Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

HIS MOUTH WAS hot and wet and she liked the feel of it. Shocking, yes. Shameful, yes. She didn't care.

He had his arms around her. One circled her waist, and the other on her back, his palm splayed out against her, urging her body tightly against his.

She felt small and soft against him, engulfed by his firmness and his larger size. She wrapped her arms around his neck. She had the inclination to climb him, to wrap her legs around him as well. It was madness and she resisted. But she did press in closer. She did move one of her legs around one of his legs, just barely, just an inch, just—

He moaned and the hand on her waist migrated down to touch the curve of her backside.

She gasped in shock and—oh, why did that feel—?

And then his mouth was on her neck, her chin—

She must have tipped her face back when she gasped.

But now he had claimed her mouth again and the kisses , they were like falling into a pit of sparks and flame. She was singed. She was lit up. She was bursting into flame herself.

She liked everything about it. She liked the heat of him, the solidness of him. She liked the way it felt to be touching like this, touching everywhere. She liked his scent. She had liked it before, but up close like this, surrounded by him, it was entirely different. And the kissing, she hadn't known kissing could be quite so prolonged or that it could feel so overwhelming.

She—

"The door is open," she panted, a spike of horror going through her as she backed away from him. Of course the door was open, because here she was, alone, with a man who was not her husband, and it wasn't even remotely proper, except that he had proposed marriage, and kissing was permitted if a couple were engaged, except, well, she didn't think the kissing was supposed to be like that , and she had not actually accepted him.

He backed up until he collided with the mantle of the fireplace. "My apologies. My sincere apologies."

"Mine too," she said in a tiny voice.

Silence.

He gazed at her with that grim expression on his face of his, like he was in sorrowful suffering.

She smiled. She couldn't help it. She didn't mean to laugh at him.

But then he smiled, and his countenance lit up in such a way when he smiled. Had she seen him smile before? It was like watching the sun rise.

She wanted to kiss him again.

Best not do that. She touched her bottom lip. Was it bruised? She could not stop smiling.

"Tell me you've accepted me, then," he breathed.

She nodded, still smiling, nodded and nodded.

"And Richard?" he said.

Elizabeth had not told anyone about the colonel's proposal, because she knew what everyone would have said. They would have told her she must accept him. She had stayed home that evening precisely because she couldn't bear the sight of him, however.

It was not that she disliked the colonel, because she found him a pleasant man on the whole. But this marriage proposal of his, it had been cruel, in her opinion. How dare he dangle all that in front of her, knowing what pressure it would put on her, when he knew that she was in love with Mr. Darcy?

Perhaps he didn't know she was in love, she would grant, she supposed. However, he knew Mr. Darcy was in love with her.

Colonel Fitzwilliam hadn't done it out of any true regard for her, though. He'd wanted to… to possess her.

Mr. Darcy wanted to possess her, too, she supposed, but it was different. Not because she thought he had true regard for her. She didn't think either of them knew each other, not really, and it was all frightfully foolish, the sort of youthful spark of love that everyone was always claiming would fade.

It was different because she wanted to be possessed by this man. She wanted to put herself at his mercy and let him do with her as he wished. She didn't know why. It wasn't intelligent or even much like her. But it was the truth.

"He proposed," she said, sounding as though she'd been running for miles, her voice very winded, "but I said very little. He asked me if I wanted to think about it, and I said I did."

"Because you had no hope of me, I suppose." He looked regretful. "I am ever so sorry. I have no excuses, really, only that your effect on me is rather frightful. I mean to behave a certain way, and then I see you, and I can't think."

"Yes, it is much the same for me," she said.

"But it wasn't always," he said. "You weren't like this until that ball in London. What happened?"

"I don't know ," she said. "I suppose it's some sort of violent storm of love. Aren't they always writing poems about such things?"

"So, you have fallen for me for no reason, then?"

"Have you not fallen for me in much the same way? You said you have struggled, and sir, I have seen the struggle, writ quite plainly upon your face, every time we are close. You want me against your will."

He furrowed his brow. "Well, perhaps, but when I say that, it sounds sort of romantic, and when you say it back to me, that you want me against your will, I don't like it."

She shrugged. "I suppose I should be glad of the situation. My status will be improved materially. You're the one who will suffer all the humiliation of having fallen for a woman like me."

He scoffed. "They'll take one look at you and understand why."

She scoffed. "I'm not even the pretty one. You said I was only tolerable—"

"The pretty one?"

"Of my sisters."

"So, who is?"

"Jane!"

He only laughed.

"What?" she said.

"I don't know, Miss Bennet, but every man you've fallen in with over the past few months has proposed marriage to you—"

"No, they have not!"

"I think you may be selling yourself a bit short, that is all."

"You must call me Elizabeth," she said.

"Elizabeth," he said, and there was a hunger in his voice that stirred her.

She lurched for him and then stopped herself. "I want to kiss you again."

His grin went nearly feral. "I am going to kiss you senseless every day for the rest of our lives."

Her heart felt as if it had taken wings, as if it were soaring.

"Say it, if you please, aloud, that you will be my wife."

"Oh, I suppose I haven't done that." She swallowed, nodding. "Yes, Mr. Darcy, I will marry you."

He let out a huff of air and she saw him try to reach for her but restrain himself.

"My hand," she said, offering it to him.

He snatched it up and brought it to his mouth.

She shivered.

He kissed all of her knuckles, gently, slowly, in succession.

Her eyes rolled back in her head .

A voice carried in, one of the servants, inquiring if there was anything that was needed.

He dropped her hand.

She raised her voice. "Thank you, we're in no need of anything. Thank you for asking."

He stifled a laugh.

She cringed. She whispered, "They saw."

He shrugged. "Doesn't matter."

"It does matter."

"It's my error, not yours, Elizabeth," he said in a deep voice. "I'm the one who can't keep myself in check around you. And because of it, I'm marrying you, so all is proper."

"I don't think that's the way it works," she said. "I'm supposed to have some semblance of myself, to be able to resist you, and I can't keep myself in check either."

His smile grew very wide.

"Oh, that pleases you."

He took her hand again.

"Mr. Darcy," she said, and it was a plea, but she didn't know what she was begging him for—to start, to stop, to leave, to stay?

He kissed her in the middle of her palm.

She sighed, letting her eyes flutter closed.

"A short engagement," he said in a gravelly voice. "I shall go tomorrow to see your father, and I want the first of the banns read on this Sunday."

She thought maybe she should protest. It wasn't prudent to behave in such away. But she didn't care, she found, and she couldn't protest.

She wanted to be his, wanted it more than she'd ever wanted anything on earth.

MISS ANNE DE Bourgh was sitting out on a wooden swing in the gardens at Rosings, smoking a pipe.

It wasn't ladylike for women to smoke pipes, of course .

It wasn't really in fashion for anyone to smoke pipes. The rage was snuff these days. It was inhaled through the nostrils. There were cute little tins for it.

Anne wasn't much interested in being cute or fashionable.

She was, as her mother called her, a trial and a tribulation.

Long ago, her mother had realized that Anne must not be seen or heard by anyone, ever, for Anne was incapable of doing whatever was expected of her. Anne didn't even know why. It was a perverseness within her, something that welled up and seemed to take control of her. She would have liked it to be different, truly. She could see that when a person did as society dictated of them, people were nicer to them.

But, to Anne, this seemed inauthentic to the extreme.

If a person only liked her because she followed all their stupid rules and pretended to be exactly like everyone else, then that person didn't really like her, they only liked her compliance.

Anne never complied.

So, her mother had begun putting out the story that she was sickly, and it wasn't exactly a lie. There was something wrong with Anne, that much was clear. Despite the fact she could rationalize why she would not comply, it wasn't actually a choice. She could intend to do the proper thing. To speak in a simpering voice and play the piano and wear lovely dresses. She could intend to do it. But when it came exactly down to it, it simply wouldn't happen, as if some other, demonic force had taken over her body.

So, the story was that she was ill, and she was hidden away here, never taken to town, and given a free rein when visitors came. She was allowed to not come down to dinner or to not participate in any social obligations. The excuse would be her health. But the truth would be that she simply couldn't behave in the manner expected of her.

It was painful, truly, because Anne actually desperately wished to be liked.

Not liked for her behavior or her compliance, but liked because of her real, true self .

And because she could not comply, she was shunned.

So, the truth was, being authentic meant rejection.

Anne knew it, and she still couldn't stop.

"There you are," said a voice.

She hopped off the swing. "You're late." She blew out smoke. She was working on learning to blow smoke rings.

"Oh, and here I thought we'd sit together," said Mr. George Wickham.

"Still eager to be close to me, I see," she said. "Is this why you sent me the letter? Is this a tryst?"

She had surrendered her virtue to George Wickham some years ago, though the act had never been repeated, because she'd been disappointed in the entire enterprise. She felt it was the height of unfairness. It felt much better for him than it did for her. It seemed designed for men, in fact, for men's pleasure.

She could pleasure herself much more effectively, and she wasn't interested in doing that ever again.

Wickham used to be at Rosings all the time, when they were younger. He was a tagalong, Fitzwilliam Darcy's playmate, always welcome. Then he'd been caught in Anne's bed, and that had meant he was banished from the place forever.

Her mother had been horrified, of course, but had long ago made peace with the fact that Anne would never marry. The idea of Anne's compliance to a man was simply out of the question. For some time, considering that Mr. Darcy was still unattached, her mother had loudly proclaimed hither and yon that there was a betrothal between Anne and Darcy. But Lady Catherine didn't really think this would happen. She only said it to explain why she was not trying to marry Anne to anybody at all, why Anne never had a Season, why Anne never had any gentlemen callers.

This excuse would only last so long, of course, but Anne thought privately that her mother was simply hoping to die before Darcy married. He was only eight and twenty, after all, and he might wait another seven or even ten years to marry .

After her mother did pass on, Anne would inherit Rosings and the family fortune, which was fortuitous for her. She would be able to live here, an eccentric old maid, forever.

Likely, if she wished, Anne could even take a lover and flaunt the fact she wasn't married. Likely, she could have a very public affair with a married man. Likely, she could even have an affair with a woman.

Anne could do whatever she wished. And she did. But what she really wished, deep down, was just to be, well, loved.

George Wickham was definitely not equipped to love her. Wickham was broken inside somewhere. Deep under his layers of defense and idiocy beat the heart of a puppy dog. True, he had done all manner of terrible things to the people he cared about, but he still felt as if his family had rejected him, and he would never get over it.

Wickham's place in the Darcy household had always been precarious, of course, and Wickham had sensed that.

Something had risen in him, his own perverseness, Anne supposed. She had enough perverseness of her own, so she could spot it in other people. He had needed to test his place in the family, to poke it, to make sure it was real. So, he'd begun doing awful things, and… well, lo and behold, it turned out that the only thing people wanted from him was compliance.

If he did bad things to them, they didn't want him around.

So, Wickham felt rejected.

In that, they were kindred spirits, she supposed. Neither of them able to do what society demanded of them, both of them cast out and left alone.

He took the pipe from her and puffed it.

"Give that back." She tried to take it back.

He held it out of her reach and laughed in her face.

Anne folded her arms over her chest and glowered. She was not going to play this game. "Wickham. You sent me the letter. "

He gave her back the pipe, sullen. "It's a nasty habit, pipe smoking."

"And you have a small prick," she said, settling down on the swing and puffing on the pipe, sullen herself.

"No I don't," he said.

She did that sometimes. Saw vulnerable bits of people and clawed at them. Retaliated in a way that was out of proportion.

He sat down on the swing with her. "How many other pricks have you seen besides mine?"

"Hundreds," she said, which was a lie.

He snorted, believing her. "You're going to get yourself with child or you're going to get some sort of disease."

"George," she said, blowing smoke in his face again, " what do you want?"

"Oh," he said. "I think there's a girl here."

"A girl?"

"Her name is Jane. She's an angel. I want to marry her, and I thought maybe I could get you to give me some money."

"What?" She turned on him, utterly confused and disgusted. "You want me to give you money so that you can get married?"

"Well, not for nothing." He lifted his shoulders. "I'll do something in return if you but name it. Sometimes, you do just give me money, though. You gave me money for the commission in the regiment."

She'd felt sorry for him. He had that puppy-dog thing deep in him. It was affecting sometimes. "How much money?"

"I don't know," he said.

"I thought there was some other woman with money. Miss Knave or something."

"King," he said. "Miss King. Well, that didn't work out."

"Because you did something wrong?"

"I missed her," said Wickham. "Jane, I mean. And her mother. And her father. And her sisters, too. Especially the young one, Lydia. She's fun. I like it there with them. It's a good place. I want to go back."

"You're not starving or something, George," she said. "You have the commission. You have an education. There are a number of things you could do for money besides extorting it from me."

"How's this extortion?" he muttered.

"But you want more money than that," she said. "And I know why. You think, if you have enough money, they'll accept you again, but they won't. They never will. Bedding me was likely the first mistake you made. Allowances were made, because I'm me, and everyone in the family is aware something is wrong with me, but even so, it was a misstep."

"I've thought this," he said glumly.

"Have you ever thought that the reason they rejected you was because you started acting badly, not because of some elusive defect within yourself?"

"What?" he said.

"I'm only saying that if your requirements for acceptance are that people must like you in spite of all your awful qualities, of which there are many, than it's little wonder you don't have anyone liking you," she said. Then she grimaced. Oh, Lord, that could apply to herself, couldn't it? Dash it all.

"Fitzwilliam will never accept me again," said Wickham. "Not after Georgiana. That's done."

"Right," she said. "You know this, and yet, you hold out hope, even so. My giving you money will not make you a gentleman, Wickham."

"So, you're saying no," he said.

"I don't think it's what you really want," she said.

"Well, if I marry her, we're going to have a very rough time of it," he said. "It shan't be easy for us to be together."

"Nothing's easy," said Anne, attempting to blow out a smoke ring and failing.

"If I get myself into a scrape with owing things for gambling, though? You'll give me money then, because you've done that before."

"Oh, damnation, George," she said. Sometimes she felt sorry for him, she had to admit. Sometimes, she wondered if she was wrong about herself, if she had some stupid, girlish crush on him. There was a reason she'd chosen him to surrender her virtue to, after all, and it hadn't simply been proximity and convenience. He was a very handsome man. "I don't know what I shall do when it comes to you."

"I can't count on you, then."

"No one can count on anyone," she said. "Here endeth the lesson."