Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites

by Linda Berdoll

  Thus, its occupants were unaware of their own imminent arrival. Hence, when the carriage drew to a stop, there was an uncomfortable pause before the door opened. Had anyone counted, one hundred and sixty-eight people assembled upon the curved drive of the house in reverent anticipation of meeting their new mistress, thus reasoning the vacant countryside. A slight murmur began to arise from the throng when they heard scuffling sounds and what might have been an embarrassed giggle from within the coach, but they silenced when Mr. and Mrs. Darcy emerged.

  Mr. Darcy stepped out first, his bearing noble and appropriately proud. With no more than a glance from the master, the footman stepped back, allowing her husband to hand Mrs. Darcy down, her cheeks blazing. As she took her first step upon Pemberley soil as its mistress, an ovation erupted.

  Nervously tightening the chin ribbon of her bonnet, she, for the briefest moment, looked heavenward. (She had been cavorting quite lasciviously in the coach upon their lands with their heir and namesake, hence, this may have been a silent prayer that no lightening bolt would strike her down at the behest of Darcy’s forebears. One can only conjecture.)

  Mr. Darcy, however, appeared to have no such qualms and took her arm.

  Clinging dearly to him, Elizabeth looked at the twenty steps she must conquer to reach the door to the house. She took a deep breath and was certain she waddled like a duck with every one she took, impeaching the very propriety of her position and betraying what she had just been a party to in the coach. If she believed there was a lack of stateliness to her carriage, her husband thought better, proudly introducing each of the house servants to her by name. Three little girls were urged forward, presenting freshly scrubbed faces rosier than the flowers they shyly held forth.

  The family awaited at the top of the steps. Miss Georgiana Darcy’s eyes were bright with excitement, her hands nervously wringing a handkerchief. Next to her, Elizabeth espied the congenial face of Colonel Fitzwilliam. To his left stood one who could only be Fitzwilliam’s older brother James, now the Earl of Matlock since their father’s death. The brothers favoured each other considerably, the elder a slightly stouter version of his younger brother. Inside and out of the draft stood frail Lady Matlock, wobbly upon a cane and steadied by James’ wife Eugenia. (The willful old woman announced she was determined to greet her nephew’s wife standing.)

  Those introductions compleat, more servants appeared. Elizabeth had thought everyone upon Pemberley must have stood outside upon the lawn, but it was not so. Her previous visit to the place had told her servitors abounded, but although a guest to the great house found great hospitality, it was nothing to the solicitations she now received as Mrs. Darcy.

  It seemed there was a separate maid to tend to each of her ten fingertips. Her cape, each glove, and her bonnet were each plucked by a separate attendant. Her coach-wear was removed with such dispatch, had her eyes been closed, she would not have known anyone was there. It was a ritual to which her husband seemed quite accustomed, for a separate contingent of servants relieved him of his hat, gloves, walking stick, and overcoat as smoothly and precisely as had it been a well-rehearsed ballet.

  Pleading weariness from the trip, they took their leave directly. As they ascended the staircase rather grandly, Elizabeth looked back over her shoulder in renewed admiration of the tasteful elegance of décor. It was not dressed with useless finery, but with furniture and paintings accumulated by the family for not just generations, but centuries. Her trepidation upon assuming the considerable responsibility and obligation of her position very nearly made her quake. Therefore, as she took the stairs, she endeavoured to call upon enough gumption to ward off such relentless intimidation.

  Suddenly, the punctiliousness of the entire homecoming was irredeemably ruptured by a raucous scrambling of feet and claws punctuated by loud yelping whines and originating from huge, hairy beasts that scrambled headlong down the corridor in their direction. So intent were the enormous Irish wolfhounds on greeting their long-absent master, they had no qualms about going around, over, or possibly through his new bride to reach him.

  Darcy simultaneously reached out to rescue Elizabeth (who had spun a revolution and a half) from tumbling back down the stairs and commanded the dogs, “Behave!”

  Dizzied as she was, it took a moment to determine that it was not she, but the dogs that had incited his rebuke. When she recalled the moment, she would be ever grateful that she did not actually break her neck within the first quarter-hour of their arrival.

  He held her close, but continued to scold the dogs, perhaps venting his fright for her upon them. She, however, pleaded their cause.

  “Oh Darcy, they are simply happy to see you!”

  With profuse apologies, the dogs’ handler rushed up to retrieve their leashes. Mr. Darcy waved him away with a small aristocratic wave of his hand. It was one that Elizabeth was beginning to recognise as astutely as did the servants. With the dogs upon their heels, he showed Elizabeth into what was to be their bedchamber. Yet in a pother, both dogs proceeded upon a wild circle of the room, each provoking the other as if exacting a hunt of some undisclosed quarry. One dog (it was difficult to determine which) bounded across the silk counterpane, requiring Darcy to demand “Heel!” to still them. Evidently of the persuasion that it was best to desist before they were ejected, they dropped at his feet, tails whapping the floor.

  Elizabeth knelt to pet them. (It was a treat, for her mother never allowed dogs inside Longbourn.) Once they were still, she could determine that one was grey, the other brindle. They kept their heads low, but their tongues sneaked out to lick her hand.

  “What are their names?”

  Somewhat abashedly, he answered, “Troilus and Cressida.”

  “Truly?”

  “Yes. ’Tis true. My father sent them to me as pups my second year at Cambridge. I was seriously interested in literature and suffered the resultant melancholia. Homesick for Pemberley, I suppose. My father sent them to cheer me.”

  “You named them for such a tragedy? I cannot imagine you the victim of dolour,” she teased.

  Quite seriously, he said, “Then you have no idea what torture you once inflicted upon me.”

  Obviously still mortified by the experience, he hastened to change the subject by doffing his jacket and vest and commencing to wrestle with his cravat. The imminent exposure of his neck reminded her of the connubial bliss consummated in the privacy of his coach. Her blush was more from the pleasure of that indiscretion than that it was, indeed, an indiscretion.

  She said, “I fancy you know your credibility as a gentleman has been severely challenged.”

  “Pray, how so?”

  “Be not so innocent of countenance. I was not the initiate of what occurred in the carriage.”

  “What occurred, Lizzy?”

  Not for a moment did she believe he knew not of what she spoke. It amused her that he wanted to hear her say it.

  “The yielding of favours.”

  Stifling a laugh, he let her euphemism pass. “Cannot a man be at once a gentleman and husband too?”

  “Indeed. But upon a public road?”

  “’Twas a private road for the last ten miles,” he assured her. “A private carriage upon a private road.”

  With that, he playfully picked her up and tossed her upon the bed and added, “Such as this is a private room, this a private bed.”

  The dogs plopped down upon the rug as decidedly as did their master upon the bed, but the dogs sat looking good-humouredly askance for what would next come to pass. What next came to pass was his hand sliding up her leg above her stocking and a caressing of her thigh. And that made it impossible for her remember that she was going to tell him about the day she first visited Pemberley and saw his portrait. Had she not been so pleasantly and thoroughly diverted, she would have told him she thought that was when she first fell in love with him. It was from his portrait.

  Indeed, that previous spring when Elizabeth Bennet had done the unthinkable by refus
ing Mr. Darcy’s proposal of marriage, it was a surprise there was not an audible and collective gasp from his ancestors.

  For, not only had she, the daughter of a modest country gentleman, refused the hand of one of the richest men in England, she refused him emphatically and with little civility. If his vanity was injured, at that time she cared little. There was considerable conceit to wound. Indeed, his vainglory was the basis for her entire refusal. And because of his egregious faults, it was likely she would have spent her life in self-satisfied spinsterhood had not she taken a fortuitous summer tour of the north-country with her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner. There, she had bechanced upon the said same haughty Mr. Darcy once again. At one time thought irredeemably proud and disagreeable, his demeanour at this meeting was vastly improved. His love had not wavered; hers blossomed.

  It had been a chance encounter. Now she had returned as Elizabeth Bennet Darcy, Mistress of Pemberley by reason of a chance encounter. If his precedents smiled down upon their union, Elizabeth had yet to see them.

  As anxious as the Master of Pemberley was upon christening the marital bed with the Mistress of Pemberley, little intimacy could be initiated (or rather culminated). For the house was in an excited uproar, trunks hauled thither, the servants bustling about. All this commotion excited the dogs and they barked at every opportunity.

  At the first knock upon their door, Elizabeth leapt self-consciously to her feet. It was her fervent wish that the servants not see her upon her back with their master so precipitous of their arrival. Darcy’s reputation within the house had been cemented over a period of almost three decades. It was imperative to Elizabeth that licentious conduct not censure hers forthwith of her introduction.

  She stood in resolute piety as the servants went about their chores. Darcy still lay languidly upon the bed. His tie was undone, his neck all but naked. Hence, Elizabeth’s own libido corrupted her good intentions. She weathered such blatant seduction, however, and dutifully looked away, then busied herself with a turn about the room. In her intense need not to look at her husband’s throat, she scrupulously admired the room’s adornments, but was drawn to a miniature atop one chest. It looked very much like her.

  “Darcy,” she asked, “Pray, whose likeness is this?”

  “’Tis you.”

  Confused, she said, “But I have not sat for a likeness.”

  “Indeed, you have not. It was done from my memory six months ago.”

  “But we were not even engaged six months ago.”

  “No,” he said quietly.

  The intensity of his gaze just then discomfited her. Her hands, quite of their own volition, set to straightening and smoothing her frock. Perhaps it was the unconscious need for reassurance that she was not standing before him naked, for she suddenly felt compleatly exposed. It was an odd sensation, not truly unwelcome, just unsettling.

  A maid returned to the room announcing that Elizabeth’s bath was drawn. Upon this occasion, she did bathe, the dust from their trip quite evident. Was that not an impetus, she would have bathed regardless. For she was now quite certain her body’s respite from her husband’s scent would be fleeting.

  They were not yet engaged when Darcy happened upon that studio in Pall Mall. The throes of unrequited and all-consuming love had driven him to invent business upon which to attend just to keep insanity at bay. He had only been passing by when he found himself outside the house where Gainsborough once worked. The old painter was long-dead and Darcy had no notion of who, if anyone, still laboured within. It was an impulse to find his way ’round back and enter through a low door. The entire episode was quite rash.

  A lone painter was at work. As he sat crouched in concentration at a small table delicately applying paint to a tiny piece of ivory, Darcy was able to poke about the place unnoticed. While the studio itself bore no particular distinction, a large assemblage of oils leaned against the wall at one end. Most were badly done discards. A few showed promise, but apparently were abandoned. Among those, one in particular caught his eye. Indeed, so struck was he that he very nearly gasped.

  It was not signed, but as he owned several works of the artist, Darcy was quite certain that it was done by Gainsborough himself. However, it was one quite unlike that painter’s usual aristocratic portraits and bucolic landscapes.

  It was of a wood-nymph. A beautiful nymph, immodestly draped, sitting by a lake. It was not the brushwork that took his notice, but that the nymph bore such a startling resemblance to the form in which Miss Elizabeth Bennet visited his dreams each night. So striking was the resemblance to his unbridled vision, for a moment he could not breathe.

  He did not favour the allegorical; indeed, he despised romanticism in art. Was his heart not quite so wounded, undoubtedly he would not have been taken with the desire to purchase it on the spot.

  Better judgement prevailed.

  However, if propriety did not allow him to hang a six-foot canvas of Elizabeth’s naked twin upon the wall of the Pemberley library, he would do the second-best thing. He strode over to the artist, who only then realized a personage of import had graced his studio and rose in obeisance. With fifty sovereigns, the portrait of the nymph before him, and explicit instructions from the gentleman, the artist achieved a cunning likeness, but one of abbreviated pose and tiny in size. The painter thought the gentleman quite pleased.

  When Darcy returned to retrieve the compleated miniature, he purchased that great canvas also bearing likeness to his beloved, for he could not bear another to look upon what he dreamed of each night. However, he took it not to Pemberley. He had it encased in a wooden crate and transported to the farthest reaches of his London home. There it sat, yet untouched this half-year later.

  But as he now had enjoyed the quite singular pleasure of his wife’s true form revealed to him, he knew he would have that wood-nymph returned to Pall Mall. At one time he had thought it quite impossible, but he now understood how truly inadequate the vision cast by his mind’s eye had been.

  As dinner hour approached, Mr. and Mrs. Darcy descended the stairs much in the same grand manner as they had taken them hours before. They conversed with their company before the meal was called, Darcy’s closest relatives’ opinion of his new wife obviously not polluted by his aunt, Lady Catherine. Colonel Fitzwilliam had once announced to Elizabeth he thought his aunt a bore, not in so many words, but he said it all the same. He paid respect to his aunt for she was his aunt, just as Darcy had done. Politic and kind, Fitzwilliam was thought of as a dashing-good fellow. Indeed, other than those of a gentleman, he appeared totally without airs.

  Fitzwilliam’s older brother was not as convivial, perhaps stricken with the importance of his lately acquired title. Lady Eugenia was less merry than anyone at the table, but in very conscientious attention every time her mother-in-law coughed. One might suppose this dedication fell to her extreme affection. Closer study would reveal it less filial regard than eager anticipation. The sooner the old woman lay toes up, the sooner she would be not only the wife of an earl, but also the Lady of the manor.

  It was obvious that Georgiana readily relinquished her position at the head of the Pemberley table to Elizabeth. At this moment, that it relieved Georgiana of her burden was the single inducement that Elizabeth saw in her own ascension to mistress. For Georgiana was timid. Counterpoint to her brother in every way but reserve, she was blonde and ethereal as Darcy was dark and intimidating.

  At the dinner table, Miss Darcy was content to be a listener, but in the drawing room, Elizabeth took every opportunity to coax her into conversation. However, Fitzwilliam repeatedly compromised her success. That gentleman was hasty to reclaim the easy friendship they had begun to form when they first met at Rosings Park. He talked to Elizabeth to the point of monopoly. Darcy played his part in this re-enactment of the previous April’s circumstance as well by glowering at Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth the entire time they conversed. So conspicuous was his disapproval, Elizabeth was quite uneasy. She made more progress bidding Georgi
ana to talk than her brother, and the awkward evening played out with excruciating forbearance on the part of Mr. Darcy’s new wife.

  When their guests left for Whitemore and Georgiana retired, the newlyweds took the staircase rather grandly again (perhaps the only way to take such an august set of steps). The Master of Pemberley held his lady’s fingers out and away at shoulder level (the majesty of their assent ever so slightly compromised by Troilus and Cressida scrambling in their wake). Elizabeth only took her husband’s arm when they reached the top of the stairs. His grip upon her was firm, steering her away from the corridor door toward her dressing room and to the one that led to their bed.

  With the closing of the door, he put his arms about her. Then, for a long moment, he rested his cheek atop her head.

  “It is good to have you home with me,” he said.

  Still disquieted by his being so out of humour downstairs, she responded, “If this is so, why do you look so ill upon me in company? You stare as if I offend you in some manner. You have always done thus. ’Tis no wonder I once thought you disliked me.”

  “I hold myself to the strongest reproof if my countenance persuaded you of other than my love. For if I gaze intently upon you, it is most certainly not from dislike. Quite the opposite.”

  That said, he kissed her neck. Several times. This, whilst he began an undulating search for the pins in her hair. With quiet deliberation, he dropped them one by one to the floor.

  “May I undress you?” he bid.

  “I feel,” she said, “as though you just did.”

  Quite unbeknownst to Elizabeth, a niggling annoyance was turning into a serious vexation for Darcy. Other than having her, he thought of little else.

  As a man of considerable self-control, he had perfected coitus reservatus to his own particular art form, orchestrating each of his assignations with self-assured precision. With the single woman he cared most to please, his loins refused to await her pleasure. He was unable to muster more restraint than a pubescent schoolboy. And that thought was most abhorrent. It would not do.