Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife

by Linda Berdoll

However, subsequently, Charles seemed quite happy with his performance and as he lent little imposition upon her time, Jane thought their coupling was of great success as well. At least insofar as the satisfaction of her husband, for was that not the duty of a wife? To make her husband happy?

  Jane had assumed she had experienced all that a woman could ask of the act of love. Lizzy had always had a more adventuresome nature. It was likely that she would spend her life experiencing everything more fully than would Jane. Although Elizabeth was more willing to discover, Jane did not dismiss her own strong feelings of love, for she loved Charles Bingley deeply.

  *

  In Jane’s opinion, both sisters had married men who were good. Although Charles was open, affectionate, and amiable, Mr. Darcy, conversely, appeared taciturn, staid, and remote. Yet Jane had realised sooner than had Elizabeth that the closely regulated Mr. Darcy knew himself to need that stern control. That he was of a passionate nature initially escaped Lizzy. Mr. Darcy’s sentiments were found only in depth. By the standards he set for himself and others, it was as if he dared self-satisfaction. Charles Bingley was less ambiguous. He wanted everyone happy.

  Jane’s most salient joy in life came from the happiness of those she loved. She and Charles were of the same disposition. They were both amiable and agreeable. That the task of being wife to the frightfully complex Mr. Darcy fell to Elizabeth invited Jane’s sympathy. It was only when Lizzy told Jane to what passionate heights her husband brought her that Jane bethought the possibility of envy. But if she was covetous, it was only momentarily. Jane judged her own happiness and satisfaction to be less important than that of others. If the man she loved were happy, she could find happiness in that as well. Everything else was inconsequential.

  25

  Elizabeth eventually gathered the courage to question Darcy about the family that had offended him so grievously by their very appearance at the Pemberley ball. His explanation was terse.

  He told her that the man only recently had decided to promote his son in society. Elizabeth’s raised eyebrow, which he now knew to mean she was not satisfied by his answer, forced him to expand upon the subject at hand.

  Hence, he put down his newspaper and deigned to explain thusly: Mr. Howgrave’s elderly father had taken a decided dislike to his oldest son for some distant misdeed, and refused to entail his rather extensive holdings upon him. Rather, he intended to leave the place to a grandson, or failing that, a nephew. Mr. Howgrave had no younger brothers who were father to a son, but there existed one male cousin in Aberdeen. In no way did Howgrave want to lose title to the family property, and most certainly not to a Gael. The matter of a child born of his housekeeper by him had lain unclaimed until the matter of entailment had arisen.

  “In presenting the young man to society and giving him his name,” Darcy said, “Howgrave hopes he will find favour and his grandfather will keep the property upon his behalf. Mrs. Howgrave is not affronted by standing next to the proof of her husband’s infidelity in society. That makes it perfectly clear that she values herself no higher than does her husband.”

  It was a harsh assessment, but not unexpectedly so, when considering from whose sensibilities it sprang. Elizabeth longed to query Darcy as to just which indignation he found most objectionable: that Mr. Howgrave had a relationship outside his marriage, or outside his station, or that he had decided, upon merit of economics, to make it public.

  However, she dared not. She let the matter drop, allowing her husband to return to his paper uninterrogated. Still, she wondered which was the man’s greatest sin in Darcy’s eyes. Knowing her husband as she had just begun to, she thought he probably saw the greatest damnation in that Howgrave had chosen not only to publicise a bastardy, but had done so at Pemberley.

  *

  Not to be outdone by man, woman, or biblical indiscretions, Elizabeth’s mother arrived within a fortnight with as much folderol as she could muster (which was an impressive measure). Encapsulated in a coach with his wife for one hundred and fifty miles was the longsuffering Mr. Bennet, whose weary countenance announced he was inordinately ready to relinquish the office of martyr to his wife’s ceaseless tongue.

  Having new ears to afflict, Mrs. Bennet was not inside the door before she embarked upon a lengthy recitation of Lydia’s labouring travails. Uncharacteristically, she had little to remark upon her new grandchild other than that he had an impressive head of hair. It was presumed that her lack of enthusiasm was equally due to the child’s dearth of primogeniture expectations and that Mr. Bennet had taken to calling her in the third person, “Grandmother Bennet.”

  Howbeit the Gardiners and Bingleys had departed (Bingley saw quite enough of Mrs. Bennet in Hertfordshire), Kitty and Maria stayed. Yet with fifty bedchambers, bed-closets, and sitting rooms from which to choose, one would not have expected any accommodation complications. Regrettably, there was one.

  Because Mr. Darcy simply did not want to hear Mrs. Bennet’s blathering any more than necessary, he had Mrs. Reynolds situate the Bennets upon a higher floor. However, Mrs. Bennet would not be so easily eluded. She insisted two staircases were too many for her to climb and found a pretty prospect overlooking the lake. Alas, the room that manifested this view lay just down the hall from her daughter’s bed of amour. As Mrs. Bennet’s shrill cackle wafted down the corridor, Darcy chastised himself relentlessly that he had not thought of the staircase dilemma and frantically sought a duplicate prospect upon the ground floor. But to no avail.

  Whilst her husband had been silently setting his own plans of installing Mrs. Bennet as far away as possible, Elizabeth agreed for reasons all her own.

  With just her sisters in the house, her coronation as an exalted marital partner was not moderated. The only true alteration was the occasional giggle if she became too boisterous, imagining Jane and Bingley might hear from across the wide corridor. Having her parents under the same roof, however, was a far more imposing hindrance.

  When the Bennets inadvertently ended up on the same floor, Darcy came to understand Mrs. Bennet’s voice was not the only discomfiture he would suffer. For, although she admitted it quite unreasonable, Elizabeth found it was impossible to think of herself concurrently as a passionate vixen and daughter of a father just down the hall. She was convinced her parents would hear them making love. Had not Goodwin heard her small shriek in the bathtub? (Had she had any notion of the dog business, she would truly have been mortified.)

  This was initially a nettlesome apprehension. However, it rapidly blossomed into full-fledged paranoia. Darcy insisted it was impossible to be overheard. They were half the house-length away, the doors were massive, the windows were closed, the passageways carpeted. Sound did not carry in Pemberley.

  “But,” Elizabeth reminded him, “Goodwin heard.”

  Not truly of a mind to deny herself or Darcy pleasure, Elizabeth did not consider abstaining from marital connexion, but their couplings were certainly more sedate. At her insistence, a few nights of love were endured beneath two quilts, a counterpane, and a bedcover. Drenched in sweat, Darcy finally threw off the padding in disgust.

  “I will suffer for your love, Lizzy, but I refuse to suffocate!”

  “Shush,” was her only rejoinder.

  Had not there been all this concern for silence, the other senses might not have been as compleatly investigated as they came to be. With their sounds of passion suppressed, the other four faculties became enhanced. Touch, taste, and scent had been fully explored and examined; perchance sight was slighted, if only by half. For, by reason of configuration, Elizabeth could only imagine what Darcy saw when they came together. This is what she whispered one night as she watched him watch himself do a kindness unto her person.

  “Darcy, it has occurred to me that women are at a distinct disadvantage in the act of love. A man, evidently by nature’s intent, is able to view what I, as a woman, can only feel and enjoy.”

  He did not stop, but glanced at her face as if considering her literal vi
ewpoint, for this was not something over which he had ever puzzled. In a moment, he did stop. Her comment had been meant to be simply philosophical, just an observation. Nevertheless, Darcy was a man, and men tend to approach such inquiries as tests, not passive observances. Hence, he rose and purposefully strode to the far wall. This interruption was not an utter hardship. Indeed, his bare-buttocked stroll across the room was a significant treat. The thew his naked body exhibited as he strained to lift a heavy pier glass from its hooks well-nigh gave her the twitters.

  Resting it against the bed board, he made a few adjustments to the lay of it. Thereupon he grabbed her ankles, drew her playfully about, the friction of the silk beneath her heating her back. She shrieked at that, and then clamped her hand over her own mouth.

  He pointed at the image in the mirror, asking, “Do you approve?”

  Looking at the enormous reflection of her own feminus denudata, she blushed, released her mouth, and covered her eyes in mortification. As curiosity is always a stronger force than embarrassment, it took very little coaxing for her to look with him and watch their bodies locked in conjugal union.

  “It is really rather fascinating,” she told him. “A voyeurism, but without any guilt.”

  Conversation withered away in absence of any true interest in talking, whispered or not. He had only glanced in the mirror to see what she had seen. As it bore no -revelation for him, her ambitiously renewed fervour caught him unawares. (The few times he had seen mirrors above a bed, he had fancied it for titillation of the man, such was the catering.) Hence, he was amazed that the mirror aroused Elizabeth as it did. Amazed and gratified. And neither was particularly silent about it.

  Knowing that she had reached new heights of carnal pleasure, both sensual and vocal, Elizabeth did not come down to breakfast the next forenoon, feigning illness. The lie only exacerbated circumstances, for when she finally appeared, her mother rushed to an outlandish conclusion.

  “Perhaps you are with child, Lizzy! Oh, Mr. Bennet! A son for Mr. Darcy! Our Lizzy will give him a son!”

  “We have not been married five weeks, Mama.”

  *

  The mirror was stashed beneath their bed for the duration of the Bennets’ stay. However, the dust had not settled from their departure before it was retrieved. (Thenceforward, that looking-glass witnessed more carnal pleasures than did a knocking-house piano player.) It was secreted again beneath the bed for convenience sake and, without question, another adornment found its place upon the wall. As far as Elizabeth knew, the looking-glass and its hiding place were their little secret. In time, she laughed at her own naïveté. For she eventually realised that each time they drew it from beneath the bed, the glass was always dusted.

  26

  The foxhunt Lady Millhouse had arm-twisted at the ball was scheduled within weeks. Hence, Elizabeth dedicated her days to improving her horsemanship. Leisurely rides with her husband were quite enjoyable, he upon Blackjack, she upon the plodding, dependable Lady, but she told him she longed to run.

  “We must move more aggressively if I am to join you upon the hunt.”

  He was adamant that she should not.

  “’Tis dangerous for an unpractised rider. I will not allow it.”

  That he would not allow it was a condition Elizabeth was tempted to address rather frankly. However, as his words were tempered by his obvious concern for her safety, she did not.

  “I can stay astride a horse, even if ’tis demanded in so inefficient way as side-saddle.”

  Abruptly, she kicked Lady, who could manage only an indolent gallop. In one kick and two strides, he caught up to her side, both their horses finding an easier canter. It was her observance that her husband was a fit rider. Elizabeth’s simple ambition was one day, if not to match him, to at least not be a disgrace as his equestrian companion.

  Eyeing him as he rode along, she admired the figure he presented astride Blackjack, for he bore a high polish upon his boot and a handsome leg above it—one that she admired as they rode stirrup to stirrup. She fancied she could see the outline of thigh muscles tightening as he posted beside her. In want of disguising what she was certain was a discernible sigh at the sight, she lifted her skirt to reveal her own disreputable footwear. Her ankle-jacks were ridiculously inappropriate. She wished she could ride astride as did he and wear a tall boot as well.

  Although few questioned it, horsewomen understood that the only way acceptable for a lady to ride a horse defied the laws of common sense, if not gravity. Even with that disadvantage, it was evident to her husband the horsewoman Elizabeth could become. He discerned a natural seat and instinct for her horse that could not be taught. Still, a natural seat was no substitute for experience. It would take more than leisurely rides with him to prepare her for the hunt and he explained that patiently to her.

  One person’s patience is another’s condescension. Hence, Elizabeth was unconvinced. A small, single rail fence loomed in their path, an ideal stage to disabuse Darcy of the notion she was not practised enough to take a jump. She cantered Lady to the fence and the horse, quite nimbly, jumped it. There. How could he refuse her the hunt in the face of such a cunning display of horsemanship?

  “I believe ’tis quite possible, Mr. Darcy, you have not heard the last from me upon the matter.”

  He smiled an inscrutable smile, knowing full well it was quite probable he had not.

  They walked back to the house from the stables hand in hand, a triumph for her in that he rarely displayed affection if there was any possibility of an audience. He forsook her to the stairs and her feet assaulted them two at a time in jubilation before she managed to rein herself into a more ladylike step.

  Even so lackadaisical a ride was a sweaty business. She peeled away her riding habit and took to her tub. Humming in satisfaction at her success at the rail, Elizabeth sat in the suds and marvelled at her own elation. Stretching out, she hooked her heels over its edge and waggled her feet, then wiggled her toes. As she looked at them, she pondered her most recent perspicacity. Why was it that, as impressive as her husband was when dressed, and compelling as he was when not, nothing was quite so arresting as seeing him in his riding boots?

  *

  As if by magic a pair of tall boots sat in her dressing room the very next morning. They were of fine, supple calf, but were not of that familiar masculine size that so incited her to lust. Nor were they black. They were Hessian in style, exactly the colour of butter as it just begins to bubble in the pan. Tooling of a little darker thread ran about the faux roll at the top and performed a tassel in front before curlicueing down the sides. The colour and size told Elizabeth they were for her. They had appeared just as mysteriously as her riding costume had a few weeks previous.

  She picked one up and admired the workmanship, quite proud of a cobbler who could make a boot that could engulf the length of her generous foot with such brevity. She had not once said anything to her husband about boots. Truly, she had not even known that “Women Who Rode” wore such fine tall boots. Indeed, she had never been in the company of a serious female rider in her habit (and if she had, she would not have thought to lift the lady’s skirt to peer upon what adorned her feet).

  If anyone had watched her examining her new footgear, one might have inferred from her expression that she was not pleased with her husband’s unanticipated gift. On the contrary, she was quite moved. It was the timing that caused the disorder. For at that very moment, she intended to embark upon an activity of a covert nature. The boots seemed almost an admonition. Her design yielded not to such grief. (However, she chose not to have them prick her conscience further and did not scruple to set them temporarily aside.)

  Waiting until her husband rode out with Mr. Rhymes, Elizabeth approached the stables in her old shoes and with great apprehension. Knowing it was only a se’nnight until the hunt, she went there alone, determined to steal some time from beneath her husband’s inhibiting gaze to practise her horsemanship. It was apparent that he was convin
ced she had not the time to become proficient enough to join the hunt. Possibly, she reasoned, because upon their joint rides he was far too solicitous. Hence she had no opportunity to stretch her abilities. He insisted she take her riding with deliberation. Elizabeth abhorred purposeless tedium; she was too impatient to creep when she could run.

  In concluding that Darcy’s conservatorship over her riding was repressive, she saw no recourse but to ride out alone. As she walked to the stables, she was anxious. However, not exclusively over her first solitary ride. She was in fear that their exceedingly indulgent staff would see her alone and converge upon her, insisting she accept their offers of assistance. With a mere flick of his head, Darcy could have the many servitors disperse as hastily as they had appeared. However, protestations from Elizabeth had the opposite effect. Evidently, they were deigned as insincere. The more firmly she protested to the servants her lack of the need, the more she was tended.

  “Mrs. Darcy is unattended!”

  If she dared to venture upon the landing in her dressing gown, “Mrs. Darcy is unattended!”

  The cursed announcement echoed down the halls of Pemberley. Indeed, if she ventured anywhere alone, upon her heels would come a servant. Her complaint about such oversolicitousness went unheeded by her husband.

  “They have been told to see to you.”

  She understood compleatly how seriously the servants undertook her husband’s instructions by their sheer doggedness of her steps. Hence, she promised herself she would eventually perfect that little shake of the head that would send the servants away. Until then, she skulked. For Mrs. Darcy wanted to be unattended in her present employment. Her riding habit bade her look quite the horsewoman. Seldom, however, did appearance ever abuse reality quite so emphatically.

  Elizabeth did not embrace this truth fully, but she did believe it was possible that the Mistress of Pemberley might find herself in less than dignified endeavours and wanted no witnesses at all.

  The horse she had ridden each day was the very one Darcy had first chosen for her. Lady she was, in name as well as temperament. She certainly was well-bred and a great deal more spirited than fat old Nellie, hence preferable to ride. Having been atop few horses, Elizabeth believed the mare as safe as Nellie as well. Hence, having successfully eluded the house help and gotten to the stables quite upon her own, she had Lady saddled.