And there she was, being pulled up and into Bingley’s arms. Her face was pale and her mouth was open—
Bingley turned, holding her, his face stricken. He slowly shook his head at the men on the river bank.
“No!” Darcy roared, trying to crawl back to the very place that had almost killed him. “No, no!”
But the men on the riverbank had him, and they pulled him, screaming, up onto land.
“Get ahold of yourself!” an older man shouted, and then, remarkably, Darcy did.
He pulled himself upright, dripping and barely able to breathe. It was an easy habit—a lifetime’s habit—to fall into. The cold, frozen face. The haughty glare. The silence. The far-off stare.
A frozen mien to match his frozen heart.
And then Elizabeth was on the riverbank, and the men were surrounding her, shouting that the carriage was coming. Someone put a blanket on his shoulders, but he barely felt it. He watched in horror as Bingley laid Elizabeth flat on her back. Her dress clung to her. Her skin was blue.
“She’s not breathing.” Darcy heard Bingley say those words, but it took another intake of breath before he really heard them. Before he understood.
No.
He must have said it out loud. And then his body was moving. “No,” he said again. He pushed through the crowd and fell to his knees next to her.
No. This would not happen. He would not go back to what he had been, a man of ice. He wanted her fire. He wanted her love. Her needed her to live.
He didn’t care that he was making a fool of himself. He didn’t care what any of these men—what anyone else—thought. His knees dug into the snow and then mud beneath, and he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up.
“Elizabeth,” he said fiercely. “You wake up now. I won’t have this. I refuse.”
He shifted her even higher, her head against his shoulder, her body in his arms. He touched her cheek, like she had done to him. Then he shook her, just a little. Then…harder.
“Wake up, Elizabeth Bennet. You’re still in there. I know you are.” He glanced up to see a ring of men, their faces full of pity, and the sky bone-white above them.
He ignored them. He ignored everything, except the woman in his arms.
“I know you are,” he whispered. “I know you are.” He put his face closer and kissed her cold, cold lips. He whispered fiercely against her cold skin, “You are too full of life and too full of fire, for even a frozen river to douse. Wake up, my love, wake up.”
Then he pulled back and looked at her, but she did not move—she did not breathe.
“I cannot be,” he said. He was so cold he was shaking, but he shrugged off a man who tried to pull him to his feet. “No! No, it cannot be.”
And then the great Fitzwilliam Darcy wept.
He put his forehead against hers, and he tried to memorize the feeling of that. Please wake up, please wake up, you have a fire inside you, he found himself saying. And, I love you, I love you, I should have told you ages ago. Please God, wake her up and I will do anything. Anything in the world.
“Elizabeth, my love, my love.”
But she did not stir.
Darcy grabbed her and pulled her to him, as if she were still alive, as if she could return his embrace. He pulled her to him, in a lifeless embrace, standing as her cold, wet skirts covered his legs. He held her tight, then tighter, her head leaning on his shoulder. He buried his face in her neck, the water from her wet hair mingling with his tears, and he squeezed her tightly, as if he could will her back to life. As if he could absorb her into himself.
His entire body was shaking with sobs. And that is why it took him a moment—and another great inhalation—before he realized she was shaking, too.
“Miss Elizabeth!” Bingley shouted, and suddenly she was convulsing in his arms.
Darcy shouted as well, turning her and laying her back on the ground. Water spewed from her mouth, and Darcy turned her onto her side. The vile water left her, in the midst of great, wracking coughs. Some of the men began to praise God and say it was a miracle.
“Miracle or not,” Darcy barked, “get that carriage here now. And the physician—apothecary—whomever! Get anyone and everyone you can here now and heal my future wife.”
Upon his orders, the men began to scatter. Some shouted in the distance, hailing the carriage. Some footmen ran back to the house, while others brought blankets to the small, slight, shivering woman in front of him.
Darcy ignored them all. They all faded away, and all he could see was her. Her.
“You’re all right,” he found himself saying. He had never known how to comfort anyone—Georgiana, his friends, himself. But now his hand touched her back, and when she finally could breathe again, he gently turned her face to him and said, over and over, “All will be well.”
And then the carriage was here, with two sturdy horses and the men shouting. Darcy would let no one else touch her—he couldn’t. There was no part of him that could release her. He lifted Elizabeth up into his arms, and when they were settled on the small sled, he covered her in blankets. She was so cold. Too cold.
“Faster,” he barked to the driver. They raced the wind to reach Netherfield, but he did not look up. He did not look away from her beautiful face.
And then Elizabeth Bennet opened her eyes, staring for one moment up at the snow-filled sky…and then she turned her gaze to him.
“Hello there,” he whispered. He could not stop the wide smile from spreading across his face, or the tears from filling his eyes.
“Hello there,” she whispered back.
“Are you well?” he gasped. “Can you—can you move your hands? We’ll get you in dry clothes and in front of the fire. How could you leave without telling anyone? God, Elizabeth.”
He lowered his head and could not stop the tears from falling. Then he felt her hand, still terribly cold, on his cheek. He looked up into those eyes that he so desperately adored.
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “Rather, I’m a fool for having gone for a walk onto a river. But other than that, I will be fine. Soon.”
He shook his head and then she smiled. “Your problem is, Mr. Darcy, that you are entirely too high and mighty for your own good. Your future wife, did I hear you say? We shall see about that.”
Then she closed her eyes and pressed her face against his wildly beating heart, and he nodded and whispered, “You are correct, Miss Bennet. We shall see about that.”
Elizabeth
Elizabeth opened her eyes and stared at an unusual ceiling. It took her a moment—the molding, the thick velvet drapes—and then she sat up with a gasp. She was at Netherfield.
She was alive!
At that very moment, Jane stepped into the bedroom and saw Elizabeth sitting up.
“Lizzy!” she shouted, picking up her skirts and running toward her.
“Jane—” Elizabeth just had time to say her sister’s name before Jane threw herself onto the bed and onto Elizabeth. “Jane, I’m fine! Jane!”
Elizabeth burst into laughter as her sister hugged her tight, though that laughter turned into a deep cough and Jane immediately extricated her limbs from her sister’s.
“Oh no, I’ve made you cough,” she fretted, running back to the open door. “Mama! Papa! She’s awake! Lizzy’s awake, and we need tea!”
And then her entire family swarmed into the room. Her father came first, his smile beaming like the sun. He grasped her in a huge, warm embrace, overcome with emotion and unable to speak. Mary praised the Lord over and over, but her eyes shone with tears and when she held Elizabeth’s hand she pressed it hard against her heart. Jane was crying and even Kitty and Lydia argued over who had been the most worried and who first had noticed that Lizzy had gone missing.
“Missing!” her mother finally said. She pushed through her gaggle of daughters to lean over the bed and pull Lizzy into a tight hug. Elizabeth closed her eyes, overcome with the fierceness of the embrace, and the sweet lemony scent of her
mother. She remembered being a child and smelling that exact same smell, when hugging her mother goodnight.
“Missing!” Mrs. Bennet repeated again, pulling Lizzy even closer and then pushing her away. Her relief turned swiftly to anger. “How you worried us all! Walking on a summer’s morn is one thing, Lizzy. But to run off, in the middle of a blizzard, for no reason at all. How you scared us! Do you have any idea what you’ve done to my nerves, you silly, foolish girl?”
Mrs. Bennet began to cry and then motioned wildly for a chair. Kitty pushed one from the corner of the room to the bedside, and Mrs. Bennet sat in it, wailing and demanding tea and a footrest.
“Are you all right, child?” Mr. Bennet said, ignoring his wife and sitting quietly on the side of the bed. “While you were sleeping, we had an apothecary and a physician attend to you.”
“Goodness,” Elizabeth said, falling back on her pillows. “Was that necessary?”
“Mr. Darcy would have it no other way. I’m surprised he didn’t send for a surgeon from London.”
“Mr. Darcy?” Elizabeth said. And then, like water cresting over her, it all came rushing back. Her falling through the ice, and he had been there, reaching for her, telling her to hold on.
“Oh my—Mr. Darcy. Mr. Darcy saved me.” She felt her eyes well with tears. “I am foolish. I am so, so sorry! I cannot believe I was so insensible. I was upset but I should not have fled the house—and to have fallen through ice.” She gasped and looked at her family’s faces. “Was anyone else hurt? Oh, I couldn’t bear it if my actions caused injury to anyone!”
“Hush. No, no.” Mr. Bennet took her hand in his. “No one was hurt, and no one is angry at you.”
“No one was hurt?” Mrs. Bennet cried from her chair. “Your mother was hurt! Why, when Mr. Darcy carried you inside and I saw your face white as snow, I nearly fainted! And then you slept all night, and we did not know how or when you would wake! Why, I have suffered terribly. Terribly! To make no mention of Mr. Collins.”
“Mother!” Jane said.
“Mr. Collins?” Elizabeth shifted to stare at her mother.
“You refused him most rudely. And what is he to think of you now, after you have run off like a child and very nearly killed yourself—and Mr. Darcy! Though really, it was his own fault, diving in after you.”
Elizabeth gasped. “He dove into the water?”
Jane nodded. “He did. You do not remember?”
“I—I remember falling through the ice. I did know that I had left land and walked onto the frozen river. And then suddenly I was up to my neck in freezing water. The only reason I survived was because of another shelf of ice, that must have formed well below the surface. I was able to stand on that underwater ledge for some time.” She paused and stared out the window. It was still snowing. “And then I remember Mr. Darcy coming out onto the ice, but I told him to stay back until help arrived. And then the ice beneath my feet broke—apparently I owe my life to Mr. Darcy.”
She paused, playing with the embroidered edge of the bed’s coverlet. While her memory of what, exactly, had occurred eluded her—one thing had been stamped onto her brain, etched onto her heart.
He called me his future wife.
And he’d held her in his arms, cradling her as the horses pulled them back to Netherfield. She’d been shaking with cold, and he’d wrapped her in blankets, holding her tightly. She now realized—how had she managed to forget?—that he must have been freezing himself. That his valet and Bingley had attempted to care for him, but he’d pushed them off and focused only, solely on her.
Elizabeth put her hand against her chest, feeling an ache there that had nothing to do with her near-drowning.
“Lizzy? Are you hurting?” Her father moved closer, taking her hand. “What’s wrong, child?”
She stared up into his kind eyes. “Oh Papa, I’ve been foolish—so very foolish.”
“Of course you have!” her mother shouted from behind him.
“I mean,” Elizabeth said, ignoring her mother’s outburst. “I have been foolish and very wrong, as it concerns Mr. Darcy.”
“That proud, conceited man?” Mrs. Bennet said. “Why, if he had not saved your life, I should not give him the time of day.”
“Mama, don’t say that.” Elizabeth met her father’s confused gaze. “He is not the pompous, hardened man I thought he was.”
“We all thought that, Lizzy,” her father said.
“Yes, but—that was perhaps my fault. If I had not made it such an amusing tale, how he had offended me at the Meryton ball—perhaps we would have felt differently about him. And now that I know—”
“I would feel no differently!” Mrs. Bennet said, pushing her way past her husband to stand at the side of the bed. “Any man who insults one of my daughters is a fool, whether he has ten-thousand a year or not!”
“Ten thousand?” whispered Lydia. “La, I’d forgot that! Why, that’s more than Mr. Bingley.”
Mrs. Bennet nodded at her youngest daughter. “Yes, well, ten thousand is nothing if he is rude and awful and—”
A man cleared his voice, and they all looked as one to the doorway, where Mr. Darcy stood, looking very proud and very haughty, indeed.
And then he looked at Elizabeth and a wide smile broke out across his face, transforming his features and lighting up the room.
“I—we—that is. Oh dear!” Mrs. Bennet stammered, covering her mouth with her palm. “Mr. Darcy is here, Lizzy!”
“I’m sorry to disturb you all, but I heard that Miss Elizabeth was awake and I—I wanted to see if she needed anything. I can send for the physician again.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Mr. Bennet stood up, groaning slightly and rubbing his knees. “Lizzy is awake and alert.”
“And feeling simply awful,” Elizabeth said. “For what I put you through, Mr. Darcy. And what I put all of you through.”
Mr. Darcy shook his head as if to deny her words, then glanced around the room. Six women and one man stared silently at him, and Elizabeth watched as he grew more still and cold. She knew what was happening. How well she was getting to know him.
He was nervous.
But, so was she.
“I was wondering, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, if I might have permission to speak privately with Miss Elizabeth, later in the day—”
“Later?” Mrs. Bennet shook her head. “Later is not necessary. Why, I was just saying we should all leave Lizzy to rest and go fetch her some tea.” She grabbed her husband’s arm and began to pull him toward the door.
“Mama,” Elizabeth cried, blushing with the impropriety of it all.
Mrs. Bennet glared at her daughter, and then at the heavens. “Fine! She needs to build up her strength, doesn’t she? Jane, stay here and help me get Lizzy ready. Elizabeth, you and Mr. Darcy may go for a short stroll together—indoors this time.”
Elizabeth
She had never dressed this quickly in her life.
Rather, she had never been forced to dress this quickly.
“Mama, stop! The pins are digging directly into my skull!” Elizabeth cried, jerking her head away from her mother’s hurried hands.
“Here, let me,” Jane said, taking the brush from her mother and smoothing Elizabeth’s hair.
“Quickly, quickly!” Mrs. Bennet said. “He is waiting in the hall!”
“Yes, but he isn’t going anywhere. We’re all trapped here by the snow,” Jane said reasonably.
“Your sister certainly wasn’t! And look where it got her,” Mrs. Bennet cried, shaking out a borrowed dress. It was a golden color and looked dreadfully expensive.
“Where did you get that?” Elizabeth asked.
“Caroline,” Jane said. She leaned down and whispered into Elizabeth’s ear. “I was there when she picked it out. And you were right, my dear: she was most reluctant to lend you anything, and she made quite sure to pick the color she thought would look the worst with your complexion.”
Elizabeth took a deep breath and let her
mother and sister help dress her. The gown was a bit loose, and three inches too long, but it would do.
“Well, Caroline was wrong,” Jane said. “You look lovely in gold, Lizzy.”
Mrs. Bennet clapped her hands. “No, Jane. She looks beautiful.”
“Mama!” Elizabeth said, turning to face her. “That might be the first time I can remember you telling me I look nice.”
Mrs. Bennet rubbed her temples and looked Heavenward for a moment. “Lord help me, with these daughters. Of course you’re pretty, Lizzy! You take after me, after all. But I can only spare so much attention for each of you girls. I had to get Jane married off first, and now I can concentrate on you. Don’t look at me like that—you’ll get a line between your eyes if you scowl for too long.”
“Wait, Jane—have you and Mr. Bingley reached an understanding?” Elizabeth turned and grabbed her sister’s hands. “When? Tell me everything!”
Jane laughed, her blue eyes filling with tears. “I didn’t want to bother you at present. But yes. Yes. I was so distraught when you were brought back, and Mr. Bingley—my Bingley—was so kind to me. He spoke with Papa, and then he asked me last night. Lizzy, I am the happiest of women!” She glanced toward the closed bedroom door. “The only thing that would make me even more joyful, is if you have also found a man whom you greatly admire.”
“Pff, enough of this chatter!” Mrs. Bennet. “I’ll tell you what there is to admire: ten thousand a year! Now pinch your cheeks and go for a walk. Jane, follow them—but at a distance!”
Elizabeth hugged Jane tightly and whispered, “Tell me everything tonight. Oh dearest Jane, I am so happy for you!”
And then her mother was pushing them toward the bedroom door, and then they were out in the hallway, and there was Mr. Darcy. He stood in front of a window, the bright winter sunlight hitting his eyes and turning them a jeweled blue so clear and brilliant that Lizzy had trouble breathing for a moment.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he said softly, staring at her as if they were alone. Then he recollected himself and bowed to the women behind her. “Mrs. Bennet, Miss Bennet.”
Snowbound with Darcy Page 11