Darcy & Elizabeth (23 page)

“You shall drown us both,” he said, spitting water.

“But you know I cannot swim…” she insisted, wrapping her legs about his.

“Behold, that turtle has returned!” he exclaimed.

“Where? Where?!” she looked about frantically.

He pinched her thigh twice causing her to cry out and flail at the unseen menace before she realised that Darcy was the perpetrator.

“What effrontery!” she declared, desperately treading water.

He reached out and took hold of her, but not without a tickle.

“Belay that! I shall drown!” she exclaimed.

At last, he regained some semblance of his formal self, took her hand, and swam, leading her to the bank. But it was not the bank where their footwear lay. He drew her effortlessly through the water to the shadowed recess of the bower near the deepest part of the pond. It looked a place where a turtle just might lie in wait; hence, she was a bit hesitant.

“Come,” said he. It was all he needed to say.

She allowed him to draw her into the shadows. It was even cooler there where the sun had not reached. That chill did nothing, however, to abate the increasing fever in those recesses particular to a woman. Indeed, the water was not cold. All she could feel was his fingertips clasping hers, drawing her into the dusky alcove. The stillness of the spot and the dappled light filtering through the boughs lent the setting a tantalizing, seductive air. She did not for a moment wonder what were his intentions—had they been other than erotic, she would have been decidedly disappointed.

Both were still fully dressed, she in the remains of her riding habit, he in his shirt and small clothes.

Upon more than one occasion they had made love in a bathing tub. The warm water and suds lent it a luxuriously decadent air. This, however, was quite different—earthy and untamed. Her skirt billowed from the upwelling spring, an effect of which he took full advantage. She had left her stockings rolled up in her boots, hence her calves and thighs were laid bare for his touch—a touch he offered generously.

“I want,” he said, “to do everything within my power to bring you with child again.”

That confession stole her breath and convinced her immediately that she was of a like mind. Her hands crept beneath his shirt as he manoeuvred her undulating skirt. Footing, however, became an unwanted issue. The deceptively calm pool hid competing currents, all conspiring against them. They pitched and rolled with such fervency, the once-clear water was roiled opaque. It was an insidious torment—nearing consummation but managing to be still long enough to bring their lovemaking to climax. It was Elizabeth who at last grasped a branch of a fallen tree as a bulwark. He would have congratulated her for her ingenuity had he not been so compleatly otherwise engaged.

As it was, all he could manage was a guttural, “Oh…Lizzy.”

When at last they came to unparalleled fulmination and then, eventually, their senses, it was he who clung to her. Having personal knowledge of just how very spent he could be rendered after amorous congress, she watched to determine that he kept his chin above water (her own knees now floated quite at their own will). He had made no attempt to climb onto the bank, but rolled upon his back next to her. They were still immersed in the water, which calmly lapped at their chins.

“Well,” she said with finality.

“Yes,” replied he.

He stood. The water was but knee-deep.

She laughed, “And to think that I thought we would surely to drown.”

His clothes matted and dripping against his body, he buttoned his breeches, then attempted to step onto the bank. His stockinged feet slipped several times before he accomplished it. He sat hard on the ground, used the fingers of both hands to comb his hair from his forehead. Still seated, she did much the same, quite certain her head of wet hair did not look half so alluring as his. He manoeuvred the slippery bank and extended both hands—it took both to pull both her and her drenched ensemble full out of the water—no small undertaking. He then realised what she had yet to determine—they were on the opposite side of the stream from both their boots and their horses. Hence, it was somewhat startling that he wordlessly dove back into the pool whence they had just emerged. He swam the width of the water with an effortless few strokes and when he gained shallower water, splashed through it and up the opposing bank.

“Shall you leave me here in all this state?” she called.

He was busy with the task of drawing on his boots over wet stockings and did not reply. He then retrieved her boots and stockings, rolled them in his coat and whistled for Blackjack, who was still nibbling on the lush hillside grass. Upon hearing the whistle, the horse immediately looked towards the sound and began to trot in Darcy's direction. As effortlessly as he swam the current, he lashed the clothing to the saddle, then drew himself atop the horse. All this Elizabeth watched with great interest (purely for elucidative purposes and not just to savour the sight of her husband's rippling muscles). He gave Blackjack a nudge in the flanks and the horse leapt into a canter up the stream bed and away.

She sat there knowing full well that he would not leave her, but compleatly flummoxed as to his intentions. In a moment, he reappeared, having forded the current at a shallower point. He loosed the roll of clothing before he slung his foot over the pommel and dropped to the ground.

“Your boots, m'lady,” he said with an exaggerated bow.

“I thank you, sir.”

He dropped to one knee and took one of her stockings from where it had been tucked in the toe of her boot. He unfurled it.

“Allow me?”

It was a question that could only be answered in the affirmative. Hence, she only gave a small nod in acquiescence. He then began the meticulous process of rolling the leg of her stocking down to the toe in readiness for application to her foot. She offered it. He then unfurled her stocking up the length of her leg with great deliberation. Once it was on to his satisfaction, he smoothed it once again.

“Your garter?” he asked.

She had been so mesmerized that there was a momentary pause before she responded. And when she responded, to her mortification, the first syllable out of her mouth sounded far too much like “Eh?”

“Th-there,” she stammered, pointing towards her boot.

“Ah, yes. I see.”

By the time he repeated the process for her other limb, she felt so weak-kneed that she was uncertain if she would be able to stand. In fortune, he grasped her under her armpits and lifted her onto Blackjack with such efficiency that her feet never actually touched the ground. He leapt upon the saddle behind her and once again gave Blackjack another small kick. This time the horse did not canter, but carefully picked his way towards Pemberley.

As they made their way in exhausted silence, she wondered if he knew that nursing would belay fertility. And if he did, had he just asked her to forgo that duty? She would seek clarification upon another occasion. She chose then merely to cling to him and think of nothing but the rhythm of his beating heart.

“The mare,” Elizabeth remembered. “Perhaps I shall ride her?”

“I think not,” he said. “She will follow.”

The horse did follow without encouragement. And that her husband chose for her to ride within his embrace as they lumbered back to the stables was a recollection that would stay with her.

Wedding at Pemberley

Besides the complement of his illustrious family connections, Colonel Geoffrey Fitzwilliam was equal parts bold and politic. His courage was that of legend, even prior to his heroics at Waterloo. As testament to that bravery he carried a lead ball in his ribs from the peninsular campaign and bore a handsome scar on his cheek taken from a cavalry charge. There was little in life that gave him fright. He cared little either for medals of valour or for the celebrity that accompanied such honours. What he did esteem was his family and his own self-respect. The scrupulousness and vigour with which he had come to lead his life was well known to all who knew him.

Hence, when home from the wars once more, Colonel Fitzwilliam sat about with a curiously stupid expression; it was most disconcerting. Yet ultimately it was also to his good fortune. For it was this odd behaviour, not friendship or loyalty, that prevented Fitzwilliam Darcy from doing further injury to his battle-scarred person. (Or, at the very least, not deign to speak his name.) As it was, Darcy had become almost solicitous of him.

“Do you suppose Fitzwilliam has been somehow addled?”

Darcy made this inquiry of his wife after worriedly observing Fitzwilliam's unwaveringly blank aspect one evening.

Said he, “I do not believe he has blinked his eyes more than twice together this past quarter hour.”

Elizabeth merely nodded, for she knew this was not an actual query and hence required no response beyond indication that she heard what her husband had said. She instituted that which she wanted of her husband, which was for him to indicate that he had heard her when she spoke. (His hearing was much improved, but he was still inclined to use his purported deafness to his benefit by ignoring that which he did not care to hear.) But his remark did spark her interest. She observed Fitzwilliam more closely until at last he blinked. It was a small victory.

Her husband was quite right. But it was not as if Fitzwilliam had been unhinged by his injuries (although Lord knew there were more than a few heroes of Waterloo who came home in want of some pence in a shilling), he appeared to her to be simply bewildered. Events occurring with the same rapidity of a wartime fusillade had all but overtaken him. In less than a half-year he had volunteered to fight Napoleon in what would ultimately be held as one of the most glorious victories in England's illustrious history, had been grievously wounded in his leg and temporarily blinded, suffered the loss of the finest steed in the history of equines, been secreted out of a hospital rife with typhus in the back of a waggon next to a corpse, sat out a quarantine in France, and woke from delirium to learn that he had not only proposed to his demure and formerly virginal cousin, Georgiana Darcy, but that she was carrying his child. Considering all of this thrashing about his head and heart, it was little wonder that the poor colonel was a mite befuddled.

Georgiana's behaviour was quite the opposite. For Fitzwilliam's confusion and the lack of concrete evidence that he loved her had not given pause to her whatsoever. In employing considerable disinclination to suffer shame from having her virtue sullied, and Darcy's having embraced the pretence that nothing at all was amiss all made for a fairly merry household. There were a few trivial travails, however.

High amongst those was that one of the many long-held customs accompanying such a momentous occasion as the joining of two souls was that the bride's chastity be signified by her wearing a pure white wedding gown. The intelligence of Georgiana's pregnancy had not been shared even with the vicar, thus, the matter of just what semi-vestal shade of white was selected for her gown was not at the mercy of anyone who might think themselves a stickler on the subject. What with Georgiana much at Fitzwilliam's side, Elizabeth was quite at her leisure to select the ultimate hue of satin meant for Georgiana's bridal gown. Rather than alabaster, she selected ivory. That colour was concluded as not a compleat abuse of the truth. (In Darcy's eyes, however, it was, and would always be, recollected as nothing if not off-white.) Although the condition in which Miss Darcy was to take her vows was abhorrent to her family, it was not a particular affront to society at large.

It was indeed as Elizabeth had pointed out. In finding herself with child prior to her vows, Georgiana was hardly without company. Her circumstances were the same as one in four brides of all classes in Derbyshire (a county whose pre-wedlock natality standing was no greater than any other in England). The ultimate goal was that the wedding took place—as to just how it came about, few quibbled. Even Lydia lived over a fortnight in London with Wickham prior to their vows. But when she arrived home she was a married woman, and all talk of scandal was forgot. Although it might be another presumption, it was not the fear of the Darcy name being muddied that had Darcy in such a snit.

He undertook the guardianship of his sister with even greater purpose than his duties as the master of Pemberley. After his initial and prolonged outburst over her deflowerment, he remained persistently silent upon the matter. Elizabeth came to believe that it was not his dignity that Georgiana's actions had abused, but his fondness for her.

It was not Mr. Darcy's honour that she had injured, it was his well-guarded heart.

***

It came to pass that Fitzwilliam took Georgiana's hand in a private ceremony in the Pemberley chapel the very moment he could stand on his own. He was quite handsome in his regimentals, an ensemble that included a crimson sash and sabre. Georgiana was the vision of loveliness singular to all happy brides. Even the profusion of pink flowers adorning her hair were eclipsed by the blush of her cheeks. She exuded radiance and bore an unabashedly jubilant expression. Behind Fitzwilliam's outwardly benign mien, however, an expression of puzzlement continued to plague his features. If Darcy still bore any remnants of concern over the marriage, all doubt was cast aside as he stood before the altar and gave his sister away. Ere he placed his sister's hand in Fitzwilliam's, he kissed it. The barest glistening of a tear threatened Georgiana's composure then, but only for a moment. That twinkling of an instant was exquisite, however, for Elizabeth. For in that second an enormous weight lifted from her breast. She saw that the weightiness that had plagued them for weeks had found remedy through the expression that managed to escape Darcy's impenetrable countenance. It bespoke both relief and regret. The relief was for having his sister's coming child escape the possibility of bastardy. The regret, she supposed, was simply of a brother's loss of his sister. She felt that too. When he stepped back and stood next to her and took her hand, the tight rein she had held over her own emotions was tried most grievously. As she listened to the ceremonial words, those time-honoured phrases begged that she recall her own wedding.

“With this ring, I thee wed. With this body, I thee worship…”

Elizabeth ceased hearing beyond those words. All the rest about endowing worldly goods were lost to her. She was transported to that moment in time when Darcy placed the ring upon her finger. It was natural that the thoughts that followed were the recollections of their rapturous bodily union that night. Hence the promise she had made to herself not to be so insipid as to weep was put to an even severer test. The only other precaution she had taken so as not to draw attention to anyone other than the bride and groom was proved at least partially successful. Before the ceremony commenced, she had bid Darcy,

“Pray, dearest, try not to glower.”

That appeal wavered in its success. For as the morning wore on, she noticed the crease between his eyebrows deepening. She ignored it until they gained their seats at the wedding breakfast, but as he rose to offer a toast she touched his arm and smiled in a manner to remind him to appear less gloomy. He issued a toast for the couple's happiness with unparalleled sincerity, and with his wife's gentle encouragement, displayed genuine affection whilst doing so. This formality was a demarcation of sorts. From that day forward he would not only look upon his sister's marriage with nothing but the utmost fondness, but he would also employ his considerable influence to see to it their union was successful. Elizabeth knew that because as the newlyweds stepped into their curricle amongst a snowstorm of rice and confetti, Darcy told her so. Both he and Elizabeth stood on the gravel of the drive until they were long out of sight.

***

The newly wed Fitzwilliams' decision to take their honeymoon in Bath was long in coming and they undertook it only incrementally. Georgiana had been quite happy to go home the short distance to Whitemore, but the collection of relatives, cottagers, and townsfolk standing at the ready to fête the bride and groom influenced her otherwise. For the sake of Fitzwilliam's health, it was decided that they eschew hearth and home and thus avoid the accompanying brouhaha. He needed rest and he needed the restoration of mineral baths—wedding trip or no wedding trip.

To be sure, within the county of Derbyshire were several spas of good reputation. Bruxton was but a half-day's journey. But it was merely convenient, not superior. Cheltenham also had healing waters. But those spas nearby had springs enough only to sip. Soaking in them was out of the question. Those men endowed with information of a medical nature believed too that the sea air and bathing in salt water was most beneficial to the restoration of one's vigour and superior to inland spas. Fitzwilliam, however, was disinclined to visit the sea. He had been so off his sea legs on their return from the Continent any mention of sea air made him ill. Bath was located near, but not on, the sea and its warm mineral springs met all Georgiana's stringent requirements for her husband's recuperation. The journey was more than she would have liked, but they planned it so as to take rest often.

Be it balm or elixir, there was little that Georgiana did not know of remedies. It was her single conceit. She knew the air so near the sea to be refreshing and the mineral baths superb. Hence their decision was made not upon fancy; it was predicated on good medical sense. She would escort her husband to Bath for medicinal purposes, not because the
beau monde
was there, but in spite of it.

Although Darcy looked with a kinder eye on his sister's marriage, as brothers are wont to be, he remained keenly disapproving of his sister having anticipated the marital vows. He was not the only family member who was not disappointed with whom his sister chose to make the leap, however. Fitzwilliam's brother, the Earl of Matlock, and his wife were happy (deliriously so) that Fitzwilliam had taken a Darcy for a bride. Uninformed as to why the wedding took place with such haste, Matlock bore only a slightly less perplexed expression than his brother. Hence, when the couple rode away to embark upon their married life together, there was trepidation in no quarter whatsoever save the groom's.

As it happened, Fitzwilliam's unease was altogether misplaced.