by Gail McEwen
“It will hold,” Mr Darcy said calmly. “And more to the point, I know you will be right here enjoying yourself, gregariously entertaining old ladies and lifting little children in and out of the sledge.”
“Ah, but that is because they’re your tenants, not mine!”
A small understanding smile was passed between them followed by silence.
“How long are you staying?” Mr Darcy asked fixing his gaze on the hazy horizon.
To someone with a lesser understanding of Mr Darcy’s character, the question would have seemed more than a little ungracious. To Lord Baugham, however, it was proof of the fact that his friend had been pondering his sudden appearance at such a surprising moment and had some concerns, none of them selfish.
“I thought, perhaps . . . spring? But then again, Derbyshire summers are exceptionally pleasant too.”
“I won’t allow that, you know,” Darcy said gently.
“I do know,” his lordship replied, “nor would I ask it. Not truly.”
“I know.”
A cold breeze whistled through the bare branches, and Mr Darcy’s words hung in the air until the wind carried another sound to their ears. Footsteps in the snow, soft voices and laughter, and then, shouts.
“There you are!” Mrs Darcy called out.
They turned to see their wives tramping toward them, hand in hand, noses pink with the cold and their frozen breath swirling around them in a fog.
Baugham saw his wife’s eyes light up as she noticed their position.
“Oh! Is it frozen?”
“So Mr Darcy says,” he smiled, “although I have my serious doubts.”
“Can we go out on it?”
Mr Darcy hitched up an amused eyebrow as his friend took one long stride out onto the ice and tapped it confidently with his cane.
“Worth a try, I should think!”
There was a delighted giggle from Lady Baugham as she reached through the scraggy and wilted sticks of straw that only just now had induced such doubt in her husband and took Lord Baugham’s outstretched hand. He pulled her carefully onto the ice and she slid a few steps before she found her balance and glided right into the shelter of his arm.
“Wonderful! Oh! Don’t let me fall!”
They did a little unstable jostling for the perfect balance on the uneven icy surface amongst heavy skirts and entangling great coats and as Darcy watched them he felt his arm being taken by his wife and her sidling up to him in her own smug observation of the scene before them.
“And do you see it now, Mr Darcy?” she said in her laughingly teasing voice.
He gave her a smile before he went back to the spectacle before him where Lady Baugham’s request was obviously in grave danger of being completely ignored in his lordship’s ambitions to waltz her around as if they were really wearing skates and not boots.
“I do,” he said calmly. “You’re very clever, Mrs Darcy.”
“Thank you, Mr Darcy,” she said, pleased and holding onto his arm.
There his friend was, Darcy reflected, happily leading his wife out onto something he had expressed such reservations over just a moment before. However foolish it might in reality be, it was nonetheless a comfort in view of their recent exchange. If Baugham could take his wife out on thin ice with such confidence and eagerness, it was but a small step for him to take her to Cumbermere and perform the same miracle. There was nothing to worry about. If he takes her there, it is love—it certainly must be—not just convenience, resignation or passion.
“And I also think you are very brave,” Mr Darcy continued and offered his arm to his wife to take her out on the ice, too.
“Or very foolish!” she laughed.
“No,” Mr Darcy said and slipped his hand into hers before pulling her with him, “but certainly very trusting and very . . . light!”
Mrs Darcy gave a gasp of mock indignation but let him take her out all the same.
“Come Darcy!” His lordship shouted when they ventured onto the surface of the pond. “You were right, the ice is fine!” He gestured wildly, nearly upsetting his newfound balance. His wife reached out for him and several minutes of slipping, shrieking, laughing and clutching followed.
“I think we’ll stay right here,” Darcy smiled, holding Elizabeth’s arm solidly, “near the edge.”
“What? The ice is strong enough to hold tenants and uninvited guests, but not you?”
“Me, perhaps,” he paused, looking at his wife tenderly, “but I’m not willing to risk anything more precious than that.”
Something in her face made him pause. “Are you disappointed, dear? Do you wish to go out further?”
“If it can hold them, surely it can hold—” she began, but her attention was diverted by something at her feet. “What in the world?” She knelt down and brushed away the powdery remnants of snow.
Through the thick, smoky ice, the perfect heart-shaped leaf of a water lily could be seen, tilting slightly towards the dark muddy depth below it. Mr Darcy leaned over to take a closer look himself.
“How pretty!” his wife said and touched the smooth, transparent surface with her fingers. “It’s perfect!”
She traced the contours and her husband rubbed the surface around it as if to smooth out the creases in the layers of the ice.
“Elizabeth!”
Holly was holding onto her husband’s arms with both of her hands but craning her neck. Mrs Darcy waved at her.
“Oh, Holly, come have a look!”
Their lordships hurried along and Holly threw herself down beside her cousin on her hands and knees.
“Oh,” she said when she spotted the leaf, “how magical!”
Both husbands were now down on their knees beside them, inspecting the wonder of summer caught in suspension below them. They found a few other leaves as well, caught in the ice, but none of them so perfectly positioned close to the surface and brilliant in their colours as this one.
“Can you imagine,” Elizabeth breathed, “come Candlemas we’ll have torches burning around this pond and the light of the fire will light up this magical scene. Can you imagine how splendid it will be?”
The women glanced across the object of their studious admiration and a smile passed between them.
“I’m so looking forward to it,” Holly said. “It will be so grand and so wonderful for you.”
Elizabeth smiled.
“Bonfire,” his lordship muttered. “You can manage a decent bonfire, can’t you, Darcy, just in case the womenfolk find themselves back down here mesmerised by this sight again?”
“We never had a bonfire,” Darcy said slowly, “people tend to crowd indoors . . . ”
“What? And miss such a spectacle as this?” Baugham directed his friend a raised eyebrow and managed to attract his friend’s attention to the crouching positions of the admiring wives beside them.
Darcy shook his head but smiled. “Perhaps you are right,” he said. “In fact, in honour of the great love and affection my wife shows for the outdoors at the most surprising moments, a bonfire would be just perfect.”
“Perfect,” sighed Mrs Darcy and brushed more of the invisible snow away.
“THIS, MY LOVE, IS AN ideal existence. “
It was indeed, Holly agreed. Outside the windows, the view of the open fields was obscured by a flurry of icy snow, forcing even the most hardened walkers, riders and hunters to break from their customary early morning regimes. Instead, a long morning in bed turned into a breakfast upstairs after the service in the parlour below came and went and day never really broke at all. The fire in the hearth was watched by Lord and Lady Baugham from the comfort of the generous sofa and it was a very good thing it heartily crackled away, for neither of them had got any further in their dressing than their morning gowns.
“The only thing I could possibly complain about,” his lordship lazily said, burying his nose between the lacy ruffles of his wife’s collar, instinctively finding the warm skin of her neck and resting his lip
s there before he went on, “is the impossibility of enjoying your charms to the fullest in any other room but this, although since it is a very large room I shan’t complain after all.”
His wife let her hand drop the carefully folded newspaper she had yet to do more than idly glance at and ruffled his hair again. “You are shameless.”
“I am merely being honest,” was his reply. “Besides, so were you at Clyne—quite delightfully shameless on occasion—and since that is all my fault for teaching you to be so, you shall be responsible for my honesty in turn.”
“You are so silly when you get to indulge yourself.”
“I am happy. That’s what this is. Happiness.”
She smiled at him. “So am I. Oh, what good fortune a terrible blizzard can bring sometimes!”
“Hm. I am missing my daily presentation of the fruits of meticulous estate management and you are missing your bookkeeping pupil.”
Invariably this thought led her to wonder how long they could stay like this. How long could they linger at Pemberley on the pretext of bookkeeping lessons and bad roads? She sighed. Of course, as long as Elizabeth needed her . . . but then she was interrupted by a warm hand travelling inside her clothes.
“For this morning anyway.” She giggled at his disappointed face but then she got up and stretched her arms over her head.
“I’ll be right back.”
He followed her half-naked form walking towards the dressing room.
“Can I help you with anything?”
“I haven’t needed help with what I’m about to do since I was three years old. You just stay there and I will be back presently.”
Baugham took up the discarded newspaper and idly skimmed the first page before he went back to watching for her return.
When she did come back, she stopped by the window and, carefully parting the drawn drapes, peeked out between them on the world outside. The draught from the window made her wrinkle her nose and draw the fabric closer to her naked body. She, who was used to bracing all kinds of weather was hiding in this warm, snug, sheltered lair with no inkling to leave it for anything resembling fresh air.
Just then she felt something envelop her from behind as a warm body pressed against her back.
“Look at that,” her ladyship said to her husband. “Isn’t it ghastly?”
He leaned his chin on her shoulder and joined in her observation. “Mmm. Very.”
For a moment they stood silently watching the grey landscape outside. The naked trees bent in the wind and the relentless sludge obscured the view down to the pond most effectively. The landscape blurred and the only sound was the howling and the rapping of wind and sleet.
“What a perfect excuse to extend our honeymoon,” she sighed.
“I agree,” he gently brushed her hair aside placed his lips in that little smooth hollow in her neck. “Therefore, it would be a sin to neglect to take full advantage of it, would it not?”
“It would.”
“I love you,” he whispered between kisses. She smiled.
“I love you, too,” she sighed and in response he tugged at her sash, loosening her gown and sliding it off her shoulders until it landed on the floor in a puddle of silk.
His hands slipped down her shoulders and moved over her hips, thighs and buttocks. Then they wandered forward and she felt herself being pressed forward by a strong chest and a pair of hands on her stomach supporting her. But the hands moved upwards again and met her breasts and instinctively she leaned her head back on the shoulder behind her and sighed. Softly, slowly, the hands measured the weight of her breasts and then moved to their sides. Fingers brushed over her nipples and she felt something stir in her stomach. Once again, that something only he had ever seen was called out of its hiding place deep within her by a mere touch. A very gentle touch. A very good touch.
As his fingers continued to play, she leaned forward again and pushed her bottom into him. His response was not entirely surprising. She felt him grow against her, still pressed so closely to her back, fitted against her from hip to hip, back to chest, lips to skin. What he was doing with his hands was wonderful. She let go of the drapes to give him more room. But the sensations his closeness to her back was producing were equally wonderful. She listened as their breathing quickened. She could not see him, only feel him and so she listened very closely.
Running his hands downwards over her hip bone, diving into the soft valley between thigh and covered mound, she gasped and made room for him. One finger dipped inside and slid back upwards again. She moaned. He shifted and she felt his own urgency. Another finger. A tongue on her neck. She reached behind her but still did not look. Her hand on his she guided him just as she wanted him. His other hand on her breast made her lose any purpose but one.
“Can you . . . ?” she asked thickly.
“Can I . . . ?” he asked simultaneously against her skin.
And he could. Deeply he entered, slowly and her vision blurred. Now the sleet was dancing in front of her closed eyes while the heat on her back went right into her, deeply . . . In the shelter of the cover but facing the world he whispered in her ear and she moaned her replies, both oblivious to anything else but another victory in sight so soon. So very soon.
Well Sheltered Garden
Thankfully, Holly reflected, Elizabeth was a quick study and had nearly caught up all the accounts. Thankfully, because as the days drew closer to the big event, more and longer interruptions occurred. The latest one that had her escaping back to her room was a prolonged presentation by Mrs Reynolds of the necessary furniture rearrangement in the main hall to accommodate the entertainment of the visiting masses.
With Elizabeth immersed in household affairs the entire afternoon, Holly was forced to occupy herself. After strolling around the great hall and several smaller public rooms, she began to feel rather bored. And neglected. Her husband had disappeared yet again, accompanying Mr Darcy on a tour to inspect the remote fences of the estate. It never ceased to amaze her the number of fences, ditches, walls, hedges, farmlands, riverbanks and the like that needed to be inspected on a seemingly endless rotation. She wondered if it was like that at Cumbermere as well, and she briefly wondered whether it would not be better for his lordship to be performing these duties on his own estate. This detour of theirs had been all very lovely, and yet, as much as she loved this time with Elizabeth, she was beginning to feel restless. As she watched her cousin learning her role and her place, the desire was growing within her to do the same, to be her own mistress. But then, his lordship was enjoying himself and they had promised to stay, and it was nearly the end of the month anyway. In the meantime, she was at loose ends and a long afternoon loomed ahead.
She decided to take advantage of her time alone by digging through her trunk for the bundle tucked away securely among her personal books and journals. Slowly unravelling the string, she unfolded the wrapping and pulled out the pile of unfinished sketches and half-tinted colour plates. Glancing quickly out the window, she saw nothing but white landscape—no sign of returning husbands—so she took out an incomplete drawing of the rocky outcroppings in the Cairngorm foothills. If she sat down and put her mind to it, she could be finished before he came back and he would never—
Instead, she stared at the drawing on the table and at the pencil in her hand uncertainly. Another glance toward the window, but even though she still saw only white, she abruptly shuffled the papers together and tied them up again. She hurriedly pushed them down into the trunk and tossed the pencil after it, slammed the lid down and then . . . she stood in an agitated posture, repeatedly smoothing the front of her skirts until her oddly trembling hands and rapid breath settled down. Shaking her head and turning her back on the trunk, Holly left the room again. A turn about the great hall would be nice, she thought as she clattered down the staircase; yes, activity was just what she needed.
The great hall, however, was bustling with activity and, with no sign of Elizabeth’s presence, Holly dared not
enter lest she interfere with the ongoing work or furniture moving. After standing indecisively in the doorway long enough to begin to feel conspicuous to the busy staff, Holly decided to visit the conservatory instead—she had been wanting to take a closer look at the extraordinary potted orange trees since Elizabeth had first shown her and she was fairly certain she remembered the way.
All certainty had failed her when, half an hour later, she was looking down a corridor she swore she had left behind her not so long ago. The long row of closed doors was identical to every other long row of closed doors in the house—the wallpaper and portraits from one to another were indistinguishable. She was relieved to hear the sounds of footsteps and voices, but when she turned to ask for help in finding her way, she was surprised to come face to face, not with a footman or maid, but with Mr Darcy himself, accompanied by his steward. If he was equally surprised to see her, he did not show it, but graciously pointed the way to the conservatory before excusing himself to attend to some business.
After taking two steps in the direction indicated by the master of the house, Holly suddenly realised that she was no longer interested in orange trees. If Mr Darcy was in, so, presumably, was her husband. She whirled around and marched back toward more familiar parts. Perhaps if she was lucky, she would catch him as he was changing.
IF LADY BAUGHAM’S PRIDE IN her work produced mixed feelings, Mrs Darcy’s latest triumph in mastering her duties and successfully struggling through a sheet of orders for household fabrics, managing to neatly transfer all the numbers, amounts, types and quantities into the correct columns and without smudging a single line, was complete. Added to that was her pride in having anticipated Mrs Reynolds’ suggestions for the great hall and even squeezing an admission out of the old housekeeper that it was worth placing a few benches along the walls for the old and infirm contrary to the usual practice and—last but certainly not least—the assurances from her dressmaker that Harding, Howell, & Co’s grand Fashionable Magazine on Pall Mall had delivered the furs, including the large bear muff, Mrs Darcy had so condescendingly bespoke and the matching hat together with the trimmed pelisse would be delivered next week by special courier.