Not surprising of such a grand evening, it was quite late when the last of the guests had betaken themselves home, allowing Elizabeth and Darcy wearily to ascend the stairs. They entered their bedchamber together, finally alone, but still dressed from the evening. Falling in fatigue back across their bed, she listened as he told her how well the evening had gone and how many remarks were made to him upon the beauty of his wife’s countenance and amiability of her nature.
“I would think it unlikely for any of your guests to offer that they found your new wife held much queerness of temper and little pretension to beauty,” she reminded him.
“Of course not. But one would have to have a great understanding of, say, Mr. Collins’s ability to flatter to invent such compliments.”
She laughed. “Yes, your guests will say the music was superb, the decorations outstanding. The only criticism one shall offer is that nothing scandalous occurred. No one fell drunkenly into the punch bowl; no young man’s face was slapped. For that is the only true way to gauge an evening’s success.” (That his wife spoke without caution to the two female guests might have met the criteria of scandalous, but Elizabeth discounted it by reason of an audience of only two.)
“You were charming and beautiful tonight, Lizzy. I would not have cared were you neither, but imagine what pride I hold that you were both.”
Their dressing rooms were forgone for the immediacy of their bed. They simply dropped their clothes where they stood and climbed beneath the bedclothes. There had been an initial spoon, but when his lack of dedication was announced by a soft snore, Elizabeth did not have the heart to awaken him. She drew his arm about her and snuggled against his chest.
It occurred to her that it was the first time since they married that they had not ended their day with amorous union. They had, of course, already made love twice that evening before the ball (well, they had made love the first time; she was uncertain exactly how to label the second, it possibly just an anointment). It was unreasonably avaricious to want him again, especially if only in defence of her own disorder.
For, as much as she did not like to admit it to herself, she was unsettled when she remembered the two loose-lipped hildings who spoke so crudely. Although they had spoken as if they had first-person knowledge, Elizabeth could not imagine Darcy cavorting with such vulgar pieces of work. True, he was eight years her senior. It was possible (alright, even probable) that he had been with other women. She supposed as well that was one to cavort it would have to be in less than virtuous company.
But it was easier to accept that in Hertfordshire, where he was newly in society. Derbyshire was another matter entirely. As she considered that he had spent at least a dozen years in his county as an eligible young man, every female face under age fifty that she had greeted that night revisited her. Suddenly, they were not just amiable guests, they were all former lovers.
“He knows how to use his blade.”
That was what the woman had said. Yes, Elizabeth thought, he does know how to use his blade.
Providentially, he drew her closer and said quite clearly, “I love you, Lizzy.”
Even in his sleep he knew what she needed from him. At that particular moment, no carnal act could possibly have allowed her to fall into so peaceful a slumber.
21
Their having unfurled the drapes to admire the moonlight the past evening allowed the morning sun to awaken Mr. Darcy prematurely.
For a man basking in the glow of unprecedented self-approbation, he did not suffer the abuse of nature without indignation. However, this lèse-majesté was mitigated by a single slash of sunlight which cast a milky glow upon his wife’s bare back. He propped himself up on one elbow and gazed upon her form at some length.
Hours spent in restful sleep had not undone his self-satisfaction with the sublime success of the ball nor his wife’s part in that success. Both had been triumphs. It was clear that all of Derbyshire had fallen under the spell of his wife’s considerable charm. Those who dared to fault him for selecting a bride of questionable connexions had been silenced unequivocally. With Elizabeth now his wife, the pride he harboured as the Darcy heir, the master of an illustrious estate, and his station in general had ripened into unadulterated omnipotence. It was a most ambrosial sensation. One he wanted to share.
Drawing his fingers lightly down her spine, he tempted her awake. She responded to this intrusion by the Master of Pemberley by intolerantly drawing the covers over her shoulders. Undaunted, he loosened the sheet and trailed his fingers down her back again. She turned over, blinking in the bright morning light, and espying him looking down at her, smiled sleepily. At the sight of her so fetchingly in the altogether, his morning pride flowered into outright arousal.
He had seen her, of course, but gained no true inspection. In the pristine morning light, it was not an inquisition of her configuration he sought (for he had, upon a few occasions long past, perused a womanly portal). He wanted to memorise his Elizabeth. When he closed his eyes, he wanted to be able to bring every pore of her skin to mind, let her scent invade his nostrils so no distance could ever take her truly from him.
She acquiesced to his investigation a bit self-consciously, dovetailing her knees in futile protection of her modesty. He stroked her thighs at length with the backs of his fingers, thus convincing them to relinquish their sentry. Eventually, she lay back, eyes closed, entrusting herself unto him.
This presented him with a struggling conscience. Although he had kissed her womanhood before, it was only fleetingly. He longed not only to fill his nostrils with her scent; he wanted to saturate his mouth with her taste. Thusly, he would bring her to an ecstasy she had hitherto not experienced. However, would such a lascivious letch scandalise her? In the afterglow of a truly magnificent societal victory, he believed the time to test those waters was at hand. He dove in—so to speak.
She might have been a bit startled, but she betokened no alarm. In time, however, a sound escaped her throat that was quite unmelodious. Had she not entwined her fingers so fiercely into his hair, he might have heard her moan. As it was, he did not. Nevertheless, when the arching of her back announced that she was upon the precipice of an ecstasy yet unexplored, his loins would not let her experience it alone. Hence, this union was enjoyed with such unconditional vigour, it may well have endangered the groundsels supporting the house.
Quite foredone by passion, they lay in a sweating heap, she still clutching his hair. Not a bother, for her tenacious hold was proof this success exceeded that of the ball by some measure. That satisfaction was exquisite.
*
Bedewed by the maelstrom she had just experienced, she lay back to give them both a chance to catch their breath. He reached out and brushed the sweaty curls back from her face, anxious to hear her words of wonder at the pleasure he had bestowed upon her. He was not to be disappointed, for when she turned and looked at him, it was in absolute veneration.
“Pray, what did you do?”
For her to be awe-struck was his intention. To incite her to question him was not. Allowing that it appeared, indeed, she did expect an explanation, he decided it best to take an academic route.
“There is a Latin name for it.”
He winced ever so slightly as he spoke the words, knowing that alone would not satisfy her. She was one of the most confoundingly curious creatures he had ever known. This was one of her quirks of character he most treasured. Odd, he thought, that he liked to speak so little, yet loved a woman who bade him speak so much.
She put her forehead against his and stroked his face, smiling at the brevity of his elucidation.
“Do not speak to me of Latin,” she bid playfully. “Where ever did you learn of such a proceeding? Certainly not at Cambridge.”
Forthwith, her smile evaporated, but her gaze held his an uncomfortably long time. All the while, his mind searched for an answer that would be both true and painless. He, however, could not find one. He was keenly aware that his silence confessed m
ore compromising skeletons in his romantic past than any act he could have related.
During his extended silence, her chin began a barely discernible quiver, perhaps to accompany the tears that had begun to well up in her eyes. Blessedly for him, she looked away.
She whispered, “Of course.”
“Of course,” she repeated more firmly. “I fancy my testimony should be added to the others who indubitably can attest to the perfection of your technique.”
Thereupon, she sat up on the side of the bed, drawing the counterpane protectively to her bosom.
“Lizzy,” he said, sitting up next to her. “Lizzy?”
Looking only at the path of sunlight that crossed the floor, she announced, “How foolish of me.”
He thought it perhaps best not to ask, but could not help himself, “Foolish?”
She laughed a curt, mirthless laugh, “I have always believed you a worldly man and that you might have ‘known’ other women. Foolishly, I chose to believe it only a possibility—possible, of course, being much easier to bear than absolutely. Had I come to you in full acceptance of that as fact, I should have been much kinder to myself…”
Not wanting to hear more, he lay back upon the bed and considered, then rejected (only with utmost discipline) the notion of hiding his mortified face with a pillow. She found her gown and drew it on, tying the sash with quick, ill-tempered little motions. Then, she flipped her hair from beneath the collar and stalked out of the room. He did not for a moment think that she did not finish her thought because she believed he did not want to hear it. She did not because she could not bear to say it. Not only had he rendered the possible to her a certainty, he had demonstrated it. Explicitly.
He lay there for some time, pondering whereby he had transfigured from omniscient to dolt in such an expeditious fashion. When the route was fully determined, he pondered the matter still.
Foolish, she called herself. It was he, not she, who was foolish. The single thing he had told her of his past connexions was that he had never loved another. Perhaps that was because that was the only absolute to which he could avow. He had the considerable ingenuousness to believe that was he not to initiate her too hurriedly into the various rites of love, it would seem as if they had uncovered these acts together.
’Twas a folly, but he had come to believe that her unconditional trust had somehow allowed him a retrieval of his own innocence. He had never made love with the abandon they shared (in his wonderment, he had, upon a few occasions, come perilously close to declaring that to her). The passion he ignited in her and the new heights he found in his own, all too easily exposed him to this serious misstep of over-ambition. He had to admit conceit was his undoing.
In his zeal to satisfy her, he had convinced himself he was compleatly selfless. Of course, he was not. His pleasures had been of a duality. The lovemaking itself, of course, but perhaps most enjoyable were the looks and words of adoration she gave him each time they reached achievement. Those punctuated by her smile were of peculiar satisfaction. Precisely like the one she had just gifted him.
That is, the one she had gifted immediately preceding her realisation of just how limited in spontaneity his act had been. (It did not help his conscience that, if memory served, the last time he had done that to a woman, she had used almost the exact words as Elizabeth, but then it had not been a criticism.) Quite despairingly, he begged himself only to remember how Elizabeth had smiled at him, but that memory was now ever besmirched by the chapfallen expression that had replaced it. How could he have believed that she would always be insensible to his previous…connexions? Did he think it possible that she would never suspect? That she would never ask? Foolishly, he too had hoped for a possibility rather than the truth.
Sitting up, he decided then he would go to her and beg forgiveness. Hurriedly, he endeavoured to compose his speech of apology. This employment, however, was not profitable in that he could not specifically determine for what he should apologise.
Should he admit contrition that he had been with other women? He wished then that he had not. However, all such connexions were before they had been introduced, hence, it was not truly an offence against her. Should he apologise that he had not confessed it? He still believed such an admittance from a man who considers himself a gentleman was unconscionable. He could explain that he had succumbed to lust rather than love, but, however true, he was disposed to think that would be of no particular comfort to her. (Nor did he fancy she would favour knowing he had bowed upon the altar of Eros with indefensible frequency and with so many different women.) A recapitulation of his amorous exploits sounded, even to him, uncommonly more debauched than he knew them to have been.
His contrition and regret, however, were compleat in having caused her to suffer. Any carnal pleasure he had ever received he would gladly have relinquished not to witness the look of hurt upon her countenance. Indeed, just then the vision of himself in monk’s robes was not unobjectionable.
He was truly penitent. He did not know how he would find the words of consolation, but he knew he must try. If her trust were lost, little else would matter.
Gathering himself from the bed, he walked to her dressing room door and knocked soundly. Elizabeth did not answer it, Hannah did. An expression of astonishment overspread her face. It was only when the maid took her leave with no undue haste, that he realised her surprise stemmed less from his appearing at his wife’s dressing room door, than his want of appearance. He was naked as a babe save the bedcloth wrapped about his waist (grateful was he that he had the presence of mind to reach for that).
Elizabeth sat in her bathtub facing away from him. Undoubtedly she heard him enter but did not turn, she simply continued scrubbing her arms. She did so with such dutiful concentration, it suggested that she felt herself somehow befouled. His eyes dropped briefly from the sight, for that was more painful than her refusal to acknowledge him there. He was induced by her inattention to perch upon the edge of a small chest, whereupon, he gazed at her purposely oblivious back.
Steeling his resolve, but still not knowing what he would say until he said it, he finally spoke, “Had I thought for a moment it would have benefited you, I should have confessed my ignominious past and thrown myself at your feet for forgiveness. However, as any women I have known meant nothing to me, I thought they would mean nothing to you. Wrongly, I now see.”
He paused, looking for a sign that his words were reaching her.
Finding none whatsoever, he then strove on, “I might have lived differently had I known one day I would find you. If you believe nothing else, please believe my life only began when we met. Your censure is unendurable.”
As he fell silent, she did not speak, but ceased her ablutions.
In a moment, she said, “I thought myself a fool, and fatuous I have been. However, never so foolish as today. It was absurd of me to reproach you for my own ignorance.”
“No. You should reproach me. I took love before. It was not until I met you that I gave love.”
The generous honesty of that statement moved her to turn to look at him. The sincerity of his expression was undermined by the incongruity of the bedcloth he had tied about his middle. She rose, knee deep in water, bits of suds clinging to her body.
“Can you find forgiveness for me?” she asked.
A little line of froth collected upon the tip of one breast and sat there, momentarily suspended. Had his forgiveness ever been in question, those few foamy droplets would have ensured it. Nevertheless, as his was the most grievous trespass, he did not have to question himself for the crux of his absolution of her.
When he rose to go to her to assure her she was very much forgiven, he tossed a trailing end of the sheet over his left shoulder.
“Hail, Caesar,” she announced.
“Which one?”
“The most handsome.”
Caesar’s toga fell away with her single tug, whereupon he stepped into her bath water.
Teasingly, she said
, “You are only repaying my intrusion into your bath, are you not?”
“I am not. I simply have never been in a lady’s bath before. Yours looks inviting.”
“I am the first?”
“You are the first.”
Thereupon ensued any number of professions and demonstrations of Mr. Darcy’s love of his wife, and Elizabeth enjoyed them all.
After careful deliberation, she was inclined to believe that it was much better to bask in the pleasure of his experience rather than question it. For his part, Darcy learnt that smugness was never a virtue.
22
What he believed to be a particularly harmonious denouement to a particularly sticky subject was not yet at hand. Fortune had not allowed her to forget the two simpering chattermags remarking upon his “blade” at the ball. Once the fact of Mr. Darcy’s encounters was unkenneled, specifics seemed fair game to his wife. It took not a day before she made a frontal assault.
“Am I to be advised of whose charms you have known?”
“No.”
“I know ’tis ungentlemanly to repeat such things, but certainly you can understand I choose not to sit next to a lady of your intimate acquaintance at a dinner party quite unenlightened. If I am to be thought a fool, I prefer my own confidence.”
He knew well he was again entering territoire dangereux, for she had an uncanny ability to winnow information from him that he knew he did not wish to confide. Independent decision of what it best to reveal and what not to inevitably fell to naught.
“I would never invest in such a conspiracy against you,” he assured her. “I would never allow you to find yourself in such a position.”
As he said this, he took a mental inventory of the guest list of the ball to reassure himself he was speaking truthfully. Once absolutely certain of that, he sighed in silent relief and vowed to himself what he had promised Elizabeth. Because he had so naïvely expected this moment not to come, he had no plan. However, he recognised the foundation when he saw it. With all due diligence, he would make quite certain that no woman whom he had “known” would be invited to their home. (Not a problem in Derbyshire, but London might be a bit of a dilemma. Diversions abounded; he could account for his own guest lists, but not that of others.)
Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife Page 19