WHILE MR. MERYTON WAITED FOR WICK TO WAKE UP, Darcy took me to his suite to see Jane and Lydia.
Jane was in the bathroom making Lydia take a shower. Darcy went into the kitchen and started to brew some coffee.
"How did you get this room?" I looked around at the gorgeous hotel suite that took up nearly the entire top floor. I sat down on one of the large plush couches in the living room area that faced the floor-length windows with a magnificent view of the Empire State Building. I was thankful to have something to distract me from the throbbing pain in my hand.
Darcy shrugged. "We needed a key to get upstairs, and this was the only room they had available. How's your hand?" He came over, unwrapped the towel, and gently examined my hand.
"That was stupid. I don't know what came over me."
"George Wickham -- that's what came over you."
"Darcy, I'm so sorry."
"You don't have to keep apologizing." He took another towel and ran it under cold water. "Not that I didn't enjoy the spectacle, but you have to be careful with your hands, Lizzie." I hadn't even thought about how my little violent outburst would affect my playing. Darcy carefully wrapped the towel around my hand.
"Thank you."
He nodded.
"No, thank you for helping. I don't know what we would have done without you, truly."
He looked sad at my comment. "I guess I did hide behind my money today."
"What are you talking about?"
"The room? Mr. Meryton? I guess you were right about me after all."
I grabbed one of his hands with my good hand. He looked shocked. "What you did was thoughtful and kind. And I, I ..." The words got caught in my throat.
The bathroom door opened and Jane emerged, escorting a bathrobed Lydia by the arm. "You are going to sleep this off, and I will try to think of how to explain this all to Mom and Dad." She dragged Lydia to the bedroom and put her to bed.
When Jane returned to us in the living room, she was clearly rattled and exhausted.
"What happened?" she asked when she saw my hand.
"Oh, nothing." I was completely embarrassed by my behavior.
"Darcy, how can you be laughing?" Jane scolded him.
I turned around and saw that Darcy was indeed laughing. "I'm sorry, Jane. I am, but ..." He turned to me. "Do you want to tell her or shall I?"
I was horrified that my reputation was about to get worse. I couldn't tell if it would be better to be known as a bruiser than a charity case. But then maybe people would think twice about messing with me....
Jane eyed us both suspiciously. I shrugged.
"It seems as if Miss Elizabeth Bennet has been hiding one of her many talents from us," Darcy said. "One that, I might add, I really wish I had known about earlier, as I would have approached things in a very different way."
"What?" Jane shook her head in confusion.
"I punched Wick," I admitted.
"She knocked him out," Darcy added.
Jane's eyes went wide. "You what?" Her shock wore off quickly, and before I knew it, she was grilling me on how it felt.
"Excuse me," Darcy interrupted. "As much as I would love to relish those details, I do have to go. I got the room for the night, so feel free to stay here. I'm going to take care of things with the front desk, so you don't have to explain any hotel charges to your parents. Mr. Meryton and I have some things we need to do."
Jane and I both expressed our deepest gratitude to Darcy. Then I filled Jane in on the details of what happened in the room after she'd left.
"I can't believe Darcy. If it weren't for him ..." Jane looked pained for a moment. "I can't even begin to think about it. I also don't want to think about what I'm going to tell my parents. Something has to be done about Lydia. There is no way she can come back to Longbourn after this." She got up from the couch and went to the window. "I'm just tired. I don't want to talk about Lydia anymore. I'll deal with her tomorrow. I'm sure she'll be passed out for a while. For now, there is something else I would like to talk about."
"Anything." I couldn't imagine what Jane was going through. I'd be willing to talk about whatever she wanted in order to get her mind off of today's nightmare.
"What were you doing with Will Darcy?" She winked at me.
I recounted the previous day to Jane. She'd known his mother was a performer of some kind, but hadn't realized she was a famous pianist.
"So ..." Jane prodded me.
"So?" I replied. "So, Will Darcy isn't evil incarnate. I, however, am apparently a lousy judge of character. It nearly destroyed everybody close to me."
"You can't beat yourself up about Lydia. She would've found Wick eventually. Or some other version of him. She can always find trouble. You are the reason Darcy was here."
"I know -- I was so lucky he was with me when you called."
Jane shook her head. "That wasn't what I meant. Lizzie, he didn't do all this for me. He didn't even do all of this to get back at Wick. Yes, those were probably huge factors, but I'm pretty sure he did this all because he cares about you."
I didn't want to admit that I was hoping that Darcy's feelings for me hadn't changed. But I couldn't really blame him if they had, after all the horrible things I'd said to him. The last two days had been great, but they couldn't erase the past.
My feelings for him had changed immensely. I was beginning to really care for Will Darcy.