Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

MR. DARCY DID not visit his wife again that evening, and she certainly didn't come to him. At dinner, he told both Elizabeth and Georgiana that he was planning to leave early in the morning to head down to Staffordshire, where he knew that Alex Fitzwilliam, the Viscount of Banvolk, was staying, at the house of a mutual friend of theirs.

He'd usually turn to Richard in times like these, but Richard was back in France at the moment. So, his elder brother would have to do. It was going to be a wretched sort of conversation, Darcy imagined, but at the very least, he and Alex were cut from the same sort of cloth. Richard was different, less formal, less careworn. Darcy and Alex both knew what it meant to have the pressures of being an heir and firstborn son on their heads.

Georgiana had not been pleased. "But we just got here, Fitz," she'd said. "And besides, I want to see Alex, too. You must take me along with you."

He'd denied her that and she had gotten sulky.

"You always treat me like a child," she'd snapped.

"You are a child," he'd rejoined, and then Georgiana had gone lethally silent for the rest of the evening.

His wife had been quiet, too, though, and he'd wanted to speak to her. However, they'd all gone to the sitting room afterward, and Georgiana had started playing the piano very loudly, too loudly for any conversation. He didn't think she was trying to impede their talking, only that she wanted him to understand that she was displeased with him.

He wanted to reassure Elizabeth that he was simply going away for advice, that if he'd had his way, he would have spent every single night with her until her belly swelled with his child.

He felt strangely gratified at that thought, a feeling that wasn't exactly arousal, but might be arousal's cousin, something quite nice.

She had mistakenly thought he wasn't attracted to her, and he wanted to reassure her this was not the case, never the case. It was true, he supposed, that he had not thought she was beautiful that first night, but he didn't understand why, in retrospect. Even the following gathering, at Sir William's, he'd found her pretty.

Maybe he would blame the dimly lit public ball if she asked again.

Maybe that was the truth of it. He hadn't really gotten a good look at her. He'd been anxious and uncomfortable that night, anyway, not inclined to find anything or anyone pleasant.

But there was no time to talk.

If he'd gone to her bedchamber, they would have ended up together in that way again, because he wouldn't have been able to stop himself, and he really needed his rest for the journey ahead of him.

So, no talking, and he was off before the dawn.

Alex wasn't expecting him, but he didn't seem to mind at all when Darcy arrived in the midday. Darcy came in to speak to their mutual friend. Everyone was at cards, and Darcy declined, asking if Alex would mind going on a walk with him.

His cousin agreed and they went off together into the sunlight of the summer afternoon.

"You're very agitated," observed Alex. "You've come to ask for money or something, haven't you?"

"No!" Darcy shook his head. "How could you say such a thing? I am not hurting for money, Alex."

"Well, what is it, then? You want something, Fitzwilliam."

"Advice is all, I suppose," he said with a sigh.

"Advice from me about what?"

"Women," said Darcy.

Alex stopped walking. "You married that chit of a girl and it turns out she was trying to trap you, then? What? Is she sending money to another man or something?"

"No!" Darcy folded his arms over his chest. "Why don't you let me speak?"

Alex shrugged. He started walking again. "Is it about your wife?"

"Sort of," said Mr. Darcy. "You've… with virgins?"

"Oh, it's about sex." Alex stopped walking again. "You've been married to her for months."

"I know, but… it's complicated. So, it's only recently that—"

"Really? That long?" Alex shook his head slowly. "Did she bleed a lot?"

"No, not at all," said Mr. Darcy, who hadn't worried about that before, but perhaps he should have.

"Well, they don't always." Alex waved this away. "It's always been known, even in the days when they displayed the blooded sheets. Some women do; others don't." He shrugged. "What's the problem?"

"Well, I guess I'm just wondering if it's always unpleasant for women, I think."

"So, you were terrible at it, I see. I told you, you should have been getting some practice in, but you didn't want to bed actresses. Thing is, an actress can give you quite a number of pointers. There's something called a clitoris, cousin, and—"

"I've no problem with that aspect of it," he said, flushing. "That part… she liked that part, just the actual act of it, that part. Is that always unpleasant?"

"No," said Alex. "I'm not entirely sure why you're thinking these parts need to be separate, however."

Mr. Darcy blinked. "Ah," he said. It was a revelation.

Alex laughed, clapping him on the shoulder.

Darcy thought about it some more. "How would you… reach?"

"There are other positions. She can help."

"Right." He chuckled softly under his breath.

"You're hopeless," said Alex, also laughing. "You rode all the way here just for this?"

"I am hopeless," said Darcy, nodding. "Embarrassingly so." He pointed at him. "You will not breathe a word of this to anyone—"

"When I see her at the next family function, I'm going to think of you with your mouth between her legs—" Alex broke off at Darcy's expression. "Oh, I see you hadn't thought of that either." He shrugged. "Mind you, I don't know if you're strictly supposed to do things of that nature with one's wife, but I find in those sorts of ways, actresses and wives are quite remarkably the same."

"Right," said Darcy.

"When you're in town, if you'd like some introductions…?"

Darcy sighed heavily, feeling morose. "Well, maybe at some point, I may indeed ask for that." When this arrangement with his wife was over, however, he was fairly certain an actress, no matter how comely or enthusiastic, would seem like a pale imitation.

ELIZABETH SPENT THE day with the dogs and Harmony. Georgiana did not appear for any of her meals.

In the afternoon, Elizabeth decided to look in on her. Even if Georgiana were ill, she might like a bit of company. Most people didn't like to convalesce entirely alone.

However, Georgiana didn't seem the least bit ill. She was only angry.

"My brother doesn't think of me like a person," she said to Elizabeth. "He ignores me most of the time, and he doesn't care about my feelings. Then he gets angry with me when I do things like encourage Wickham."

"But did you encourage him?" said Elizabeth. "I thought he initiated all of it and you were just swept up in it?"

"Oh, I don't know anymore," said Georgiana. "I feel as if I've told the story so many times I can't remember the truth. I just remember all the times I've told the story."

Elizabeth knew this sort of sensation. She nodded sagely.

"Fitz gets ideas in his head," said Georgiana. "Once he's determined that something is one way, there is no changing his determination. He hates me now."

"I'm certain he doesn't hate you."

"I thought I wanted to be here, at Pemberley, but he leaves immediately."

"Well, I think that was my fault," said Elizabeth. "I think I frightened him."

"What did you do to frighten him?"

Elizabeth could not quite find a way to talk about that. She looked away, shaking her head.

"Oh, dear, you are in love with him, now, I see."

"Yes, I think I am," said Elizabeth. "I didn't quite know what it would be like."

"Well, tell him to look at me," said Georgiana. "Tell him to pay attention to Gigi!"

"That's what you want? Attention?"

"Maybe a season also," said Georgiana. "A lot of dresses, time in London, fending off suitors left and right, that sort of thing."

"I see," said Elizabeth. "Well, I'll see what I can do. But it's summer now."

"Yes, I'll have to wait to come out in society, of course. But he would know I wanted it if he looked at me."

"Maybe," said Elizabeth. "Maybe he would know. How about I tell him you want a season?"

"You'd do that?"

"Of course," said Elizabeth. "We're sisters, after all, aren't we?"

Georgiana flung her arms around Elizabeth, embracing her tightly. "You're the very best sister in the entire country!"

But then Georgiana still didn't come down for dinner. Maybe she thought Mr. Darcy would be back by then. He wasn't.

However, later, in the darkness, when Elizabeth was drifting off to sleep, the door to her bedroom eased open and she sat up straight in bed.

"I woke you," he said, coming inside. "Sorry. I was going to just look at you while you were sleeping. I suppose that's a wretched thing to do, isn't it?"

"Come to bed," she said. Why did she say it? Oh, she didn't know, but there he was, and he smelled like leather and the summer breeze and… and himself in such a way that made her want him.

"I'm fresh from the road," he said. "You won't welcome my stench."

"Yes, I will." Oh, Lord, how embarrassing.

He was kissing her.

She was untying his cravat.

He had his hands inside her nightdress.

She was peeling off his jacket.

Now, he'd bared her entirely and he was openly gaping at her nude skin as he frantically undid the buttons on his shirt.

He shed his trousers and he was pressing into her, and his scent made her feel wild and frantic, too.

She wrapped her thighs around his hips and she couldn't stop herself from rubbing her body into his body, even if she knew this was something strange and mutated about her, even if she knew no woman should like this.

He took over, wetting his fingers to rub those treacherously glorious circles into her.

She mewled, overcome.

He turned her body, and now she was half off the bed, half on it, her face pressed into the sheets as he pushed into her from behind. And then it was happening all at once. His fingers were still making circles but he was thick and insistent and stretching and prodding her, taking up every spare bit of space inside her, and it was all good. So good. Very good.

She did it more than once.

The first crashed through her like a cavalcade going to war, trampling ecstatically through her body, and the next one built on it, taking her to ever higher cliffs of wondrousness. She let out cries that must have been loud enough for everyone in all of Derbyshire to hear and he slammed all the way into her, deep inside, and he let out a shout even louder than hers.

And then she was in his arms, both of them lying on the bed, his mouth panting into her feverish brow. He whispered her name into her skin like an oath. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth, oh, Elizabeth."

She wanted to stay like this forever.

He shouldn't be doing that, of course. He had never been with a woman, so maybe he didn't know that she shouldn't be getting pleasure from that little strange mannish part of her, whatever it was. He was stimulating it because he liked pleasing her.

If she were a good person, she'd tell him not to.

But she wasn't good at all.

She liked it too much.

So, she didn't say a word about it.