Page 88 of To Love And To Cherish
He inhaled slowly and took an immediate step back, evidently aware he had come too near and that his expression had darkened.
“No, my darling,” he said softly. “You’ve done nothing wrong. I am… experiencing what I believe to be a jealous fit. I’m unused to feeling this way. Forgive me.”
He glanced about and spotted a small settee. “Come, let us sit. I only wish to understand.”
He gestured to the empty cushion beside him. She joined him, still uncertain, though his manner had gentled.
He looked at her expectantly.
She folded her hands in her lap and began. “If Dr. Edgerton needed assistance with a procedure or surgery, he would send for me, or stop on his way to the patient’s home and collect me. Just before I travelled to Cambridge with Miss King, I helped him with a patient who had a bullet lodged in his thigh.”
Darcy said nothing, but his brows drew together.
“He also keeps clinic hours in the front room of his home,” she continued. “I spent many hours reading there between patients. Some of the patients came for my services, for dressing changes, wound irrigation, and tissue debridement. The others came to see him.”
Darcy exhaled through his nose. “I begin to understand why Dr. Edgerton was so casual at Bingley’s house. He tapped once and walked straight into your sister’s chamber.”
She nodded. “Yes. He sees me as his assistant. Which I have been, these past five years.”
Darcy’s voice was tight. “And your father, he saw no impropriety in such an arrangement?”
Elizabeth looked at him, perplexed. “No. No one did. I was regarded as the local nurse. He the physician. It was all perfectly respectable.”
Darcy said nothing for a moment. He could not articulate the hundred reasons the arrangement displeased him. Among them was the fact that Dr. Edgerton was young, no more than forty, and he had been alone with her, trusted by her, and possibly attracted to her. Also, Elizabeth, at seventeen, had already been of marriageable age and uncommonly lovely.
At last, he asked, “Did your father not miss you at home?”
She considered the question. “I only worked four hours each morning. Most procedures occurred only when there had been an accident. And,” she hesitated, then added more quietly, “my mother never liked me underfoot. She does not like me. I think she was relieved to see me useful elsewhere.”
He turned to her. “I remember you once said she sent you to the Gardiners in London. That’s when we met.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Yes. I was away for a year. When I returned, it was a comfort to have something meaningful to do. I asked Papa if I might accompany the doctor when he visited tenants, and that soon expanded into regular mornings at his clinic.”
Darcy nodded slowly, catching every word. He did not press her further. But inwardly, he was relieved that Elizabeth would never again be alone with Dr. Edgerton. She would be at Pemberley with him.
They returned to the inn, where the carriage and trunks had arrived. In the private parlor, as dinner was served, Elizabeth found herself unusually quiet.
Darcy eyed her. “Mrs. Darcy, are you feeling shy?”
“Sir,” she said, mortified, “you are not helping.”
He leaned forward. “After dinner, I intend to help you very thoroughly. I believe you will be quite pleased.”
She gasped. “Fitzwilliam! How am I to eat with such commentary? You’re teasing is very ungentlemanlike.”
He chuckled.
And she fled into the bedchamber and collapsed into a chair, covering her face. “How did Jane endure this?” she muttered.
He appeared in the doorway. “Already hiding, my love?”
“I thought you were seeing to the horses.”
“I will. But now I’m ready for dessert.”
She hurled a pillow at him. He caught it. “I’ll give you time. A bath is being prepared. I’ll be gone for an hour. Lock the door if you like.”
She peeked out from between her fingers. “You are incorrigible.”
