She laughed a little. “I can hardly see you as being proper.”
“It will be a strain,” he admitted. “It doesn’t come naturally to me, as it does to you.”
“Oh,” she said, shaking her head. “Being proper isn’t all that natural to me.”
“No?” He gave her a mischievous grin.
She couldn’t help a slightly impish grin of her own. “Wouldn’t you expect it of me?” she teased.
“Now, you know the answer to that, Miss Bennet. Near as I can tell, you are the soul of virtue, and I wouldn’t dream of your doing anything inappropriate.” But he was still smiling.
She arched an eyebrow. “Well, I can’t be quite sure what I’d do these days.”
“I suppose I’ve been a frightfully bad influence on you.” His voice lowered suggestively.
“Oh, frightfully,” she agreed, gazing at him through half-lidded eyes. She was flirting with him, she realized. And he, the wretch, was flirting back. She supposed she couldn’t expect anything better from a man like him, though. He had no scruples.
She tried to remind herself of how horrid he was. She thought of his kicking the headless bodies off the ship, but that didn’t work, because she was half grateful to him for having done that.
So, she thought of Mrs. Graham dying on his command, how he had nearly killed her himself, and she remembered that he was a monster.
It helped her to stop flirting. That evening anyway.
But she still thought of the kiss, especially at night when she was alone in bed, thought of the way her body tingled from the touch of his lips on hers. Thought of his mouth against hers, his body against hers, her fingers in his hair, on his face…
Oh.
She shouldn’t think these sorts of things.
And even though she knew he was a terrible man, she still looked forward to their meals together.
One evening, they talked again of England, of what would happen when they returned.
“You claimed that when you went back, you would be proper. So, what will you do?”
He sighed. “I suppose I shall have to engage in the whole dreadful to-do. Get married, sire heirs, host hunting parties at my estate.” He made a face.
“You wouldn’t like that?”
“I don’t care for hunting.”
“Or for siring heirs?”
He blushed.
She was surprised to see it. She had not thought Darcy capable of embarrassment.
“That’s not the sort of thing I should talk about over dinner with a woman like yourself,” he said in a gravelly voice.
She chuckled. “Oh, now you’re worried about being proper.”
He looked up at her, that same look he’d given her after kissing her. He looked troubled. Then he looked away, reaching for his drink. “What about you? What will you do when you return to England?”
It was her turn to make a face.
“I thought you were eager to return to England?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” she said. “It’s only that I shall be returning to nothing, really. I have failed at securing a husband, and so I shall spend time in the households of each of my sisters, until they grow sick of me, or I them. For the rest of my life, a burden on one family member or the other.” She looked at him. “This will have been the great adventure of my life, I suppose, and it is quite the adventure, when one really thinks about it. Most women my age never get anything like this.”
“Get?” He sat back in his chair. “Have a care, Miss Bennet. One might think you’re enjoying yourself whilst being held prisoner on a pirate ship.”
She raised her chin. “Perhaps I am enjoying myself.”
He smirked. “Well, that won’t do at all. You must keep that to yourself when you get back to England.”
“Yes, quite.” She sighed, thinking again of the life ahead of her.
“You know, I must say, you keep going on about this idea that you won’t find a husband, and I can’t say I understand why you’re so certain of it. I know you’ve had a bit of bad luck out in society, but that hardly means you’re on the shelf. You should stop having such dreary thoughts. I’m sure it will all come out right for you in the end.”
She set down her fork, now having lost the thread of amusement in the conversation entirely. “Why do you keep saying things like that?”
“Because there’s nothing wrong with you, that’s why, and I don’t like to see you so down on yourself.”
“I’m not down on myself,” she said. “I’m quite aware that there is nothing so very wrong with me. It’s bad luck is all, but I seem to have caught it. There are spinsters in the world, and someone has to become them. I’m the someone.”
“No, no,” he said. “Spinsters are women who are undesirable or ugly or poor or loud or have some sort of defect, and you… Well, you’re quite faultless.”
There was a lump in her throat. He had not just said that.
“I mean, of course,” he said, fiddling with the buttons on his jacket, “in an objective manner, were a man looking for a wife, he could not find fault with—” He broke off, and he seemed to be blushing again. “I think we had better find another topic of conversation,” he said into his plate.
“Yes,” she muttered.
But they didn’t speak of anything else at all, simply finished the meal in silence.
* * *
At first, she wouldn’t allow herself to think about why the conversation had bothered her so deeply. It would swim up to the forefront of her thoughts, and she would push it away, angry for some reason, and sure that if she probed the idea of it too hard, it would cause her all manner of pain.
Days passed, and she told herself that if she steadfastly refused to think of it, then she should eventually stop thinking of it all.
But it was hard to put it aside at night, when she was trying to sleep.
So, she began to get up and walk the ship in the middle of the night. When she grew completely exhausted, she would stumble back to her room, fall into her bed, and sleep immediately, with no time to think on any of it at all.
It was the fifth day of this practice when she could suppress the thoughts no more.
She was standing out on the deck in the darkness. It was late, and though some of the men were still awake, they gave her a wide berth when she walked at night, and none were close.
She could see the dark sky, the black waves, both reaching so far into the distance that she could not see the end of them.
And she whispered out into that vastness, “How dare he?”
How dare he say that she was faultless? How dare he backpedal and say that he was only speaking as if he was someone trying to find a wife?
When two sentences before, he had said that when he got back to England, he would have to look for a wife.
She was faultless, was she?
Oh, how dare he, how dare he?
Angry tears started to slide down her cheeks. He couldn’t know what it had been like for her, all those years, waiting and waiting for some man to show interest in her, watching her future disappear into nothing. And then to glibly say that she would find a husband, when he himself would be looking for a wife and when she was supposedly faultless?
“Well, I wouldn’t want to marry him anyway,” she whispered into the darkness.
And she wouldn’t. She hated him. He was violent and crude and horrid. He was a murderer and liar and a cheat. She hated everything about him and being married to him would be torment.
Which was why it made no sense that the thought bothered her so much, but it did.
It bothered her, because…
Well, there was the kiss, for one thing. That lovely kiss that had undone something within her, made her feel things she had never felt before, made her loose and weak and…
And there was the fact that they got on well. They shared dinner every evening, and they always had pleasant conversation. And wouldn’t a husband and wife do the same thing?
Plus
, there was the matter of his looks—his dark eyes and his sturdy-looking arms. His forearms were so… wide, and she found them altogether pleasing, really quite lovely, in fact. She could spend all day looking at them, and she remembered the times that he had encircled her in his arms, and she had felt all of his strength…
He had protected her. He had killed for her. He had kissed her.
Seeing him was the best part of every single day.
“How dare he?” she said again to the sky, and this time, she wasn’t whispering.
At once, she turned away from the railing and stalked across the deck. She went down the steps to the next level down, stalked over to the other stairs and went down those until she was down in the belly of the ship.
She headed as if she were going back to her own room, but she didn’t go there.
Instead, she went to his cabin.
She expected the door to be locked. She knew he was in there, because she could see a light coming out from around the door.
She tried the handle, expecting it to rattle in her hands, for her entry to be barred.
But it gave against her, and the door opened.
He looked up in surprise. He was sitting on his cushions, his opium pipe in one hand. He appeared to be cleaning it. He raised his eyebrows. “Something I can do for you, Miss Bennet?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
CHAPTER SEVEN
She was standing in his doorway, her hair in a messy braid, her eyes glowing like embers. She looked angry.
“Miss Bennet?” He carefully set down his pipe and stood up. “Has something happened? Has someone hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No, nothing like that.”
“Well, then, what are you doing here?”
“I wanted…” She looked about her, as if suddenly bereft, as if the reason she had come had fled from her. “I wanted company.”
“It’s nearly midnight,” he said.
“And what of that? I attended parties and balls that often went into the wee hours of the morning. Midnight is early compared to all of that.”
He nodded slowly. “True enough. But I was preparing to smoke opium.”
“All right,” she said. She shut the door behind her and came over to sit in one of the chairs around his table.
He didn’t particularly want to smoke in front of her, and he wasn’t about to give up smoking just because she had gotten some ridiculous idea in her head to come and see him. He would have to get rid of her.
“If you stay,” he said, “you’ll have to smoke as well.”
She squared her shoulders. “All right.”
All right? Was she mad? He raised his eyebrows at her.
“It’s as I was saying. This is my one and only adventure, and I want to enjoy it as best as I can,” she said. “I want to do everything that I have a chance to do.”
He considered. He supposed she could do it if she wanted to. He hadn’t been serious when he offered, thinking she would be scandalized by the idea, but now that he had proposed it, and she had accepted, he could feel himself warming to the idea. It would be a nice thing to show her what it was like, almost as if he was initiating someone into a secret society. And there was no way she wouldn’t enjoy it. It was wonderful. “If you’re going to do it, you must come here.”
She took a shaky breath. “All right,” she said again, and she stood up.
“If you don’t want to do it—”
“I want to.” She crossed the room to him.
He helped her sit down on the cushions, and he sat down next to her. “You’ve never done this before, have you?”
She shook her head. “Of course not.”
“Well, we will want to go quite slowly. You should not smoke as much as me. Just a little bit.”
She licked her lips.
He smiled at her. “You’re very brave, Miss Bennet.”
“Glad you didn’t kill me after all?” She shot him a defiant glance.
Why would she bring that up now? “You know,” he said quietly, “I am sorry that you got entangled in all of this.”
Now, she looked away.
“I am not…” He sighed. “I am not as bad a man as you imagine me to be, I don’t think.”
Now, she met his gaze again, a challenge. “You don’t know if you’re bad?”
“I don’t know how bad you imagine me.”
“Quite bad.”
“The worst?”
She shook her head. “Not the worst, no.”
“But quite bad even so?”
She nodded. “And yet—” She stopped.
“And yet what?”
She shook her head.
“Do you think me a bad man for allowing you to try this?” He picked up the pipe. “Because you shouldn’t. There is nothing bad about this. This is… pure bliss. You will enjoy it.”
Her upper teeth sank into her lower lip.
He thought of kissing her. He thought of that bare breast, that puckered nipple. He swallowed. He was going to have to keep himself in check, because if she smoked this opium, she would be highly suggestible, and he would have to keep himself from taking advantage of that. He would smoke too, but he wouldn’t smoke nearly as much as he might normally. He needed to keep a bit of his wits about him.
He gestured to the pipe. “I’ll get this started for us. You must… lie back.” He showed her.
She reclined onto the cushions.
He saw to the lamp, adjusting the flame a bit, getting it just so. And then he reclined next to her, so that their heads were together.
Carefully, he held the pipe into the flame, heating the ball of opium in the pipe.
He sucked in the sweet smoke and shut his eyes.
It was quiet except for the sound of her breath.
He opened his eyes and looked at her. After just one pull from the pipe, she suddenly seemed impossibly lovely, like a goddess next to him. He gave her a languid smile. “It’s going well now. You must be careful when you breathe it in.” He handed her the pipe.
She sucked.
Sputtered.
Coughed.
He laughed, taking the pipe back. “Not like that, Miss Bennet.” He demonstrated. “Slow and steady. Try again.” He gave it back to her.
Her eyes were watering, but she took in a lungful of smoke.
“Perfect,” he murmured. He took the pipe back and took a little more for himself. Ah, everything was starting to feel better now. Everything seemed brighter and warmer and sweeter. “Everything is going to be perfect. You’ll see.”
* * *
A feeling of nausea stole over Elizabeth, and she tried to fight it, but she couldn’t.
It was on her, imperative. She must—
She turned over, retching and heaving, endeavoring to bring up all of her supper.
“Oh,” whispered Darcy from behind her. “That sometimes happens at first.”
The warmth of his hand on her back, soothing.
She retched again.
“Shh,” he whispered. “You won’t actually vomit. It only feels as if you will. Don’t fight. Surrender, and it will go away.” He rubbed her back in slow circles.
She felt awful, and she was sure that she indeed was going to vomit. She retched several more times, hotly embarrassed.
But then… it began to ebb, the sensation, and it was swallowed up in soft wondrousness.
She lay back on the cushions, feeling as if she was floating on a cloud. “Oh,” she whispered.
He laughed, a long, slow deep sound of enjoyment. “Better?”
“Much,” she breathed. She looked over at him.
He was gazing at her through half-open eyes, looking pleased and relaxed. “You see? It’s nice.”
She nodded. “It is. It’s quite, quite…” Unable to stop herself, she suddenly reached out for him. She ran her fingertips over his cheek, his jaw. She felt the prickles of his stubble, and that sensation was interesting
to her. She left her hand there, rubbing her fingers back and forth.
He caught her hand.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured but didn’t move her hand.
“No,” he said. “I like it. Don’t stop.”
So, she didn’t. She shut her eyes, collapsed into the cushions, and touched him, letting her questing fingers travel down his neck and under his shirt and over his shoulder to the bulge of his thick arm. She loved the way he felt. His skin was hot and smooth. This close to him, she could smell him, and he smelled like a mix of opium smoke and sweet sweat.
He let out a soft sigh. “Ah, Miss Bennet.”
And she didn’t stop. She wasn’t sure how long it went on, because she felt as if she got a bit lost behind her eyelids, where everything was tunneling into itself, patterns dancings behind her lids in time to the flickering light of the lamp. It seemed to go on and on, and she was sinking deeper and deeper into a place of such goodness. It was nice here, and she had never felt anything so amazing in her entire life.
Then his fingers grazed her cheek, and her eyes fluttered open.
It was explosive, his hand on her. It tingled and glowed. “Captain,” she breathed, finally calling him what he wished her to say.
“Call me Fitzwilliam.” His voice rumbled.
“Fitzwilliam,” she repeated. And kissed him.
She didn’t have any intention of doing it, no foreknowledge of the act. Before she knew what was happening, she was doing it, putting her lips on his, and then letting her tongue dart brazenly into his mouth.
He groaned, but he didn’t break the kiss. He deepened it.
She let her hands move higher, sinking them into his hair as she had wanted to, and she felt as if she were tunneling into him, or that he was tunneling into her, and inside each other, everything was a wonderful world of lights and sounds and sweet goodness.
He moved, pressing his body against hers, half-covering her with one leg.
Mmm, she liked that. She wriggled to get closer, wanting every bit of him against her, wanting to feel what it would like to be buried under him.
He obliged, so that now he was over her, his arms over hers, his shoulders over hers. His hips cradled in her hips.
The Dread Mr. Darcy Page 7