“I… did not know. Thank you for telling me.”
There was a long pause. Finally Darcy said, “Elizabeth, may I ask what you are thinking?”
“I was wondering much the same of you, in fact.”
“If I tell you what I have been thinking, it will expose the full depth of my hypocrisy, since I would happily kill any man who said such a thing to Georgiana.”
“You have whetted my curiosity, sir.”
He stepped closer and put his mouth by her ear. “Elizabeth, I want nothing in the world so much as to kiss your tears away, and then to carry you upstairs and make you mine in every way,” he whispered. “I want to bind you to me in every way I know, because I am terrified that you are going to tell me that you want nothing further to do with me.”
Elizabeth put her arms around him. “I already am yours in every way, my dearest,” she responded with tears in her eyes.
He crushed her to him and buried his face in her hair. “Elizabeth, my own Elizabeth,” he murmured. “You mean everything to me. I could never bear it if you left me.”
She tilted her head up and kissed him fiercely. “How could I ever leave you when I love you so much?”
He captured her mouth with his in a kiss of such passion that she felt its power run through her whole body, and she answered it with the deepest of ardor. He held her as tightly as he dared, as if she were his only surety in life, and the feeling of her soft body against him was almost more than he could bear. “You cannot imagine,” he said between kisses, “how much I have longed to hear you say that you loved me.”
“My dearest love, I shall say it until you tire of hearing it,” she replied, every inch of her body responding to his touch and his fervent kisses. She wished she need never leave his embrace.
“Then you shall be saying it forever.”
They heard the sound of a door opening behind them. Elizabeth tried to pull away, but Darcy held her still for one more deep kiss. “See how shameless I have become?” he whispered before he released her.
“Lizzy,” her aunt’s voice came softly. “It is time for us to leave. Perhaps you would like to say a quick good night to Mr. Darcy—I will be waiting just inside.”
“Your aunt has my undying gratitude,” Darcy whispered in her ear, pulling her to him again. “Now, where was I?”
Chapter 10
The ride back to Longbourn passed in a blur for Elizabeth. She was vaguely aware of Mrs. Bennet’s ongoing raptures about the party and how lovely Jane had looked, and Mr. Bennet’s frequent requests to hear less about it. She was still unsettled by her conversation with Darcy, and felt as if she had left part of herself behind at Netherfield.
The family retired immediately on their return to Longbourn, the hour being quite late, and Jane’s wedding rehearsal scheduled for early the next morning. Elizabeth found herself too restless to think of sleep, and instead took a book into the drawing room in hopes of settling herself by reading. It was there that Mrs. Gardiner found her some time later, looking out the window into the darkness with the book lying closed in her lap. Elizabeth started guiltily at being caught woolgathering.
“My dear, you seem out of spirits this evening,” her aunt said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Elizabeth smiled wryly. “It seems to be your burden this year to care for lovelorn nieces, does it not? First you had Jane this winter, then Lydia, and now me.”
“Not to mention the occasional lovelorn future nephew. I have grown quite fond of your Mr. Darcy these last few months.”
It was not the first time that Elizabeth had felt a pang of jealousy at the extent to which Darcy was using her aunt and uncle as confidantes. “I suppose it is only fair that he should turn to you, as it is quite impossible to imagine that he could turn to his own aunt for counsel in these matters!” She laughed as she pictured a tête-à-tête between Darcy and Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
“Well, I confess that it simplifies my life as an interfering aunt, my dear; if you refuse to tell me what is bothering you tonight, I can always ask him tomorrow.”
“I shall save you the trouble, then, since nothing is in fact the matter, except that I find myself somewhat discomposed by my own feelings, and there is certainly no one I can blame for that but myself!”
“Are you upset with Mr. Darcy, then?”
“Not that; we did have a disagreement tonight, but we made our peace with one another afterward, yet I find myself still unsettled and uncertain of him, although he left me no reason at all to be uncertain. It is unreasonable, but it is even more unreasonable that I sit here, unable to sleep because I miss him so much, when I have just seen him and know full well that I will see him in the morning tomorrow and every day,” Elizabeth said with a slight scowl of frustration.
“Love is rarely reasonable, my dear, especially the rather passionate kind of love that you and he seem to share. It sounds to me as if you are discovering just how necessary he has become to you, that even the shadow of a threat to his presence in your life frightens you.”
“If this is love, how does anyone ever survive it, much less want to feel this way?”
“Well, Lizzy, it has been some years since I have had personal dealings with feelings of this intensity, since fortunately such feelings have a tendency over time to shift to quieter ones of trust and attachment. I believe, though, that you could take a few lessons from your young man, as he has perforce had to become something of an expert on surviving being in love.”
Elizabeth exhaled slowly. “Aunt, this is not the first time that you have raised the subject of Mr. Darcy’s sufferings on my account. I am beginning to think that you quite blame me for it!”
Mrs. Gardiner smiled, shaking her head. “Hardly, my dear. After all, you were completely entitled to refuse him, regardless of his feelings, but I have had an ongoing concern that you seem to underestimate the strength of his attachment to you. I am, in fact, rather glad to see you suffering just a bit in the name of love, since it tells me that your attachment to him may be becoming the equal of his for you; and though you are well matched in many ways, I have worried about an inequity in your regard for one another.”
“Just because he had cared for me longer does not mean that my regard is any less than his!”
“Hush, Lizzy, I am not trying to start a competition; rather I hope to point out how similar your feelings sound to his. I rather suspect that his thoughts this evening are quite like yours.”
Elizabeth considered this, and recognized that it was likely to be true, as she thought about his frequent half-jests about wishing to marry immediately, and she heard in her mind his words from earlier in the evening—I want to bind you to me in every way I know, because I am terrified that you are going to tell me that you want nothing further to do with me. No, their feelings were certainly quite similar, and she had an idea how best to give them both relief.
***
Darcy glanced at the clock and impatiently drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. Bingley was never very punctual at the best of times, but surely the man could manage to be on time for the rehearsal for his own wedding! Not that he himself would have particularly cared about punctuality for the event were he not so anxious to see Elizabeth.
His night had been disturbed and restless after the previous day’s events. No sooner had the Bennets’ carriage pulled away the night before than he had commenced to brood about what Elizabeth might be thinking of his earlier behavior, and whether she would, on reflection, decide that she had forgiven him too quickly. Would she become angry again, or might she feel that she could not trust him? Accompanying these thoughts was the intense desire that her kisses had raised in him, and the combination was not conducive to a good night’s sleep. Ending the night with his all too frequent dream of awakening with a loving Elizabeth in his arms did not help matters; although waking from his dreams was no longer the torture it had been in the months when he had felt no hope of ever bringing his desires to fruition, it w
as still wrenching to wake up alone. One definite benefit of married life, he decided, would be the possibility of a decent night’s sleep again, preceded, of course, by passionate and tender lovemaking…
Enough of that, man! he chastised himself. With what certainly should have been the ease of long practice, given how often it had arisen, but in fact was an ongoing labor of Sisyphus, he pushed those thoughts away from the forefront of his mind. By the time Bingley finally appeared, Darcy was able to put aside his own worries long enough to exchange a few jests with him about his imminent loss of bachelorhood with good humor.
As they entered the church, his eyes immediately sought out Elizabeth. She had clearly been watching the door, and when she saw him, her eyes lit up with pleasure. With an inward sigh of relief that his worries had apparently been for naught, he approached her, automatically quelling the urge to take her in his arms, and instead allowed himself only to kiss her hand, and to stand a little closer to her than propriety dictated. She flushed slightly, and very appropriately cast her eyes down in response, but with a bewitching smile that reassured him as to her true reaction.
“Good morning, my sweetest Elizabeth,” he said softly in her ear. “I trust you are well?”
“Very well, now,” she replied, looking up at him with a tenderness that surprised him. “I missed you.”
The urge to kiss her was becoming almost overwhelming, but since circumstances would not permit it, he could only murmur her name with longing, desirous to keep that affectionate look in her beautiful eyes as long as possible. Clearly able to divine his true wishes from the look on his face, Elizabeth smiled flirtatiously, making her look all the more kissable. Raising an eyebrow, he whispered, “If we were not standing ten feet from the parson, I would respond to that as it deserves.”
Her gaze was warm as she said with the utmost gravity, “We certainly must not shock the parson.”
“Not if you want to wait another week before we marry,” he retorted good-humoredly.
To his surprise, she bit her lip and looked down. What had he done now to distress her? Finally, she looked up at him through her lashes and said tentatively, “Fitzwilliam?”
What had possessed her to call him by his name in this setting? She was well aware—had pointed it out, in fact, with that astonishing perspicacity of hers—how viscerally he responded to the intimacy of her using his given name, and she accordingly restricted its use to moments of great physical closeness, of which this certainly did not qualify. What did she mean by it? For at least the thousandth time, he wondered whether she had any idea what a struggle it could be for him to be with her, to try to understand what she was thinking, not that he would give it up for anything in the world!
“Yes, Elizabeth,” he answered, keeping his voice as carefully neutral as possible.
“I have been wondering whether it would be better not to wait so long as that.”
Unable to credit that he had properly understood her, he asked, “You want to move the wedding day forward?”
“That… that is my thought, unless you would prefer not to do so.”
What had happened? Until this point, he had been the one in a hurry to marry, and she had wanted to wait. “Elizabeth, I believe you know full well that nothing would make me happier than to marry you as soon as possible”—preferably before this uncertainty drives me out of my mind, he added to himself—“but will you allow me to ask why you suggest the change? Is it for my sake, or your own, or perhaps because you cannot trust our ability not to stray?”
She colored becomingly. “It is a bit of all three, although I must admit that my primary motives are selfish.”
Did she have any idea of how he reacted when she said things like that? Unable to keep himself from touching her any longer, he cautiously and unobtrusively slipped his hand behind her and rested it on her lower back. With his thumb, he traced delicate circles over her spine, and smiled with satisfaction as he noted her response in the flushing of her cheeks and parted lips.
A trifle unsteadily, she said, “I must remind you that we are in church, sir.”
His eyes locked with hers. “And I am doing my best to encourage you to enter into the state of holy matrimony as soon as possible.”
“Lizzy!” Mrs. Bennet’s piercing voice penetrated their private world. “You are needed! Oh, this is too vexing!”
They both started, and as Darcy finally took in their surroundings, he saw everyone’s eyes on them, including a clearly amused Mr. Bennet.
The parson coughed, and began to explain to Elizabeth her role in the ceremony, allowing Darcy a few moments to collect himself before receiving his own set of instructions, as if he could concentrate on anything else after Elizabeth’s words. He struggled to contain his impatience as they walked through the stages of the service. As soon as she took her position across from him, he caught her eye and mouthed the question, “When?”
She glanced around, and seeing everyone’s attention focused elsewhere, and allowed her lips to shape the word, “Friday.”
His heart pounded. Friday was only three days away—she could be his so soon! Intoxicated by the concept, he countered soundlessly, “Thursday.”
The corners of her mouth twitched, but she shook her head slightly. “Friday,” she insisted silently.
He smiled slowly in return. “Thursday.”
“If I could have the complete attention of the bridesmaid and the groomsman for just a few minutes,” the parson said with some acerbity. Elizabeth, looking guilty, turned her attention forward.
Darcy continued to watch her, attending only slightly to the proceedings. At first he was content to bask in her presence and the knowledge that she wanted to marry so soon, but as she continued to avoid meeting his eyes, he began to wonder if she thought he had been too forward for suggesting an even earlier date. It seemed unlikely, as he had certainly made similar proposals to her in the past few days with no ill effect, so perhaps this was another case of his worrying over nothing. But perhaps it was not—he cast a searching gaze over Elizabeth, hunting vainly for some hint as to her state of mind.
He wondered if he would ever gain a sense of certainty about her feelings for him, or if his life was to be a continual cycle of worrying that he had somehow offended her. Surely marriage would help, and time would allow him to rebuild the sense of confidence that had been shattered at Hunsford. He had misread her so badly before that, and her change of sentiment toward him at Pemberley had happened so rapidly; how was he to feel certain of her?
When the rehearsal drew to a close, and the party prepared to adjourn to Longbourn, he finally managed to catch her attention. “Will you walk out with me, Elizabeth? It seems we have much to discuss.”
She hesitated, clearly torn between a desire to be alone with him and wondering about the wisdom of such a course, given their history.
“I will even promise to make an attempt to behave, if that will help,” he said.
“To make an attempt to behave? Does that mean that you do not usually make such an attempt, sir?” she responded playfully.
“Perhaps it means that I frequently encounter provocation beyond the ability of man to ignore,” he retorted in like spirit.
She shook her head with mock gravity. “Clearly I have misconstrued you yet again; it had seemed to me that you enjoyed being so provoked, sir.”
With a slow smile, he said, “You know very well what I like, my dearest, and at the moment I believe you would like to see how quickly you can defeat my resolve!”
Elizabeth glanced up at him, and gave a dramatic sigh. “Then I suppose that I must try not to say anything too provocative, since you clearly understand me too well!”
Darcy could not help but laugh. “Do not stop for my sake, my love! But to the subject at hand, please forgive my impatience earlier. If Friday is what you wish, Friday it shall be.”
With a teasing look, she responded, “Whereas I was beginning to think that a case could be made for Thursday! Sir, I
must conclude that you and I are in danger of becoming altogether too agreeable.”
He laid a hand on her arm. “You are not angry, then?”
She looked at him in surprise. “Not in the slightest! If I have some cause for anger, I remain blissfully unaware of it.”
He smiled with relief—another false alarm. “When you would not look at me in the church, I was concerned. I am glad to know that it was groundless.”
Elizabeth laughed. “I was trying to pay attention to the rehearsal!”
“Whereas I myself have long since given up on paying attention to anything else when you are present!” His gaze warmed. “I recall once, last November, when you came into the library at Netherfield while I was reading there. You selected a book to read—some Renaissance poetry, if I am not mistaken—and I recall spending fully half an hour concentrating on turning the pages of my book at appropriate intervals so that you would not discover how much your presence distracted me.”
“You were quite successful, then, as I was typically oblivious to any of it!” said Elizabeth with some chagrin. “Even then, so early in our acquaintance, you had noticed me?”
“It took me very little time to notice you, but a great deal of time making an effort not to notice you.”
“You fought it so? When, then, did you begin to love me? I can comprehend your going on charmingly when you had once made a beginning, but what set you off in the first place?”
“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew I had begun. Can you name the moment when you first realized that you loved me?”
“Easily—it was in Lambton, at the inn; I had just told you of Lydia’s folly. You said you were leaving, and I assumed that you wanted to avoid any further association with me. I thought that I should never see you again, and that was when I knew that I loved you.”