We’ve put ’em in the pantry, sir. Johnson and I will take turns watching the door,” he said simply. “No one’s leaving that room.” He motioned to Mr. Darcy’s left arm. “Ought to let me clean that,” he said.
Mr. Darcy grunted.
Elizabeth noted a few drops of blood on his shirtsleeve. Foolish man, to be lifting her with his arm still injured.
“Very well,” he said, “but do not dawdle.”
The coachman fetched water and linen and made quick work of cleaning the wound and bandaging it again. The stop of Elizabeth’s shawl and her handkerchief were consigned to the fire, for there would be no saving them.
“Thank you, Anders,” Mr. Darcy said when it was done. His attention returned to Elizabeth as Anders nodded and left.
“Are you warming?” he asked, and the question sounded almost reluctant, as though he did not trust the answer. He reached his hand out to her boot, then looked up at her as if requesting permission.
Elizabeth tried to speak and discovered her teeth were chattering again. She simply nodded.
Mr. Darcy accepted her nod and bent to the task with a gravity that left no room for embarrassment. He unlaced one boot with careful fingers, drawing it off gently, then the other; the damp leather came away with a faint sucking sound. “I am not—” she began, meaning to sayI am not an invalid,but the words shattered into another shudder.
“I am checking your toes,” he said, very firmly, in the tone of a man explaining a simple fact to someone determined to make it complicated. “If you have frostbite, I will not rub them.”
And then, before she could decide whether to be appalled, he nodded at her, motioning to her thigh. He paused only long enough to look up again, the briefest question in his eyes. She shook her head and indicated he should turn his head. He did.
Elizabeth rolled the stockings down over her ankles and carefully tugged them free. Her feet, pale and blotched with cold, met the air; she drew a sharp breath and quickly lowered her skirt.
Mr. Darcy turned at the sound. He waited for her to nod, then took one foot in his hands, his thumbs pressing the skin, first her toes, then the ball of her foot, then her heel—methodical, no doubt searching for numb hardness, for a waxen look.
“No,” he murmured at last, the single syllable sounding relieved. “Good.” And then, because his relief must be put to work, he gathered one foot into his hands and began carefully rubbing warmth back into them with firm strokes and steady pressure, coaxing her blood to move. Then he placed that foot down near the fire, covered it with the blanket, and did the same for the other.
Then he placed her stockings before the fire to dry.
“There,” he said, still frowning as he finished the task. He sat beside her once more and drew her closer to him, his arm firm, his body warm, the fire steady now and bright.
“Allow me,” he said.
Elizabeth was too weary to protest. She rested her head against him.
“I met your father and your uncle while we were searching for you,” Mr. Darcy said as he worked. “They sought you on a different road but we were meant to meet up tonight. They will certainly come looking for us in the morning. They will recognise my carriage and know that we are close.”
“And you?” she asked because she could not help it. “You are—” She searched for a word that would not betray how afraid she had been when she imagined him hurt. “You are well? Sir Reginald did not harm you?”
Mr. Darcy’s gaze held hers. “I was delayed,” he said, and then, after the smallest pause, “But I am well.”
Elizabeth looked away quickly toward the fire because the fire was safer than the expression in his eyes.
“We began searching here at the house,” Mr. Darcy continued quietly, his voice low and steady. “When we found you gone, we searched the grounds first, then worked our way toward the road, checking every tree, every shadow. It took time.” His arm tightened fractionally around her. “I am glad you thought to wait in the carriage.”
She would not tell him she had been there only a brief time before he found her.
Warmth crept slowly through her, painful at the edges. Her eyelids grew heavy. She fought the humiliating desire to sleep like a child by the hearth, but the day had been too long, the evening too cold, and Mr. Darcy’s steady presence beside her was too . . .
“You should sleep,” he murmured.
“I cannot,” Elizabeth protested weakly, her voice still hoarse but growing stronger. “I am in a house with four villains tucked away in a cupboard.”
“Villains in a cupboard,” Mr. Darcy echoed, and there was a flicker of humour at last, a ghost of amusement that made him sound like himself again. “It is a proper place for them. They will keep.”