Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-One

He couldn't stop looking at her. He didn't want to.

When he had ridden north, fast as he could manage, to see Elizabeth again, Darcy had hope in his heart.

Everything about her behavior since she'd surprised him in the stable, soaked and filthy and in his shirtsleeves, had been promising.

But… he had learned to not trust his own interpretation of her features and expression.

As they talked with Georgiana, their eyes met again and again, and she looked for something in his gaze, just as his eyes searched hers.

It warmed Darcy's heart each time he saw how close Elizabeth and Georgiana had become.

They truly were friends, with none of that usual shyness and reserve that he saw in Georgiana around most people, even sometimes around himself. She was smiling, laughing, and happy.

However, slowly Elizabeth became quieter, her glances at him more meaningful, and what she said was more awkward. Darcy wanted to simply speak with Elizabeth.

What conversation they kept up, about meaningless topics, was, he thought, mostly for Georgiana's benefit. And his determination to keep this fa?ade was running thin.

Georgiana recognized something of this, since earlier than necessary she stood, and said, "I do believe that I will withdraw to dress for dinner."

Darcy nodded.

Suddenly he was alone with Elizabeth. His heart beat faster.

She said to him, "Let's go up to dress also."

His mouth was dry.

They walked up the stairs, awkwardly, half intentionally bumping each other as they went.

Elizabeth first entered through the door to the joint sitting room, and she stepped across to open the door to her dressing room. Her voice clearly sounded out, "Mary, you may go."

"Yes, madam."

Darcy did not see Elizabeth's lady's maid, since she left by the other door, but he heard the doors shutting, and he knew they were alone.

He did not think his heart had beat this hard on their wedding night.

She turned to him with a glowing smile that made his heart skip several beats. The weak sun that peeked through the curtains lit her hair into a golden crown. She dimpled.

"I had not realized how much I missed you. I am glad you are back," she said as she approached him.

Darcy swallowed. "I do not deserve your… anything."

She smiled more widely at him and took his hand into hers. "I missed you."

"You must let me beg you to forgive me" — she caressed his hand as he spoke — "I never, never, never should have kissed you that night. I did not mean to force you into anything. And I ought to have treated you with more respect. I have been a man who thought little of the feelings of others. I do not deserve your forgiveness, but I beg for it."

"I forgive you." Her eyes glowed.

"There has not been a day, I think not an hour, that has gone by when I did not think of you. Elizabeth, I cannot say how much I admire you. I am glad… glad you are my wife. And I do not deserve—"

She came closer to him, stood on her toes, and she kissed him.

Her hand wrapped itself around the back of his neck, and her sweet taste filled him.

It was like a dream, but a dream that he had not dared to imagine. He kissed her back desperately.

She moaned into his mouth, and he held her hips and pressed her against him, luxuriated in the feel of her warm body.

Elizabeth's fingers slipped to the front of his cravat, and she started to work her fingers into the knot, trying to undo it. She pressed a kiss against his neck, and the feel of her lips was entirely perfect.

He took hold of her arms, knowing that he could not simply let her do this for him. "I… I do not want to use you. For you to treat this as your duty." His voice was ragged. "Not unless you wish to be with me, to choose me — not if you are merely acquiescing, because it is your duty. If you do not… desire me yourself."

Her face was achingly beautiful. She was perfectly curved, luminous. Her eyes so bright; her skin glowed. "I want you."

"Not… not — is that what you truly think? I do not want to take from you something you are unwilling to give. I need to know, I must know that it is not gratitude for what I did to help Bingley… Or even for my coming to see your aunt and uncle. It was my duty. I did not do it—"

She put a finger over his lips.

She kissed him again, softly.

"I never thought I would have a cause to say this, but, Mr. Darcy, sometimes you talk too much."

That barrier in his mind that he was desperately clinging to, to let him control his own behavior, disappeared.

He kissed her, his lips clinging long to hers. He felt more than ever before. He had never felt like this before, not even when he had been with her.

Before he had believed he had a right to her, and that he had somehow earned her by paying the awful cost of making a bad marriage.

Now, he simply loved her. He simply wanted to hold her, to touch her, to have his arms around her, to feel her lips on his neck, her bosom pressed against his chest, to hold her so tight that it was as though they truly ceased to be two different beings and melded into one.

He wanted her to be happy.

They kissed and pressed against each other, Darcy's hands moved of their own volition as he pulled at the ties of her dress, loosening them, letting him feel the silken skin of her upper back.

"We might miss dinner." She laughed.

"I don't care." Darcy was filled with a fey spirit. He nuzzled her neck, and her chest, feeling her respond, pressing herself against him, holding his hair, stroking his cheeks, stroking his neck and down his arms.

"But what if Georgiana misses us — she was so eager for dinner — oh — that she went to dress — oh, yes touch me like that, again."

Darcy followed his wife's command, and she moaned again. He pressed her onto the sofa as he pulled her dress off, and then the shift, the bedroom being one door too far away.

"We'll make a scandal," — she was laughing, yet holding him tightly against her body — "appearing late for dinner. What will the servants think?"

"The servants ought to mind their own business."

Elizabeth laughed as she worked to undo all the buttons of his shirt.

Her laugh filled him further with desire. He was filled with her, her smell, the feel of her body, and the love of her voice. It was different to lie with her like this, in the afternoon sun, and not in their bedroom.

He needed her. He loved her.

Later, when they finished, and had finished once more, they lay together in bed, barely able to see each other in the moonlight. The servants must be thinking something, and Georgiana as well, but Darcy could not care. He laid his head on Elizabeth's chest, and just listened to the sound of her heartbeat.

His mouth was dry. He suddenly found it terribly difficult to say what he wanted to say. And he wished he could look at her as he did.

Pulling himself up, Darcy looked towards her eyes. In the darkness, he could not see her well enough to perceive the light that was always there, just the vague outlines of her face.

Elizabeth stroked his cheek, the fingers playing over the shadow of stubble that had grown during the course of the day.

"My words cannot express how dearly I admire and love you."

"Oh," she replied.

Her hand continued to stroke his face. Yet she was silent for a long minute.

Darcy felt something catch in his stomach, and then Elizabeth said quietly, "It is so strange, so new. I hardly know what I feel. I had never expected…"

"I know."

"When I saw you this morning, your chest hair was visible, your shirt and face glistened from the water. You smiled at me in such a way. I felt happy to see you again. And I wanted… I wanted…" She rolled over and pressed her face into her pillow, hiding herself from him, as she squeaked out, "I wanted this, what we just had right now."

Darcy leaned back onto the bed. A smile widened on his face. Even if she did not want to reply that she loved him, this was a good start to the matter of courting her.

"I hardly know." She turned and embraced him and placed her head on his chest. "Does that make love? I am confused. It is a thing where… and what I feel… this marital embrace, it is hardly talked about. Even Mama and my aunt only described what is done, and hardly anything about how it feels. I already knew what is done from seeing animals, and that one book hidden in Papa's study…"

"Which book?" Darcy asked curiously.

Elizabeth froze with embarrassment, she then laughed. "One of those books. Oh, I feel shamed to remember what I saw."

"After this?" Darcy laughed. "And ‘those' books? I can imagine several types of ‘those' that might match what you have said."

"I like it when you laugh."

Darcy was filled with a deep feeling of warmth and affection for his wife.

They lay there together, Elizabeth's breath slowly becoming more even, more languid.

At some point, when he was not sure if she had fallen asleep already, Darcy said, "I also like it when you laugh."

Elizabeth made no response, he was not sure if she had heard him.

Then her hand found his, and she squeezed it .