“It seems to me that you spend an inordinate amount of time apologizing for behaviour which is quite to be expected of a man violently in love,” said Elizabeth, her tone playful. She did not particularly want to discuss her own role in what had occurred.
She was taken aback by his frown. “I suppose I must explain myself to you, as little as I like the prospect, since it seems from my frequent lapses in your company that you will be forced to deal with the situation on occasion.” He paused, trying to think how to express himself to her in such a way as to not appear as ungentlemanly as perhaps he was.
Elizabeth could see how disturbed he was by this. “You need not explain anything, if you prefer not to,” she said.
“I would infinitely prefer not to, but I think I must. It is perhaps my most shameful failing. Although my goal is always to maintain my self-control and behave the part of a gentleman, there is a part of myself which I must keep leashed in order to do so.” He paused, then continued with a sigh, “You have called me ungentlemanly in the past, and in this regard I truly am. It is a part of me which wants only to listen to my desires, and to ignore the dictates of proper behaviour; and in this case, those desires deal specifically with you. More precisely, with behaving with you in a manner not suited to how a gentleman should treat his wife. You saw some of it yesterday, when my baser instincts came to the fore.” He said the last piece in such a tone of abhorrence as to startle Elizabeth.
“Well, I can only say then that I was clearly much less disturbed by it than you,” she said gently. “I have always known you were a man of strong passions, and to be quite honest, I would have been surprised had you been completely proper and restrained in your dealings with me. If there is a part of you which is untamed and lives ‘in the forest of the night,’ well, I can hardly claim you have not warned me of this all along!” She finished with a smile which she hoped would reassure him.
He looked at her unsmilingly. “I appreciate your support, but I fear you underestimate the gravity of the situation.”
She was beginning to be troubled. There was a question which needed to be asked, though she disliked it. “Does this part have to do with… harming me, or other force?”
“Not at all!” He seemed genuinely startled by her question. “No, it is more a matter of… using your… responses to gain what I desire.” He glanced at her with an embarrassed smile. “As you may have noticed yesterday. And what I desire is often not… gentlemanly. I cannot tell you how sorry I am—you are the last person in the world I would want to see this side of me, yet it seems you are the only one to whom I show it. I would never want to do anything to hurt you, or embarrass you, or make you unhappy.”
“William, I…” She had been about to reassure him once more when she decided to take a different tack. “Has it occurred to you perhaps it might be the other way around—that I might be precisely the person to whom you should show it? That it is, perhaps, part of what drew you to me, and to insist on marrying me despite such opposition? My love for you is not restricted to your manners, but is for all of you.” She paused, then continued daringly, “You also seem to assume I want nothing but propriety from you, but while there is much I am ignorant of, the truth is I find your strength of feeling quite… appealing. The beauty of the tiger does not rest only in its outward appearance, but also in its dangerousness.”
“You would suggest that I should deliberately let myself behave as if I had no proper respect for your dignity?” he asked disbelievingly. The temptation to take advantage of her generosity was well-nigh unbearable, but it could not be. She did not understand what it entailed.
“Well, propriety has its place, but it need not rule between us when we are alone—I wonder if perhaps you should stop trying so hard to leash the tiger at those times. Perhaps it is not such a fearsome beast as you suppose.”
“Elizabeth,” he said warningly, “you do not know what you are suggesting.”
She smiled at him impishly. “No, I do not, which is half of the allure of it; but I do know you will not force me to do anything against my will, and I am not such a fragile flower as to be easily frightened. I have a strong will of my own, you know.”
“Indeed I do know,” said Darcy feelingly. “But I cannot agree to it. I value your good opinion far too much to risk it lightly.” He paused, then added, “Fortunately, we have a fortnight for me to work on my self-control, since I imagine your parents will insist on your returning to Longbourn for the duration of our engagement. Which reminds me,” he continued, deliberately changing the subject, “I had meant to ask you what it was that made you decide to accept me, after having withstood all my arguments.”
“I doubt it was as simple as any one thing,” she replied with a light laugh, still troubled by the lack of resolution in their previous conversation, yet unsure how to address her concerns. “I must confess I had been weakening for some time, and it was difficult for me to watch how much distress I was causing you. The final consideration, however, probably stemmed from a conversation I had with your cousin.”
“With Colonel Fitzwilliam?” he asked in astonishment, thinking of that gentleman’s disapproval of his plan to wed Elizabeth. “What—did you decide to marry me to spite him?”
Elizabeth shot him a puzzled glance. “I am not certain of your meaning, William—he was very encouraging, even, I must admit, when I kept trying to change the subject.”
“He was?”
“You seem surprised!”
Darcy exhaled slowly. “I am,” he said. What could it mean, that his cousin had gone from advising him against the marriage to advocating it to Elizabeth, without a word to him? There is something here I am failing to see, he thought. “Are you certain he favoured the idea?”
“Yes, quite—he said that if your reputation was harmed, it would probably be of little consequence to you, whereas my refusal was of significant consequence, and he suggested I was underestimating the strength of your attachment, and should have more faith in you. I do not see how that could be interpreted as discouraging me,” she said, still perplexed by his attitude.
He did not wish to enlighten her as to his cousin’s objections to the match, so he limited himself to saying, “Perhaps I misunderstood him, then. In any case, if he assisted in changing your mind, I am very grateful to him.”
She gave him a sidelong mischievous look. “You were more eloquent, though.”
They were just then passing a small copse, and Darcy, prepared to prove he could keep himself in check, tugged at her hand with a smile until he brought her into its cover. He took her into his arms and kissed her gently and lingeringly several times, just enough to bring a blush to her cheek and a soft look to her eyes. “There, that is better,” he said with satisfaction. He was pleased to see he could still restrain himself to an acceptable level.
She gave him an arch smile. “I am glad you are pleased—and that I have not disturbed your vaunted self-control,” she said provocatively.
“Do not mock my self-control, best beloved, unless you are prepared to be quite late for dinner!” he teased, but there was an element of taut restraint in his voice.
She tipped her head to the side, as if she were considering the matter. She could tell he was withdrawing from her; and although she was not sure of the cause, it pained her nonetheless. She had been taken aback by his unusual failure to heed her comments on the question of his behaviour earlier, and it made her suspect that his opinion of her might have been tainted by her permissiveness the previous night. Well, it would have to be addressed; they could not go on like this for the rest of their lives. She said judiciously, “I cannot mock it; I am not as fond of your self-control as all that. After all, I suspect that, had your self-control been flawless, you would never have looked at me in the first place, certainly never proposed to me, and, even if you had come that far, you would have left the moment you learned of my engagement, never to ret
urn. I owe nothing to your self-control; so far as I can observe, I owe our engagement solely to the lapses in it. But I suspect it is more a matter of your opinion of my self-control which presents a difficulty here.”
“Your self-control?” he asked in surprise. He could see her tension, however, and realized how his words could have been interpreted. “Not at all, Elizabeth, I promise you. You have done nothing wrong, nothing that troubles me in the slightest; the fault is mine.”
“It was a fault to fall in love with me against your better judgement, then,” she said slowly.
Darcy, not wishing to hear her demean their connection, immediately responded, “Not so, my dearest; loving you is by far the most sensible thing I have done.”
She raised an eyebrow. “It is no doubt improper of me to argue the point, but I find it difficult to believe you made a reasoned decision to fall in love with an upstart country miss with no fortune or even proper respect for you. No, William, had your reason carried the day, you would never have looked at me but to criticize. Your self-control is no friend of mine.”
A certain ferocity in her voice made him pause. “Elizabeth,” he said finally, “I admit I never planned to fall in love with you, and I cannot deny that in fact I fought it for some time before I recognized only you could make me happy, and only you could teach me the lessons I needed to learn. It was more a matter of instinct, though, rather than a failure of self-control.” This explanation sounded weak even to his own ears.
“And was this part of you which you so despise not involved in this instinct?” retorted Elizabeth spiritedly. “Was your instinct comprised solely of gentlemanly urges?”
Darcy was silent, all too aware that he had been imagining her in his bed not a fortnight after they met. He could not comprehend why Elizabeth was so insistent on pointing out his weakness in this regard. “Do you wish me to be less than I could be?”
“I wish you to be precisely you. There is more to you than a proper gentleman, or you should be no different from any other gentleman. I love you because of what sets you apart from all the rest—for your spirit, if you would. Yesterday you asked if I had reservations about marrying you, and I do not; I love you without reserve, for everything which makes you yourself, whether it is a part of which you approve or not.”
Darcy, moved by these words from Elizabeth, who was usually far more restrained in expressing her affection, put his arms around her, leaning his head against hers. “I do not deserve you,” he said, “but I am very grateful for you.”
Knowing he had not yet accepted her point, she said earnestly, “Would you have me give up my liveliness, never to be impertinent or teasing? Shall I stop taking long walks, and instead take on a languid and cool attitude so as to be a proper lady?”
“Never,” he said instantly.
“Then you do not wish me to be a proper lady?”
“You are everything that is important in a lady to me.”
Elizabeth drew a deep breath. “Why, then, do you insist that I would not want you to be yourself?”
His arms closed around her, and he held her tightly. Such acceptance was a new concept to him, and it was very tempting to give himself over to it, yet the thought of the look on Georgiana’s face stopped him. “What will happen, then, when you discover you do not like what you find of me?” he asked, his voice taut.
She caught his face in her hands and kissed him firmly. “Your cousin suggested I should have more faith in you; perhaps he needs to give you the same advice about me.” Her voice carried a revealing certainty.
“I do have faith in you,” he replied, beginning to despair of convincing her of the seriousness of the problem. “But if you must know why I take this so seriously, I will give you just one example.” He paused, closing his eyes for a moment, then said, “Do you know that I would like nothing better than to seduce you at this very moment, to make you mine right here and now, not more than a few feet away from a public road? Do you realize I want to strip away every inch of clothing you are wearing, and taste every bit of you with kisses? Do you see now why I must control this?”
A rush of heat went through her at his words, but the pain and hopelessness in his voice kept her focused on him. “Well, I can see your difficulty since, all in all, this might not be the time to be late for dinner,” she said, striving for a lightness in her voice, “although I admit the idea has a certain appeal.” She smiled up at him bewitchingly.
“God in heaven,” he swore feelingly. “Do not say such things, Elizabeth!”
Hearing him sound so much more like himself added to her confidence. “Why should I not?” she asked mischievously, her eyes sparkling. She raised her hand and lightly drew her finger along his neck at the top of his cravat.
His eyes flared. “Because I will take advantage of it,” he said, capturing her mouth with an urgent kiss which pressed for far more of a response than his earlier gentle caresses. There was less of seduction or persuasion in it than an expression of raw need, and a passion which could not be satisfied within narrow bounds.
Elizabeth’s immediate response to his kisses was in part a relief that he was no longer closing her out, but his urgency rapidly transmitted itself to her and raised a sensation of heated desire within her. She pressed herself against him, wanting only to be closer and to lose herself in the pleasure of his touch. Even more than that, she wanted a response from him, one which would convince her of his acceptance of this bond between them.
Darcy’s untempered desire led him to seek relief by letting his hands rediscover the curves of her body, but it was not enough to slake his thirst; and even as his lips were asking ever more of her, he began to crave the greater closeness they had experienced the previous night. It seemed as if there were no going back; that each time he touched her, he needed more of her than the previous time, and after denying himself even the hope of touching her so intimately, he was more desperate for her than ever.
Had they the privacy he would wish, he knew he would not stop, but he could neither still his need nor forget the unpropitious circumstances in which they found themselves. He fought for self-control as his lips ranged freely along her face to the sensitive skin below her ear. Between kisses, he whispered, “Tell me what you want.”
Elizabeth, who was beginning to lose herself in her desire for more of him, heard the desperation in his voice, and remembered what he had asked of her the previous day. “I want you,” she said softly, not knowing if she could depend upon her voice. “I want to be yours. I want you never to go away from me like that again.”
It seemed she had guessed correctly what he needed, for he took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. His body gradually relaxed within her embrace, and he said, “Oh, my best beloved—you are everything I could desire.”
She reached her hand up to caress his thick hair, hoping to transform her own unfulfilled longing into an expression of tenderness. “It frightened me when you were so distant,” she said softly.
“It was not my intention to be distant, my dearest, just to avoid falling into temptation,” he said regretfully. “But it does not seem to be within my capacity.”
“Or perhaps I will not permit it,” said Elizabeth cheekily.
He laughed, unable to resist her liveliness. “No, apparently not.”
“What was it that was troubling you so, though?” she asked, her voice unwontedly serious. “If it was not my behaviour, then what? Is it Georgiana?”
He nodded silently. “I do not want to hurt her again as I did last night. She deserves better than that of me,” he said, his remorse plain in his voice.
“Oh, my love,” said Elizabeth patiently, “you are doing her no favours by trying to be perfect on her behalf. Can you not see that part of her distress over what has happened to her in the past is the inability to feel she can live up to your expectations? As long as she sees you as having no flaws, she
will blame herself for every failing she finds in herself. You would do well to allow yourself to be a little more imperfect in her eyes.”
“But not in this way!”
She smiled. “No, perhaps not; we should be more careful, I suppose, in making certain of our privacy—certainly more careful than we are being at the moment! But still, it is hardly the end of the world that she discovered you last night—after all, it allowed her the opportunity to confide in me, and perhaps gain some bit of confidence in herself. I think perhaps you are the one who is suffering more.”
Her practicality reassured him as little else could. “Perhaps you are right,” he said slowly. “And I certainly did not mean to hurt you by trying to exercise self-restraint, but I can see that I may have done so.”
“It worried me, perhaps,” she said with an impish smile. “I did not know what to make of you, or why you seemed so different, and I am perhaps fonder of this side of you than you know.”
“Elizabeth,” he said, his eyes travelling down her body, “if you are going to insist on continuing to say such things, we are never going to reach Longbourn.”
She laughed. “Come, then; I will no longer try your patience, and we shall be on our way.”
He gave her a sidelong glance as they found their way back to the road. “It is a pity; I do enjoy it when you try my patience in such a manner.”
“You, my love, are beyond redemption,” she retorted with amusement.
“And you, my best beloved, looked particularly tempting last night, when you could not have enough of my wicked ways,” he said, enjoying the blush which rose immediately to her cheeks.
***
It was unsurprising that they arrived at Longbourn after the rest of the party. Elizabeth counted this as a blessing, since it meant her mother was already past the first raptures of her joy at the news of their engagement carried by Jane. Fortunately, Mrs. Bennet stood in sufficient awe of her intended son-in-law as to only offer him any civility within her power. Her effusions to Elizabeth could not, however, be prevented, but with the able assistance of Jane and Mr. Bingley, Darcy was brought into the house while she spoke to her daughter.
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