Longbourn to London (24 page)

Mr. Bennet could read her distress. “All will be well, Lizzy.” He kissed her forehead as he had since she was a child, filling her with strength.

Darcy watched from the door of the carriage as she said her goodbyes. From a distance of twenty feet, he could sense her disquiet. Her father kissed her; she stood up straight and lifted her chin to face her husband and her new world.
It is not me she fears
, Darcy reminded himself,
it is the unknown.

***

Elizabeth watched her father recede until she could see him no more and stopped waving. She sat back on the ladies’ side of the coach, gazing at Darcy. Would he change sides now? Would he come to her?

He was sitting where he could watch the view, and did not look at her.
Can I keep myself in check until we reach London? If I sit next to her, I shall kiss her, and if she responds, I shall not stop. She is my wife. At long last, Elizabeth Bennet is my wife.

“Fitzwilliam?” she said encouragingly. “Will you join me?”

He blinked at her, trying to scatter his lustful daydreams. “Elizabeth, are you cold? Here…” He pulled a wicker bin from under his seat from which he selected one of several folded lap robes.

Elizabeth took it with a confused expression. “I am not too cold. But I thought you might wish to be more…companionable.”

Agitated, Darcy took off his hat and shrugged out of his great coat. “No, I thank you, but I am not cold.”

Indeed, you are flushed, sir
.

Elizabeth could not withhold the exasperation she feared was creeping unbidden into her voice. “Why do we speak of being cold, when neither of us is?”

He finally met her gaze. “If I sit next to you, we shall hold hands, I shall kiss your hands, I shall kiss you, and who knows where it will lead?”

Elizabeth started to laugh but saw a certain pleading look in his eyes. She said calmly, “Where is the lauded Darcy self-control? Is all or nothing our only choice?”

“Do you really wish to be deflowered in a carriage, Elizabeth, as no doubt your sister was?” Like Elizabeth, Darcy heard the edge of petulance in his voice.

“Mr. Darcy!” She could not believe what she was hearing. “How could…? Why would you say such a shameful thing? To me…now?”
Is he angering me on purpose? Is he unnerved, too?
She fiercely balled her hands into fists, her nails impressing her palms.

Darcy saw some violent urge flicker across her face. He instantly regretted his words but felt he would regret it more if her first experience of marital relations was a ravishment in their carriage. He had longed to finally be alone with her, to possess her, but now felt barely under restraint.
How have I let it come to this?

He had no answer, sighed, and turned to look at the Hertfordshire countryside. He had blundered this, the very start of their married life. Elizabeth slid to the opposite corner of the coach. He ventured a sidelong glance, and saw disappointment writ plain in her rigid posture.

What should I do?
Darcy gave the appearance of calm as he raced through memories and dreams of Elizabeth, hoping for a clue.

Chapter 16

Darcy’s Dreams

“But masters, remember that I am an ass.”
William Shakespeare
Much Ado about Nothing

W
hen did I first dream of her?

When Fitzwilliam Darcy first dreamt of Miss Elizabeth Bennet, it was a fleeting vision. It happened the night following Elizabeth and Jane’s departure from Netherfield after Jane’s illness. During the visit, Darcy and Elizabeth engaged in several debates touching on numerous issues. Each left Darcy more intrigued. As her visit came hard on the heels of the Meryton assembly where Elizabeth had heard her feminine attributes roundly disparaged by Darcy, she was disposed to take offense and find fault, both with the man and his every utterance. At the time, Darcy did not apprehend her response to him as annoyance.

Darcy was merely enticed when he came upon Elizabeth as she approached Netherfield on foot. She had walked three miles at a vigorous rate. Her hair was nearly falling to her shoulders, her cheeks glowed, and her eyes were flashing. That evening, after Jane was asleep, Elizabeth stumbled upon him in the billiard room, mistaking it for the drawing room. She wore a simple gown slightly lower at the neckline than usual, and he was beguiled. Once in the drawing room, she defended her disinclination to play cards with a quick wit, which easily parried the viperous Caroline Bingley’s verbal assault. Adding to enticed and beguiled, he then became impressed.

The next evening, Caroline acted on the misguided notion that if she strolled about the drawing room with Elizabeth on her arm, Elizabeth’s lack of fashion would show itself to Caroline’s advantage. Unhappily for the tall, stick-figured Caroline, Elizabeth’s posture was refined and her figure just the sort to attract Darcy’s silent praise, as he was now given the occasion to observe it carefully. Elizabeth had a lovely bosom and was slender enough to rarely wear a full corset, giving her gait a natural grace. He suspected she might have fine legs, for what he could see of her ankles appeared trim and shapely. Elizabeth Bennet radiated health, and although Darcy was not conscious of it, this attribute attracted him as much as her laughing, intelligent eyes and pert opinions.

The same night, Elizabeth challenged Darcy to enumerate his faults. As he sat with a book and brandy upon retiring for the night, he confessed she had bested him. He was embarrassed to admit that, in answering her queries, he had responded with pride and vanity—the very faults he told her he tried to regulate. He could just possibly be smitten. The next day he tried to avoid her, though he spent a tense half an hour in her company in the Netherfield library, where he was thoroughly aroused by nothing other than her proximity.

When Jane and Elizabeth departed, Darcy was fit only for brisk physical activity, and he spent the rest of the day riding. Before retiring that night, he had stolen unseen into the room Jane and Elizabeth had shared. Although the Bingley housemaids had tidied it, there was a faint hint of lavender in the air, which he had noticed in the library on the previous day.
Oh Darcy, this will not do. She is not for you, so do not dwell upon the simple country charms of Elizabeth Bennet
.

That night, he dreamt of one of the courtesans he had hired in Vienna, a redhead. She had the complexion of ripe peaches and an ample bosom with rouged nipples, which was displayed spilling over a pale pink corset. In his dream, as he kissed the thighs and dimpled knees of the exquisite and expensive harlot, he glanced from time to time at her face. Sometimes it was the red-haired strumpet watching him with encouraging smiles, and sometimes it was the brunette Elizabeth with her brows lifted in surprise. In his dream, when the face was Elizabeth’s with those beautiful dark eyes, his breath quickened. He blinked and the harlot returned. In the morning, he awoke unsettled by the awareness that Miss Elizabeth Bennet had invaded his dreams.

***

The next dream was the night after the Netherfield ball, and Darcy’s last night in Hertfordshire before returning to London to attempt to convince Bingley that Miss Jane Bennet was an unsuitable match.

Darcy stepped away from the dance floor after dancing with Elizabeth Bennet to find a glass of wine. Although she was easily the most handsome woman in the room and an accomplished dancer, his set with her had been disappointing. She was attempting to sketch his character, and he felt that any effort to correct her impressions would imply he cared with a deeper regard than he could admit to anyone, least of all himself. He wandered back to the edge of the dance floor to find Elizabeth dancing with George Wickham.

At each turn by his partner, Wickham passed too close, as if hoping to brush her bosom or derriere. Bastard! Darcy stepped onto the dance floor, standing between Wickham and Elizabeth, interrupting their progress down the line of the dance. Elizabeth was making a turn in place and did not see Darcy until she came to rest. She slowly smiled at him. “Is this what it takes to draw your attention, Mr. Darcy? Must I dance with a blackguard?”

“Surely, Miss Elizabeth, you mean that
he
is the blackguard,” sneered Wickham, and he moved to take her hand to continue the dance.

Darcy took her other hand, and turned her sharply away from Wickham and into his arms. In front of all the assembled guests, he kissed her with a passion he had never before expressed in any way to any woman. The assembled guests gasped, but Darcy did not care, and neither, it seemed, did Elizabeth. Magically, her evening gloves were gone and her bare arms climbed his chest, her hands finding their way to his hair. She opened her mouth slightly, it was all the welcome he needed. His hands slid down her back and grabbed her firm derriere. She did not release his lips but moaned and pushed her body against his.

“Mr. Darcy, what are your intentions towards my daughter?” boomed Mr. Bennet, sounding altogether louder than seemed possible.

“She deserves far better than that rake,” Darcy responded, not releasing Elizabeth from his embrace.

“
You
are not behaving far better,” she teased. “In fact, I would say the two of you were cut from the same cloth.”

She looked up at him, the corner of her lower lip caught by her upper teeth, as if trying not to laugh. “Then damn you,” he growled, and kissed her again with renewed ferocity. His hands slid up her back, around her ribs, and to the sides of her breasts, which were heavy and heaving, much bigger than he previously noticed. He looked down and her breasts were now bare, nipples rouged.

“Your intention had better be marriage, sir,” bellowed Mr. Bennet.

“Do you want me?” Darcy whispered hotly into Elizabeth’s ear.

“Take me, Mr. Darcy. Take me tonight and always.”

Darcy had awoken in a cold sweat, with an erection requiring immediate attention.

As Darcy now reflected on the dream, he realised that, at the time, it had been easy to pretend that the larger part of Elizabeth’s allure had been due to his jealousy. Wickham had charmed her using no more effort than it might take to drink a glass of water. Darcy had not wished to charm, tempt or encourage her in any way, yet the knowledge that his enemy had done so had made the bile rise in his throat. He had tried to think less of her for being deceived by Wickham’s appearance of goodness, but the material point remained: he had not been able to stop thinking of her at all.

***

When Darcy was lately in London and dreamt of Elizabeth in the Netherfield billiard room, upon awakening, he felt he was seeing her more clearly. She was a woman worthy of being pleased, and he had improved himself sufficiently that she had accepted him. She was everything lovely. Her attempts to rise to every challenge had encouraged him to tempt her further, and her response to his touch before leaving for London had thrilled him.

So why am I now afraid she will spurn me?
The steady clopping of horse’s hooves on frozen gravel provided no answer, other than to offer nagging evidence that precious time, which might have been spent laughing with her, was instead wasted on contemplating how to right an insult.

***

On the night of Darcy’s return from London, just five days before the wedding, Elizabeth had offered herself to him. Was this not her admission that she was ready to be awakened? She had said more than once that it was her own inclinations she feared, not him. Somehow, in the days of his absence, she had overcome her trepidation.

The dream that followed was another confounding combination of the actual past, an improvement of it, and a strange sensation of prescience.

As he rode away from Bakewell, where his sister remained to follow later, his thoughts turned, as ever, to memories of Elizabeth Bennet. It was a hot summer day. Darcy slowed his approach to Pemberley, sticky and uncomfortable in his riding clothes. He swerved his horse to the spring-fed pond hidden from the house by a copse of willows.

There was really nothing to be done about her. Although Darcy planned to convince Bingley to return to Netherfield for one more season of shooting before giving up the lease, Darcy did not think he could bear to be so close to Elizabeth and not see her. He had taken her criticisms to heart— such a perceptive woman she was— but he had no hope she would offer any opportunity to display his improvements of civility. He had insulted her and her entire family, even those members he had not met. His sweeping statements of disgust mortified him now, but it was much too late. No, he could only hope to restore Bingley to Jane Bennet’s attention, and then Darcy would leave Hertfordshire. He was even undecided about the wisdom of standing up with Bingley, should a wedding take place, as Jane would surely wish to be seconded by Elizabeth. Darcy could not imagine standing at an altar in the company of such a bridesmaid without importuning the minister to state the wedding vows twice.