Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites (10 page)

“Darcy!” Bingley declared.

That proclamation was met with a gradual re-lighting of the candles, which unveiled the condition in which Mr. Darcy had entered the house—soaking wet. He handed his hat to a servant, who then yanked and heaved mightily whilst endeavouring to relieve him of his saturated greatcoat.

Bingley bounded from his seat, hand outstretched to Darcy, “I say, Darcy, come sit by the fire or you shall catch your death!”

(Mrs. Bennet would have been very alarmed. Were three days enough time to take pneumonia and die?)

Apparently the drenching Darcy took had come only from an impetuous, umbrellaless dash from his coach to the house and he convinced Bingley he had not been so foolish as to make the trip upon horseback. After waving off Bingley’s concern, Darcy looked through the dim light at each dinner guest. When his eyes lit upon Elizabeth, they rested their search. Elizabeth saw that they had, as did everyone seated at the table, for all eyes followed the same course as did his. To say she was disconcerted would be understating it by half. His appearance was so sudden, she had not time to decide what to say, much less how to feel, particularly since the room seemed quite anxious to register it. So, her cheeks did what they did best. They coloured.

Excusing himself for dry clothes, Darcy quitted the room almost within a minute of his introduction. There might have been cause for Elizabeth to wonder if he had really been there had not she continued to be scrutinised by her company. (Mr. Hurst held his oft-replenished wineglass halfway to his mouth for clearly a quarter-minute, which was evidently a record abstention for him.)

There was enough time to compleat the meal and retire to the comfort of the drawing room before they were joined by a now-dry Darcy. He bowed and spoke to everyone there before he came to Elizabeth. All Elizabeth wanted was to have a private conversation with him, but it appeared he was in no great haste to have one with her. For he merely took her hand, barely brushing his lips across it as he sat down next to her, immediately initiating a conversation with Bingley.

The evening was spent in that perverse manner. Darcy sat next to Elizabeth, very nearly touching her, but had hardly a comment to her beyond the storm. Darcy and Bingley nearly had their foreheads touching, so confidential was their conversation. Elizabeth only learnt through determined eavesdropping that Darcy’s wet arrival had come about by reason of a stop at Longbourn.

Darcy told Bingley (and more than one Bingley sister who was eavesdropping as well), “There I discovered the Miss Bennets were dining at Netherfield. I feared their carriage might be caught in this storm, thus I strove on.”

It appeared to Elizabeth that Mr. Darcy had gone to a great deal of bother and grief to find her so he could ignore her. Yet, when agreement was made to retire and Miss Bingley called for a servant to show the Miss Bennets to their bedchambers, Darcy caught Elizabeth’s hand, allowing the others to quit the room and leave it to them. At last.

Howbeit she fought it dearly, Elizabeth felt herself trembling. The defence she had fashioned to ward off the worry, vexation, and humiliation over his departure had just collapsed. Relief that he had returned and anger over the manner in which he had taken leave were threatening to make her cry. She did not trust herself to speak. It was
he who needed to explain himself, not she to inquire.

But he offered no explanation. He offered a gift. Elizabeth eyed the small silk-wrapped present in his hand meanly. Did he fancy he could treat her so thoughtlessly and buy her forgiveness with a trinket? She eyed the silk again. Even an expensive trinket? If she was, indeed, to become Mrs. Darcy, this must be addressed.

Her hesitancy to take the package from his hand induced Darcy to draw the end of the bow himself, thus revealing within the silk a sapphire the size of his thumbnail. It was surrounded by three rows of diamonds and swimming in a sea of pearls. It was only when he held it up that Elizabeth saw it was a necklace, the sapphire and diamonds its clasp. She saw, too, that if he thought a gift would buy her happiness, he did not fancy such felicity purchased cheaply.

“My father gave these to me as he lay ill the month before he died. He told me my mother had wanted me to present them to my wife. They belonged to her.”

Thereupon, he placed them about the neck of a thoroughly chastened Elizabeth.

“My costume, I fear, does not do such a treasure justice,” Elizabeth finally managed to say. “Miss Bingley is anxious to help me improve my wardrobe…something in brocade, I think she suggested…”

In her discomfiture, it was not what she wanted to say. She looked up at Darcy and said what she did want to say.

“I thank you.”

“Lesser beauties, of course, might need brocades and other such finery. But upon you, Elizabeth, it would be redundant.”

She fingered the pearls gently. He placed his fingers even more gently atop hers.

The tip of his forefinger located the largest pearl as it nestled in the indention at the bottom of her throat and rolled it lightly against her skin.

“You made a special trip to Pemberley for this? Could you not have sent someone and not have disappeared for so long? Sir, do not think me ungrateful, for I am not. But it has been an agony…”

Her trembling voice announced the strain of the previous week and Elizabeth was afraid the emotion of the moment would make her weep.

“Yes,” he said, then, “No…I did not…” he stopped again.

It was apparent any further explanation for his leave-taking would not be easily offered. Abnegating to that self-evident truth, he abandoned any accounting for his departure and turned Elizabeth about to look at herself in the mirror upon the wall behind them.

“So very lovely,” he said quietly, but as he spoke, he was looking at her countenance reflected in the looking-glass, not the pearls.

Her gaze returned his there in the mirror. And through that surrogacy, a communion more intimate than had hitherto been encountered took place. And within the length of that gaze, he encircled her in his embrace, his arms beneath hers. He kissed her neck just beneath her ear. And as he did, she watched his expression alter from shared intimacy to private anguish. Was it his dead mother’s pearls about her neck? There was no opportunity to query, either in the mirror or directly, for he took her formally by the hand and led her out of the drawing room and to the stairs.

Once there, they were overtaken by Miss Bingley come in search of Miss Eliza to show her to her room. In place of a goodnight kiss and profession of love, Elizabeth was led away by her cunning, chattering hostess. Hence, she could only take a fleeting glance over her shoulder at Darcy, hands hanging uselessly at his sides.

Troubled, Elizabeth sat in the middle of the plump mattress in her rather fine room at Netherfield and considered seeking Jane for a talk. But the house was asleep and she was not certain to which room Jane had retired. It would be imprudent to sneak about the halls knocking randomly upon doors in her dressing-gown. A light rap upon her own door stole her attention from pondering propriety. She brightened. Perhaps Jane had found her. Then darkened. Perhaps Miss Bingley wanted to inquire as to the suitability of her accommodations. By the time she padded across the room, she had steeled herself for the cloying sweetness of Caroline’s solicitations.

Therefore, the expression she bore when she opened the door to Darcy was not a particularly inviting one.

So dramatic a change did her countenance make, it was quite obvious his appearance was not anticipated. Her alteration of expression did not influence his, thus revealing he expected her astonishment. Automatically, she put her hand to her now vacant neck. Had he come to retrieve his mother’s necklace?

Without hesitation, she took a step back with the door, in mute acquiescence to his admittance. In any other circumstance, she would not have acted so rashly, supposing the probability he came to wish her goodnight. But he was in his shirtsleeves and his face still bore stifled traces of the wretchedness she had seen in the mirror; hence, her reaction had been instinctive.

He stepped into the room. She closed the door, exceedingly aware that the single layer of muslin cascading from her trembling shoulders was beginning a shimmy over which she had no control. She endeavoured to halt it by leaning back against the door. One must suppose that he took note of her gown as well. For once in the room, he stood very still and took a lengthy study of her person, from her loose hair to her bare toes (which curled under the inspection).

Unexpectedly, he turned and walked away from her into the middle of the room. He reached out and rested his hand upon the top of the post at the end of her bed, and, looking more into the air than at her he spoke.

“I fear I must apologise for taking leave so suddenly and without explanation…”

At this, he glanced at his own hand reposed atop her bedpost and, rather self-consciously, removed it and placed it upon his hip. Elizabeth gave a slight nod, but did not speak.

He continued. “I could have sent my man for the necklace, it is true. But I chose not. I had to take leave…from you, us…lest I…forget myself. Compleatly.”

With an unlikely blend of contrition and indignation, she said, “I supposed you had made your escape from the shameless libertine you have ascertained your intended to be.”

At this, he looked at her in sudden realisation that she thought that he had gone, not in defence of her honour, but by reason of her comportment.

“It is myself I do not trust, Elizabeth, not you.”

It took a few moments for the magnitude of his confession to settle upon her mind.

But, it ultimately did. Evidently, his passion was more indocile than her own. Both relieved and amused, she asked, “You came to me in the night to tell me you do not trust yourself alone in my company?”

As she said this, she walked toward him, feeling a little giddy at his expression of confoundment. Furrowing his brow slightly, he deliberated upon that for a moment.

“It appears, indeed, I have.”

By then, she had reached him and taken his hand. The coldness of hers allowed him to change the subject from dissection of the reason why he stood in her room at that hour to the mundaneness of the chilliness of it. He busied himself demanding she find her slippers, robe herself, come stand by the fire, none of which she was able to do, for he drew the duvet from the bed and wrapped it about her shoulders.

All this fussing did not persuade Elizabeth of his self-appointed stewardship of her health. But the solicitude was not unwelcome. She climbed upon the end of the bed, tucking her bare feet beneath her. Upon her knees, his chest was just the right height for her to nestle her head there.

“You are right, Mr. Darcy. It would not do to stand up with a bride with a red, sniffling nose.”

Smiling, he stroked her hair and whispered, “I left here to protect you from the fever in my blood, Elizabeth.”

He lifted her chin.

“Only to return here to find you steps from me all night long.”

It was unlikely that Elizabeth had cuddled against him guilelessly, for they still had not kissed. It is just as unlikely that she did not understand that his sense of honour would not allow him to take the initiative of seduction with an innocent, even if she was his wife-to-be. Hence, she assumed the reins of her own chastity, threw off the quilt and kissed him upon the mouth.

That might have startled him, it might not have. Regardless, the gesture was understood compleatly and was hardly spurned. And from her knees upon the edge of the bed, the stratagem of bodies and lips was at an optimum. Still, each anchored the other with a firm grasp of hair and kissed repeatedly, each one deeper than the last.

When he had explored her body that day against the oak, there was the considerable hindrance of corset and petticoats. Hence, even though his search was diligent and had not been without reward, it remained ultimately futile. Her night-gown, however, offered no such impediment; any pleasure he received when he slid his hands across the fabric was exceeded only by her own. All of which demanded their wrestling about escalate into a feverish near-frenzy.

The only obstacle of costume was his, for, although he had doffed his coat before he sought her room, his waistcoat and tie were still in place. The tie was no true impediment to sate her desire for his body, but his waistcoat was. Had his hands not been so diligently employed, he might have ridded himself of it. But since they were, Elizabeth’s took upon that task, barely executing the violation of his buttons before their bodies toppled back onto the bed.

In all the candour and impertinence of truly united desire, he climbed atop her, his hands searching for the hem of her night-dress. That found, thus were her calves, knees, and backs of her thighs. And each was stroked to quivering, unadulterated surrender.

Now, into this fray, arrived a little argued presumption. When very nearly embarked
in flagrante delicto
, it is postulated that the female of the species’ attention is less, shall we say, monopolised. And in this specific instance, that truism was validated. For Elizabeth was the one who heard the knock upon her door and Jane’s voice.