Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (27 page)

Winter did coldly pass and spring was beckoning when two days before Elizabeth’s birthday, Darcy most unexpectedly announced that he and Fitzwilliam would be taking a short overnight trip. They would leave at first light. It was to be the first night spent out of each other’s arms, and that it came upon the eve of her birthday was not the gift for which Elizabeth would have wished. As he otherwise paid her every attention, she thought it insupportable to complain about such a triviality. Hence, she did not ask why she could not accompany them. She presumed they could make shorter work of their business upon horseback than having to make their -journey in the carriage with her.

Mr. Darcy eschewed travelling by coach when he was alone. Horseback offered a freedom of mind unobtainable from the seat of his fashionable six-horse coach. From thence, duty encroached. (On horseback he was not actually liberated from the weight of his position, but he bore it with better humour.) Albeit he enjoyed the power of doing what he pleased and had better means of having his will than many others, true liberty was his more infrequent guest than, say, even indecision or ambivalence. Decision and certainty ruled his life.

This lack of liberty, however, was of his own hand. Had he so wanted, the responsibility for Pemberley could be shirked without a second thought. For it was under the stern guidance of a good overseer in Mr. Rhymes.

With so many people under his guardianship, Mr. Darcy chose not to leave it to another. To him, that was almost as unthinkable as it was insupportable. Moreover, his one true love beyond his wife was of the soil of Derbyshire. Few people were witting of such a curious leaning.

Farming was technically the occupation of Pemberley, but propriety allowed Darcy no more than a very proprietary interest. Most men to the manor born rarely looked upon their land beyond the coverts. Mr. Darcy rode out daily as the overseer of heart, if not of record.

Once, in all the impulsivity of youth, he announced to Fitzwilliam that if he had one good horse and a hectare of land, his life would never be wanting. (For his part, Fitzwilliam allowed that he wanted but one good horse.) As insular as was his life, Darcy could hardly have been unaware of the bleak existence of those who worked the land. Not unlike most young men who had never actually suffered a day’s true labour, he had an elevated notion of what it meant to spend one’s days turning the earth and laying in crops. That he, upon particularly euphoric rides out, thought himself quite amenable to such a life, he admitted to not a soul. The ridicule would be unendurable.

Pragmatism ruled his life. Hence, that little fantasy kept company in the back of his mind along with a picture of Elizabeth at the door of a thatched-roof cottage, in muslin cap and apron, babe upon each hip. (Most likely, she would not find the notion utterly agreeable, but she was, albeit, the single woman he knew who would not laugh.)

Parallel to Darcy’s love of the soil was Fitzwilliam’s love of the army. Both men had been raised in similar privilege and indulgence. As a second son, Fitzwilliam had not the prospects of Darcy, but he could have led a comfortably idle life. He could have taken his commission in the Life Guard Greens. There he could have lifted a glass with the other un-entailed sons of the aristocracy. (At least, with those not carted off to toil in the East India Company.) There, he could have lolled at court, kissing the hands of smitten ladies with no greater fear than to marry badly.

Fitzwilliam despised idleness in general and life at court in London specifically. Rather, he took a commission in the cavalry. When he did, some of his fellow officers questioned his sanity; others had thought him a fool to submit to such discipline and deprivation. It was an error of their judgement upon either account. It took courage and skill to lead a charge of light cavalry. Fitzwilliam commanded these traits—and had his one good horse in Scimitar.

Their boyhood passions had been identical: the horse and the sword. Both were put upon horses before their third birthdays, and they jousted with birch limbs. It was not lost upon Darcy that Fitzwilliam alone stayed true to their early ambitions. While they both still rode, it was Fitzwilliam who traded his foil for the finely honed curve of a genuine sabre in his scabbard. Long before had Darcy put his away, now content to wear it but upon royal occasions. He had always admired Fitzwilliam’s choice of mettle over indifference.

That day, the mission upon which they travelled was of great import, but one of a peculiarly happy nature, thus not hindering good humour. They enjoyed the charm of reminiscences of their childhood and commiserated fancied travails. Not unlike a de-clawed beast of prey, Darcy lay in quiet wait of an opportunity to broach a subject with his cousin, one with which he had been charged by his aunt, Fitzwilliam’s mother.

The subject was of particular import to her.

The training of new cavalry recruits fell to Fitzwilliam’s duty, yet he longed for battle himself. As none was so grieved as a soldier without a fight, the news of an able general seeking ambitious officers had engendered Fitzwilliam with a new determination to join the war with the French.

“It is what I have been trained for all my life,” he had said.

However ready Fitzwilliam was for battle, not all shared his enthusiasm for jeopardy. Lady Matlock was exceedingly fond of her youngest child and had issued a mother’s prerogative by bidding Darcy (brother James had little influence over Geoffrey) to dissuade Fitzwilliam of his notion of taking off in pursuit of Napoleon. Not an obligation he cared for, but as Darcy was the foremost male member of their family, it was his patriarchal duty.

Hence, upon their leisurely sojourn, he did speak to Fitzwilliam. However, they talked but of the sea trip, the fine weather expected, which generals were the most stupid, and how difficult it was keeping a uniform fit in the field.

The Iberian Peninsula and Wellesley were much too fierce an allurement. Fitzwilliam would go to Lisbon soon, his mother would be inconsolable, and Darcy had spoken to him about it.

Because no true dissent was offered, the trip was an amiable as well as a fruitful mission. Darcy enjoyed his horseback outing, Fitzwilliam was able to discuss the topic of war, and Elizabeth would have a gift for her birthday.

* * *

It was late afternoon, making their trip a long two days, when Elizabeth espied the grooms unsaddling Blackjack and Scimitar. She found the nearest entrance into the house and, in her hurry, bumped into Fitzwilliam in the back passageway. He took her hand and kissed it in greeting. She, almost shyly, bade enquiry of the success of their trip. Thus assured, a little impatiently did she cut short their conversation to take her leave to find her husband. Had she turned and looked, she would have been quite embarrassed, for a knowing little grin bechanced Fitzwilliam’s countenance as she hurried upstairs. Her hastening feet told him more than her impatience with civilities.

Fitzwilliam went into Darcy’s library, found a book and made himself comfortable in a high-backed chair. Darcy had told him that he would bring Elizabeth down directly. However, Fitzwilliam was not unlearnt in matters of amour. Her quickening steps foretold neither would be seen again in all that good time.

* * *

Upstairs, Elizabeth paused briefly as she passed Darcy’s dressing room. Because she saw but his man putting away her husband’s belongings, she hurried on to their bedchamber door and flung it open. In the glow of the late afternoon sun, she espied a sumptuous sight. It was one of considerable bare-chested glory. Still in his breeches and boots, he had just washed the dust of the road from his face and tossed a towel aside. Even after his trip, his boots had not lost their sheen and she could smell their leather from the door.

Without consciously making a decision to do it, she crossed the room. So expeditiously did she move that he, intent upon rifling through the drawers of a chiffonier, did not hear her come to him. Hence, when she literally leapt into his arms not unlike a particularly precocious twelve-year-old, he gave vent to a slight grunt and took a staggering step backward. By the time she embarked upon a siege against his lips, he had recovered enough to return it in kind.

The perpendicular act that followed defied logic, for their bed was not a dozen feet away. She had no idea why she was incited to climb his body and he evidently had no interest in questioning it. She gripped her legs about him; he braced her against the door. The explicit nature of their activity was announced with a resounding thud each time he bore into her. Indeed, the noise reverberated down the hall. In a lifetime of reticent propriety, he never once deliberately defiled his own privacy. It all fell to this understanding: if Elizabeth wanted him to take her fevered and hard there and then, he would do so. He was big, he was strong, and he would use his size and strength to please her in any way she so chose. Seldom did any event occasion that bade him less contemplation.

Because of its heat, their coupling blazed fiercely, but inherently, it did not last long.

Knees trembling, he still twirled her about and over to the bed. Thereupon, he kissed her quite hungrily atop it. The one night they missed of each other’s company was possibly a little more enjoyable in that moment’s impetuous fervour of requited passion. Neither, however, took the time to compare the possibility. He let out a playful groan and rested his spent body upon hers for a fair moment before he rose.

Even buttoning his breeches, chivalry was not abandoned. He bowed low, and then offered her his hand.

“I suppose I should say ‘Hello, Mrs. Darcy, ’tis good to see you.’”

Elizabeth did not take his hand immediately. Her gaze, which rested first upon his face, drifted down his body in retrospective appreciation. Perspiration began to trickle down his breastbone and glistened in the hair just beneath his navel. Compleatly sated, she did not fully understand why his soiled, sweaty breeches and turned down boots still bade her savour the sight. She smiled up at him.

“I believe, sir, you just did. Rather emphatically.”

The full extent of the unseemliness of her rash leap upon his person dawned upon her with that statement.

She said, “You are away not two days and your wife greets you not unlike a lady of the streets. You must think me an irredeemable tart.”

It was a forgone conclusion that Elizabeth would not be aware had that particular assignation been performed upon the streets of London, she would have been a party to what was known amongst more common folk as a “thruppence upright.” Hence, Darcy assumed she spoke of the impetuosity of her dash to him, not the method.

He said, “I was beginning to believe you would not come to me, that it should always be my duty.”

“Should it not be the husband’s duty?”

“I cannot speak for other husbands, just myself,” he said, then he leaned down and whispered fetchingly in her ear. “Come to me, Lizzy. When you favour it, I want you to.”

“Besides,” he stood up, repaired his attire, cleared his throat, and said, “however miserably I missed you, I have something to show you, outside.”

She took his proffered hand and he pulled her from the bed and toward the door.

“Wait, wait,” she said, as she endeavoured to locate the shoes she had somehow lost.

Encouraging her toward his surprise, he insisted, “Come, come.”

Shoes recovered, they finally reappeared downstairs, and Fitzwilliam, without -comment upon their tardiness, accompanied them out to the courtyard. There, a -little ceremony was enacted. Darcy bid Elizabeth close her eyes. He called to his man, -Elizabeth hearing much scuffling. When given word, she opened her eyes to behold her groom, young John, proudly holding the lead rope that led to the halter of a beautiful dark bay mare.

Darcy told her, “I could not find a horse so fine as Nellie. However, when I saw this one, I knew you must have her. For she is the exact colour of your hair.”

As Elizabeth stood for a moment in open-mouthed astonishment, her husband and his cousin stood to the side, arms folded in satisfaction. This self-aggrandisement was not arrested, merely solidified when she kissed the blaze upon the nose of the horse in emphasis of her appreciation. Any surfeit of gratitude she bestowed enthusiastically upon her husband’s neck. Such was her delight, Fitzwilliam stood about beaming in reflected glory. If hitherto Mr. Darcy had not chosen to be the recipient of such affection in company, he certainly did not acknowledge that reservation then, for he kissed her full upon the mouth in return.

Immediately he and Fitzwilliam reclaimed solemnity to embark upon a lengthy detailing of the horse’s lineage, in which she held no true interest. Yet such was their obvious pleasure in relating it that she smiled and nodded at the information as if she did.

Before they had long set about impressing Elizabeth with dam and sire, a commotion occurred outside the arched entrance to the courtyard. Loud voices ensued, and the squealing sound of horses. Fitzwilliam was closer than was Darcy and they both walked hastily in the direction of the noise.

Although Darcy turned and said to her in useless exercise, “Stay here,” Elizabeth, much too curious, followed a short distance behind.

When all came through the gate, they saw a footman yanking upon the rein of one of two horses harnessed to a gig. He was tugging upon the bit cruelly, simultaneously striking the trembling horse with a coach whip. Frothy blood came from the horse’s mouth, his eyes wild with terror. Involuntarily, Elizabeth put her hands to her face, horrified at the sight.

Before Fitzwilliam had taken many steps toward the man, Darcy’s long legs over-strode him, and he reached the footman first. Whirling him about, he yanked the whip from the man’s hand and brought it down across his shoulders.

“There, does that not encourage you to do my bidding?”

He spoke in a loud, angry voice, one Elizabeth had never heard. From the astonished look upon Fitzwilliam’s face and those of the grooms, they had not either. All stood in petrified anticipation. John Christie, too, had followed and was standing behind the group, his mouth agape, unnoticed.