Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites (11 page)

“Lizzy? Lizzy? I cannot sleep. May we talk?”

Elizabeth stiffened, then lay still. Her quitting the embrace alerted him to outside intrusion. It was testimony to his determination to have her full participation whilst he luxuriated in her embrace that bade him cease his quest to possess her as well.

Jane repeated insistently, “Lizzy!”

They looked at each other, chests heaving. “If I do not answer, she will believe me ill and awaken the house,” Elizabeth whispered.

He dropped his head to her shoulder in frustrated acknowledgement, then advised her, “I will not hide under the bed, Elizabeth.”

“I would not marry a man who would,” she answered matter-of-factly. He kissed her for that, very nearly rekindling their passion.

Then he rolled away, sat up and said quietly, “Can you give me a moment to…collect myself?”

The reason he needed that restoration had been fully apparent, and Elizabeth, having no knowledge of such matters, wondered how long it would take for him to become…presentable. Even with Jane rapping at the door once more, she granted him whatever time he needed to…settle his ardour.

Elizabeth called out, “Coming, Jane.”

She rose slowly, followed by Darcy whose arousal had subsided, but who was fumbling with the buttons on his waistcoat. When they reached the door, neither had compleatly collected themselves, but they were intact. Elizabeth opened the door boldly. Jane looked apprehensively at Elizabeth, then her gaze over-swept her sister’s shoulder and stopped. Her eyes widened at the startling sight of Mr. Darcy, who loomed quite large behind Elizabeth in the doorway. He bowed to Jane curtly, revealing a head of thoroughly mussed hair, and spoke quite formally.

“Good evening.”

Thereupon, with as much dignity as one could muster in such a situation, he walked out of the room and down the hall.

Jane watched him as he took his leave, then tilted her head just a little to catch every last glimpse of him as he rounded the corner to his own room (possibly to make certain she truly witnessed what she thought she had). Then, still in the doorway, she looked at her sister’s equally dishevelled tresses.

“I feared you and Mr. Darcy had quarrelled.” She again looked down the hall, now vacant of Mr. Darcy’s passage, “But I dare say any disagreements betwixt you have been mended?”

Indeed.

N
ary a word had passed betwixt Elizabeth and Jane regarding the blatant impropriety of Elizabeth entertaining Mr. Darcy in her bedchamber (and in her night-dress). This was not by way of censure, but because Jane and Elizabeth’s sisterly bond was unusually strong. Jane endeavoured to find goodness in all God’s creations and she loved Elizabeth unconditionally. Hence, no matter what her eyes told her, she did not for a moment believe anything untoward had occurred that night.

This benevolence allowed Elizabeth a reprieve from explaining that if it did not, it was not for want of trying.

The day Mrs. Bennet married off her two eldest daughters in extremely advantageous matches was cold and bright. As the two couples stood in the vestibule (Jane aglow with purity and Elizabeth wearing quasi-vestal white) Mr. Bingley’s eyes were almost as fulgent as the winter sun, but Mr. Darcy was quite solemn.

This august occasion was well-nigh put into a pother by reason of another relative. For the obsequious, obtuse (and far too ubiquitous) Mr. Collins waited as long as he dared for the request. It being not forthcoming, he then hied from his vicarage in Kent to apply for the exceedingly illustrious duty of presiding over the wedding of Mr. Darcy to his cousin, Elizabeth Bennet. So very anxious was he to officiate, Elizabeth thought it fortunate that it was she who happened upon him first, lest his fawning embrace have to be pried from about the illustrious Mr. Darcy’s knees.

For, as he was wont to announce upon the heels of his introduction, Mr. Collins came under the personal condescension of Darcy’s aunt, the Mistress of Rosings Park, Lady Catherine de Bourgh (a distinction he embraced a bit too acutely). His own self-satisfaction with the felicity of his situation was exceeded only by his compleat ignorance of public regard. This happy alliance of oblivion and conceit made Mr. Collins an unusually contented man.

There was, however, a single cloud upon the perpetually sunny sky of his disposition. Indeed, it was a forbidding one. For Lady Catherine’s extreme displeasure over her nephew’s engagement to Miss Bennet rather than to her daughter, the bilious Lady Anne, was vocal and virulent. And for a sycophant of Mr. Collins’s well-rehearsed sensibilities, it was a fiendish dilemma. But, ultimately, with whom he should ally himself was not a really difficult decision: Rosings Park was closer, but Mr. Darcy richer. Hence, just days before the wedding he stood before Elizabeth, his handkerchief mopping his perpetually bedewed upper lip.

“Dearest Cousin Elizabeth, perhaps you feared it too much to ask of me, thus I take it upon myself to offer my services at your wedding.”

Human folly had always been a great source of amusement for Mr. Bennet and, as her father’s daughter, Elizabeth as well. As the most ridiculous of men, Mr. Collins should have incited considerable merriment. However, Mr. Collins had expectations. Upon Mr. Bennet’s death, by reason of the unforgivable sin of begetting five daughters, Longbourn was to be entailed to his sister’s son, the said same vicar from Kent. The magnitude of this particular injury was compounded by Mr. Collins’s once entertaining the notion of uniting Longbourn with the Bennets by marrying Elizabeth.

Disabusing the tenacious little vicar of that idea was no easy endeavour. Her eventual success was but a miserly triumph, for she only managed to deflect him upon her good friend Charlotte Lucas. (Charlotte may well have been plain, twenty-seven and not of romantic sensibility, but Elizabeth believed even those desperate straits were not enough for her to sacrifice herself upon the altar of insipidity.)

Hence, it was with little compunction that Elizabeth disencumbered her toadying cousin of the considerable vagary that he would read them their vows.

“I thank you, Mr. Collins. You are very good to offer. But we did not wish to impose upon you, as a member of the family, any other duty than that of honoured guest. Bishop Peel shall perform the ceremony.”

Thus Mr. Collins could boast (and did regularly, as he was always in need of a new boast) that he was passed over only for a clergyman who sat in the House of Lords.

A festooned high-flyer took them from the church to a commotion-filled wedding breakfast at Netherfield. Mr. and Mrs. Darcy bade their farewells that forenoon.

The Bingleys were to honeymoon there in the bosom of his family, the Darcys to travel first to London, then make an early start for Pemberley the next day. That was as one would have foretold. Mr. Bingley wanted to share his happiness; Mr. Darcy sought to enjoy his in privacy. Hence, for the trip to town the sporty open carriage was exchanged for a closed Landau, brandishing two postilions, two footmen, six horses, and a fully laden boot.

It was early evening when the resplendent coach arrived at the Darcy London townhouse. The newlyweds’ egress from it was appropriately consequential, but for a courtship so rife with unrequited passion, it had been a strangely torpid trip.

Forasmuch as their simmering desire had seethed into a teeming boil at Netherfield, one should anticipate that once the union had been blessed by God, there would have been at least a minimal exchange of affection. That occurrence would have been quite unobjectionable to Mrs. Darcy.

That amorous juncture did not occasion.

Howbeit Mr. Darcy held her hand tightly and even kissed it several times, her glove was not removed. What little conversation occurred betwixt them originated from her. So barren of passionate inclinations was their journey, she concluded (a little petulantly) that marriage evidently stifled both her allurement and his abandon. Little time did she have to nurse injury, for they were whisked to a lavish supper.

Pemberley was certainly a stately home, but its grounds and gardens were not
formal. The townhouse was swimming in recherché glory. Much in want of appreciating the distinction of the meal, Elizabeth had not the means.

Once again, her appetite had vanished. The only consolation for her disquiet was that Darcy was afflicted as much as she. They sat in reserved acceptance of the soup and fish, but partook little. By the time the second entrée made its appearance, he waved the rest away. Had there been other guests that would have been scandalous. As it was, she issued a silent prayer of thanks. They rose from the table, her hand upon his forearm, and from thence, he forsook her to the stewardship of a maid.

Her heart beating resoundingly in her ears, Elizabeth followed the plump lady-maid to her dressing room like a dutiful schoolgirl. There she found the night-dress she had meticulously embroidered carefully arranged. Upon it lay a silver-encrusted comb, brush, and hand-mirror. As it was unknown to her, she premised it another wedding gift from Darcy. It bore no note. Without invitation, the maid plucked her hairpins out and set about putting the brush to good use. Elizabeth watched the doings in the looking-glass and dearly wished she could talk to Jane.

For all her self-possession, she suddenly felt a strange longing. In the cavernous house, her body and soul entrusted to a man whose nature she had not a notion of unravelling, she missed her home. Or at least Jane.

The leap from fiancée to bride seemed a little too precipitous just then. Was that not test enough, a decision fraught with possible mortification begged to be made.

Should she get into their bed and await him, or should she give him time to precede her? When she peeked through the door, she saw there was no resolution to be reached.