Yes, it had to have been that.
He hadn’t touched a woman’s bare breast since…
Oh, God, since before Georgiana’s death. After all that, he’d lost his taste for the sordid business.
He choked.
Not that he’d ever ruined a woman of gentle birth, like his sister. No, there had a been a few—very few—London whores who’d always seemed too thin and somewhat bored by the entire activity. He couldn’t stand the thought of the whores either, though.
He knew that bad things befell women of all classes who fell pregnant out of wedlock, and there might be no recourse for them.
No, he was not going to be responsible for anything like that. He had sworn off it.
He only had to think of coming home to Pemberley, his sister’s belly underneath her skirts, her wide, frightened eyes when he raged at her…
Oh, dear God. He had handled all of it so badly. He was patently bad at deciding things for women.
Case in point?
Kissing Miss Bennet earlier. He could have gotten out of that easily, telling Miss Li Chen that proper British men didn’t kiss their wives in public in whorehouses. She didn’t know anything about British culture. She would have simply apologized and let the matter go. She wouldn’t have even been suspicious.
And for that matter, what if she had been? There was no skin in the game in the ruse that he and Miss Bennet were married. It wasn’t as if he was trying to pull off a dazzling swindle in which thousands of pounds were on the line.
When it came down to it, he could have disabused Li of the notion that he was married if he’d liked. Her opinion of him, whether or not she thought he was a liar, didn’t matter.
No, there was a perverse part of him that had taken pleasure in making Miss Bennet uncomfortable. And he had enjoyed kissing her.
He must have some pent-up desires for her because of seeing that breast…
That was all it was.
But Lord, kissing her…
It had been too long since he’d kissed a woman, he realized. It had been too long, and he had forgotten about the way it felt to have a woman’s body so damnably close, all of her soft skin and curves right there, begging to be stroked and squeezed.
Not that he could do such a thing to Miss Bennet.
Well, actually…
He turned away from the railing, arching an eyebrow in thought. Actually, he was in exactly the kind of position in which he could do such a thing to Miss Bennet, and there would be no consequences. The men all probably thought that he was, anyway. That was the only way they could rationalize the fact that he had killed some of them for the attempt on her virtue. They thought he wanted her all to himself.
And if he wanted, he could have her.
She couldn’t stop him.
But his stomach turned in distaste. As much as he understood the wildness that got in the mens’ heads about women and sex, he couldn’t understand an appetite for forcing them. There was something monstrous about the idea, something that went against the very nature of the universe.
To his way of thinking, women had been made weaker than men, and it was the duty of men to keep them safe by virtue of their greater strength. Using such strength against a woman was villainy writ large. It was worse than murder, because it was so cowardly.
He pushed the thought aside.
He remembered the way Miss Bennet had opened her lips to him earlier. She hadn’t offered much resistance, despite her protestations.
Possibly, he could convince her…
Ah, but that was just as bad as forcing her in the end, wasn’t it? Maybe that was even worse, because he was manipulating her to allow him to do something to her that she wouldn’t welcome.
It’s exactly what Wickham did to Georgiana, he thought, bile rising in his throat.
Hadn’t she said that she never wanted him to touch her in that way again?
It was a long voyage back to India, but he was just going to have to bear it. Once he got Miss Bennet back in the hands of solid English folk, she’d be safe enough, and he could stop worrying about her. Until then, he just had to keep her safe from himself.
CHAPTER SIX
As the voyage wore on, Elizabeth found herself looking forward to seeing Darcy, and not only as a break in the monotony of her day, which was not nearly as horrid as it had been, now that she was free to roam all over the ship.
Back then, she was happy to see anyone, but now she had run of the place, and she spent her days going as she pleased. She had an afternoon habit of reading to a good portion of the crew, many of whom were illiterate. They were enraptured by the books she read them. Their favorite was Robinson Crusoe thus far.
It was odd how it had come about, she mused. She had been reading one day on the deck, basking in the sun. One of the men had approached her shyly. He had asked what she was reading and told her that he couldn’t read. However, he was intrigued by reading itself, wondering what was contained in all those sheafs of paper.
She had consented to read aloud to him, and he had been delighted.
As she read, more and more men gathered.
The next day, they all came back, asking for more of the story.
And so it went. Now it was tradition.
Sometimes, she even saw Darcy step in at the back of the group. He would regard her with his dark eyes as she read.
She had formed a bit of camaraderie with the men, who were all kind to her now, none of the leering lust in their eyes that she had seen at the beginning of the journey. So, when she saw Darcy, it wasn’t as if she was starved for conversation and company as she had been before.
Still, she looked forward to seeing him.
It could have simply been because conversation with Darcy was more familiar than conversation with the men, who didn’t have the same frame of reference as she did. Darcy knew the same social circles as she did, and he was able to talk of the same things as she.
Sometimes, they spoke of England.
“How long have you been away?” he asked one night as they shared dinner in his cabin.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t any idea how long I’ve been on this ship with you. It feels like quite a long time.”
“Well, how long were you gone before you boarded this ship?”
“Let’s see… it was six months on the journey from England to India by ship, and then I was there for at least a year, and then I was on the return ship for nearly two weeks. So, it’s been a while.”
“You miss it.” It wasn’t a question.
“Of course,” she said, but she wondered at the truth of the statement. Honestly, being on the ship recently, standing out on the aft deck and gazing at the ocean stretching out behind them, the wind in her hair, on her face… And spending her days as she liked, not following the strict protocols of mealtimes and such, it was all very refreshing. She did miss England. She must. She knew that.
And yet, when she thought of what waited for her there on her return, she wasn’t the least bit excited for it. She would go back to being passed about amongst her sisters. Perhaps she would help to care for her nieces and nephews. And life would be gray and dull and sedate. She would have very little to look forward to, just the drudgery of the day-to-day.
She turned to him. “Do you miss it?”
He considered. “Yes, of course I do. It’s only that I… well, I don’t miss all of it, I guess. There’s something about life on a ship, being free out here…”
“Yes,” she said.
And they smiled at each other.
“But this can’t last forever. I must go back at some point. Once I’ve replaced the fortune that I lost, then I’ll go back to England, and I’ll have to be a proper gentleman.” He made a face.
She laughed a little. “I can hardly see you as being proper.”
“It will be a strain,” he admitted. “It doesn’t come naturally to me, as it does to you.”
“Oh,” she said, shaking her head.
“Being proper isn’t all that natural to me.”
“No?” He gave her a mischievous grin.
She couldn’t help a slightly impish grin of her own. “Wouldn’t you expect it of me?” she teased.
“Now, you know the answer to that, Miss Bennet. Near as I can tell, you are the soul of virtue, and I wouldn’t dream of your doing anything inappropriate.” But he was still smiling.
She arched an eyebrow. “Well, I can’t be quite sure what I’d do these days.”
“I suppose I’ve been a frightfully bad influence on you.” His voice lowered suggestively.
“Oh, frightfully,” she agreed, gazing at him through half-lidded eyes. She was flirting with him, she realized. And he, the wretch, was flirting back. She supposed she couldn’t expect anything better from a man like him, though. He had no scruples.
She tried to remind herself of how horrid he was. She thought of his kicking the headless bodies off the ship, but that didn’t work, because she was half grateful to him for having done that.
So, she thought of Mrs. Graham dying on his command, how he had nearly killed her himself, and she remembered that he was a monster.
It helped her to stop flirting. That evening anyway.
But she still thought of the kiss, especially at night when she was alone in bed, thought of the way her body tingled from the touch of his lips on hers. Thought of his mouth against hers, his body against hers, her fingers in his hair, on his face…
Oh.
She shouldn’t think these sorts of things.
And even though she knew he was a terrible man, she still looked forward to their meals together.
One evening, they talked again of England, of what would happen when they returned.
“You claimed that when you went back, you would be proper. So, what will you do?”
He sighed. “I suppose I shall have to engage in the whole dreadful to-do. Get married, sire heirs, host hunting parties at my estate.” He made a face.
“You wouldn’t like that?”
“I don’t care for hunting.”
“Or for siring heirs?”
He blushed.
She was surprised to see it. She had not thought Darcy capable of embarrassment.
“That’s not the sort of thing I should talk about over dinner with a woman like yourself,” he said in a gravelly voice.
She chuckled. “Oh, now you’re worried about being proper.”
He looked up at her, that same look he’d given her after kissing her. He looked troubled. Then he looked away, reaching for his drink. “What about you? What will you do when you return to England?”
It was her turn to make a face.
“I thought you were eager to return to England?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” she said. “It’s only that I shall be returning to nothing, really. I have failed at securing a husband, and so I shall spend time in the households of each of my sisters, until they grow sick of me, or I them. For the rest of my life, a burden on one family member or the other.” She looked at him. “This will have been the great adventure of my life, I suppose, and it is quite the adventure, when one really thinks about it. Most women my age never get anything like this.”
“Get?” He sat back in his chair. “Have a care, Miss Bennet. One might think you’re enjoying yourself whilst being held prisoner on a pirate ship.”
She raised her chin. “Perhaps I am enjoying myself.”
He smirked. “Well, that won’t do at all. You must keep that to yourself when you get back to England.”
“Yes, quite.” She sighed, thinking again of the life ahead of her.
“You know, I must say, you keep going on about this idea that you won’t find a husband, and I can’t say I understand why you’re so certain of it. I know you’ve had a bit of bad luck out in society, but that hardly means you’re on the shelf. You should stop having such dreary thoughts. I’m sure it will all come out right for you in the end.”
She set down her fork, now having lost the thread of amusement in the conversation entirely. “Why do you keep saying things like that?”
“Because there’s nothing wrong with you, that’s why, and I don’t like to see you so down on yourself.”
“I’m not down on myself,” she said. “I’m quite aware that there is nothing so very wrong with me. It’s bad luck is all, but I seem to have caught it. There are spinsters in the world, and someone has to become them. I’m the someone.”
“No, no,” he said. “Spinsters are women who are undesirable or ugly or poor or loud or have some sort of defect, and you… Well, you’re quite faultless.”
There was a lump in her throat. He had not just said that.
“I mean, of course,” he said, fiddling with the buttons on his jacket, “in an objective manner, were a man looking for a wife, he could not find fault with—” He broke off, and he seemed to be blushing again. “I think we had better find another topic of conversation,” he said into his plate.
“Yes,” she muttered.
But they didn’t speak of anything else at all, simply finished the meal in silence.
* * *
At first, she wouldn’t allow herself to think about why the conversation had bothered her so deeply. It would swim up to the forefront of her thoughts, and she would push it away, angry for some reason, and sure that if she probed the idea of it too hard, it would cause her all manner of pain.
Days passed, and she told herself that if she steadfastly refused to think of it, then she should eventually stop thinking of it all.
But it was hard to put it aside at night, when she was trying to sleep.
So, she began to get up and walk the ship in the middle of the night. When she grew completely exhausted, she would stumble back to her room, fall into her bed, and sleep immediately, with no time to think on any of it at all.
It was the fifth day of this practice when she could suppress the thoughts no more.
She was standing out on the deck in the darkness. It was late, and though some of the men were still awake, they gave her a wide berth when she walked at night, and none were close.
She could see the dark sky, the black waves, both reaching so far into the distance that she could not see the end of them.
And she whispered out into that vastness, “How dare he?”
How dare he say that she was faultless? How dare he backpedal and say that he was only speaking as if he was someone trying to find a wife?
When two sentences before, he had said that when he got back to England, he would have to look for a wife.
She was faultless, was she?
Oh, how dare he, how dare he?
Angry tears started to slide down her cheeks. He couldn’t know what it had been like for her, all those years, waiting and waiting for some man to show interest in her, watching her future disappear into nothing. And then to glibly say that she would find a husband, when he himself would be looking for a wife and when she was supposedly faultless?
“Well, I wouldn’t want to marry him anyway,” she whispered into the darkness.
And she wouldn’t. She hated him. He was violent and crude and horrid. He was a murderer and liar and a cheat. She hated everything about him and being married to him would be torment.
Which was why it made no sense that the thought bothered her so much, but it did.
It bothered her, because…
Well, there was the kiss, for one thing. That lovely kiss that had undone something within her, made her feel things she had never felt before, made her loose and weak and…
And there was the fact that they got on well. They shared dinner every evening, and they always had pleasant conversation. And wouldn’t a husband and wife do the same thing?
Plus, there was the matter of his looks—his dark eyes and his sturdy-looking arms. His forearms were so… wide, and she found them altogether pleasing, really quite lovely, in fact. She could spend all day looking at them, and she remembered the times that he ha
d encircled her in his arms, and she had felt all of his strength…
He had protected her. He had killed for her. He had kissed her.
Seeing him was the best part of every single day.
“How dare he?” she said again to the sky, and this time, she wasn’t whispering.
At once, she turned away from the railing and stalked across the deck. She went down the steps to the next level down, stalked over to the other stairs and went down those until she was down in the belly of the ship.
She headed as if she were going back to her own room, but she didn’t go there.
Instead, she went to his cabin.
She expected the door to be locked. She knew he was in there, because she could see a light coming out from around the door.
She tried the handle, expecting it to rattle in her hands, for her entry to be barred.
But it gave against her, and the door opened.
He looked up in surprise. He was sitting on his cushions, his opium pipe in one hand. He appeared to be cleaning it. He raised his eyebrows. “Something I can do for you, Miss Bennet?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
CHAPTER SEVEN
She was standing in his doorway, her hair in a messy braid, her eyes glowing like embers. She looked angry.
“Miss Bennet?” He carefully set down his pipe and stood up. “Has something happened? Has someone hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No, nothing like that.”
“Well, then, what are you doing here?”
“I wanted…” She looked about her, as if suddenly bereft, as if the reason she had come had fled from her. “I wanted company.”
“It’s nearly midnight,” he said.
“And what of that? I attended parties and balls that often went into the wee hours of the morning. Midnight is early compared to all of that.”
He nodded slowly. “True enough. But I was preparing to smoke opium.”
“All right,” she said. She shut the door behind her and came over to sit in one of the chairs around his table.
Mr. Darcy's Indiscretions Page 44
