Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites (31 page)

He looked at her rather solemnly, but made no other move toward her. Taking the vacant initiative, she moved atop him and ran her hand down his body, if only in reassurance that she had felt his arousal. Indeed, she had made no mistake. That in and of itself was confusing. It was not unheard of for a man to have the will, but not the means. However, Juliette had yet to encounter this specific manifestation. For his virile reflex was quite evident. He had the means but not the will.

Simultaneous to her deduction, he drew himself from beneath her and off the bed, then bid her good-bye.

As he took his leave, she reclaimed her detachment and placed it upon her face before the door had closed behind him. That, however, had been a useless, and then again, helpful exercise. Useless because he did not give her a backward glance, and helpful in that she saw, indeed, that she needed the practise.

In the weeks that followed, she often thought of that evening and pondered what provoked his departure from Harcourt and her life. The possibility that he was in unrequited love was given cursory consideration, and then abandoned. How could any woman Mr. Darcy fancied spurn him?

Nevertheless, she learnt in due time that he was engaged. He was engaged to a Miss Bennet of Hertfordshire. Through persistent query, Juliette uncovered that the lady in question was reputed to be quite a country beauty. She heard too, that she was not nearly so well-born as was Darcy. That was quite astonishing, for Juliette knew well of his dedication to his station. Men of rank always believed it unacceptable to marry for passion (hence, her very prosperous life).

It would have been an amusement to see just what sort of woman had pierced the froideur surrounding Mr. Darcy’s heart so compleatly. Just a curiosity, of course.

One certainty was that their relationship had ended. She did not need to read the missive from his solicitor to know it. Married, he would not return to Harcourt. His scruples demanded such. And had they not, she felt certain that if he would not couple with her when in unrequited love, he would most assuredly not once it had been found.

If Miss Bennet had managed to make Mr. Darcy love her, once she tasted of the
delight of his loins, she would know she had gained a husband of great fortune far beyond his wealth.

When questioned later why Mr. Darcy no longer called, Juliette would foster a brief smile and answer,
“C’est la vie.”

E
nsconced as they were, a hundred miles apart, Elizabeth and Jane had been unable to manage more than a sedate correspondence by post. Bingley’s townhouse was only a few blocks from Darcy’s in London. Hence, by Easter the sisters would be unconditionally reunited. However, that winter, the Bingleys could only manage to come to Pemberley for the week of the ball.

And so the families gathered in Derbyshire.

As it was but a week, Maria and Kitty wanted to waste not a moment and begged a ride to Kympton, much in want of finding a milliner with ribbons in colours they had yet to discover. Mrs. Darcy was happy to have them out from underfoot, their pleasure compounded by knowing the livery of the carriage in which they rode bore the Pemberley colours.

As Mr. Gardiner was the favourite uncle of both their wives, Darcy and Bingley were inclined not to be displeased with his company. Nor would they have been despite that inducement, for he was a man of superior knowledge and his conversation marked his good manners. (Altogether, he was found to be the most superb of relations, one whose acquaintance was not a punishment.) Much taken with sport, particularly fishing, he was handsomely diverted at Pemberley. When he was not afield, he was most inquisitive of Pemberley’s fine library. It was an astounding collection, the pride of the master of the house.

“I have often chided Darcy that he has no need, but for all of this, he is always buying books!” Bingley told Mr. Gardiner.

A happy marriage had not altered Mr. Darcy’s disposition in so great a fashion that it now overflowed in mirth. He still smiled but little in company and conversed with not more ease, yet he was clearly pleased at their admiration of his library. He prest his company to avail themselves of the treatises, maps, charts, and memoirs to their hearts’ content. Bingley, who very seldom found time to read, seemed happy at the prospect of investigating the books of Pemberley with someone who knew less of them than he.

After treating her Aunt Gardiner to the long-promised, much-anticipated pony cart tour of the little lake beyond Pemberley Manor, Elizabeth and the ladies took tea and biscuits in the small-parlour. Knowing their husbands fully occupied, Jane and Elizabeth were most anxious for a post-wedding
tete-a-tete
, one the bouncing cart did not accommodate. Their dear Aunt Gardiner, it would seem, was almost as happy for an accounting as her nieces.

Foremost, they laughed in sheer amazement at the scope of feminine gossip now rendered unto them.

“Yes,” Elizabeth said to her aunt, who had not been privy to the chatter at the ball, “inducted into the guild of married women as we are, it seems the salacious gossip we can hear is limited only to the hours in the day.”

Her aunt listened to their lively remarks with pleasure. They were both quite dear to her. But it was Elizabeth’s happiness that she held with greater self-satisfaction, knowing what part she played in the Darcys’ betrothal.

She did not know that she was not the first to notice Mr. Darcy’s growing regard for her niece, however. Surprisingly, Charlotte Collins’s pragmatic nature saw it first. It was on Elizabeth’s visit to Kent that Charlotte suggested that a man of Mr. Darcy’s stature would not call on the wife of a lowly vicar (particularly one as weak-headed as Mr. Collins) with such dedication if not for some further motive.

If Charlotte saw it first, she saw it not best. Astuteness in recognising true and abiding love fell to Mrs. Gardiner. From her first step onto the grounds of Pemberley and into her niece’s waiting arms, her aunt detected a glow in Elizabeth’s complexion even more pronounced than on her wedding day. Jane was sublimely happy, she could tell. Elizabeth, however, dwelt in the very lists of empowered love.

An afternoon spent in quiet reminisces and merry tales of household woes did not wear out the sisters’ thirst for truly intimate discourse.

Therefore, when their aunt inveigled her husband away from the books to take a rest, Jane and Elizabeth wasted little time before they retreated atop the Darcys’ bed (much as they had on their own at Longbourn) to talk at length.

As they had not truly confided since their weddings, they eyed each other cautiously, perhaps each waiting for the other to broach the single conversational topic that was of greatest interest to them both. However, this exchange of information demanded some delicate manoeuvring. For it necessitated sharing confidences of a physical act that neither entered into alone. Their bond as sisters was still just as strong, but their devotion to one another had been eclipsed by the vow of “forsaking all others” with first loyalty to their husbands.

Nevertheless, Elizabeth furiously schemed a way to talk about making love without mentioning her lover, thus protecting said lover’s tenaciously held desire of privacy. However, before she managed such a feat, Jane (of all people) initiated the subject of The Marital Bed. She did so in true Jane fashion, fretting about Elizabeth’s discomfort upon her first night as a wife without actually mentioning devirgination.

“Oh, Lizzy,” Jane said, “are you well? In your first ardour, you were not…ill-used?”

Elizabeth reassured her forthrightly, “Yes, it was painful at first. But, of course, in repetition it was not.”

She smiled, expecting Jane to return her knowing look. Jane, however, sighed with resignation.

“I suppose ’tis a woman’s lot.”

Elizabeth did not consider associating intimately with her husband as her “lot” in life. Rather, she considered it a considerable gift from heaven above. Hence, a bit puzzled, she attempted a little interrogation.

“After the initial act of love, the consecutive ones, were they not pleasurable? Did they not transport you to rapture?”

“I daresay, Lizzy, you sound like Lydia!”

Jane had exclaimed such before fully appreciating the breadth of that particular insult (or that it was an insult, for Jane would never deliberately say something unkind to Elizabeth). Fortunately, Elizabeth knew that and chose (only with great test of will) to overlook the unintentionally scurrilous comparison. Yet Elizabeth had to admit, though wrapped up in her hyperbole, Lydia’s version of physical congress was not a fabrication. Availing oneself of a husband’s love torch was quite glorious.

“I hope,” said Elizabeth rather primly, “that I do not at all convey my sentiments with the same unwarranted embellishment as does Lydia. Nevertheless, I must confess, Jane, my sentiments are not dissimilar. Making love to one’s husband is quite euphoric. Surely you have found this to be true.”

With Elizabeth’s concurrence before her, Jane believed she must reconsider and did so carefully.

“I do enjoy Charles’s kissing me. However, I cannot say without a doubt that I have ever felt anything akin to
rapture
when he…becomes impassioned. But I truly have no complaint, for although he is quite diligent in his attentions, it does not last all that long.”