"I thought it an attempt to please me. I wanted you so badly that sometimes I was almost willing to accept what I was certain were lies. So I rejected your advances before I reached the point where I would take advantage of your deference to my wishes. It was… a struggle."
"But it was not duty! Did it never occur to you that I might come to care for you?"
He sighed heavily. "No. It did not." His words held a great finality.
She ran her fingers over his brow, wishing she could wipe away the furrows. This was her doing. "You undervalue yourself. I have found much to admire in you."
"I thank you, but your admiration was not what I sought. But it is nothing new. I have not the gift of winning friendships. When I meet people, I am constantly giving offence, often without intending to do so. There are few people willing to overlook that, and those who do seek my friendship tend to be looking for an advantage in it. You were different. When I said the wrong thing, you would laugh and turn it back around at me. It did not seem to trouble you. But I was wrong about that, as I have been wrong about so many other things."
It explained how her lively spirits had misled him, some thing she had often wondered about, but his first words had surprised her. "But you have friends, and you are respected by everyone here at Pemberley."
"Very few true friends and most are like Bingley, who cannot hold a grudge for long even on the rare occasions he takes offence. But you know my weakness already; I certainly offended you often enough on the matter of your family when I thought it showed that I trusted you. Instead, I only made you dislike me more." Darcy stood and moved to the fireside, taking up a poker and stirring the flames. A log crackled and broke, sending a spray of sparks up the chimney.
Because he trusted her. If she wanted him to trust her again, she must tell him the truth, no matter how painful. "It angered me when you said those things because they were true. My family has been embarrassing me since I was old enough to understand what embarrassment meant. I learned in time to laugh at it, since the only other choice was perpetual mortification and fearing the world's opinions. I love my family dearly, but I resented you for speaking the truth about them."
She could not look at him. The roots of this shame went deep, back to her childhood when she began to recognise that some of their acquaintances turned away when her mother approached them. She had learned to observe those people, to watch their more seemly behaviour, and to emulate it, so no one would look at her as they did at her mother.
Now he knew her secret. She raised her eyes to his face. "Will you forgive my pride for refusing to acknowledge your qualms about my family?"
Darcy shook his head. "I am the one who should beg forgiveness. I ought never to have said those things. I should have realised it would hurt you. There is unseemly behaviour enough among my relations, but the difference is that no one dares condemn them for it. It would be different, I am sure, had they not the Fitzwilliam name to protect them."
She remembered how she had thrown the same accusation at him during their quarrel, before she knew how deeply she could injure him, before she understood the vulnerabilities that lay behind his sometimes autocratic front. Even now with their better understanding, she could still see the sadness behind his eyes and knew herself to be the cause. If only she could drive it away as easily as she had caused it.
But perhaps she could, for she knew what he liked. She gave him an arch look as she wound her arms around his neck. "I love my family, but perhaps it is as well that we do not live too close to Longbourn." She leaned in to caress his lips with hers.
He put his hand behind her head, ensuring that she did not escape the kiss quickly. "Nor too close to Rosings, I might add."
It was a small triumph to hear him more cheerful again, for it was still easy to shake her faith in his love for her. The pain that thought gave her drove her to seek the reassurance of closeness to him. Her hands reached for his waistcoat, unfastening the buttons so she could feel the warmth of him through the thin lawn of his shirt. She leaned her head against his chest with a sigh.
His eyebrows shot up. "You never cease to amaze me, Elizabeth."
"What, am I shocking you, sir?"
He drew in a sharp breath. "Yes. But pleasantly so."
She had not intended anything beyond what she had already achieved, but his look spurred her to try her luck at untying his immaculate cravat. "Would that be more or less pleasant than you find shocking me to be?" She nibbled on his lower lip, successfully keeping him from responding immediately.
"I am not certain as yet," he said, his voice a little ragged. "You had best continue, in order to give me sufficient evidence to consider the question."
"I certainly cannot stand in the way of scientific inquiry," she teased as she tugged at a particularly difficult knot in his cravat. Finally, it gave way and the white cloth came free in her hands.
She so rarely had the opportunity to see his neck, and she loved the lines of it. She ran her fingers from the corner of his jaw down to the base of it. Overtaken by a sudden burst of love for him, she pressed her lips to his neck, where his pulse ran below the surface, tasting the salt of his skin. She untied his shirt at the collar and slipped her hand inside to caress his chest.
His hands reached for her breasts. Without thought, she pressed herself forward into his touch. It was hard to remember that only a few days earlier she would have shied away from this sensation, and now she sought it out as his thumbs rubbed across the sensitive tips, making her ache for him. She pushed back his coats to bury her face against his shirt, breathing in his musky scent, impatient to remove that last barrier.
She had started this for his sake, but it had turned to something else. She wanted the closeness to him for herself, to feel the joy of her love for him and to forget the pain and fear of the day in the pleasure he could give her, to remember life when there had been death. She tugged at his shirt until it came free of the waistband of his trousers.
"Elizabeth." Darcy spoke her name as if it were a plea. His mouth sought out hers, tasting her as if he could never have enough. "Tell me this is real and not another dream."
Her response was half-laugh, half-sob. "It is real." She could feel his arousal beneath her, making her long to be connected to him in the most intimate of ways and never to part. "Come." She stood on trembling legs and took his hand, leading him to her room.
He paused in the doorway. "Shall we go to my room instead?"
"Do you dislike it here?" She had wondered why he had wanted her in his bed the last two nights.
"No, but I do not wish to remind you… of before." He said it quietly, as if not wanting to give the words too much power.
She turned and put her arms around him, touched by his concern for her. "It will not remind me because I understand now what it is to love you. You need have no fear of the past."
Her words seemed to mobilise him. He stripped off his topcoat and waistcoat, tossing them carelessly over a chair, then reached for the buttons at the back of her dress. Elizabeth could not stop watching his form. The draped fabric of his shirt revealed his shape more than his coat ever did.
His hands moving industriously down her back made her tremble with anticipation as he freed her first of her dress, then her corset and shift. It was as if he could not wait; as soon as she felt the coolness of the air against her skin, his hands began roaming over her exposed flesh. She gasped as the sensation threatened to consume her.
"Bed," he said succinctly.
With an arch smile she led him there, letting him press her back against the pillows. His urgency was unmistakable, and her own was hardly less. She strained against him, seeking to be ever closer, to feel the very essence of him.
He held himself still as his hand wandered between her legs, arousing her yet further as his fingers brushed against her most private places. The previous nights, he had lingered there to give her pleasure, but tonight she needed a different sort of fulfilment. She did not yet know how
to communicate her desire by touching him, so instead she begged, "Please love me, Fitzwilliam."
He stilled then, and she could see the fine sheen of perspira tion on his chest. He must have been trying to hold back for her sake. A surge of love for him overwhelmed her as he parted her legs with his own.
"Now and always, my love," he whispered, his breath warm against her ear. Then he was within her, moving in an instinc tive rhythm she could not resist.
This was not how she had ever imagined love to be, but now she knew what it meant to give herself utterly to the man she loved, unclothed both in body and soul. At first she could only glory in the sense of intimacy she felt with him; and the release of her fears of losing his love, still with her from that afternoon, brought her near tears. Then she abandoned herself to the gift of pleasure, sensing Darcy's satisfaction as he made her moan and move beneath him. Waves of heat began to wash through her, building ever higher as she opened herself to him even more, until they finally crested in a spiral of sensation that left her trembling.
Afterwards, she savoured his closeness as he cradled her in his arms. She brushed her lips against his. "Now do you believe it is real?" she asked.
"Yes, but I will not object if you tell me again." He twined his fingers in her curls, looking as if he were studying them intently.
The words she had thought she could never say now came freely to her lips. "I love you ardently and with all my heart."
Looking up at him, she thought his eyes were glistening.
***
Darcy asked the boy at the stable to fetch Pandora and Mercury. In response to Elizabeth's grateful glance, he said, "I told you I would not ride Hurricane. I think you will approve of Mercury."
Elizabeth bit her lip. "Do you mind terribly?"
"Not if it pleases you, my love." He would miss Hurricane, but Elizabeth's happiness was paramount.
Hoofbeats sounded behind them. Georgiana, her cheeks rosy, trotted up on her tall mare. "I did not realise you would be riding today, Fitzwilliam. Perhaps you would enjoy a race?"
He sought out Elizabeth's hand. "Thank you, but another time. I am planning to ride with Elizabeth."
"Elizabeth could join us."
Elizabeth shook her head. "I fear not. I am still a beginner, and I doubt either of you would be interested in the pace I keep."
Georgiana's mare stamped her feet, and the girl expertly guided her a few feet away. "How is it you never learned to ride before?" It was clear she had been longing for an opportunity to ask the question.
"I did not care to. Once, when I was small, I was playing by the lane, and I saw a man thrown from his horse. He died at my feet."
Darcy turned to her in surprise. "You never told me he died." It explained something of the depth of her mystifying fear of horses. And he had pushed her to learn, without realising what he was asking. "Are you certain you wish to do this?"
She turned a luminous smile on him. "Of course. How can I resist the opportunity to visit the famous Curbar Edge?"
His heart filled with admiration of her. "It will be a long ride at a walk."
"Then it is a fortunate thing I will have good company."
Georgiana watched as they mounted their horses and ambled away. She would die of boredom on Elizabeth's horse. At least that solved one mystery about Elizabeth, but Georgiana doubted she would ever understand her brother's marriage. First they barely talked to one another, and now suddenly they were inseparable. It was quite baffling. Without question, she was in no hurry to marry.
***
The ride proceeded without event. Elizabeth was grateful that Mercury, while solid with muscle, was obedient to Darcy's commands and did not strain at the reins as Hurricane had. Darcy had been correct about teaching her to ride though; even for a great walker, the ascent up the steep incline would be a challenge on foot.
The view from the top of the Edge was as spectacular as Darcy had promised—across fields, river, and wild pasture. She could make out the narrow, winding road through the glen and the small white dots that were grazing sheep. The wind, no longer fettered by the surrounding hills, whipped past her cheeks as she clambered onto one of the rock formations that lined the cliff edge. Exhilarated by the raw power of nature around her, she was sorry when she heard her husband's voice calling her after only a few minutes. When she looked back at him, he was holding out his hand to her from the moor at the edge of the rocks.
When she reached him, she was struck by the pallor of his cheeks. "Are you well?" she asked.
He heaved a deep sigh. "If this is anything similar to what you experienced when I rode Hurricane, I am sorry I ever went near him."
With sudden understanding, she said, "I had forgotten you disliked heights."
He pulled her into his arms. "It is worse to see you there than it is to be there myself."
"But I thought this was a favourite spot of yours."
"It is, when I am a safe distance from the edge." He did not say anything for a moment, just held her, stroking her hair. "I used to come here with my mother and Thomas. He was like you, unafraid to climb to the very rim of the rocks. He would tease me by holding his arms over the side as if he were going to step off, but my mother would make him stop."
He was telling her about Thomas, whom he had said was never mentioned. She looked up into his dear face. "How I love you!"
He raised an eyebrow. "I am not certain what I did to deserve that, but I will accept it gladly." He kissed her lingeringly.
"I am glad you are telling me about your family."
His body tightened within her arms, and she wondered if she had said too much. His eyes seemed fixed on the distance beyond the cliff. "Once, when I returned to Pemberley after their deaths, I came here alone. I did not plan to return."
She could not hide her horror. Her voice shook a little when she said, "I am very grateful you changed your mind."
He shrugged. "I wanted the loneliness to end, and I could see no way out of it. My father was caught up in his own grief, and Georgiana was but a little girl I barely knew. But in the end, I could not do it. Too many responsibilities."
Elizabeth remembered the night she had sought out the bottle of laudanum, only to be stopped by her responsibilities at a time when death seemed preferable to living. "That must have been a very dark time." She could not imagine the world without him, having feared losing him so much during his illness. Suddenly, she straightened, a frightening suspicion in her mind. "Fitzwilliam, is this not where you were when you injured yourself?"
For a moment he looked confused, then his eyes cleared. "No, the fall was not intentional, if that is what you are asking. I was angry, and I confess the thought crossed my mind as the simplest route to give you back your happiness, but I dismissed it quickly. Here on the Edge, I realised the difference between our quarrel and Thomas's death. I would never see him again, but with you there was still hope, no matter how far-fetched it seemed at the moment." He paused as the wind blew tendrils of her hair across his face then said in a different tone, "I will confess I was perhaps riding a bit recklessly, given the terrain."
"Now that I have no difficulty believing!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "Though I do not care to imagine what might constitute reckless riding for you, since I see it in the riding you do every day."
He laughed. "I will take more care, for your sake. But now, I should take you out of this wind before you catch a chill."
"I am not so fragile as that!" she said, but she allowed him to lead her to the horses.
He put his hands on her waist, but did not boost her to the saddle as she had expected. "Do you still fear it? Riding, that is?"
"Occasionally, but for the most part, no."
"When we return to level ground, would you be willing to try trotting? It is truly quite safe. But only if it will not trouble you." He looked like a little boy asking a favour.
"I will try it, but I may not continue."
"As I said once before, that is all I can ask.
" He kissed her before lifting her atop Pandora.
Darcy led the way down the steep hill, allowing Elizabeth to admire the fine figure her husband cut on horseback. She wondered how she could have ever failed to be aware of how handsome he was.
When they reached the valley, intersected by a bubbling stream, Darcy halted his horse and dismounted, then held a hand out to Elizabeth. She slid down Pandora's flank, pausing to pat the horse's head when her feet were safely on the ground.
"No trotting?" she asked.
"I thought perhaps we should rest a little first. It has been a long ride, and I do not want to overtire you, especially under the circumstances."
"If you wish, though I could continue easily enough." Elizabeth found a patch of soft grass to sit upon while Darcy tied the horses to a sapling. "I am glad to take advantage of the fair weather. Soon it will be winter, and if I am indeed with child, I will not have this freedom."
Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy Page 20