Pain.
For most of the night it had consumed Darcy's thoughts, leaving him to twist and turn in his bed, unable to break free from its vice like grip. He struggled pitifully against it, pure exhaustion his only method of truly switching off and falling into unconsciousness.
'Sir?'
A voice said quietly above him.
'Mr Darcy?'
It was louder this time, and far less patient.
Oh God.
It was the nurse.
His nurse.
Elizabeth Bennet.
He didn't open his eyes, and pretended that he was still sleeping peacefully.
He wasn't sure exactly why he did this, because he certainly wasn't afraid of her. Simply not in any mood to be trifled with, and he had a horrid feeling she was going to trifle with him, brigadier general or not. Therefore, feigning sleep seemed (at least at the current moment) to be the most logical course of action.
'Mr Darcy?'
The voice now came from a mouth far too close to his, and it was the shock of feeling her warm breath on the side of his cheek which made his eyes open so sharply.
She was indeed very close to him, alarmingly so he thought, and looking at him with the same distrust she had shown at their first meeting. Yet, being this close gave him the opportunity to take in all the details of her face; from her dark eyes and chestnut hair to the slight smattering of freckles across her nose which suggested too much time spent in the sun.
He thought back to his conversation with Dr Jones last night.
What this woman must have seen.
Elizabeth too was afforded a rather up-close-and-personal view of her patient, letting her eyes linger on his black curly hair, pale complexion and burning hazel eyes. He certainly hadn't spent much time in the sun, not that that surprised her much. Here at least he probably spent most of his time in a French Chateau. Yet, she had to admit that the nurses around the hospital were right: he was very handsome.
Pity he's such an intolerable prig.
'I'm here to change your bandages and help you wash up.'
The lingering pain in his head, shoulder and leg dissipated almost at once, quickly replaced by complete and utter panic.
'What?'
He looked at her, open mouthed. She, on the other hand, rolled her eyes. Darcy took very little notice of this however, too preoccupied by the threatened 'wash up' she proposed.
'What on earth do you mean you help me wash?'
'I mean I'm going to help you wash your body and change your bandages, it's sort of what we do in hospitals.'
As she reached for the top button of his pyjamas, his good arm flung itself over his chest – barring her way.
'I can do it myself.'
'No, you can't.'
'Yes, I can.'
They stared impassively at one another for a few seconds, each weighing up the other. Elizabeth broke the moment of silence by pushing his good arm of his chest and holding it down as she popped open the two top buttons of his shirt.
'This.'
She popped another button.
'Is.'
The thread of the fourth one actually came a bit loose from the force she exerted over it.
'My.'
The triangle of pale skin she was quickly freeing grew larger still.
'Job.'
The last two buttons fell to her machinations, and Darcy's chest was completely exposed.
'How…'
The surprise of her sudden attack was the only thing that had stopped Darcy from preventing her crusade against his shirt. He now lay there, in complete and utter shock, staring at her in disbelief.
'How dare you?'
It wasn't said with anger, just genuine confusion.
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows in reply to his question, and pushed a few rogue strands of hair that had come loose out of her eyes.
'Because it's my job and the doctors' orders. Now sit still, behave, and take your trousers off.'
Darcy just sat there, unable to find the words to express how he felt about her order. Starting to get more and more annoyed, Elizabeth glared at him.
'Look, it's not like it's nothing I haven't seen before. You need to wash, and your wounds need to be checked, cleaned and redressed. In your current state you can't do that by yourself. Not that you probably even know how to properly redress a wound. So…'
She put a great deal of emphasis on the 'so'.
'…I suggest you just let me get on with it. I have other things I could be doing.'
Darcy still hadn't quite processed this. A middle-class young lady, who came on the highest recommendation of Dr Jones, was trying to forcibly undress him. Yes, he knew she was a nurse and that this was her job. This certainly wasn't his first time in a hospital. But it had felt different the other times. Maybe because he had been younger? Or maybe because the nurses had been older?
Or maybe it was just Elizabeth Bennet, this strange woman who he didn't understand one bit, that made him so nervous.
'Honestly Sir, there is no need to be shy.'
That shook Darcy abruptly out of his thoughts.
Shy?
SHY?
How she had the audacity to call him shy was a mystery.
He was a grown man, and also a respected brigadier general. Yet here was an arduous young woman accusing him, him, of being shy? This would not stand. No, this wouldn't stand at all.
With the most sardonic look he could muster he started at her, attempting to demonstrate to her how un-true and silly her accusation was. From the way her eyes narrowed slightly he felt it must have worked.
'Very well, get on with it.'
Gritting her teeth at what she saw as a disrespectful tone of reply, Elizabeth pulled back his sheets and surveyed her charge.
She then proceeded to pull the only chair in the room away from the desk and place it next to his bedside. She then took his good arm and motioned for him to sit up, which he duly did, and gently turned him so that his leg could be stretched out on the chair.
She then walked behind him, placing her hands on his shoulders.
She held them there for a bit, before slowly moving them forward so as to grip the lapel and gently peel back the shirt, revealing his wounded torso.
He heard the soft thump of his shirt hitting the sheet next to him.
They both held their breath (although neither knew the other suffered also) as Elizabeth began to slowly undo the bandages from around his shoulder.
She had done this a thousand times before, and yet suddenly felt an uncharacteristic twinge of nervousness. She supposed it was because he was a handsome man and that the intimacy of being alone in a room while performing this act, as opposed to a crowded hospital dormitory or battlefield, created an atmosphere that she was unfamiliar with.
It bothered her that she felt this way, and resolved to place his awkwardness as the root cause of the general awkwardness surrounding their current situation.
Darcy on the other hand, well, he could only focus on her cool fingertips as she washed his back and the area surrounding his wound, which she then dressed and rebandaged. The process was then repeated on his damaged arm.
His new-found policy of staring straight ahead at the wall and not moving a single muscle was tested as she moved from washing his arms to wiping down his broad chest.
His voice was slightly husky.
'I can do this part with my good arm.'
She nodded, looking slightly relieved he thought, and went over to the desk where she fiddled with the various ointments and bandages that lay on it.
Once he was done she walked back over, all signs of relief gone, and pointed at his pyjama bottoms.
'Right, these off now.'
'My leg feels fine, you don't have to.'
She looked at him with exasperation.
'Honestly, I have never met anyone as self-conscious as you, normally the men don't complain when I have to wipe them down.'
Although most of them are too badly hurt to complain.
Darcy had, at this point, lost the ability to be surprise by her.
While there were obvious sexual connotations to what she said, her blunt manner of address made it come off as anything but. Indeed, there was actually a sort of quiet innocence in it. An innocence which, to his regret, he found quite enchanting.
'Fine, but I'm taking them off.'
Elizabeth smiled dryly.
'Oh excellent, this ought to be quick.'
It almost immediately became apparent that he should have just let her do the deed. His sorry attempts at taking off the pyjama bottoms hurt his pride far more than allowing her to take of his trousers would have done.
She, in an act of mercy that surprised both of them, took pity on him and moved over quickly to pull them clean off. Her hand had brushed his bad leg while doing it, but the pain that this inflicted was nothing compared to the pain to his ego as he tried to take his trousers off with one arm while sitting on a bed.
She hurriedly dressed the wounds on his leg, and gave both of them a quick rub with the wet cloth. Mercifully she looked away slightly as she pulled his bottoms back up, with only some minor wiggling on Darcy's part required to get them properly on.
'Now I have to do the head wound.'
She sat next to him on the bed, twisting herself so that she could have better access to the bandages that were wound in thin band around his head.
She slowly began to unwind them, and went through the motions she had for his shoulder, arm and leg.
She moved the cloth up to wipe his face, stopping suddenly.
He couldn't help but notice that her face was very close to his.
'You know something?'
He looked at her briefly before returning his gaze to the wall.
'What?'
She looked at him intensely, as if seeing him for the first time.
'You look a bit like Humpty Dumpty.'
His slowly, incredulously, turned his head until he was looking her directly in the eyes.
'What did you just say?'
It came out as barely more than a strangled hiss.
She tried very hard to keep a straight face, but the look of complete and utter incredulity on his no longer stoic face was almost too much.
'Humpty Dumpty, you know, he fell off a wall.'
'I know who Humpty Dumpty is!'
He was so enraged that the end of the bandage, which had not been fixed up yet, fell down in front of his face where it dangled helplessly.
This proved to be too much for Elizabeth who turned away and began to laugh, a proper side-splitting belly laugh that filled the small room. Hearing her laugh like this, the side of Darcy's lips couldn't help but twinge upwards, and soon he was laughing as well, albeit in a far more restrained way.
However, as soon as he did, Elizabeth stopped laughing abruptly and swung back to look at him. She raised her finger so that it was pointing directly into his face, her mouth slightly open.
'You! You laughed!'
He stopped as well and looked at her.
'Yes, is that really so surprising?'
He was surprised by it, although he wouldn't admit that to her. He couldn't really remember the last time he had genuinely laughed.
'Yes, it is – you see I didn't think you had a sense of humour.'
He raised his eyebrow at her as she finished fixing the bandage back in place.
'How on earth do you get away with it?'
'Away with what?'
He looked at her quizzically.
'With your total disregard and lack of respect for authority of any kind.'
It was her turn to look at him quizzically.
'I do respect authority, but only when I feel like that authority is one worth respecting.'
She shrugged.
'I respect Dr Jones tremendously, for instance.'
'But this means that you don't respect me.'
She said nothing, perhaps choosing her words – he didn't dare to hope he had finally left her speechless.
'May I ask why?'
He looked at her with curiosity, honestly interested in hearing her response.
Suddenly a knock came at the door, and a nurse walked in. Seeing Darcy still with his shirt off, the young girl blushed, and curtsied to him. She then turned to Elizabeth.
'I'm sorry to bother you, but Dr Jones needs to you to help in the surgery Elizabeth – a wave has come in from the frontline hospitals.'
Elizabeth stood up at once, and Darcy moved to put on his shirt, using his good arm to slip it over the bad one. It resulted in him being mostly covered, at least from the view of the nurse.
'I can take over if you want and finish tending to the brigadier general.'
Darcy raised up his hand to her.
'That won't be necessary.'
He turned towards Elizabeth, reverting to his coldest voice.
'I will wait for your answer when we next meet.'
She turned her head ever so slightly towards him before striding forward and out of the door, letting it slam behind her.
Sorry that this was posted in the early hours of Saturday (rather than Friday as promised)! Hope you have enjoyed this third instalment of Hummingbird. Today I leave the country for about a week but should be back next Sunday, however I will not be taking my laptop with me and will have little to no Wi-Fi. This unfortunately means that the story won't be updated for a full week, although I really hope this doesn't mean people will lose interest. Please Review, Follow and Favourite! Have a lovely week.