Love Calls Again

by Lucianne Elsworth

  He wrapped the lady's body with his arms while holding the reins. Jane, still clinging to his shoulders, felt dizzy at the wonderful scent emanating from the exposed skin of his neck. He was so manly! Incredibly aroused, she no longer wondered if the Colonel was as passionate as his cousin. She was now certain he must be. She stared at his tilted face, as if she was in some sort of trance, her eyes resting on his lips. Goodness! Her heart was galloping a mad race! How beautiful this man was!

  The Colonel noticed all this. It was not the first time he had aroused the emotions of a married woman, though not one so beautiful and so young. He had never felt tempted to give way to any of them in the past, but this lady was something different. From the very beginning of their acquaintance he had noticed her beauty and genteel manners. And her husband was a complete idiot! No wonder she had felt inclined to fix her eyes on him.

  "Are you comfortable, Mrs Bingley?"

  "Aye, Colonel. I am so sorry to put you in such trouble."

  "No trouble at all, milady. Quite the opposite. Your predicament has turned into my pleasure."

  They both smiled and the rest of the journey was made in silence: she, savouring the arousing presence of his manly features, he, the enticing invitation of her closeness. Well nigh near Netherfield, he dismounted and finished the journey on foot, sending her a meaningful look that spoke volumes. The moment he dismounted, she immediately missed his touch and let him know her feelings by sighing soundly.

  When they arrived there was no one in sight. Colonel Fitzwilliam saw the opportunity for a last close encounter with the fair lady. He placed both his hands on her waist and helped her dismount his horse. When he did so, he pressed her body against his, her dress risen with the shuffling, thus exposing good part of her calves.

  Jane gasped.

  Such an answer merited his immediate response. Ever so slowly, he lowered his head teasingly, tentatively, while his eyes devoured her lips.

  Dear God, he is going to kiss me!

  He was not. He knew better than that. Still the flirting had done volumes for his ego. He felt young and desirable, able to fall in love again. Even if it were with a young unsatisfied married woman. They were interrupted by the voice of the groom. Fitzwilliam quickly let go of her and tilted his head.

  She sighed heavily and rolled her eyes.

  Twenty-Eight

  —

  The True Connoisseur

  Mr Darcy had already been a guest at Longbourn in the past. Hence, it could not be said he was compleatly surprised to see a pig strolling nonchalantly from the dining room to the kitchen where the cook helped him with the leftovers. Every evening during stay with his future in-laws, the happy animal would be seen and heard in his cleansing exertions. Notwithstanding his fondness for pets, Darcy would have never have considered a pig in the same esteem as his dogs, which, in fact were never fed in the kitchen, albeit they slept in the master's bedchamber. It was more than a gentleman of his status could bear for the sake of a wife.

  Needless to say, for the same reason, he was not particularly pleased when he learned that Mrs Bingley's injured foot would keep her at home for at least three days, their trip to London being put off for the same duration of time. Thus, theretofore three days had passed since he was lodged at Longbourn, and in spite of his magnanimous decision to become better acquainted with his new family, Fitzwilliam Darcy persuaded his fiancée to pay a visit to her sister Jane. He consoled himself with the idea, that at least children did not smell as bad as pigs. Or so he thought.

  Thereupon, a few days before their promised departure to London, he and a much relieved Elizabeth were removed to the guest bedchambers at Netherfield Park. He in the west wing, she in the east.

  Unfortunately for Mr Darcy's delicate sensibilities, not only did little children smell much worse than pigs, but they also were even worse at containing. For, although Mr Bennet's pig would perform several disgusting noises while engaged at the task of getting rid of the leftovers, it knew the kitchen was no place to evacuate them.

  Bingley's children did not.

  They would evacuate even in the most preposterous places. That is, on Mr Darcy's pristine shirt.

  Now how the child ended up on Mr Darcy's lap, is a mystery for the reader to work out. Apparently, Bingley's progeny found their would-be uncle an object of their affection, and insistently crept onto him every time the gentleman was sitting near them.

  Poor Jane had never been more embarrassed in her whole life. (The reader might remember another instance of Jane being thoroughly embarrassed but the pleasure that followed said embarrassment very well rendered it worth its while) Much as Darcy would endeavour to remain calm and hide his disgust at the child's capricious choice of toilet, his whole countenance betrayed his repulsion. His face had turned yellow. Yet, he said nothing that could offend the child's sensibilities, but forced a chuckle disguising his distress.

  "You had better become acquainted with little children's goings, eh Darcy?" said Bingley after the inopportune infant had been removed to the nursery along with its siblings by a much flustered Jane and an exceedingly diverted Elizabeth. "Bennet women are very… ahem… I mean… they have to be in confinement very early in their married life, and remain so most of the time."

  Darcy was not a man inclined to idle talking. There were certain subjects he laboured to be away from, though he was certainly not foreign to the topic. Now, being in the intelligence of Bingley's poor marital congress success, Darcy's curiosity was, this time, piqued. Hence, he encouraged Bingley to talk. This was, in fact, most unconsciously done. He soon had great cause to repine. "Do you mean you are planning to have more of these?" jested Darcy.

  "Can I help it?"

  "Can you not?

  "Indeed I cannot, Darcy." Then approaching him, he whispered his explanation, "I expect Mrs Bingley will be in confinement in the next months this year," he sent Darcy a smug manly grin.

  Darcy sent daggers at him. How dared he speak about such thing! Unless he was trying to tell him something… "And will it always be like this?" Darcy asked, disbelieving his friend.

  "I do not comprehend your meaning." Bingley answered puzzled.

  Darcy squared his shoulders and shook his head lightly. "Bingley, are you planning to have one child every year of your married life?"

  "Are you suggesting I should keep a mistress?"

  "I am not! By all means, Bingley. What do you take me for?"

  "Darcy. This is amazing! How am I…" he looked around and lowered his voice again with a disbelieving look upon his face. "How I am to prevent my wife from getting in confinement?"

  Darcy's befuddlement was excessively obvious, his face acquired a pale complexion and his voiced stammered uncomfortably.

  "You mean you do not know?"

  Much to his amazement, Bingley did not know. And the look upon his friend's face told Mr Darcy he had entered rather muddy waters.

  "I am awfully sorry, Bingley. I did not mean to intrude in your domestic life. Pray, let us drop the subject. 'Tis not gentlemanly to speak of this."

  "Pray, Darcy. What is it? Is there something I do not know?"

  "Bingley, this is not a conversation fit for gentlemen. Did your father not enlighten you on connubial congress?"

  Obviously he did not. Bingley's face had crimsoned, much in a maiden's fashion. Darcy wished he were eating from Mr Bennet's pig's dish.

  "Darcy. If there is something I fail to understand, I wished you were honest enough to put me wise. Is there anything I should know about wives that I have not comprehended yet?"

  Lord! Am I his father to teach him such intimate matters? "Bingley, I am afraid I am not fit to… I do not feel this is a subject I am quite masterful at. You had better find the information in a book."

  "Nay, I must know, Darcy. What is it?"

  Darcy saw he had no escape. He held his breath and let it go slowly. His mind made a thorough search for the words his excellent father had spoken to him when preparing him f
or his marital duties. Only then, after helping himself to some brandy despite the early hour, he faced his friend with no little trepidation. Thereupon, he spoke:

  "For one thing, Bingley, you must know that I cannot feel much comfortable talking about this. I shall endeavour to make myself clear." He coughed a little and commenced his speech. "Marriage is a sacred union. Yet its sacred condition does not deprive the man and woman of the… ahem… pleasures their intimate embrace brings about."

  "I have always known that marriage was ordained for the procreation of children," Bingley said smugly.

  Darcy stared at him, a gleam of mirth in his eyes. "Aye. I have noticed you have quite grasped that part, my friend. Still, there are many other aspects of connubial practices that do not necessarily entail procreation."

  "Do not?"

  "I said not necessarily, if one take certain precautions."

  "Such as?"

  "That is very hard for me to explain. 'Twill depend on how long it takes one's partner to take her… pleasure, which I do not wish to venture to learn in so many words from you. Once she has taken hers the man can proceed to take his, either by regular procedure, or by wasting his seed." The last words were said very quickly as if he was in fact trying to keep them from his interlocutor rather than transmitting them to him.

  "Wasting his seed?" Bingley cried out.

  Just then Colonel Fitzwilliam made his entrance into the room.

  "Which seed?" he repeated with great curiosity, thinking the conversation whirled around crop and rotation, while he took a seat near Bingley. He could hardly believe the man could follow such an interesting topic.

  Neither Bingley nor Darcy answered. Instead they became strangely silent as to puzzle the Colonel exceedingly.

  Fitzwilliam looked at them inquiringly.

  "I am sorry. Am I interrupting something?" he began to rise from his seat, meaning to leave them on their own. Darcy could not be more relieved for his timely intervention, thus he gestured him to stay on. The colonel resumed his seat. Saved at the last minute.

  Unfortunately, Bingley's sensibility had been hurt. He could not accept there was any other way of approaching his wife than that which had been so successful in his married life, of which evidence his progeny gave clear testimony. Hence he chose to approach the subject regardless of the Fitzwilliam's witnessing the conversation.

  "You have in fact interrupted Darcy, Colonel. He was about to explain something of a most intimate nature to me. But perchance, you, as a man of the world might be of some help. Pray, will you not listen?"

  "Indeed," answered a much diverted Fitzwilliam

  "I am sorry. I refuse to continue with the tone of the conversation," proclaimed Darcy.

  "Honestly, Darcy. 'Tis clear I was in the right. You have no arguments, whatsoever. Waste one's seed! Indeed. I have never heard such a preposterous notion!"

  Fitzwilliam was following the conversation with a most puzzled expression. Little by little he began to suspect the topic was far from crops and harvest. At least not the kind one used by a horse to plant.

  Darcy's colour went from red to purple. He no longer knew his friend. These five years away from his tuition and influence had turned the once promising young intelligent man into a most clumsy and headstrong idiot, incapable of controlling his mouth. He would not waste time with him.

  Bingle continued protesting his defence of his masculinity "I know not of what you are talking. I always take great pleasure in the regular procedure."

  Now Fitzwilliam began to follow. Well! No wonder Darcy was so nervous! He had never heard him speak of such a delicate subject in all his years with him. Fitzwilliam relaxed in his seat and prepared himself to the most delightful diversion he could find: Darcy's discomfiture.

  Darcy had been pacing nervously hither and thither in the room. At such an expression from Bingley he halted and stared at his friend in confusion. He raked his brain at a loss for words and finally he blurted out, nodding emphatically:

  "Bingley. You puzzle me exceedingly!"

  "Good God," exclaimed Fitzwilliam. "My friend, there is hardly a man who would not get pleasure in what these practices entail. The question still remains if the partner in question feels the same."

  Bingley returned him a look of compleat befuddlement.

  Darcy sent a dark glare to Fitzwilliam. This latter merely winked and gestured to him to relax.

  "Do you think… women… take pleasure in your… ministrations?" asked Fitzwilliam timidly. Darcy raised his eyes and covered them with one palm while he rushed to the next window. He just could not stand it.

  Bingley looked somehow offended, but still he refused to show it. After all he had invited the Colonel to join in the conversation. Therefore, albeit rather put out, he still answered him. "Women take great pleasure in carrying children."

  Fitzwilliam had to choke back a laugh. Biting his lips, he endeavoured to lead the blind man into light.

  "Aye, Bingley. But this is not the subject here. At least not what I am trying to say. The topic here is pleasure. Women's pleasure, is it not?"

  "Listen," said an apologetic Darcy. "If you would excuse me, I believe this conversation has arrived at an end."

  "Pray, Darcy. Do let him continue," a most curious Bingley begged. "Unless you had anything further to say on the subject, of course."

  "Yes, Darcy. I believe I interrupted you most ungracefully, did I not? Pray, continue. You were saying something about women having pleasure?" Richard teased his cousin, barely containing his mirth.

  Darcy made a gesture with his hands as if compelling Fitzwilliam to finish what he could not, but to no avail. Never in his wildest dreams had Darcy thought he should have to lecture anyone but his own son on such intimate a subject. He, of all people was the most inexperienced of all. Yet his brief encounters with Elizabeth and even with Mrs Bingley herself had taught him a gleam of the delights of introducing a woman in the pleasures of the flesh.

  Darcy seemed to have entered into some kind of hypnotic trance and found it impossible to go on with the conversation. Short glimpses of that preposterous night at Rosings Park when he had happened upon Mrs Bingley and had helped her most unwillingly to find sensual gratification were coming to his memory in slow motion.

  "Hm?"

  "Pray, go on," pleaded Bingley.

  Darcy shook his head and paced towards a window. After a few moments he commenced a most incomprehensible speech, "Bingley. Women and men are very different."

  "I believe he is already aware of that, Darcy," objected Richard.

  "I do not mean only physically, you dupe. Emotionally different."

  "How so?" asked Bingley in earnest.

  "Yes. Tell us cousin. I am all ears."

  "They… they take… pleasure differently… they reach their… They are different."

  "I am sorry. I do not comprehend your meaning," an apologetic Bingley said.

  At this Richard intervened. He had soon grown most impatient with Darcy's shortness of words. "Women do not come like men do, Bingley. Rather, they come while their husbands caress them and touch them in certain special areas of their bodies."

  "Come?"

  Darcy was ready to kill his friend. "Bingley!… You know… pleasure in the marital bed… come."

  "Come?"

  "Spent," clarify Richard bluntly

  "I see. Women come?" Bingley exclaimed rather alarmed.

  "For God's sake, Bingley! Of course they do!" Darcy cried out impatiently.

  "Jane does not," he blurted out defensively.

  Darcy was now pale. He would have never thought Bingley such a stupid fellow. The least Darcy would wish was get acquainted with his would-be sister's intimate sentiments. "This is exactly my point, Bingley," he hissed, unable to control his anger.

  At this Richard felt hurt. This idiotic man was venting his wife's emotions for the wind to hear! He would not have it! Yet, there was little he could do about it. Touched by emotions he did not know he harbou
red, Fitzwilliam coughed lightly and announced. "I had better leave you on your own, gentleman. Pray excuse me." And he readily quit the room.

  "Honestly, Darcy. This is the most preposterous notion I have heard from you. And I grant you I have heard quite a lot!"

  "Bingley. If women do not express their relief while in a man's embrace, then most surely the man must be doing something wrong!"

  "Nay, this is not to be borne. I am not doing anything wrong. I have already four children. Five next year, if I am not mistaken." Bingley was red with anger at the preposterous assumption that there was something wrong with his virility. Darcy, regaining composure, patiently looked him in the eye and answered calmly, his voice in a low falling, dominant tone.

  "Precisely."

  Still Bingley stood his ground. He had a handful of progeny that spoke louder than Darcy's theory on women's need for satisfaction.

  "Darcy. The parson put it very clearly at the wedding ceremony. Matrimony is not by any to be enterprised lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy man's carnal lusts and appetites."

  "Bingley…"

  "But reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly and in the fear of God, duly considering the causes for which matrimony was ordained. First, it was ordained for the procreation of children…"

  "Bingley. Do not lecture me on the Book of Prayers. Pray, tell me. Do you love your wife?"

  "More than my life."

  "Then you had better stop making children with her, and begin making love."

  "Dare you lecture me on husband's duties? You had better wait until you have…"

  Darcy sent daggers to Bingley's face.

  "I am sorry. Did I say that aloud? I did not mean it. Pray, Darcy I know not what came over me," Bingley said mournfully.