Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

IT WAS MORNING, and Mr. Darcy was naked and waking in the bed of his very beautiful, similarly undressed wife, who was pressed into him in all the best places, and he was frightened to move, frightened to stir, frightened to ruin the absolute perfection of this moment.

Lying like this, holding her, he could pretend it was different, that they were in love—well, that she was in love with him, because he was gone for her, utterly gone.

He could pretend that their consummation hadn't been some kind of ridiculous disaster, that he hadn't spent outside of her like an overeager adolescent, and that he hadn't lost his erection at the thought of causing her discomfort.

Though, of course, this was truthfully what had given him pause all along. Sullying her, using her, making her into a receptacle for his pleasure, he found that deeply uncomfortable. He had resolved that he would have to do it, that it was just part of the entire act. It hurt women, at least the first time, and he thought he'd be able to marshal his will to get through it, anyway.

But then it hadn't been that way. Her pleasure, watching her have pleasure, it had been a revelation. Nothing in the earth or sea or sky had ever aroused him so. Her husky little voice as she worked her body against him, saying please over and over again, and the way she was so obviously enjoying herself? It was like watching her eat but ten thousand times better. He liked pleasing her. All he wanted to do was please her.

He hadn't been sure that she would enjoy it at all. He'd heard conflicting bits of information about the way women experienced the act itself. Some men seemed to think that women were lustier than men. After all, women were closer to the natural order of things, with their monthly cycles and their overt figures—curved for the precise purpose of inciting lust, to the way of thinking of these men.

However, Mr. Darcy wasn't entirely sure that this line of thinking held up. For one thing, women didn't seem to engage in it as much as men. Now, this could be because they were prevented from doing so, he supposed, by social strictures and rules that bound women that didn't bind men. On the other hand, even when they weren't, even when there were wealthy widows, you didn't see young men doing a brisk trade in selling their favors to those widows, did you?

No, only men paid for it.

This, to him, seemed to indicate that men's appetite for the act was stronger.

On the other hand, he supposed widows usually didn't need to pay, because there were young men lined up to service them for free.

However, this only proved his point, didn't it?

He had thought, always thought, that men were simply more interested in it than women, indeed, that men enjoyed it more than women. But, well, the way his wife had fallen apart underneath him last night, the way she'd gasped as those tremors went through her, he'd had to revise that entire notion. She'd enjoyed that. And what was more, he wasn't sure it didn't feel better to her than his own release felt.

He wished he'd had more to do with it, however. He hadn't had any notion of what to do or how to bring that about. She'd done it herself, really. If he'd introduced her to such pleasure, then maybe she might fall in love with him. But as it stood, he doubted she was very impressed with his performance.

Now, she stirred, sighing against him. She was impossibly pretty as she blinked away her sleep and recognized him there, with her. She smiled at him, a brilliant sort of smile that made him think she was happy to see him.

"Good morning, Mrs. Darcy," he whispered.

"Good morning, Mr. Darcy," she said, still smiling at him. She reached up to brush her fingertips over his chest.

He liked that. He shut his eyes and let her.

She kept tracing little patterns on his body.

He rolled onto his back, and she perched over him, using both hands now, making little noises as she brushed his chest hair this way and that. It almost tickled, but it was shockingly pleasurable. His breath hitched, and the sensation traveled to the root of his groin. He swelled and lengthened there. He began to debate whether he was going to attempt to use that on her again.

If he was, he thought, he wished to give her pleasure first, in case it hurt her again.

"Apologies," she breathed. "I find your body quite curious, I suppose. It fascinates me."

"Never apologize for that," he said in a guttural voice. "May I touch you?"

"Mmm," she said. "If you want to."

"I asked because I want to." He nudged her back to lie on her back so that he could settle over her. He tugged away the blankets so that he could look at the expanse of her pale skin, at her breasts and belly and the shock of dark hair between her thighs. He brushed the back of his knuckles this way and that, making her nipples stand at attention.

She let out little noises—first just gasps and huffs of air, but then they began to deepen into moans.

He liked the moans, and he let them guide him. He followed the moans and let his fingers linger in places that made her moan. She lay there, eyes closed, lips parted, too beautiful for words, and he wrung moan after moan from her lips.

When he finally got the nerve up to touch her between her thighs, she was under the spell of the moans, he thought, and she let her legs fall open and gave him easy access. They progressed in the same way, his fingers questing and her moans doing the communicating. Except, when he touched the little slippery nub in the front of her sex, she didn't simply moan, but cried out in obvious pleasure.

So, he settled there. He ventured down to her opening but she went quiet then, no moans or even gasps, so he went back up to the nub. It had a name, he knew. What was it?

Now his fingers were slippery with the wetness from her opening and that made it easier to glide up and down over the nub or to brush it side to side—

Clitoris, that was it. It was Latin, he thought. Maybe? It sounded Latin.

However, he was distracted from his thoughts on etymology by discovering that she liked it when he made circles around it, very much liked it, and he did that again and again as she made the most delicious of sounds and the hardness between his own thighs pulsed in sympathetic arousal, and then she went tense for a moment before dissolving into tremors and tremulous sounds and he jerked between his thighs.

He was painfully aroused. He wouldn't last, he didn't think, and so he covered her body with his own and kissed her throat as she writhed beneath him, and then—

Blazes, being sheathed in her was like a one-way carriage ride off to the bright center of the ancient world. He rutted into her with abandon, untethered, hardly himself, making some kind of noise that was tremulous on his own end, rather embarrassing, and he resolved not to think of that and not that he might be hurting her, because he was close, very close, and the more quickly he accomplished this, the easier for them both.

But she was sighing under him, running her hands over his shoulders, gasping as if she was not, in fact, in pain.

Could she… like that?

He crested at the mere thought of it, of some kind of mutual pleasure, finding it together, something perfect and sweet and wondrous, a joining of two into one. The world went white-hot and blinding, and then he was spilling into her, shuddering with the goodness of it.

In the wake of it, he lay half on her body and half off of it, frightened of crushing her with his weight.

She hummed, drawing figure-eights on his bicep.

He didn't want to move. He was still lodged in her body. He reasoned that she wouldn't be humming if it hurt. But he didn't know if he wanted to ask. He was a selfish, horrid creature, that was the truth of it, and it felt too nice to know the truth. He wanted to stay here, possibly forever, but barring that, he wanted to be given permission to come back, to prod his way into her sweet, snug, wet heat and…

Oh, this was dreadful.

She didn't even like him.

He had not come here last night with the intention of doing this with her. It was perhaps a testament to his own worser nature that he'd acquiesced to it so easily. It was only that he had sensed that if he left her, left her bare and beautiful body laid out for him like a feast, and went back to his own bed, alone, it would have destroyed him in some way. He had needed to accept her offering in some primal way.

Now, it had happened, but he worried it had only made things frightfully complicated.

"Well," she said finally. "I was worried we wouldn't manage it, but it went just fine, didn't it?"

He pushed up onto his arms, peering down at her. "Did it hurt?"

"No," she said. "No, I liked it." She touched his chest again. "I like us connected."

He kissed her.

She kissed back, sighing, and that was when he wondered how dreadful his mouth must taste in the morning after sleep. Carefully, he ended the kiss, wincing in embarrassment. "I'm so very sorry."

"For what?" She was puzzled.

"Oh, everything, I suppose," he said.

"I have no complaints about anything that's happened this morning," she said, giving him a mischievous little smile. "If I'd known it was going to be like this, I daresay I wouldn't have let you dally over it for so long. I would have demanded you be my right and proper husband, I think." She stretched her arms over her head and yawned, and she was so fetching and adorable that he felt his heart squeeze painfully.

He slipped out of her now, and she made a noise of disappointment, which he found gratifying. He carefully lay down next to her.

She rolled onto her side. "You must have thought it was different than it is?"

He furrowed his brow. "I don't know. I suppose. But why do you say that?"

"Oh, because you kept acting as though it was something terrible you were going to subject me to." She considered. "You know, my mother sort of acted the same way, but I thought she was just being mean-spirited. My mother holds grudges."

He laughed. "I hadn't noticed that about your mother."

Elizabeth buried her face in his shoulder. "Oh, let's never speak of her again when we're not wearing clothes. It's exceedingly bad."

He rubbed her back, chuckling. "I did think it would be different. I didn't expect it would be so pleasurable for you. I had this impression that it wasn't that way for women."

She lifted her head. "Oh."

"Well, what's that reaction?" He gave her a smile. "It's a good thing, and now that I know how to—"

"Maybe I'm not supposed to like it," she said.

"I don't think so," he said. "I think it's good that you like it."

She furrowed her brow, worried.

He reached up and used his thumb to smooth out that furrow in her brow, the way he'd daydreamed of doing it. He let out a sigh.

Her expression softened. "The way you're looking at me, Mr. Darcy."

"Apologies," he said, letting his fingers fall.

"It's only… you don't think me awfully plain, do you? Regardless of that comment about my being barely tolerable. That's not at all why you didn't wish to take me to bed."

"What?" He sat up. "You thought that? Elizabeth, I stare at you constantly because you're exceptionally, heart-stoppingly beautiful."

Her jaw worked, and she let out a tiny noise in the back of her throat.

"You haven't noticed my staring?"

She shook her head.

Of course not. She didn't notice him. She never really had. Here she was, and he'd had her in every imaginable way, been inside her body, left his seed inside her, claimed her…

And she wasn't his, not even now.

Maybe that was all right.

Maybe possessing her would ruin her in some way. He searched her gaze, feeling his heart full to bursting with his love for her. He wanted to worship her. He hoped it took a very long time to get her with child, so he would have every excuse to keep doing this with her.

"So, you were hesitant, then, just because of thinking I wouldn't like it?" she said.

"It seems so invasive is all," he said. "Are you certain I didn't hurt you this morning?"

"I didn't mind it," she said. "I promise. I want you to do it again. I like us connected." She twined her fingers with his.

So, then, it had hurt? He gazed down at her.

She smiled at him, her eyes bright, and he thought of that time she'd appeared in the breakfast parlor at Netherfield, cheeks high with pink color, skirts muddy, inquiring breathlessly after her sister.

He'd wanted her in his bed then, if he was honest with himself.

Well, he thought, if it does hurt her, maybe it's a balance, somehow. Maybe if I please her enough beforehand, then I can earn taking my own pleasure?

He needed to talk to someone about this. He needed advice.

"I THINK I need advice," said Elizabeth in a small voice. She was outside, watching the dogs on the lawn. "But I think I need to speak to a married woman."

Harmony shifted on her feet. "Oh, yes, I saw him leaving your bedroom this morning. Was that the first time?"

Elizabeth glanced at her maid. "I can't talk to you about this."

"Well…" Harmony looked around as if she thought someone was listening, although no one was. "I know you're not supposed to do things like that before you're married, but everyone does."

Elizabeth turned to her, eyes wide. "No, they do not."

Harmony hunched up her shoulders.

It was quiet.

Elizabeth took Harmony by the arm and dragged her over to a wrought-iron bench. She pulled the maid down next to her. "Maybe it's different amongst the lower classes. I've often thought it must be so."

"Yes, must be that," said Harmony with a little nod.

"So, that means, you…? What?" said Elizabeth.

"I don't know," said Harmony. "I had a sweetheart once. And we were going to get married. But he decided to go to France and fight Napoleon, and…" She shook her head.

"He died?"

"Well, I was sad about it for a time," said Harmony. "But I often had this feeling that he left just to escape me, you know? As if I were this lodestone around his neck, pulling him down. When we first met, he was just at me about it, all the time, trying to get me to give in. And I resisted and resisted and resisted until… I guess he wore me down. Then it was all awful. I was terrified he was going to get me with child, and he acted as if he hadn't even thought about that possibility. Of course, to get me to agree, he had promised to marry me, but then once it was done, I think he wished he hadn't said it." She shrugged.

"That sounds rather horrible," said Elizabeth, who was thinking it was actually the sort of cliche that she'd heard bandied about her whole life. Exactly the reason not to allow men liberties.

"It's entirely as they always say, I suppose," said Harmony with a shrug. "It's the way men are. They're obsessed with it."

Elizabeth let out a long, slow breath, and her heart started pounding.

"Except he isn't?" said Harmony, in a furious whisper. "He never touched you before now, did he?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "No, and the excuses he has about it… well, you should have heard him working himself up to it last night. Just business, he said, to make an heir, and then…" She leaned back into the bench and looked up at the sky.

Well, nothing about it had been businesslike, nothing at all. She was in love with him now, and she understood why people talked about being pierced by Cupid's arrow, because it hurt. It was an open wound, this love.

"Why not until now?"

"I thought he wasn't attracted to me," said Elizabeth.

"Oh, I would have thought the same," said Harmony. "Why, it's been months. It's not regular to behave that way."

"Well, he told me he never did it before," said Elizabeth softly. She glanced at the maid. "You understand that you can never repeat this?"

"Of course," said Harmony.

"Anyway, so I don't think he knew what it was going to be like, and I think he was of the impression it was going to be very horrible for me," said Elizabeth. She looked up at Harmony. "Did you think it was horrible?"

"What? No, of course not," said Harmony.

"So…" Elizabeth let out a breath. "Women like it? Most women like it?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Harmony, thinking about it. "I don't know about most women. I think there are lots of women who don't, in fact. Well, I used to work for a laundress, and there were ever so many of us just washing sheets and linens and all manner of things all day, and lots of those women would complain about how their husbands won't let them be, how annoyed they are about all the attentions, that they're too tired after a long day and they don't want to have any more children and…?"

"Right," said Elizabeth.

"But I liked it," said Harmony. "I mean, I think he liked it more than me, to be honest." She shook her head. "That's why it was maddening, really, quite maddening, because I think, before it happened, I wasn't that interested in him, and then afterwards, I felt, I don't know…" She sighed. "Connected to him, I suppose."

"Yes," said Elizabeth in a tattered voice. It had hurt less that morning, much less than the night before, but it had still hurt, and yet, she had liked it. But it was that feeling, of him within her, their bodies tied together… It was powerful.

"But he didn't seem to feel it at all," said Harmony with a sigh. "Maybe this is why you should wait until after you're married. This way, he's made a real commitment to it all upfront, I suppose. Maybe it would be different."

"Did it hurt?" Elizabeth said.

"Oh, it doesn't the next time," said Harmony.

"No, the second time, it did," said Elizabeth.

"No, I mean, the next incident… give it a few days to heal," said Harmony. She gave her mistress a knowing smile. "So, he was really at you then?"

Elizabeth felt herself blushing. "I should never have told you anything."

Harmony giggled.

"One more thing, and then I wish to leave this subject forever," said Elizabeth. "Do you think… a woman could be wrong in some way?"

"Wrong?"

"Could a woman have a… a part that isn't supposed to be there?"

"What are you talking about?" Harmony blinked at her.

"Well, the act of it, it's his body inside yours, of course, so…" That's the part I'm supposed to like, not the strange little part on the top of me that feels so sensitive. "Women's pleasure, it's not like men's."

"No," said Harmony.

"So, if it were like men's, if a woman had a part like a man, then…"

"What are you saying, Mrs. Darcy? I have seen you naked. There is nothing wrong with you."

"Not me," said Elizabeth, shaking her head, knowing that Harmony had certainly never inspected that part of her body in detail.

"All right, then you're asking because…?"

"I don't know. Never mind. Women don't have… if a woman sort of had a…" She lowered her voice. "Sorry to be vulgar, but something like a little prick, that would be wrong."

"I've heard of such things, actually," said Harmony softly. "People with both kinds of sexual organs. I think it happens."

Elizabeth drew in a breath.

"But you don't have anything like that."

"I said it's not about me," said Elizabeth.

"All right, just… if your husband was at you more than once, I'm sure he thought everything was just exactly regular," said Harmony. "I can assure you, ma'am, that—"

"All right, all right," said Elizabeth, shaking her head. "Let's leave it."

"You promise you're not worrying about that?" said Harmony.

"I promise," said Elizabeth with a smile. Except, of course, she was. Why had that happened to her? Why had she found such pleasure from having that part of her body stroked?

No matter what Harmony said, she wasn't sure that something wasn't very wrong with her. Maybe she should have disliked her union with her husband, because she had felt it was uncomfortable that first time. Maybe it was supposed to be something she endured. It was the only reason he'd been so hesitant about doing it, anyway, she thought.

So, the fact she had liked it, it was…

Well, something must be wrong with her.