Pride and Punishment: An Erotic Retelling of Jane Austen's Beloved Classic
Page 25
I stay at Rosings for the opening day of pheasant season on the first of October. The next day, I go to London and pay for Wickham’s boots.
That night, the town house is strangely quiet. Alone—and lonely, I consider going to one of my clubs for the evening. But thoughts of another woman pale beside the promise of Miss Elizabeth. I stay home, finding solace in a book of philosophy that I would love to discuss with a certain Miss from Meryton. Lying abed, I bring myself to release imagining my fist wrapped in chestnut hair while I take her from behind, skin slick with sweat and the air heady with the scent of her arousal. Knowing how tight she is, I squeeze hard, imagining her walls clamped snug about me, milking my length when her body starts to spasm, her husky honeyed voice crying out with the force of her release.
Yes.
I erupt into a small towel, pouring endless streams of ejaculate until the source is drained dry. My bollocks will be blue again soon enough. I seem to live in a constant state of want and need these days. My return to Hertfordshire cannot come too soon.
*****
I enter the hall at Netherfield and immediately sense that something is wrong. Charles is not his usual friendly puppy self. He is markedly awkward (much more than normal) and almost hesitant when he greets me, stumbling over rote words of welcome back and refusing to meet my eyes.
Jesus God. What has happened?
“I am sorry,” he blurts the moment we are alone, without sisters or servants to interrupt us. “I thought she knew.”
Charles is almost pulling his ginger hair. The look on his face makes trepidation streak down my spine, causing a hitch in my step. “She?”
“Your aunt,” he croaks. “She came, to talk to Miss Jane and me. Oh, we are engaged, by the way. And we are to visit Rosings the first of November for instruction. Miss Jane agreed to everything. Everything. After she had gone home, I remarked how fortunate we were that you and Miss Elizabeth could support us in our endeavors, how lucky I was to be your friend, how strange that we never found wives in London, yet come to Hertfordshire and here are two sisters who suit us. And I could tell—Christ—I knew from the look on her face that you had not told her. Mistress Cat went straightway to Longbourn to see Miss Elizabeth.”
The news makes my heart seize in my chest. Fuck, fuck, and double fuck.
“She left a letter here for you, to open upon your return.”
Charles looks close to tears. I sigh and seek to reassure him. “It will be fine, Bingley. Aunt Catherine is a force to be reckoned with, but we are family and she would wish for the happiness of all concerned.”
I pray to God that it is so. That she has not gone off and ruined any chance that I have with Miss Elizabeth. If she has, thinking to match me with my cousin, she has miscalculated. Anne de Bourgh would never be happy with me, nor I with her. We do not have it in us, and I told my aunt as much when I was with her. I suggested that, whilst Georgiana visits, my aunt should observe Mrs. Annesley with her daughter and judge for herself how well they might suit.
There is no sense delaying the inevitable. Charles hands me Aunt Catherine’s letter and leaves.
Given the privacy I crave to read it, I steel myself, take a deep breath, and break the seal. Lines of black iron gall ink written in a familiar hand march across the ivory paper in one direction rather than two. I almost expected Aunt Catherine to write a cross-letter just to make things more difficult than they need to be.
She is disappointed in me. Yes, I understand that she would be. Having to hear about my tendresse for Miss Elizabeth from Bingley is an insult that she will not soon forget.
She understands now my particular interest in Wickham’s situation. His marriage to Lydia Bennet removed obstacles for me as well as for Charles Bingley. But how receptive is she to the idea of Miss Elizabeth as my future wife?—assuming, of course, that she will have me after being confronted by my aunt.
What follows is a doubtless faithful accounting of their conversation, painfully detailed in her letter to me.
“You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason of my journey hither. Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why I come.”
She looked at me, astonished. “Indeed, you are mistaken, Madam. I have not been at all able to account for the honour of seeing you here.”
“Miss Bennet,” I said sharply, “you ought to know, that I am not to be trifled with. But however insincere you may choose to be, you shall not find me so. My character has ever been celebrated for its sincerity and frankness, and in a cause of such a moment as this, I shall certainly not depart from it. A report of a most alarming nature reached me two hours ago. I was told that not only your sister was on the point of being most advantageously married, but that you, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, would, in all likelihood, be soon afterwards united with my nephew, my own nephew, Mr. Darcy. Though I know it must be a scandalous falsehood, though I would not injure him so much as to suppose the truth of it possible, I instantly resolved on setting off for this place, that I might make my sentiments known to you.”
Do you know what she said, the impudent chit? “If you believed it impossible to be true, I wonder you took the trouble of coming here. What could your ladyship propose by it?”
“At once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted,” I told her.
“Your coming to Longbourn, to see me and my family will be rather a confirmation of it; if, indeed, such a report is in existence.”
“If!” I glared at her with Mistress eyes but she refused to drop hers, Fitzwilliam! What was I to say to that? I could say nothing, of course. You may find her willing to submit to you but she made it clear that she will not subjugate herself to me.
Rather than test that part of her, I questioned her on the “rumor”—the remark that your friend made, alerting me that there was more to the Bennets’ story than what you had led me to believe. “Do you then pretend to be ignorant of it?” I asked her. “Has it not been industriously circulated by yourselves? Do you not know that such a report is spread abroad?”
“I never heard that it was,” she said flatly.
“And can you likewise declare that there is no foundation for it?”
I thought I had her there, but she was cleverer than I had given her credit for. “I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your ladyship,” she told me. “You may ask questions which I shall not choose to answer.”
“This is not to be borne,” I declared. “Miss Bennet, I insist on being satisfied. Has he, has my nephew, made you an offer of marriage?”
She paused for a telling moment, then said, “Your ladyship has declared it to be impossible.”
Fitzwilliam, really. Your conduct towards her at Rosings gave no indication of any depth to your feelings toward the girl. “It ought to be so,” I told her. “It must be so, while he retains the use of his reason. But your arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation, have made him forget what he owed to himself and to all his family. You may have drawn him in.”
She bristled just a bit, still refusing to admit anything between the two of you, but the look on her face made me think that she wished it were so. “If I have, I shall be the last person to confess it.”
“Miss Bennet, do you know who I am?” I may judge her unwise but she is not stupid. “I have not been accustomed to such language as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world, and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns.”
She met my gaze, unwavering. “But you are not entitled to know mine,” she said succinctly, “nor will such behaviour as this ever induce me to be explicit.
“Let me be rightly understood. This match, to which you have the presumption to aspire, can never take place. No, never. Mr. Darcy is engaged to my daughter. Now what have you to say?”
Yes, I stretched a bit. But she would not bend, let alone break under my questioning. I needed to see just how far she would go, what she would say. Can Miss Elizabeth Bennet keep a secret?
Instead I told her, “The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of his mother, as well as of hers.” God rest their souls! “While in their cradles, we planned the union: and now, at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would be accomplished in their marriage, to be prevented by a young woman of inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends? To his tacit engagement with Miss de Bourgh? Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say that from his earliest hours he was destined for his cousin?”
“Yes,” she said calmly, though her fists were clenched a little, “and I had heard it before. But what is that to me? If there is no other objection to my marrying your nephew, I shall certainly not be kept from it by knowing that his mother and aunt wished him to marry Miss de Bourgh. You both did as much as you could in planning the marriage. Its completion depended on others.” As much as I might wish otherwise, this much is sad but true! “If Mr. Darcy is neither by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is not he to make another choice? And if I am that choice, why may I not accept him?”
“Because,” I said, “honour, decorum, prudence, nay interest forbid it. Yes, Miss Bennet, interest!” I cried. “Do not expect to be noticed by his family or friends, if you willfully act against the inclinations of all. You will be censured, slighted, and despised by everyone connected with him,” I threatened. “Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never even be mentioned by any of us!”
And do you know what she said, Fitzwilliam? Despite the history I have given her, despite the direst predictions I could make? “These are heavy misfortunes,” she said. “But the wife of Mr. Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole, have no cause to repine.”
She refused to listen. Refused! “Obstinate, headstrong girl!” My urge to pace made me realise that she had not yet truly made me welcome. She had not summoned refreshments. Seating was scattered about the garden but she had not offered so much as a bench to sit upon. Her lack of hospitality was appalling. I did not hesitate to point out her ill-mannered slight to me. “I am ashamed of you!” I said. “Is this your gratitude for my attentions to you last spring? Is nothing due to me on that score? Let us sit down. You are to understand, Miss Bennet, that I came here with the determined resolution of carrying my purpose; nor will I be dissuaded from it. I have not been used to submit to any person’s whims.” People submit to me, Fitzwilliam. You know this as well as anyone! I am the one to issue orders. The Mistress to be obeyed. “I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment.”
She still refused to bend. “That will make your ladyship’s situation at present more pitiable; but it will have no effect on me.”
I drew myself up and leveled my most commanding glare. “I will not be interrupted,” I said. “Hear me in silence. My daughter and my nephew are formed for each other. They are descended, on the maternal side, from the same noble line; and on the father’s, from respectable, honourable, and ancient—though untitled—families. Their fortune on both sides is splendid. They are destined for each other by the voice of every member of their respective houses; and what is to divide them? The upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections, or fortune? Is this to be endured? But it must not, shall not be. If you were sensible of your own good, you would not wish to quit the sphere in which you have been brought up.”
She knew it for nonsense, of course, and called me on it. “In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal.”
“True. You are a gentleman’s daughter,” I allowed. “But who was your mother? Who are your uncles and aunts? Do not imagine me ignorant of their condition.”
She offered no apology. “Whatever my connections may be, if your nephew does not object to them, they can be nothing to you.”
“Tell me once and for all,” I demanded, “are you engaged to him?”
“I am not.” Finally, she admitted it.
“And will you promise me, never to enter into such an engagement?”
Do you know what she said, Fitzwilliam? “I will make no promise of the kind.” Those words exactly. I could hardly believe my ears.
“Miss Bennet, I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more reasonable young woman. But do not deceive yourself into a belief that I will ever recede. I shall not go away till you have given me the assurance I require.”
“And I certainly never shall give it. I am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable. Your ladyship wants Mr. Darcy to marry your daughter; but would my giving you the wished-for promise make their marriage at all more probable?”
Her point had some merit. I refused, however, to admit it.
“Supposing him to be attached to me, would my refusing to accept his hand make him wish to bestow it on his cousin? Allow me to say, Lady Catherine, that the arguments with which you have supported this extraordinary application have been as frivolous as the application was ill-judged. You have widely mistaken my character, if you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. How far your nephew might approve of your interference in his affairs, I cannot tell; but you certainly have no right to concern yourself in mine. I must beg, therefore, to be importuned no farther on the subject.”
“Not so hasty, if you please,” I said. “I have by no means done. To all the objections I have already urged, I have still another to add. I am no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister’s infamous elopement. I know it all; that the young man’s marrying her was a patched-up business, at the expense of your father and uncles.”
And me—but Aunt Catherine does not know that. At least, I do not believe that she does.
“And is such a girl to be my nephew’s sister? Is her husband, is the son of his late father’s steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth!—of what are you thinking? Are the shade of Pemberley to be thus polluted?”
She had closed her ears, I am afraid, and refused to listen further. “You can now have nothing further to say,” she grated between clenched teeth. “You have insulted me in every possible method. I must beg to return to the house.”
She turned as she spoke and started back.
Miss Bennet may have been done, but I was not.
“You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew! Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you must disgrace him in the eyes of everybody?”
“Lady Catherine, I have nothing further to say. You know my sentiments.”
“You are then resolved to have him?”
“I have said no such thing,” she reminded me. “I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”
“It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. You are determined to ruin him in the opinion of all his friends, and make him the contempt of the world.”
It was a harsh thing to say, Fitzwilliam, but I needed to know that she is prepared for the worst. The world is cruel enough to those well-born, but her sister is wed to an infamous eloper. Have you considered how that will reflect upon you?
She told me in no uncertain terms that neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude has any possible claim on her, in the present instant. �
��No principle of either would be violated by my marriage with Mr. Darcy. And with regard to the resentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former were excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment’s concern—and the world in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn.”
“And this is your real opinion?” I demanded to know. Her silence was answer enough. “This is your final resolve! Very well. I shall now know how to act. Do not imagine, Miss Bennet, that your ambition will ever be gratified. I came to try you.”
And try her I did, though she had not yet seemed to grasp it.
“I hoped to find you reasonable; but, depend upon it, I will carry my point.”
I continued to try and trip her up, make her reveal herself or share your secrets, but she would not oblige. At the door of my carriage, I turned to her and said, “I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.”
Aunt Catherine then launched into her entire history of Miss Elizabeth Bennet—every interaction, every observation, every rumor passed by the bootlicking Reverend Collins. Five pages later, grudgingly given, is permission to court the woman who kept any secrets to herself and refused to quail before my intrepid aunt.
Thank you, Jesus.
Chapter Thirty
Charles is eager to see his lady love but I counsel patience. Having survived Aunt Catherine’s visit, both of the Bennet sisters will need time to settle. Rather than rush to Longbourn, we hunt. We fish. We walk with his dogs and ride his horses. If we happen to use the favoured path between Longbourn and Meryton, any encounter with the Bennets can be construed as happenstance, but we return home each day, our hopes dashed like waves breaking on a rocky shore.