Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites (29 page)

Quite foredone by passion, they lay in a sweating heap, she still clutching his hair. Not a bother, for her tenacious hold was proof this success exceeded that of the ball by some measure. That satisfaction was exquisite.

Bedewed by the maelstrom she had just experienced, she lay back to give them both a chance to catch their breath. He reached out and brushed the sweaty curls back from her face, anxious to hear her words of wonder at the pleasure he had bestowed upon her. He was not to be disappointed, for when she turned and looked at him, it was in absolute veneration.

“Pray, what did you do?”

For her to be awe-struck was his intention. To incite her to question him was not. Allowing that it appeared, indeed, she did expect an explanation, he decided it best to take an academic route.

“There is a Latin name for it.”

He winced ever so slightly as he spoke the words, knowing that alone would not satisfy her. She was one of the most confoundingly curious creatures he had ever known. This was one of her quirks of character he most treasured. Odd, he thought, that he liked to speak so little, yet loved a woman who bade him speak so much.

She put her forehead against his and stroked his face, smiling at the brevity of his elucidation.

“Do not speak to me of Latin,” she bid playfully. “Where ever did you learn of such a proceeding? Certainly not at Cambridge.”

Forthwith, her smile evaporated, but her gaze held his an uncomfortably long time. All the while, his mind searched for an answer that would be both true and painless. He, however, could not find one. He was keenly aware that his silence confessed more compromising skeletons in his romantic past than any act he could have related.

During his extended silence, her chin began a barely discernible quiver, perhaps to accompany the tears that had begun to well up in her eyes. Blessedly for him, she looked away.

She whispered, “Of course.”

“Of course,” she repeated more firmly. “I fancy my testimony should be added to the others who indubitably can attest to the perfection of your technique.”

Thereupon, she sat up on the side of the bed, drawing the counterpane protectively to her bosom.

“Lizzy,” he said, sitting up next to her. “Lizzy?”

Looking only at the path of sunlight that crossed the floor, she announced, “How foolish of me.”

He thought it perhaps best not to ask, but could not help himself, “Foolish?”

She laughed a curt, mirthless laugh, “I have always believed you a worldly man and that you might have ‘known’ other women. Foolishly, I chose to believe it only a possibility—possible, of course, being much easier to bear than absolutely. Had I come to you in full acceptance of that as fact, I should have been much kinder to myself…”

Not wanting to hear more, he lay back upon the bed and considered, then rejected (only with utmost discipline) the notion of hiding his mortified face with a pillow. She found her gown and drew it on, tying the sash with quick, ill-tempered little motions. Then, she flipped her hair from beneath the collar and stalked out of the room. He did not for a moment think that she did not finish her thought because she believed he did not want to hear it. She did not because she could not bear to say it. Not only had he rendered the possible to her a certainty, he had demonstrated it. Explicitly.

He lay there for some time, pondering whereby he had transfigured from omniscient to dolt in such an expeditious fashion. When the route was fully determined, he pondered the matter still.

Foolish, she called herself. It was he, not she, who was foolish. The single thing he had told her of his past connexions was that he had never loved another. Perhaps that was because that was the only absolute to which he could avow. He had the considerable ingenuousness to believe that was he not to initiate her too hurriedly into the various rites of love, it would seem as if they had uncovered these acts together.

’Twas a folly, but he had come to believe that her unconditional trust had somehow allowed him a retrieval of his own innocence. He had never made love with the abandon they shared (in his wonderment, he had, upon a few occasions, come perilously close to declaring that to her). The passion he ignited in her and the new heights he found in his own, all too easily exposed him to this serious misstep of over-ambition. He had to admit conceit was his undoing.

In his zeal to satisfy her, he had convinced himself he was compleatly selfless. Of course, he was not. His pleasures had been of a duality. The lovemaking itself, of course, but perhaps most enjoyable were the looks and words of adoration she gave him each time they reached achievement. Those punctuated by her smile were of peculiar satisfaction. Precisely like the one she had just gifted him.

That is, the one she had gifted immediately preceding her realisation of just how limited in spontaneity his act had been. (It did not help his conscience that, if memory served, the last time he had done that to a woman, she had used almost the exact words as Elizabeth, but then it had not been a criticism.) Quite despairingly, he begged himself only to remember how Elizabeth had smiled at him, but that memory was now ever besmirched by the chapfallen expression that had replaced it. How could he have believed that she would always be insensible to his previous…connexions? Did he think it possible that she would never suspect? That she would never ask? Foolishly, he too had hoped for a possibility rather than the truth.

Sitting up, he decided then he would go to her and beg forgiveness. Hurriedly, he endeavoured to compose his speech of apology. This employment, however, was not profitable in that he could not specifically determine for what he should apologise.

Should he admit contrition that he had been with other women? He wished then that he had not. However, all such connexions were before they had been introduced, hence, it was not truly an offence against her. Should he apologise that he had not confessed it? He still believed such an admittance from a man who considers himself a gentleman was unconscionable. He could explain that he had succumbed to lust rather than love, but, however true, he was disposed to think that would be of no particular comfort to her. (Nor did he fancy she would favour knowing he had bowed upon the altar of Eros with indefensible frequency and with so many different women.) A recapitulation of his amorous exploits sounded, even to him, uncommonly more debauched than he knew them to have been.

His contrition and regret, however, were compleat in having caused her to suffer. Any carnal pleasure he had ever received he would gladly have relinquished not to witness the look of hurt upon her countenance. Indeed, just then the vision of himself in monk’s robes was not unobjectionable.

He was truly penitent. He did not know how he would find the words of consolation, but he knew he must try. If her trust were lost, little else would matter.

Gathering himself from the bed, he walked to her dressing room door and knocked soundly. Elizabeth did not answer it, Hannah did. An expression of astonishment overspread her face. It was only when the maid took her leave with no undue haste, that he realised her surprise stemmed less from his appearing at his wife’s dressing room door, than his want of appearance. He was naked as a babe save the bedcloth wrapped about his waist (grateful was he that he had the presence of mind to reach for that).

Elizabeth sat in her bathtub facing away from him. Undoubtedly she heard him enter but did not turn, she simply continued scrubbing her arms. She did so with such dutiful concentration, it suggested that she felt herself somehow befouled. His eyes dropped briefly from the sight, for that was more painful than her refusal to acknowledge him there. He was induced by her inattention to perch upon the edge of a small chest, whereupon, he gazed at her purposely oblivious back.

Steeling his resolve, but still not knowing what he would say until he said it, he finally spoke, “Had I thought for a moment it would have benefited you, I should have confessed my ignominious past and thrown myself at your feet for forgiveness. However, as any women I have known meant nothing to me, I thought they would mean nothing to you. Wrongly, I now see.”

He paused, looking for a sign that his words were reaching her.

Finding none whatsoever, he then strove on, “I might have lived differently had I known one day I would find you. If you believe nothing else, please believe my life only began when we met. Your censure is unendurable.”

As he fell silent, she did not speak, but ceased her ablutions.

In a moment, she said, “I thought myself a fool, and fatuous I have been. However, never so foolish as today. It was absurd of me to reproach you for my own ignorance.”

“No. You should reproach me. I took love before. It was not until I met you that I gave love.”

The generous honesty of that statement moved her to turn to look at him. The sincerity of his expression was undermined by the incongruity of the bedcloth he had tied about his middle. She rose, knee deep in water, bits of suds clinging to her body.

“Can you find forgiveness for me?” she asked.

A little line of froth collected upon the tip of one breast and sat there, momentarily suspended. Had his forgiveness ever been in question, those few foamy droplets would have ensured it. Nevertheless, as his was the most grievous trespass, he did not have to question himself for the crux of his absolution of her.

When he rose to go to her to assure her she was very much forgiven, he tossed a trailing end of the sheet over his left shoulder.

“Hail, Caesar,” she announced.

“Which one?”

“The most handsome.”

Caesar’s toga fell away with her single tug, whereupon he stepped into her bath water.

Teasingly, she said, “You are only repaying my intrusion into your bath, are you not?”

“I am not. I simply have never been in a lady’s bath before. Yours looks inviting.”

“I am the first?”

“You are the first.”

Thereupon ensued any number of professions and demonstrations of Mr. Darcy’s love of his wife, and Elizabeth enjoyed them all.

After careful deliberation, she was inclined to believe that it was much better to bask in the pleasure of his experience rather than question it. For his part, Darcy learnt that smugness was never a virtue.

W
hat he believed to be a particularly harmonious denouement to a particularly sticky subject was not yet at hand. Fortune had not allowed her to forget the two simpering chattermags remarking upon his “blade” at the ball. Once the fact of Mr. Darcy’s encounters was unkenneled, specifics seemed fair game to his wife. It took not a day before she made a frontal assault.

“Am I to be advised of whose charms you have known?”

“No.”

“I know ’tis ungentlemanly to repeat such things, but certainly you can understand I choose not to sit next to a lady of your intimate acquaintance at a dinner party quite unenlightened. If I am to be thought a fool, I prefer my own confidence.”

He knew well he was again entering
territoire dangereux
, for she had an uncanny ability to winnow information from him that he knew he did not wish to confide. Independent decision of what it best to reveal and what not to inevitably fell to naught.

“I would never invest in such a conspiracy against you,” he assured her. “I would never allow you to find yourself in such a position.”

As he said this, he took a mental inventory of the guest list of the ball to reassure himself he was speaking truthfully. Once absolutely certain of that, he sighed in silent relief and vowed to himself what he had promised Elizabeth. Because he had so naïvely expected this moment not to come, he had no plan. However, he recognised the foundation when he saw it. With all due diligence, he would make quite certain that no woman whom he had “known” would be invited to their home. (Not a problem in Derbyshire, but London might be a bit of a dilemma. Diversions abounded; he could account for his own guest lists, but not that of others.)

Thinking the matter at last closed, he shut his eyes as well. They stayed resolutely thus, however she inveigled him.

“I would not ask you to name names—that would be insupportable,” she persisted. “Perhaps you could tell me how many.”