She was both emotionally and physically exhausted from the day’s events, her mind a jumbled mush with nightmarish visions of her boy being ripped from her arms, her boy screaming for her, her boy suffering because of her weakness of loving another.
The reality was that any hope for escape was probably finished. She had long suspected that servants had been watching her, waiting for her to cross the mistress. Someone would be rewarded handsomely this night. They would not wait until the mistress returned from her holiday party, she would be told immediately. The authorities would come in the morning to take away her son, and she would be forced to beg permission to return with him to Penwood House.
Once more her existence would be solitary, alone for years in that wretched house. In fact, the loneliness would be even worse now. Richard had opened a door for her to a life unimagined, a life with a passionate, caring partner. It was a life she could not openly live, if at all, for years to come, and then only if Richard was willing to wait for her.
Who was she trying to fool? After this night, they would be lucky to meet at all, let alone like thieves, sneaking around to steal forbidden moments. How long could he wait for her? Why would he wait for her? She ached only for what every other woman seemed to have and she could not: a home and a family. With growing melancholy, she steeled herself to the obvious. There could only be this night as a family, as a normal couple together.
***
Fitzwilliam looked distracted and tired after having spoken at length with Darcy. He was wearing Darcy’s borrowed night robe, brandy stains and all. He reached his hand out to Amanda. “Come on to bed now, love.” After kissing Harry’s cheek, she nodded kindly to the nursemaid who would keep watch over her son during the night, and then they walked silently into Richard’s usual room.
He closed the door and went immediately to the desk to take up a large stack of letters waiting for him, turning up the lamp light to read them. There was correspondence from the War Department, from Wellington, from his father. All demanded his immediate attention, all were questioning his whereabouts for the past month, all had their own anxieties, their own requests of him.
“Are you coming to bed soon, Richard?” Amanda sat on the edge of the bed, watching him, seeing the concern in his eyes, or the humor, or the aggravation, depending upon whose letter he was reading. Her heart calmed suddenly when she realized there was one good thing to come of all this tragedy. At least he would be safe. At least now he would not be made to sacrifice so much.
“In a moment, dear.” He pulled his chair out and sat, taking up his pen to give his response to the more urgent of the letters.
Amanda retrieved his clothes still lying where he had dropped them. She folded them and placed them neatly onto the chair. She waited and watched for her husband to come to bed, refusing to sleep this last night.
***
There were only a few hours until dawn when he finally pulled the covers back. Although a fire blazed, the room felt damp and cold. Amanda’s gentle fingers touched his mouth.
“I thought you were asleep already, Amanda. You were so tired. Why don’t you try to rest?”
Instead she reached for him, pulled him down, began to kiss his neck, his ear, and then began to nip at his shoulder, her hand moving slowly down his chest and stomach.
His breathing stopped. Concern fought with lust as he gathered her tightly into his embrace. “Amanda, you’re trembling.” His voice sounded rough. She had been through so much, and this boldness was very unlike her. He smoothed the hair from her face, sighing and confused. She had so many different moods, this new wife of his, with so many mercurial emotions concerning sex that they baffled him. Sometimes, when she seemed the most amorous, it was actually just a plea for comforting. Sometimes it was simply from insecurity, sometimes lust. There were preferences for how and where, preferring curtains pulled tightly and total darkness, clean sheets, a tidy room. Certain positions took a little coaxing, but with enough prior notice could be accommodated.
On the other hand, he knew that men needed absolutely no excuse for sex nor did they care a whit where or when or how. It was all to the good and very basic.
Her hand continued its achingly slow descent.
The South of France saluted.
Responding immediately, Fitzwilliam moved her body beneath his, gently drawing her long, silky legs about his waist. He grasped her bottom, and his breathing quickly turned to panting. She whispered his name over and over, reverently, like a prayer between kisses that rapidly became fierce and savage and hungry.
He rose up on his elbows to take some of his weight from her, but she urgently shook her head. “Come back,” she whispered.
“Amanda,” he said hoarsely, “I’m too big… the baby. I’ll smother you both. Let me at least support myself a little.”
She grabbed at him, clutching and pulling until his beautiful mouth was again on hers, and then he was inside her again and carefully pressing her deeply, rhythmically into the bed, but she wanted to feel covered, protected, possessed. She grabbed at him desperately, moving her hips until it rendered him helpless and unthinking, and he soon forgot his much larger size and weight, forgot her delicate condition, forgot the boy and nurse in the next room, forgot that he was a guest in his cousin’s home or that there were innocent people living in respectable homes outside their window. He growled and yelled, and his body soon trembled its release. Finally, they lay there, breathing as one.
It was several moments before he raised himself onto an elbow to gaze down in the moonlight at her, a look of stunned appreciation on his face. “Good God, woman,” he whispered. “You’ll have me burst into flames one of these days.” He smoothed some hair from her face and kissed her nose then laughed softly. “I don’t know why I am bothering to whisper, I’m certain shutters are being slammed all over Mayfair from the racket we just made.”
Her fingers caressed his face, fingers tracing each line, each crevice, while she skimmed her hand across the scar on his jaw and she smiled briefly at the memory of their lovemaking.
“Amanda, stop,” he said gently, capturing her hand. “You’re touching me like I’m going to disappear. I am not, you know.” He tried to laugh it off and kissed her forehead, beginning to remove himself from her. “I wish you would have faith in me, trust that all will be well. I won’t let anything happen to you or the boy.”
“Don’t leave me yet,” she pleaded. It would be hard for him in the shadows to see the panic in her eyes or know how fiercely it rose in her chest. This could be our last night together, my darling, for many years to come. She forced her voice to sound cheery. “It feels much better to make love properly, I mean in the dark like this, doesn’t it? Making love in the afternoon light felt rather badly behaved. I was always embarrassed to know that you could see me when I called out your name.”
He enveloped her again with his body and arms and whispered into her ear, “I believe shrieked would be more accurate.” She cuffed him affectionately on his shoulder, and they both laughed softly.
They remained in each other’s arms, talking in whispers, laughing and touching intimately. It was a while before he slowly began to feel the stirring again and once more began to kiss her mouth, her eyes, her throat… feeling the madness in them both returning.
***
Darcy still could not sleep and restlessly paced, his gaze falling across the broken door handle to Lizzy’s dressing room. Whenever he passed, he felt a tremendous stab of guilt strike at his stomach. Tragedy had ventured so easily into his home and had nearly taken all that was dear to him. His thoughts punished him, endlessly replaying the fight they had had and how this evening could have turned out so differently if not for Amanda.
His eye caught torn pieces of paper surrounding the dressing-table chair. Reaching down, he picked them up and patiently assembled them upon the table, finally reading Caroline’s note to Elizabeth, finally understanding what had happened.
“So this is what sta
rted the whole thing,” he sighed raggedly. “A nasty bit of revenge from a rejected woman.” He sat down heavily on the chair and reread the letter again.
I have to accept my own part in this. I kept the truth from Lizzy when I might have avoided this whole trouble by only being honest with her. I certainly was no gentleman; she was right about that. His disappointment with himself was tremendous, even greater than his anger at Caroline, but he would not lose his control again. Never. Least of all over that vain and silly trollop.
“William?” Lizzy raised her head upon hearing him enter their bedroom.
“Why are you awake? You are supposed to be resting.”
“I heard you sighing in there and grew concerned.”
“How are you feeling?” He took her hand in his and kissed her forehead.
“As if I’d been hit by a runaway carriage. Is everything all right? Good, then I need to see my son again.”
“He is beautiful, Lizzy.” Darcy picked the child up from the large cradle and brought him to her. “Have I mentioned that before?”
As she smiled, he lay down beside her, the baby nestled between them in her arms. “I am so sorry, Lizzy, for this whole evening,” he finally said. “What a mess I created with my temper. I will never forgive myself.”
“Oh, of course you will, at least you should, and probably sooner than I will consider appropriate.” She patted his arm lovingly. “Remove your boots, please, dear.”
She is feeling better. He laughed to himself as he pulled them off.
“William, you must stop whipping yourself. We will have many more fights before we are finally too old and infirmed even to recognize each other. When that time comes, we shall, hopefully, be polite acquaintances.”
He snuggled back into bed beside her. “I am normally such a sane, dignified gentleman of the world. Why is it that around you I completely lose my wits?”
“Your wits are merely the first of many sacrifices to come.”
The quiet warmth of the room and the strong bonds of love and family kept them quiet and content for a long while. Then, suddenly unwilling to delay a moment longer, he hugged her tight and said a silent prayer before delivering his long-overdue confession. “I found the letter from Caroline,” he whispered. “I never realized before how evil and cruel she could be. I must confess to you, Elizabeth, that I did see her at Netherfield, but only because she had tricked me into going there. She forged a message to me from Charles, saying he needed help with a problem. I thought it concerned Jane and didn’t want to stress you if it was something I could handle alone.” He scrubbed his face roughly. “So much for my consideration. Anyway, I left immediately upon learning of her deceit.”
Stunned for a moment, she said nothing. “But you could have told me, William. I would have understood.” She then remembered her sporadic pregnancy ravings and sighed. “… Or not. Well, perhaps it was best that you said nothing. But that trip was months ago. Why send the note now, when we are so vulnerable? Could she have deliberately timed the letter’s arrival?”
He could not speak for a long while. “If I thought that, I don’t know what I would do to her, can’t even let myself think. But I tell you we won’t ever again see or hear from her. I will have to tell Bingley the whole story, and you will need to confide in your sister Jane so that we can arrange our visits with them without coming into contact with Caroline. Is that all right with you, Elizabeth?”
She nodded. “I would never lose Jane through this. I think they will both understand. I hope so, at any rate.”
“Now, go to sleep. I’ll put the angel back into his cradle.”
Chapter 9
All around him, as far as he could see, Fitzwilliam saw babies, cooing babies crawling where there should have been the mutilated dead bodies of grown men. This was unacceptable. It was going to take him all night to collect these children and bring them somewhere that would be safe, and then who would feed them? He turned to his sergeant major, sorry to observe that the entire side of the poor man’s head was still blown away. He tried to help the soldier reattach the jawbone of his shattered face then pointed to the babies crawling between them, around them. The man nodded in silent understanding, and they both began to walk to the glacis surrounding the burning fortress.
Fitzwilliam was standing once again at the siege of Badajoz, and the constant pounding of the cannonade in his dreams gradually altered itself into ordinary knocking on their bedroom door, easily dismissed at first, but soon the unrelenting persistence grew closer and louder, and Richard awoke.
Amanda’s eyes, however, had blinked wide open immediately with the certain knowledge of what was happening. “Don’t say a word,” she whispered into his ear. “Ignore her. Please.” They heard someone call his name. It was the morning of their third day at Pemberley House, their departure delayed for many reasons—contentment at being together finally, complacency over their success at escaping, minor difficulties in obtaining just the right coach, passage to the Continent becoming intermittent, ruled by the weather. Besides, no one had bothered them. The sense of urgency had diminished.
“Colonel Fitzwilliam. It’s the nursemaid, sir. Mr. Darcy is at the dressing-room door and says he must speak with you immediately. There are some people outside, sir.” She sounded anxious.
Fitzwilliam scrubbed his eyes with his hand to force the sleep from them. He heard Darcy in the distance bark an order down to someone on the first floor, sounding angrier and more urgent now. “I must see to him, Amanda. Darcy would never be pounding on our door like this if it wasn’t important.” She attempted to stop him, but he patted off her hand and was pulling on his smallclothes, breeches, and shirt before she could say anything more.
He walked quickly across their bedroom, pulling open their door.
“Excuse me, please, Colonel, for disturbing you like this, but Mr. Darcy is that insistent.”
“Yes, that’s quite all right. I understand. If you would, bring the child in here to his mother.” He turned toward Amanda to give her some instruction, but his breath caught at the sight of her. She stood in the corner of the room, looking small and petrified. He smiled faintly at her and then whispered to the nurse as he passed, “Please close the door to the bedroom after I leave.” She nodded in understanding.
***
“What has happened?” Richard watched as Darcy stormed past him into the sitting room. Plainly about to explode with anger, he turned around at the table before the fireplace, his hands on his hips. Richard raised his hand to stay him, giving a quick glance at the closed bedroom door. “And please keep your voice down. I don’t want Amanda unnecessarily alarmed.” It was a moment before Darcy could calm himself enough to speak.
“I’ll tell you what has happened.” Darcy moved closer. “The world has gone mad. That’s what has happened. There are at least a dozen hideous-looking Bow Street thugs out there—poor old Winters was nearly struck by one of them. They tried to force their way into the house, the bastards! Luckily, my hideous-looking thugs are bigger and so managed to keep the scoundrels out. But here’s the thing—I believe they are demanding the boy be brought out immediately. I overheard someone exclaiming loudly that the child had been kidnapped, if you can imagine a mother being accused of that! And a crowd is quickly gathering. Evidently, the entire area has suddenly decided to use a good woman’s personal tragedy as diverting entertainment.”
“Damn it! I am so sorry to have brought this to your doorstep. I should have known. Blast, we should have left yesterday.”
“The point is that we must shield Amanda and the boy. I cannot permit a child to be taken from his mother, most especially a member of my own family, and they are both part of this family now.” Darcy was storming back and forth before the fireplace, pounding his fist into his hand.
“You know you’re beautiful when you’re angry.”
“Oh shut up. Now, how do you want to handle this?” He sat down on the edge of the desk, his arms folded before him. “I was
informed that there is a clerk of the court present with some sort of legal document to deliver, probably a court order. I say we present a type of combined front of bullshit, intimidate the man enough to buy some time, perhaps even turn the crowd against him until we locate someone who can return to override any immediate custody order he may have.”
“Well, we outfoxed footballers four years our senior at Harrow, we should be able to bluff our way through this.” Fitzwilliam began rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “Bloody hell, this is entirely my fault! Amanda tried to warn me about the woman’s vindictiveness, but I thought she was overreacting. Never imagined the old witch would take this to the courts! I’ve been expecting her footmen to come first with her demands. Damn, I suppose I should have listened, taken this more seriously. If only we had more time!”
“Have you heard anything from the lawyers? Surely, now that you are her husband, she’ll have more standing in the courts.”
“As a matter of fact, I have Drake and Poole working on something very promising.” He placed a bare foot on the seat of one of the chairs, resting his forearm across his knee. “But they must request a review by parliament. You know how it is, with all the lawyers involved and then the mind-boggling slowness of the House of Lords—this could drag on for some time. Shit! Well, if he does have a court order, we have little choice in the matter. The boy shall have to be returned. Oh God, this will break Amanda’s heart. She obsesses over that child, is terrified of being separated from him for even the smallest moment.”
“How could someone be heartless enough to separate a mother and small child permanently? Do you think the old woman is only bluffing?”
Darcy and Fitzwilliam: A Tale of a Gentleman and an Officer Page 31