Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites (104 page)

It had not been an affair of the heart. There may have been some fondness, but he never once forgot his own station or hers. She was a lover but not a mistress, for exclusivity would be required. It was, was he to admit it to himself, a friendship. One in which a great deal of flesh was exchanged.

He suspected that she would have seen him without compensation. It was he who insisted upon it. For without compensation, an attachment might have occurred. He enjoyed her time, but he did not want the attachment. He wanted to be able to do what he had done when he fell in love with Elizabeth. He walked away. No promises
were broken, no attachment was there to linger on.

Thenceforward of the morning he had confessed his past connexion with Juliette to Elizabeth, he was ridded of the necessity of guilt over it. That burden was given to Elizabeth to carry. It was she who must find reason and understanding, not he. In fortune he knew, for had Elizabeth been with another before she met him, to think of it might provoke him to run mad. Unreasonable. Unconscionable. But true.

With that understanding, the magnitude of the blunder he had just committed overtook him like a sudden cloudburst. He had just bid a former lover of his to carry a letter to Elizabeth. It had seemed so reasonable at the time. But how might he feel if a former lover of Elizabeth’s brought him a letter from her? The thought, though muddled, incited him to consider violence. He shook his head, trying to find reason and did. Juliette would post the letter from London. She would not take it to Elizabeth. He had not blundered.

When he thought back upon their conversation, it was lost upon him that Juliette’s remarks about little Celeste Roux were an indirect means to broach the chasm of time and station betwixt them. Her bit of coquetry had been an unconditional success. For it bade him think back upon their lusty (and lengthy) assignations. It would have taken him many years and many lovers to learn half what he had upon Juliette’s pillow. By reason of that, her
aperçu
of Roux’s daughter’s maidenhood he dared not argue, for he thought her opinion upon such a matter inviolate. And if he accepted that truism, he would have to suppose her correct that the girl was intent upon him to be the one to deflower her.

Celeste’s attention had been an annoyance, but he considered he could have unintentionally encouraged her. In her resemblance to Elizabeth, he may have looked upon her more often than he should have. Indeed, Celeste had that look of excited invitation one might fancy from the uninitiated. Women of experience invited much more deliberately, an understanding he knew quite well. Perchance she was a virgin, but he knew merely professing such did not necessarily mean it thus. In his youth, he had held women who had claimed he was their first, and he was certain he was not. For that had been an absolute rule. He refused to violate chastity, no matter how industriously it was begged.

Not George Wickham. Before that final breech with Wickham, the steps to thence had been laid stone by stone. A large one was placed when Wickham regaled him relentlessly with the notion that plucking a virgin was bliss
nonpareil.
Had he looked at it objectively, he would but think it almost absurd that he so adamantly refused to lay with a virgin and Wickham sought nothing else. Most probably, the nefarious Wickham found the innocent the most easily seduced (or else disliked exposing his performance to criticism).

But whether it was borne in protest of Wickham’s method or an independent decision, he would simply not take a woman if he suspicioned she was unknown to men. And, in the dicey business of deducing virginity (some women mocked worldliness, others purity) he thought it a tribute to his discretion that he never actually came into introduction to an intact maiden-flower until Elizabeth.

Until Elizabeth.

Elizabeth. Her name invoked was a mournful susurration in his mind. All this thought of virginity, of course, made him think of her. He had discouraged himself from that indulgence, for with it he fell prey to melancholy, which was, in his mind, far too akin to self-pity. However, as much as he endeavoured not to think of her, an hour did not pass that he did not. Even in light of how frequently she was upon his
mind, rarely did he relive their first union, as it tormented him yet.

But he thought of that night and of her virginity then.

This entry into the past was granted because of a single touching detail. Of course, he did not think of it as touching at the time. He had been mortified.

When they had compleated their wedding supper, they had each departed to their respective dressing rooms. To his chagrin, he had actually found his mien ruffled (fumbling with his cuffs until Goodwin reminded him that was his man’s duty). He sat in determined recumbence in his bath, vowing to stay there until he could reclaim his nerves. It would be most untoward to appear eager. As he sat in the tub, Goodwin picked up a silver bowl and inquired what he wanted done with the rose petals.

They had compleatly escaped his mind. An unprecedented attack of sentimentality had led him to believe their wedding bed must be anointed with pink rose petals. He had not yet rationalised why he was sent akilter over Elizabeth in such an immoderate manner, and vowed, once he had regained control of his disconcertion, that he would quit behaving like an infatuated elk. But thereupon Goodwin intended to call a maid to have the petals scattered, and Darcy did not much like the idea of a maid scattering them. If they were to be dispersed, they would be with his hand. He climbed dripping from the tub, and drew on his shirt and trousers intending to steal into their boudoir with dispatch, lay the petals, and return to his bath unnoticed.

However.

His feet bare, hair dripping, clothes clinging to his damp body, he was up to his elbows in rose petals as he scattered them across her pillow when Elizabeth opened her door. It was not how he had wanted to greet her upon their wedding night. He hastily divested himself of the bowl and began a mad rectification of his costume, slowed by the disobliging tail of his shirt. Embarrassed as he was at the sight he presented, it took him a moment fully to look at her.

She had stopped, possibly startled, at the door. The light from her dressing chamber illuminated her gown, which did the kindness of revealing to him the beguiling outline of her bare figure. Her hair was loose upon her shoulders and he did not know if she realised that she had raised one eyebrow. Moreover, he did not know if she understood that raised eyebrow excited him to lust far beyond his previous adumbration of that desire.

It also sent him to her with such dispatch that he did not realise he had crossed the room until he picked her up. It was unprecedented for him to carry a woman to the bed. (Had he not taken Elizabeth thusly then, he felt certain he would have leapt upon her right there, on the floor.) Indeed, every aspect of her being conspired to usurp his reason.

For the filminess of her gown was little barrier to her body, but little was too much. As he drew it from her, it did not occur to him to fear for her modesty, for he was drowning in the sensation of his fingertips against her skin. Had she not enticed him from thence, he was uncertain he would have survived at all. But it was a most firm hold she took upon his slippery, wet hair, and she returned his kiss as deeply as he gave it.

Stricken with concupiscence, he felt himself turgid with desire. Knowing that, he nevertheless had moved betwixt her legs unguardedly. And although he wanted, with all his being, to kiss her tenderly and enter her slowly, he had not. When he found the
moist cache of her womanhood, he lost all will. Her very tightness excited him to thrust into her again and again. She had never given of herself and he could not show her the gentleness he wanted, nor could he respond to her muffled cry of pain. She was a virgin and he was a beast. No better than Wickham.

His eyes shut tightly against the memory. Had his unmitigated passion been driven by her virginity or his desire for Elizabeth alone? Hers was the only virginity he had ever experienced, hence, he had no answer. Perchance he feared the answer. Would Celeste’s virginity drive him to the farthest reaches of passion as had Elizabeth’s? He allowed himself to imagine Celeste’s comely young body beneath him. He thought about it briefly, turned it over in his mind, and felt nothing. However beautiful her countenance, however tight and new her womanhood, he had no desire for her. His desire was for the woman, not her
feminus pudendum.

It was remedy to his soul to realise his loss of reason that night owed to his love for Elizabeth, not merely lust. Hence, he granted himself the luxury of clemency. If virginity fuelled his appetence that night, it was only because it was Elizabeth’s. However overcome he had been, it had been born of love. The heat of the moment may have overwhelmed him, but at least he was not the swine that Wickham was.

Creeping off into intoxicated sleep, he could not stop himself from thinking of Elizabeth and felt aroused. He ached to hold her again. He had felt nothing but anger and anxiety for months, it was odd to feel arousal. He thought it most probably the drink.

In the darkened room, he was awakened from his sodden sleep. Her body was soft and full atop him. He reached out for her. How had Elizabeth found him? How had she come here? Her gown was soft, her body supple. Rolling her beneath him, his hands found the bottom of her gown and slid upwards. His only thought was how much he wanted to find the reassurance of her embrace. Already of a mind, the merest touch of her hand persuaded his blood to full cry. ’Twas but a dream he knew full well, but he could not bear it to end.

“Lizzy, oh, Lizzy.”

W
aiting had become Elizabeth’s occupation, and she thought herself becoming quite the expert. As it happened, she began to take perverse delight in waiting, waiting, waiting. Waiting to hear. Waiting to see. Waiting to have their baby. If she did not run mad, she fancied she would open a school and teach the skill of waiting to those in want of mastering it.

As she waited, she paced. She traipsed about the halls of Pemberley quite without plan but with a pleasant countenance, assuring those about her that she was perfectly well, and thank you, no, she was not in need of comfort. Yes, she knew Mr. Darcy would be back any day now. No, she did not need to sit down, thank you. No, Jane did not need to stay with her, she preferred to be alone. Yes, Papa, I am quite well, no, I would not like to visit at Longbourn until I hear from my husband.

For ten weeks she had heard nothing. Ten weeks of uninterrupted disconsolation. She began to believe she might truly go mad; indeed, she thought madness might be a diversion. Hence, that conclusion decided it.

“If I want to go mad, I must certainly be mad, or at least half-mad.”

That gave her some employment to her thoughts. Was she half-mad, one-quarter mad, or three-quarters mad? If she went mad, would their child be mad, also? Her rumination had become so ridiculous that she began to laugh and those around looked at her as if they knew she was mad, so she willed herself to stop. And she began to pace once more.

By mid-June, the greater part of the fighting was decided in British favour. That news was grand, but word had come that the war was won at ghastly cost. And that cost was in reverse proportion to each country’s victory. Many soldiers died where they fell for want of so small a need as water. Her sense of apprehension was usurped by dread.