Jane paused for a moment, then added with a smile, “And you may tell him I said you are to have a reward.”
Rather than being insulted at what seemed to Darcy to be her condescending tone, the two rough-and-dirty men both beamed and touched their foreheads respectfully. “Yes, Miss Jane. Thankee, miss,” they chorused, backing awkwardly out of the bedroom.
Darcy heard their clumping footsteps on the stair as Jane returned her attention to him.
“You were thrown from your horse,” she said in response to his earlier question. “Do you not remember that?”
All in a rush it came back to him. “Lord Nelson!” Darcy exclaimed. “Oh damn, how could I have been so stupid.”
“I beg your pardon! Did you say Lord Nelson?” Jane was regarding him very strangely now and he saw her drawing back from the bed in shock.
“My horse?” Darcy anxiously inquired. “Where is he?”
“The horse is uninjured,” she said uneasily, her bright brown eyes darting to the empty doorway. “Those men brought him here with you.”
“Thank God!” Darcy’s sense of relief was palpable as he considered all of the horrible things that could have happened to the extremely valuable animal as the result of his ill-advised sortie.
“Please try to rest now,” his attractive guardian urged, cautiously coming a little closer to the bed again. “The doctor will be here soon.”
Darcy’s eyes were darting nervously about the room, taking in for the first time the candlestick on the night stand by the bed, the antique furnishings everywhere and the woman’s high-waisted, floor-length gown that exaggerated the enticing swell of her breasts. “What is this place anyway?” he asked. “Some kind of historical theme park?”
The intelligent dark eyes followed his as he continued to scan the quaint furnishings of the bedroom, and again her expression was strange. “You are at Chawton Cottage,” Jane replied at length. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Could you possibly phone the people I’m staying with?” he asked. “They may be getting worried about me.”
“Fone?” She repeated the word with a puzzled look.
“Yes, the Cliftons,” Darcy said. “They’re leasing that gigantic old Edwardian brick pile a mile or so to the west of where I fell.”
Darcy smiled ruefully, thinking of the ribbing he was going to get when Faith and the others turned up in the Land Rover and discovered the mess he’d gotten himself into.
“My name is Fitzwilliam Darcy,” he told Jane, who continued to stand there staring at him. “Just ask the Cliftons to get over here with a horse trailer, and tell them I’m okay,” he requested.
“Okay?” She was still staring at him with that strange, slightly disbelieving look in her eyes. “I am very sorry,” she said slowly. “But I do not believe that I comprehend your precise meaning, Mr. Darcy.”
Convinced that for some reason of her own she didn’t want to make the telephone call for him, Darcy sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
“Oh please, do not try to move,” Jane pleaded, rushing forward with obvious alarm.
“I think I’m okay now,” Darcy said, trying to get his feet under him. “If you’ll just show me where your phone is, I’ll call the Cliftons myself…”
He got unsteadily to his feet, stood tottering beside the bed for a moment, then suddenly toppled to the floor like a bag of dropped cement.
Jane fell to her knees beside him. “Mr. Darcy!”
Like the tiny cherub before her, Darcy heard her cry of alarm echoing from a long way off. “Maggie,” she called, “come here! I need you.”
Maggie, the red-faced housekeeper, hurried into the bedroom and stared in confusion at the unconscious man lying on the floor.
“Don’t just stand there,” said Jane, bending over him. “The gentleman has fainted. Help me get him back into bed.”
Together the two women managed to haul Darcy back onto the bed. When it was done, they both stood panting from the effort. Maggie fanned herself with her apron for a few moments. Then she went around to the foot of the bed and started removing Darcy’s boots.
Jane watched her, then reached over and unbuttoned his waistcoat and shirt, revealing a chain holding a gold medallion emblazoned with the Darcy family crest. She curiously lifted the pendant in her hand, looking at the detail in the design, then returned to the business of unfastening his shirt.
“Now you leave all that to me, Miss Jane,” fussed Maggie, placing Darcy’s boots in a corner and returning to the bed. “I’ll look after the gentleman properlike.”
“Nonsense, Maggie,” Jane replied. “I grew up with six brothers. So I believe I am perfectly capable of managing one unconscious gentleman. Now do go down to the kitchen and put on the kettle for Mr. Hudson. He’ll want hot water, basins and clean muslin for this wound when he arrives.”
Frowning and muttering at the impropriety of her mistress dirtying her hands on the muddy stranger, Maggie nevertheless scurried off, as she had been ordered to do.
When the fretful housekeeper was gone Jane lifted Darcy’s gold medallion from his chest and examined it more closely. Then she covered him with a blanket.
She stepped back from the bed, and noticed a glint of light from something on the floor where Darcy had fallen in his attempt to stand. Her curiosity aroused, Jane picked up a small, rectangular object no larger than a gentleman’s calling card. She frowned and looked closely at it, scarcely believing her eyes. With the strange card held high in her hand, she walked straight to the window and extended it into the bright shaft of midmorning light pouring into the room.
“Such a thing as this cannot be!” Jane gasped as a perfect, three-dimensional hologram of a prancing horse danced and wheeled in the sunlight before her disbelieving eyes. Squinting to better see the magical picture, she saw behind the tiny horse the same golden crest that she had observed just moments before on Darcy’s medallion.
Jane read aloud the words “‘Fitzwilliam Darcy, Pemberley Farms,’” impressed in graceful black type below the hologram on the clear plastic business card—a box of which had been a gift to Darcy from Faith Harrington the previous Christmas.
Jane scanned the senseless jumble of e-mail, fax and telephone numbers beneath Darcy’s name, unable to decipher their meaning. Then she ran her fingertips over the flat surface of the hologram once more, confirming for herself the reality of the thing.
Turning, she stared at Darcy, who lay unmoving on the bed. “Who are you, sir, to possess such a wondrous, nay,
She was startled out of her rumination by the sound of carriage wheels on the drive below. Looking out the window she saw Mr. Hudson’s modest black surrey pulling to a stop before her gate. To Jane’s surprise, her sister, Cassandra, whom he must have met along the way, was riding beside the white-haired doctor. She heard the urgent sound of their voices as they hurried into the house and started up the stairs.
Wracked with indecision, Jane looked from the impossible card in her hand to the unconscious man on the bed. Footsteps were sounding outside the bedroom door as she stole another look at the clear plastic card, then tucked it into her gown.
Chapter 18
It was midafternoon before Darcy again awoke. This time there was an intense, steady throb in his head and a strange tingling sensation in his right arm. He opened his eyes and blinked up at a high ceiling finished in swirls of dazzling white plaster. Grimacing at the pain, he tried to recall the strange dream he had just had. He
