Chapter Three

Chapter Two

The marriage bed, conjugal relations, knowing a man, was…

Fitzwilliam Darcy, her unwanted husband, was half asleep. His head rested on her chest. A weight that was heavy, but somehow pleasant and comforting. He slowly, absently rubbed his hand up and down her bare arm.

Elizabeth's face felt hotter with embarrassment than it had ever done before.

Her heart had rushed like an out of control carriage when she knocked on his door to indicate that she was ready for their inevitable joining to happen. She'd hardly known what to expect — the details, of course, she had known. She had seen animals mate, and it was impossible to forget the images from a hidden book of her father's that she'd once discovered. And her mother had delivered detailed advice in person the previous night, and her aunt Mrs. Gardiner had delivered equally detailed advice upon the wedding night, with a highly different tone, via letter two days prior.

But what would it actually be like?

A mix of pleasure, pain, and an incredible strangeness.

A wanton part of her mind wanted to convince Mr. Darcy to do it again. To take every liberty with her now that they had married.

He shook himself, kissed her neck, and then kissed her lips softly. "What are you thinking?" he whispered.

Elizabeth flushed but did not tell him that she was imagining him pressing his hand tightly against her naked breast.

He had come into the room, filled with his own emotion, and he had kissed her with aggressive need, he had removed her dressing robe without so much as a "May I", and then her silk nightgown, and then he had taken her.

After a while he sighed, no longer expecting a response from her.

Damned arrogant man. She did not wish to have her desire for him to do that again. And she would not tell him.

He had just taken what he wanted, what he thought was his right as the master of Pemberley, without paying any attention to the feelings of anyone else.

He'd taken her lips that night at Netherfield in a pause as they argued about Mr. Wickham.

Yet… yet… yet…

She had experienced pleasure, desire, and a brief loss of her never ending awareness of herself; as they joined, she had felt a sensation that pointed to something beyond ordinary and daily life. She wanted to feel that again.

She was not surprised. She had expected to enjoy the joining, despite the warnings from her mother and aunt that there would be pain, and that often it was difficult.

Darcy's kiss at the ball also had a great deal of something pleasant in it.

He clearly only lost his self-control sufficiently to kiss her because he was deep in his cups. She had not stopped him because she too had drunk considerably more that night than her usual quantity.

Why had they never told her how exquisite the taste of a man could be? Maybe she would have known to flee then. Or maybe she would have thrown herself at a man earlier.

The experience of pleasure was not worth it. She had ruined her life, and in exchange for a moment's delight she had been forced to marry an arrogant and uncaring man who thought profoundly ill of her. Her father now despised her — and Elizabeth in turn perhaps despised her formerly beloved father.

Elizabeth focused her mind on Darcy's breath, on the strange sensations in her loins, the weight of his head on her chest, and the warmth from his body.

She did not want to think again about how Papa had attacked her instead of helping her in the most serious crisis of her life. She did not want to think about shouting at him that she had not forced Darcy to marry her so that she could wear pretty clothes, and that she would never spend more than fifty pounds a year on clothes.

Of course it had only been a crisis for Elizabeth . As her mother ecstatically exclaimed, again and again, it was a great boon for the family. Just think about all the other rich men that Jane and Lizzy would be able to throw their sisters at.

Darcy's breathing was slow and comfortable. He did not try to make her answer the impossible question of "what was she thinking" again. He seemed relaxed, perhaps happy.

Anxiety for Jane.

Jane, poor Jane.

Mr. Bingley had overheard what Mama had said upon finding her kissing Mr. Darcy. Maybe that was why he had left Netherfield with his family the day after the ball. In fact, he'd departed for London while Darcy called on Papa at London to offer his hand to Elizabeth.

Miss Bingley had sent a letter with Darcy explaining that they had all decided to return to London. It was a letter filled with ill-concealed anger at how Elizabeth had succeeded in Miss Bingley's quest.

All hope for Jane was gone after this morning.

Bingley returned to the neighborhood to stand beside Darcy at his wedding. And he barely looked at Jane standing across from him. He had not spoken a single word to her, not even when she spoke to him. But it was evident that being near her caused him pain. He had, though, spoken once to Mama, "Madam, I congratulate you on finding such a rich man for your daughter, and I wish you the best of luck in settling your other children on such unwilling partners."

Darcy must have said enough to Bingley for his friend to know that he considered himself to have been trapped into the marriage. He must have said enough to convince Bingley that they were all fortune hunters.

The anger was coming back. And with it an urge to shove him out of her bed.

Mr. Darcy was just like Papa. Both of them were convinced that she was the worst sort of mercenary woman.

Lord! When was he going to leave?

His head on her chest was heavy, and she was trapped.

Just go. I don't want you to be here .

She could never escape the weight of "Darcy". No matter what happened in the future, she always was "Mrs. Darcy".

So much for her grand determination to only marry for a strong and decided love. Instead, she had married to avoid a strong and decided social disapproval. She'd known it was a mistake as she'd said, "I shall."

She'd known. She'd known.

But she hadn't been able to stop herself from saying the words that condemned her to this life, and to having this damned head crushing the breath out of her forever and ever.

If she'd screamed, "No, I shall not!" it would have ruined the lives of her sisters. Maybe if Mr. Bingley had shown that he was still attached to Jane, she would have been brave enough to do it.

He rocked his head back and forth, the light stubble on his jaw rubbing against her sensitive chest.

Mama had promised that her husband would absent himself after he was done, so that he might sleep better. Mrs. Gardiner had suggested that her husband may wish to stay with her afterwards.

It seemed that, unfortunately, Mrs. Gardiner's prediction was correct.

She just wanted to be alone.

Everything was so unsettled, so strange, almost eerie. How could she decide what she thought about their conjugal relations while he was here?

She wanted to clean herself, use the chamber pot, and just sit in bed staring at a candle till oblivion took her.

Darcy's hair had a pleasant scent.

His smell did funny things to her chest and stomach. Things that felt good.

That flush of anger slowly left her.

The candle on her dresser still flickered and let her dimly see his hair spread out over her chest.

He'd gone very slowly when he first entered her — it was clear from his tension, his breathing, and the way he desperately kissed her throat, as though there was nothing more important in the world than tasting her, that he could barely control himself to offer that gentleness.

Elizabeth rather thought the slowness with which he broke her maidenhead made the pain worse, not better.

And after that, he had been desperate, fast, needy, moaning and inarticulately whimpering her name, "Lizzy, Lizzy, Lizzy" over again.

The rest of the time she was Elizabeth to him, or sometimes Mrs. Darcy.

But he had not been a beast.

Any reality to that universal fear of young maidens was nowhere in the experience.

He had taken her, and he had never hesitated to do so. But he had also been… sweet.

Darcy's breathing changed, and the weight from his head became heavier. A low nasal snore began, a little like what Papa sounded like when he fell asleep in his armchair while waiting for them to return from a ball, but quieter.

He was asleep.

Elizabeth stared up at the ceiling she could not see in the low light as anything but a black presence.

She wanted to move, but she was scared to do so.

While undressing and having her hair done by Mary, Elizabeth had noticed nothing about the decor of the room that was now living quarters when the Darcy family was resident in London. Not even what the color was. Did the wall coverings have prints on them? Was there a portrait? Was there anything?

Elizabeth had simply not taken notice due to her nerves.

It almost seemed rather silly.

The nuptial bed had changed her. She was now a wife, a woman, no longer a girl, a maiden.

But… the fear and anxiety she had felt was out of place.

Nothing worthy of terror had happened here.

She shifted around, trying to find a more comfortable spot without waking Mr. Darcy. He groaned, rolled onto his side, and embraced her tightly against his chest, murmuring inarticulately in his sleep.

Elizabeth laid her head against his bare chest and sighed.

This was comfortable. Darcy's low steady heartbeat lulled her.

She was sleepy enough to stop caring so much about how she was sticky and needed to pee. Too sleepy to want to get up.

Her mind wandered to the way his face and lips looked as they had stared at each other in the Netherfield library. His beautiful eyes. The dozens of flickering candles lighting them up.

The grotesque bear rug, the thin aching sound of the violin from the ballroom, footsteps coming down the hallway, the way his collar hugged his neck, an ache in her left foot from when she'd been stepped on by Mr. Collins at the beginning of the night, his lips. An awareness that he despised her, and that there was something about him, something she admired against her own will, that there was something grand about him that she'd never seen in any other man, including Mr. Wickham.

She'd stared at his lips, and then he kissed her.

Simply taking.

Instead of slapping him, she'd let him deepen the kiss… or maybe she had deepened it. His mouth had tasted like strong brandy, iced sherbet, and something that was his own taste, indescribable but tingling and heady.

And then her mother and Lady Lucas had opened the door — quietly enough that in their absorption they had not jumped away from each other, or even realized for a dozen racing heartbeats that they were no longer alone.

Her mother's screech of joy made them leap apart, "Lizzy! My clever, clever girl! My girl! Ten thousand a year! That is as good as a lord! Bingley is nothing to him!"

And when she looked back at Darcy's face as he backed away from her, his usually still face had been changed into one full of disgust and loathing.

Lingering on that memory, like a living nightmare, Elizabeth slowly slipped into sleep against Darcy's chest .