Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

MR. DARCY HAD been here at Pemberley for nearly two months now, and he had spent most of his time in two pursuits.

One, looking at his wife. He liked watching her eat. She savored her food, slowly tasting it. He liked the expressions on her face when she tasted something she liked. Surprise, then enjoyment, then excitement as she asked for a second helping.

He liked it when she was reading and she came to a part of the book that made her furrow her brow in consternation. He daydreamed about smoothing his thumb over that furrow there, about touching her skin. He had been close enough to her on enough occasions to know that his own hand seemed impossibly huge next to her small and delicate features.

The thought of his clumsy hugeness against her pale grace seemed, well, like a kind of defilement in some way. He shouldn't even want it. Touching her would be a sin against nature and God and decency itself.

Why he wanted it with such a blazing fervor was certainly a blight on his soul.

He should not want it.

Sometimes, she'd be out in the gardens at Pemberley, strands of her long dark hair coming out from her bonnet. She'd go out in gloves and then get frustrated when the fabric clung to her hair, so she'd take the gloves off. With her teeth.

He liked watching that, her teeth at the finger of her gloves, the way her face would contort in a kind of fierceness as she tore them off. And then she would busily tuck her hair away, calling for pins from her maid, tossing her gloves onto a table.

He liked her fingers. They were small and pale and graceful, too. He remembered watching them on the keys of a piano. He'd asked her to play for him once, but she'd put him off with a guffaw, saying something about how she didn't want to damage either of their ears in that way.

Two, thinking about his wife. The thoughts were abominable. They got worse at night, when he lay in his bed. He was ashamed to say that he thought about her and touched himself. He didn't think about the shape of her then, not the curve of her waist or the swell of her bosom. He was afraid to think of such things. He thought about her fingers then or her smile or the way she gasped in delight when there was blackberry jam for the scones.

It was quite bad, because now, whenever there was blackberry jam, he would react in ways that made his trousers too tight. It was appalling, sitting next to her at teatime, aroused, watching her shut her eyes and let out little appreciative moans as her tiny pink tongue darted out to get a stray smear of it from her plump pink bottom lip.

Kissing her.

He never thought of that.

It crossed his mind, and he pushed it away.

He didn't think about having her, not really. He couldn't think about it. It felt like some awful trespass to consider it. Hadn't he done enough to this poor woman?

No, no, it was impossible to ask her to accommodate him in that way, all of his girth and heft and his sweat and his clumsiness. She was like a work of art, a beautiful bit of perfection, and he was not permitted to sully her.

It was torture, that was what it was.

But the sweetest torture that he could have possibly devised for himself. He hated it. He never wanted it to end.

If it weren't for Georgiana's letters, maybe it never would have. But his sister wrote with increasing agitation about being banished from Pemberley, saying she had never heard of a honeymoon that lasted so long, and that she was lonely there in London, that she felt as if she had been left out of this part of her brother's life for far too long.

Things between himself and his younger sister were not exactly the best they'd ever been. The business in Ramsgate had changed things and then his being on laudanum had made things much worse. Abandoning her in London while he went off to Pemberley without her hadn't served to heal any rifts between them, he supposed.

He would go and collect her. They'd travel back together and they would have time to talk, just the two of them alone.

He could not keep putting it off.

He had not been putting it off in the hopes of some physical manifestation of a honeymoon, of course. He had no real sense of ever laying a finger on Elizabeth. He knew such a thing might have to occur at some point, for duty's sake. An heir must be sired, that sort of thing. But that kind of duty-bound behavior was sure to be wretched for them both. He would sully her, eventually, he supposed, as awful as it might be. He'd prefer to avoid that as long as possible, however.

No, he supposed he'd been putting off getting Georgiana simply because he was enjoying staring at Elizabeth all the time. He liked watching Elizabeth with the dogs. He liked watching her licking jam off her lip. He liked being close to her. When his sister was here, it would be different, that was all.

Now, however, he was leaving.

The first thing to do was to find this Mr. Grayson and to get all that settled. He made a few inquiries the morning after his conversation with Elizabeth, and then the man presented himself at Pemberley, bold as brass.

He had a thick northern accent, but he dressed well. He talked like a man of the lower classes but he had the entitlement of a gentleman.

"Those be my dogs," he said. "Stolen from me, they were. Is a gentleman like yourself in the habit of committing robbery?"

Mr. Darcy had only smiled at him, refusing to answer the question. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," said Mr. Grayson. "I hear word you be asking about after me, wanting to see me, and then I show up here and you pretend like you don't know why."

"I'm interceding on behalf of the Tavish family," said Mr. Darcy. "They're tenants of mine, and I understand you are the reason they can't keep up with their rents to me. I wish to settle that problem."

Mr. Grayson looked him over. "Oh." There was a long pause. "But those dogs—"

"What dogs?" said Mr. Darcy.

"You know very well what dogs and don't play me for a fool."

"You can't mean the little mutts that were abandoned on our grounds in a wooden box," said Mr. Darcy. "If those were yours, sir, I suggest you watch your property more closely. Anyway, those dogs wouldn't have been stolen. No one steals unweaned puppies. More than likely, you didn't want the trouble and left them off somewhere to be someone else's problem. Now, you wish to say that I'm a thief? And when I'm offering to settle a debt for one of my tenants? You might think to how you wish to proceed, sir. I may simply have you chased off my property with word to shoot you on sight if you ever come back."

Mr. Grayson's nostrils flared. "A man like you, all this property, can get away with shooting anyone he likes, I suppose."

"It seems to me any man can quite get away with shooting someone. I was recently shot, after all," said Mr. Darcy. "The men who did it are free as the wild summer wind. I assure you, none of them had property."

Mr. Grayson sighed, bowing his head. "They owe me a great deal, the Tavishes. What with all the interest that's accrued over these months and months—"

"They've been paying it off because they haven't been giving my household the eggs and other foodstuffs that they agree to give as part of their agreement to work my land," said Mr. Darcy. "So, no interest, not if they've been doing their part."

"What did old Tavish say he owed me?"

"I haven't actually spoken to him yet," said Mr. Darcy. "I think you and I shall solve this. Do you want to give me a number or shall I estimate?"

Mr. Grayson folded his arms over his chest and spat out a ridiculous sum.

Mr. Darcy pretended to consider. Then he pulled out his purse and began to count out coin. "There. How's that?"

"It's not the full amount I just quoted!"

"But you'll take it," said Mr. Darcy. "And you'll go. And you will never set foot on my land again. Right?" He gave Mr. Grayson a smile.

Mr. Grayson swept the money into his pocket, furious. "All I'm trying to do is better myself, you know? It isn't fair that some men have so much and others have so little."

"It isn't fair," agreed Mr. Darcy. "But it doesn't give you the right to hurt other people to better yourself."

"As if you don't hurt others," said Mr. Grayson. "Forcing people to give up the fruits of their labor just because you inherited the land."

"That's hurting them?" Mr. Darcy shrugged. "Is it remotely the same as extorting payment from them which they can't pay and never erasing a debt? You really say being a landlord is the same as your behavior?"

Mr. Grayson didn't respond. "Good day, sir. As you say, I shan't set foot on your land again. I daresay we'll never see each other." He went off in a huff.

Mr. Darcy had given him quite a tidy sum of money, so he couldn't understand why the man was so offended. He was like George Wickham, he thought. No matter what he got, he was never satisfied. Nothing was enough for men like that.

He told Elizabeth what had happened at dinner that evening, and then told her he'd be off in the morning to London to fetch Georgiana.

She was very grateful, effusive with her thank-yous, but he couldn't help but feel as if something had changed between them after that conversation in his bedchamber, and not exactly for the better. She seemed more subdued lately. When she looked at him, she often looked as if she was thinking worried thoughts. She hadn't seemed that way before.

But when he asked if she would like him to stay, she insisted he should go, that he must fetch his sister, and that there was no reason for any more delay.

So, he left.

He went on horseback, so as to make better time, since he was going on his own. He and Georgiana would take one of the carriages that was kept in London back with them. He anticipated a short visit, one in which he would simply collect Georgiana, stay a night or two, and then turn around and come right back.

However, upon arriving, Georgiana informed him that she wished to attend an opera which was opening in a week and a half, and he acquiesced to wait at least that long for a return trip. He sent a letter to his wife to this effect.

He missed her. Missed listening to her, being near her, looking at her.

He had sort of gotten trapped into marrying her by circumstance, he supposed, but he considered himself the luckiest man on earth to have somehow secured her, as if he'd tricked fate into getting to have her after all.

Mr. Darcy loved Elizabeth, and he didn't care if she never returned that love.