“I would be honoured, Mrs. Collins,” Darcy whispered.
Elizabeth understood the look in Darcy’s eye. “It is not what you think, sir! Charlotte’s parents are alarmed that she has overset her mourning, and they would challenge the reading of the banns. They believe she should wait six months complete. And to think they were so quick to marry her off to Mr. Collins! Now she will make a much better connection, yet they demand she wait. The colonel has acquired a special license, and they are to be married early in the morning on the same day as we are.”
“How is it to be managed?” Darcy asked.
“I shall take one more walk to settle my nerves, and you will take an early ride, as you so often do,” Elizabeth replied.
Darcy chuckled. “You plan to be nervous?”
“Oh, indeed,” Elizabeth said with a low giggle.
Darcy laughed aloud. “Well! It seems all is in order, then!”
Monday, 8 June 1812
the path to Therfield Heath
All plans were in readiness, all gowns and other trousseau items had arrived, and Mrs. Bennet was growing tired of having so much family underfoot. Mr. Bennet had said nothing to her for a fortnight excepting, “No lace, Mrs. Bennet! I shall hear no more about lace!” But he winked at Elizabeth each time he said it.
Jane had gone to Netherfield to await the arrival of Bingley’s sisters, leaving Elizabeth idle and fidgety, much to Mrs. Bennet’s annoyance. “Lizzy! Have pity on my poor nerves and take yourself for a walk. You are a wretched creature when you are bored. Perhaps one last circuit of Oakham Mount?”
Elizabeth welcomed the idea. She had not been long on her way when Mr. Darcy called for her at Longbourn, as he had not felt obliged to await Bingley’s family. Mrs. Bennet explained where Elizabeth had gone, and Darcy was quickly after her.
As he was on horseback, it was but a few moments before Darcy found her. He could see by her determined stride that Elizabeth was exorcising her “wedding demons,” as she called them. She turned at the sound of hooves and smiled with open delight.
“Mr. Darcy! Will you join me, sir?”
He slid from his horse, and before she knew what she was about, she was in his arms and being kissed in a most pleasantly ardent manner. “Oh! Oh, my!”
“Mmm…” Darcy made his usual sound of approbation before exercising due restraint. “Promise me you will always allow me to greet you thus?” His chest, amongst other things, swelled to know his kisses left her gasping for breath.
“When we are alone, most assuredly,” she chuckled.
Darcy took the reins of his horse in one hand and Elizabeth’s gloved hand in the other, and began walking down a different path. “We cannot go to Oakham Mount.”
“No?”
Darcy gave her a sidelong glance. “My cousin is taking Mrs. Collins there.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“Ah. Well, no then.” Elizabeth shook her head knowingly.
“Is there another pretty place you would see once more before I steal you away to London and then northward for a very long time?”
They walked quietly for a moment before Elizabeth brightened. “I know. I must visit Therfield Heath. We have missed the pasqueflowers in their abundance, but the heath is always covered with some manner of flowers. Perhaps we might go as far as Church Hill.”
“Ideal.”
It was a pleasant but lengthy stroll, during which Elizabeth was rather quiet. When they reached the heath, she led Darcy to several places where the prospect up the slopes was very fine.
“This is a beautiful place, Elizabeth, the loveliest you have brought me to yet.”
She looked up at him with some question in her eyes. “Mr. Darcy…”
He tilted his head, curious about what she was going to say.
“Do you think…is it possible…”
“Hmm…?”
He dropped the reins of the horse and was now holding her face between his hands. Even though he had not removed his gloves, she found it difficult to remember her point. “Do you suppose your cousin and Charlotte have…?”
“Have?” Darcy fought appearing too amused. It had crossed his mind that, having already been married, Mrs. Collins would not be overly strict in waiting for her wedding. The colonel had intimated certain liberties were allowed, but despite the prior experience of both parties, they were still, by any definition, chaste.
Elizabeth sighed impatiently. “Come, sir, you know my meaning perfectly well. You do delight in luring me to say something daring.”
Darcy chuckled but did not admit the truth of her observation. He did find titillation in seeing her innocent lips form words of passion. Since his ploy had failed this time, he settled for stealing a light kiss.
“Would you prefer to be doing something daring?” His voice had grown husky. They wandered into a copse of large shrubs, and the near privacy made him bold. He removed his gloves into his pockets.
“Mr. Darcy,” she scolded. Still, she did not pull away when he held her again.
Darcy accepted her remonstrance as pro forma. He kissed her more thoroughly and allowed his hands to slide down her hair to her neck. She moaned when he pulled away, and there was nothing to be done but kiss her again. He knew he was allowing himself more arousal than he should, but her gloved hands were around his waist under his coats. If she was not ready to release him, what was he to do but continue? He knew she would stop him, and if she did not, he would stop himself…eventually.
But as it was, he opened his eyes and searched for the little mole on her collarbone. The dappled light of a greying afternoon made it a challenge, but at last, he touched it with his finger, gently rubbing a little repeated circle.
“I saw this little spot the other evening. It has rather obsessed me, the longing to touch it,” he confessed.
The air had grown heavy, for the morning was warm. Elizabeth felt constricted as Darcy kissed her, as if her chest could not expand to breathe. She longed to open her spencer but feared he would see it as a willingness she did not intend. Or do I?
Darcy’s kisses could not distract his finger from finding and minutely caressing the spot Jane called her sister’s “beauty mark.” Elizabeth was nearly mad with her body’s response. She removed one hand from Darcy’s warm waistcoat, and pulled away just enough to release the top frog closure of her spencer.
His kiss moved from her mouth to the corner of her jaw, and finally he nipped her earlobe. She shivered, and without a thought, placed her hand over his enticing finger, flattened his palm, and moved his hand over her left breast inside her spencer.
“Can you feel my heart?” she murmured.
“Elizabeth. Dearest Elizabeth.” Darcy started to lift his hand. There was nothing he longed for more than to bare her skin, but he must not let things go so far as that.
“Please, oh please. This once. Do not stop.” Elizabeth pressed his hand back to her breast, and he clasped her in a firmer caress. How could he not feel the pounding? It will burst from my chest.
There was a flash of lightning, followed almost instantly by thunder. Elizabeth heard the scream of the horse, and felt its front hooves stamping the ground before it bolted.
“Damn it!” Darcy cried.
They pulled apart. “I’ll follow it; you go that way,” Darcy ordered, indicating the opposite direction.
“What is its name?”
“Withers.”
She choked back a laugh. “That is its name? It is named after a part of itself?”
Darcy shrugged. “Bingley…need I say more? He had a gelding named Fetlock when we met.”
Darcy ran out of the copse as more thunder and lightning announced the heavy rain that began to fall a few moments later. He cursed aloud, and suggested to his God that the stable master at Netherfield be gelded too. Perh
aps the horse would run itself into a wide circle and return. Darcy turned back to the copse, and in a moment, the horse reappeared.
“I should not have let her go,” he muttered. He tied the horse to a branch and went to the edge of the copse in the direction Elizabeth had run. He could see her on the heath, hair falling in heavy locks, calling for the horse.
“Elizabeth!” He shouted and waved. At last, she saw him and began to return. He ran to her and covered her with his greatcoat. “Elizabeth, are you well?”
She did not speak but nodded emphatically.
“You are drenched, and we have come a long way. Let me sit you on the horse, and we shall ride back.”
“Together?”
“That is the fastest way, and you must not become chilled.”
Elizabeth said nothing more, and she made no resistance when he stood her near the horse with his hands upon her waist, bidding her to jump as he lifted her. He settled her sideways upon the saddle, and swung himself up to sit astride behind her. After adjusting the greatcoat to cover them both as best he could, he urged the horse to a canter. To go any faster was impossible.
She sat in his warm embrace feeling utterly bereft. Now he knew. He was marrying a wanton. She had lost herself to sensation. How she had ached for him. In truth, his hand over her heart had offered her feelings little release. She wanted more touching, more kisses, more untoward whispers in her ears. Elizabeth thought he would not notice her tears in the rain, forgetting he could feel her sobs against his chest.
He held her tighter. “I love you.” He had to shout it over the rain.
He is being polite. I have invoked his honour. How could he say otherwise? I do wish he would reproach me and be done with it.
She said no more even when they rode into the paddock at Longbourn. Her mother and Mrs. Gardiner had been watching for them, and they came outside to assist Mr. Darcy.
Mrs. Bennet saw the look of apology from her daughter to Darcy, the fallen hair, the unclasped spencer. She gave a little snort under her breath.
“Elizabeth! Are you well?” he asked as Elizabeth was led inside.
“She will be, Mr. Darcy, she will be,” Mrs. Bennet said with a knowing glare as the door closed to Longbourn.
Tuesday, 9 June 1812
Longbourn and Netherfield Park
The day before the wedding began uneventfully enough until Mrs. Bennet took it into her head to perform an inventory of Jane and Elizabeth’s wedding clothes. Much of Elizabeth’s clothing had been sent on to London or directly to Pemberley, as she would only stay in London for little more than a se’nnight.
In Jane’s case, Mrs. Bennet had sent Jane’s older clothing to Netherfield but kept the new garments under her roof. She did not quite trust Bingley’s sisters—who were not so pleasing in their manners now that Jane was to supersede them in Bingley’s household—not to take an unhealthy interest in Jane’s trousseau. Mrs. Bennet was also uncertain of the loyalty of the Netherfield servants to their new mistress. She was wholly unaware of how thoroughly the amiable and unassuming Miss Bennet would be welcomed by the staff as Mrs. Bingley.
Had Mrs. Bennet considered the previous three and twenty years of Jane’s life, she would have realised the real danger to any wedding finery lay within Longbourn’s walls. Thus, by noon, the house was in an uproar over missing shoe roses.
“Lizzy!” Lydia burst into Elizabeth’s room with a stage whisper. “Please! You are so good at hiding things. Put these away for me.” Lydia imposed a pair of shoe roses of the finest, creamiest kid leather into her sister’s hands.
Elizabeth stood, thrusting them back into Lydia’s possession. “I shall do no such thing, and you will return them to Jane immediately.” Although Lizzy was shorter than Lydia, she was a little hardier, and she turned her youngest sister by the arm.
Lydia stomped her foot. “I shall not! Why are you and Jane to have all the pretty new things? It is not fair!”
“Lydia!” Mrs. Bennet had heard the girls quarrelling and swooped into the room. “What has fairness to do with it? You have made Jane cry! When you are betrothed to a man worth five or even ten thousand a year”—Mrs. Bennet beamed at Elizabeth before landing a stern eye upon her youngest daughter—“you will have all the shoe roses you want. But until that time, you will stand by me and learn from the example Jane and Lizzy are setting for you.”
Mrs. Bennet then took Lydia by the ear and dragged her away, squalling that she must apologise to Jane with Lydia loudly adamant that she would not. Lizzy sighed. The noise continued for an hour.
At Netherfield, the atmosphere was much the same. Caroline Bingley treated Darcy with as much deference as ever. It was to her brother that she applied to halt the proceedings.
“Caroline, have you taken leave of your senses?” Bingley cringed. They stood in the library, and she had just made the most ludicrous request she had ever expressed. “I shall not cancel my wedding to Jane Bennet. Why do you not apply to Darcy to halt his wedding to Miss Elizabeth? You needn’t answer, I know why. Either he would laugh at you with that particularly derisive tone he sometimes has or he would be so provoked as to cut you forever. Do you think me so easily persuaded as to act against my own interests?”
“Charles, I would not attempt to persuade Mr. Darcy of anything if he is foolish enough to marry that little hussy. But your marrying her sister means I shall be constantly thrown into her company. Will you not spare me this torture?”
“No! I should have you fitted for Bedlam!”
Caroline followed her brother out of the library. She had not seen Darcy seated in a chair facing the window. The argument continued in the hallway, raising and lowering in vehemence until Bingley concluded he would send her to London immediately. Caroline burst into angry tears and said she would not go.
“How will that look, to be sent away from my brother’s wedding?”
“How will it look for me to jilt Jane Bennet? You are lost to reason, Caroline. You must leave at once.”
Darcy heard the whole of it and had a glass of brandy poured for his friend when Bingley strode back into the library after calling for his sister’s carriage to be readied.
“I must make a confession to you, Bingley.” He watched as his friend drained his portion in nearly one go. “When I so mistakenly warned you away from Miss Bennet, it was in part because of her family’s want of propriety and connections. After your sister’s exhibition, and having met the estimable Gardiner family, I see that I should have directed my warning to Miss Bennet, not you!”
Bingley laughed. “I appreciate your forbearance, Darcy. I believe the party for Miss Elizabeth’s birthday was one of the most pleasant evenings I have ever spent in town. Did you notice the fond look she bestowed upon you when Mrs. Gardiner asked the nurse to remove the children and you would not hear of it?”
Darcy’s countenance warmed into a smile. “No, I did not.” His mooncalf expression changed to a tease. “Bingley, as my friend and future brother, I expect you to alert me to any example of Elizabeth’s affection I might perchance overlook.”
“And I shall expect nothing less than the same service from you, although we know you are not so successful at reading my betrothed as I am at knowing yours.”
The exchange quickly deteriorated into a cheerful squabble over which friend could more accurately sketch the character of the other’s bride-to-be. It was nearly agreed they were both rather poor at it when Darcy revealed that the letter Bingley had seen Elizabeth hiding was from none other than himself!
“Now Darcy…how was I to know that?”
“True enough. To this extent you were correct: she was lovelorn, but she was pining for me!” Darcy puffed out his chest with pride.
Bingley laughed at him. “And thus Miss Elizabeth is shown to be less sensible than I thought!”
Their amiable d
ispute continued from there.
It was half an hour after dawn when Darcy saw Elizabeth from a distance, stealing into the church in Longbourn village. They had not spoken alone the day before, and he had grown agitated in the night that she might be cross with him for the debacle on Therfield Heath.
They stood together at the altar, equally nervous. Elizabeth was wearing a cape Darcy recognised as belonging to Jane, and she held it closed. Her hair was pinned to the back of her head in simple loops.
The vicar, whom Elizabeth had known all of her life, cleared his throat as he entered from the rectory door. “Miss Bennet, Mr. Darcy! Perhaps you might wish to marry now and save yourselves the effort of formal dress?”
Elizabeth blushed. “I am wearing my wedding gown under this cape.”
Darcy laughed. “Alas then, for I have not brought the license.”
“I have a license, but you may not have it!” Colonel Fitzwilliam entered wearing his dress uniform, ablaze in red with gold braid.
The foursome gathered in wait for Charlotte, and they were just beginning to grow uneasy when she peeked into the church.
Darcy and Elizabeth listened solemnly to the very words they would exchange later in the morning. After witnessing the wedding vows of Colonel Alexander Richard Fitzwilliam and Mrs. Charlotte Collins, they both felt much more at ease with making the same statements to each other. Elizabeth smiled sweetly into Darcy’s eyes as she handed him the pen after signing the registry. His fingers touched hers and Darcy smiled in return.
“Now? Or shall we wait?” Darcy asked with a chuckle.
Elizabeth took his arm and turned him for the door. “You must wait, sir. Three more hours is not so very long, and I must have my hair seen to.” She squeezed his arm before releasing him and hurried away on the footpath to the manor house.
Darcy saw the flash of eau-de-nil silk under the cape as she went.
A Will of Iron Page 23