Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites (65 page)

Wresting his attention, Darcy assured him that he had not, whilst Elizabeth fled with the youngling. Elizabeth repaired the baby to his mother’s arms, jesting about Bingley’s inebriated celebration of fatherhood. Notwithstanding her seemingly good
spirits, Jane fretted yet that memories of her dead-born child might be reawakened. Inevitably, Jane’s countenance betokened her heedfulness of such a possibility. Hence, Elizabeth felt compelled to reassure her such was not the case. In the course of the many repetitions of this declaration, Elizabeth began to believe it herself.

Looking upon the red, squirming newborn, it was not of loss and death she pondered, but of all the possibilities of life. So engrossed was she in revelation, she peered into the newborn’s face with a keenness that was neither immoderate nor cursory. This was scrutinised by those about her with well-nigh the same intensity as she looked upon the babe.

All of which engendered several misconceptions.

Firstly, that she was unsettled by the birth; secondly, that she was unawares that everyone was eyeing her so closely; and lastly, that when she said she wanted to take leave for Pemberley, it was because of her disquiet, not theirs. All these misty, inchoate suspicions that all was not well in the household of Elizabeth’s emotions were most unfortunate.

The ride home was oddly silent. This muzziness about why she wanted to take leave led her husband to believe it was because she was despondent. Elizabeth, however, worried why everyone looked upon her so peculiarly. Darcy spent the entire trip in quiet despair over his wife’s seeming melancholia, Elizabeth in bewattled contemplation of why all and sundry seemed to believe she was dicked-in-the-nob.

By the time they arrived at Pemberley, the incessant wambling of the coach and his irredeemable wretchedness had rendered Darcy both morose and ill. All the jouncing about had simply made Elizabeth, well—randy.

Instead of following his wife upstairs, Darcy went to the wine cabinet, filled a glass and sat glumly at the end of the fully set great table. He partook first one sip, and then another. He tossed off his jacket, tore loose his collar. Gradually, his stomach was becalmed, but not his unease.

He had been considering returning to sleep in the bedroom of his bachelorhood. This not because he did not want to lie with Elizabeth, but because he did.

However, lying beside her each night yet not in her embrace was becoming not only more difficult, but physically excruciating.

It was not that she denied him. She had not. He had not asked.

Connubial pleasures seemed an unconscionable request by one nagged as relentlessly as he by the reasonable fear that another baby might kill her. Given the choice of her life or her passion, there was little indecision. He would rather remain celibate and childless than lose her.

Alternatively, he could use withdrawal, that time-honoured test of a gentleman’s mettle. He understood it successful if used diligently. Could he trust himself to withdraw from the lush confines of her womanhood at the very brink of achievement?

Each and every time?

As a matter of life or death, he probably could.

That was not certain enough. It would not do. To insure her safety, he must not chance what was probable. They must abstain entirely. He must not only be strong, he
must be impervious to the temptation. Thus, he sat in an uncharacteristic slump pondering these harsh truths in the same large chair from whence he presided, with considerable stature, over their supper parties.

The light was dim. The central candelabra had only a few candles yet burning, the rest had flamed out. He slouched there in the shadows, staring into the glass in his hand as if it were a quartz sphere. Finding his fortune untold, he emptied it, reached for the decanter and filled it again.

Elizabeth was barefoot; hence, he did not hear her walk up behind him. When she put her arm across his chest, he was so surprised as to slosh some wine from his glass.

“My intention was not to catch you so unawares,” she apologized, then asked, “Shall you retire soon?”

“In a bit,” he said as he set down his glass.

With a spontaneity he had not witnessed for some time, she plopped down upon his lap. Her legs draped over the arm of the chair, and she dangled them fetchingly.

Very fetchingly.

As he buried his face in her hair for the first time in months, a small little soughing sound came from the back of his throat. Not understanding that it was a moan born of a superb attempt to frustrate lust, not an announcement of its unleashing, she pressed her lips against his throat. This time his groan was more pronounced and convoluted in motive.

“Did I ever tell you how very much I love your neck?” she asked in what could only be described as a purr.

Not trusting his voice, he could do no better than give a shake of his head. His voice might have been suspect, but nothing else about him was. For he tangled her hair about his fingers and slowly drew her head back, determined to expose the lips that issued that exceedingly seductive utterance. Thereupon he, perhaps unwisely, endeavoured to cease their seduction by kissing them deeply. All the while, her fingers ploughed furrows in his hair.

Good intentions losing a hard fought battle with proud flesh, he drew himself from their kiss long enough to hear his own ragged breath. Elizabeth used this fleeting respite to tug his shirttail loose, sneak her hand beneath it, and up across his chest. Seeking to belay its tantalising waltz, he grasped her hand through his shirt and held it still. He knew if she did not cease, there would not be enough blood remaining in his brain (he was quite certain it had all pooled in his groin) to say what he knew he must.

“Lizzy, I fear if I give in to desire…”

“You do not fancy my father will call you out…?”

“I am quite serious, Lizzy!”

She became quiet. And still.

“Another baby might take your life,”he said solemnly. “I simply could not bear it if…”

He started to say more, but fell silent. It was not a great leap for her to understand what he was telling her. Had he been able to look, he might have seen her countenance reflect that she, indeed, did know precisely what he meant and all that it implied.

Carefully considering all that he had said, it was a long moment before she spoke. “I think you must agree that a choice of that nature should be mine and mine alone.”

She stood up, facing him, her hips and hands resting upon the edge of the table.
Thereupon, she reached out, gently stroking his cheek with the back of her fingers as if to soften what she said.

“Surely, even you, Mr. Darcy, do not possess such wanton hubris as to question God’s will?”

Not really expecting an answer, she waited a moment regardless, and then looked into his eyes.

“I should sooner die than not be a wife to you.”

He, however, could not hold such a gaze, so much was at stake and she gave him so little choice. As he thought of that, his hands found her thighs, then slid to her hips. Those his embrace engulfed and he pressed his face against her abdomen.

The only warning he issued that a decision had been reached was the nip he took at her stomach. Thereupon, he stood up full. Her gaze devoured the length of that not inconsequential sight.

Had the choice been celibacy, it would have to have been endured. But if their love was to be relished, time was a-wasting.

One swipe of his arm cleared away the crystal, rendering the table a jackleg love-bed. He pressed her back upon it. So hastily was she upended, her head barely missed a rather ornate candelabra. (It only escaped the carnage by taking a precarious tottering trip down the length of the table.)

She said, “Should we not go upstairs?”

“Yes.”

That was in apparent concurrence with what they should do, but not what they would. For he did not release her.

Instead, his hands slid beneath her gown, glided over her again, and then drew her to him. By the time that he struggled his inflamed member free from his nether garments (the rigidity of his arousal and tautness of his breeches had rendered him temporarily trapped), he was in such a state of heat that prudence for possible infirmity of her innards did not come to mind. Which was perchance fortunate, in that once he obtruded them with a substantial degree of vigour, the moan she elicited was not misidentified as pain.

Rather, that sound from her was as familiar to him as her voice. Hearing it again inspirited him well-nigh to the point of pain himself. Upon such a fevered union, the rather sturdy Chippendale table began to tremble. What little crystal that had persevered through the initial assault of his long arm began to fall. Even so, the crescendo that ensued was from their passion, not the breaking glasses. However, that was not clear to a servant who transgressed onto the scene until it was too late to go undetected.

Without a pause, Darcy managed to choke out the gruff command, “Begone!”

Whoever had been there hastily retreated. As they were in great distraction, neither participant of this exceedingly well-explored act of passion cared to conjecture it might have been anyone other than old Morton.

Indeed, it was only after this fit of fever was spent that they discovered mahogany was not comfortable. He drew her back down off the table, her bottom sliding rather smoothly in their common pool of perspiration. With Elizabeth atop him, they sank back into the relative comfort of the armchair. Technically, they had been sated, but affection reigned yet. They continued to kiss until her wine-saturated gown was
discovered to be a bit sticky. With a groan that this time was unmistakably exertion, he gathered her in his arms and carried her upstairs.

He did not think again of leaving her bed.

Fittingly, the first sunlight to be seen for many weeks awoke him as it streamed into the room. He raised upon one elbow and unabashedly drew the sheet from his wife’s naked form.

She stirred.

At first, he smiled at such impenetrable somnolence, thereupon, quite involuntarily, recoiled as he gazed upon her. Not only was she thin, but well-nigh diaphanous. He had been sensible of her loss of appetite (he covertly inspected her half-eaten trays). But this.

Even lying in such close quarters, he had not seen how ravaged she had been in both body and soul. She looked so frail, his chastening was compleat.

How could he have ravished such a fragile flower with such vehemence?

A fluttering of eyelids announced her awakening. As he looked down upon her, she opened her eyes full and a happy dance of a smile began at the corner of her mouth. She, however, did not see happiness upon his countenance as he gazed upon her spindly frame. He looked nothing less than appalled. And he realised that directly.

Retrieving the sheet, she drew it up to her chin and stared sullenly at the ceiling, saying, “Could you not have contained your revulsion even a little?”

“Lizzy,” he said, drawing her close, “how you have suffered.”

Well aware that being the object of pity was possibly her least favourite pastime, he knew he bestowed it upon her at some risk.

“Are you now to return from this devastating hegira you have been thrust upon?” he asked her.

That utterance both quieted her resentment and invoked love.

“I fear my restoration demands less of me than of you.”

As she said this, she stroked him in a manner that persuaded him that however weighty was his duty, it would not be remotely objectionable. Moreover, he thought he might commence this reparation forthwith. Laying himself more against her than upon, he tenderly stroked her limbs.

“You finger me as if I shall shatter at your touch. You had no such compunction last night.”

“Forgive me that.”

Betimes obtuseness afflicted him more keenly than at others.

It became necessary for her to disabuse him of the notion of her fragility. There were several ways she could have made him witting. She could have told him outright. But she did not.

Rather, she chose to show him.

This was accomplished by embarking an assault of his body that befitted a love- starved Amazon. Admittedly, his purblindness bade him weather this siege for a moment before he understood it was, indeed, a siege. However, when enlightment came, it was compleat.