Chapter One

Fitzwilliam Darcy stared at his face.

Shadows danced across his reflection in the wavering candlelight.

He rubbed his hand over his chin, feeling the shadow of stubble that had grown up over the course of his wedding day. He tried to read his own eyes in the dressing room mirror, asking the flat, dull reflection how he'd been such a fool — what had you been thinking when you kissed Elizabeth Bennet in that library?

The answer was in the desperate desire he felt, the impatience for her to tell him that she was ready, and he could enter her bedroom.

The Bennets had captured him — the daughter with her intense appealing eyes. She had convinced him to go with her to the library during Bingley's ball under the pretense of continuing their argument about Mr. Wickham. She'd convinced him with her eyes to kiss him, without directly saying a thing that could leave her exposed to the derision of society if overheard.

That night, in his drunken state, she only needed to look at him with those intense eyes and lift her trembling lips towards him.

He had been lost.

The mother entered then, and she ensured that there was no way he could retrieve his honor without making the offer of marriage.

It had been too late when his lips had touched hers, but the mercenary daughter and her mercenary mother had not trusted in his honor. As drunk as he had been, they must have feared that he would simply claim to have forgotten the whole incident the next morning, if he'd been given the opportunity.

He would not have.

The kiss had tasted of wine and chocolate, and something peculiarly Elizabeth, and which made his stomach float just from the memory. He'd hardly had time to enjoy it when Mrs. Bennet and Lady Lucas entered the room, seeing them in flagrante delicto .

He had rarely drunk so much in his life. In that inebriated state he had not been able to resist acting on that intense longing that had filled him since he'd realized that they needed to leave Netherfield, for his sake more than for Bingley's.

If Darcy were honest to himself — he did not wish to be — he needed to confess that the lamb had not been wholly unwilling to be led to the slaughter.

And at last, the endless maidenly chase was complete. All women wanted his money, and they would say or do anything to gain it. He had needed to be always vigilant in their company.

His father had explained it to him before he went to university. And he'd confirmed this from his own observations, whenever an unattached woman walked into a room where he was present, she immediately oriented herself towards him. She wanted his position and his fortune. That he was generally assessed as handsome only added to the glow of the prize.

Overheard gossip informed Darcy that even his handsome appearance principally added to his appeal not for its own sake, but because it would be an additional tool that the future Mrs. Darcy would be able to use to make her dearest friends deathly jealous.

Darcy clenched the back of the chair that his valet had him sit in when he was shaved. He gripped so hard that his knuckles turned white.

God he was such a fool.

He had wasted himself. The penniless — or close enough to make no difference — daughter of a minor gentleman. Mrs. Bennet had loudly spent the evening of the ball at Netherfield talking about their plans to trap rich men for her daughters.

At least he had saved Bingley from the same fate. Miss Bennet cared nothing for him, and after a great difficulty Darcy convinced his friend of that truth. Bingley had safely departed to London on "business" the day after the ball, only returning briefly to stand with Darcy at the wedding. The whole time he'd theatrically avoided meeting Jane Bennet's gaze, now knowing her complaisance and smiles to not come from any real affection for him.

Yet…

He was desperately eager to hear the promised knock on the door from Elizabeth's side of the apartments. His face went alternately pale and hot. He had a catch to his breath. The nuptial bed with Elizabeth. He would make her truly his wife.

The thought of how he would touch her, as her husband, sent a shiver of anticipation through Darcy.

The fire crackled in the large marble hearth in his bedroom. He heard shuffling from the other side of the door, and very low words spoken between Elizabeth and the woman she'd brought from Longbourn to be her lady's maid.

No doubt Elizabeth's servant would be incapable of keeping her mistress up to the standards expected by the ton , and he would need to make Lady Susan or his aunt find them an appropriate woman, but there had been no time before the wedding.

Darcy did not want to wait.

He could scarcely wait now.

Hurry, hurry. What took her so long to dress?

Outside it softly snowed.

It was not fair for him to be angry at Elizabeth and her mother. They had offered a trade. Elizabeth for his wealth. He had chosen to take that offer.

Elizabeth had gained a position far greater than she could have hoped, all the pin money he'd signed over, and the hope of having her wealthy husband advance the interests of the rest of her family.

He had gained her and her body.

Darcy had waited so long .

He had never taken a woman to his bed. Partly because he always wanted his father's approval, partly because he was disgusted by Wickham, and partly because he was a man who took religion and what was right seriously. Darcy believed most of his friends and acquaintances did, and he did judge them for that, but not harshly.

Just as it would be for Elizabeth, tonight would be his first time joining in this way.

He heard one more quiet whisper in his wife's dressing room, then the soft sound of the maid's footsteps, and the far door being closed.

Silence.

He wanted to go to her, to end this delay.

But he had said he would wait for her. However long she needed to settle her nerves this night, it was only right that he gave that time to his bride.

Just because she had been a woman capable of enticing him to kiss her, that did not mean that she was not nervous, and did not wish to have time to prepare herself for the marriage bed. Some part of him did not believe that she could honestly want him — not her or any woman. They only wanted his position, and the right to brag to their friends that they were Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy.

Elizabeth could not be different in that way.

But she had chosen to make herself his wife. She had chosen to share the nuptial bed with him.

This was now his right.

After an eternity, the candles flickering the whole time, he heard steps come up to the door, and then a soft, hesitant knock .