Calmly, dryly he said "Were you?"
Lizzy scrutinized him. No, his composure was not false. Her plan was working already.
She went on, "You can scarcely doubt it. At the age of nineteen I was still tromping about the countryside getting mud up to my ankles, much to the disapproval of my new neighbors and their eminent guest from Derbyshire."
Darcy recalled how Mrs. Hurst had gleefully pointed out Elizabeth's sullied petticoat and Miss Bingley had wondered if her hoydenishness had reduced his admiration of her fine eyes. He had been too captivated by the sight of her hair made wild by the wind and her prettily pinkened cheeks to find fault.
"I did not disapprove. I was bewitched even then."
Lizzy rolled her eyes to indicate her disbelief. "When I was a child I was worse. Worse than a boy even, or at least a typical boy. I would guess you were never so indecorous as to allow yourself to become dirty."
"I could muck about with the best of them. I don't know why you doubt me." He launched himself away from the table, taking several steps towards her.
"I was never visibly dirty for I always had to wash the dirt from my hands and feet and clean behind my ears every night before I said my prayers. But my hair—I would crawl through the hedgerows after rabbits and squirrels and come out with leaves and birds nests in my hair. The maid would have to scrub and scrub and the rinse water would be quite cold by the time it was poured over my head."
Her narrative had proven effective. He was right beside the tub now, if he were to kneel down he could touch her.
"I take it in your household everyone got their own baths."
"Yes," he said too emphatically then laughed at his own snobbery.
His laugh enveloped her, its low tones echoing through her, sending a wave of pleasure straight to her loins. Oh, she wanted him so badly. He was close enough. She went for the kill.
"Do you understand the lesson you should take from my tale?"
"What lesson is that?"
"I do not mind sharing a bath," she replied with much insinuation.
Darcy groaned. "You are the worst sort of wicked."
She caught his leg before he could step away, leaving a wet hand print on his dark breeches. "I need you to wash my hair."
"You need no such thing, siren."
"Please." Her plead might as well have been a command. She utilized the full power of her enchanting eyes. He could not resist.
He sighed resignedly as he began to divest himself of his coat. Once his coat, waist coat, and cravat were folded with obvious adroitness and placed on the table he rolled up his sleeves and approached slowly as if he had lead weights chained to his ankles.
"You will never convince me you were ever the sort of child to muck about," she said, flicking her eyes towards his neatly discarded clothing.
"My fastidiousness is out of respect for my valet. You should hear how he scolds when I ruin a shirt."
Lizzy tutted playfully. "You are too lenient, Will. You let your servants scold you and your mistress make demands of you."
He lowered himself to the floor trying to disguise his grimace all the while. He was loathe to get dirt on his stockings Lizzy was certain of it. "You are my fiancee not my mistress," he said.
He had made no allusion to marriage since his proposal. She feared he might have come to his senses. It thrilled her to hear him mention it now, even if she still could not accept.
"Your fiancee you say? Never mind my family's disgrace, your family's disapproval, and—perhaps most important of all—my refusal of your offer?"
"Inconsequential, all of it."
She flicked water at him in reply.
"Shall I dunk you or do you prefer to wet your hair by some other means?"
Lizzy plunged her head beneath the water then rose with alacrity, splashing water over the sides of the tub and achieving her goal of drenching him quite thoroughly.
"Your sense of humor is rather childish."
"The soap is on the chair," she said, her self-satisfied smirk the only indication she had heard his jibe.
A moan escaped her lips when his hands began to massage her scalp. She let her shoulders roll back as she relaxed into the rapture of his touch, bringing her small, high breasts fully out of the water.
"You are torturing me."
"You have only yourself to blame. You have forced me to do desperate things to get you to touch me," she whispered. Those entreating eyes were at work again. They made him her thrall.
His mouth covered hers and she answered with impatience pushing her tongue between his lips grasping his shirt to pull him closer. He broke the kiss, standing suddenly and crossing to the other side of the room. After taking several deep breaths he returned to her and began washing her hair as if nothing had occurred.
He set himself to the task, taking it very seriously as if he were her lady's maid. Unfortunately unlike a lady's maid he hadn't the slightest notion of what he was doing. Lizzy had not thought it possible for a person to be incompetent at washing hair, but his inefficiency bordered on uselessness. Worse than uselessness. He was certainly causing harm, lathering in a circular pattern forming a giant ball of tangles at the back of her head. However, if she complained he might stop touching her and she was not yet ready to give up contact.
"I have yet to find any leaves or birds' nests."
"I am a distinguished gentleman's mistress now, I cannot go traipsing about in the wilds as I once did."
"You are a most fortunate gentleman's fiancee and he would not have you suppress your hoydenish tendencies for anything in the world."
He looked at her with burning adoration.
"I love you," she said in automatic reply to his silent proclamation. The words had left her lips unintentionally, just as they had the first time she had spoken them. She was still shy of loving him. It felt too early; she had too many conflicting emotions that needed to be sorted to speak that phrase deliberately without hesitation.
Sensing her internal upheaval he teased,"You have nothing to add to that—no 'I think', no 'probably'?"
Lizzy grinned, glad at his lighthearted tone. She was not yet ready to pull all these emotions out. Arrange them and analyze them. Though she was certain the love she felt for him would outweigh all the hurts and recriminations it would be a painful thing to work through. "I know I love you though I am once again left to wonder why."
"You love me because I love you most desperately and you can not bear to leave such devotion unrequited."
"Yes, I do believe it is a love grown out of pity. You are fortunate indeed for my compassion."
He stole a kiss then pushed her head beneath the water. She came up sputtering and laughing.
"You might have drown me."
"I was demonstrating to you how capable I am of mucking about."
Lizzy hurled a wave of water at him which he attempted to dodge but his boots could find no purchase on the wet stone floor. He fell hard upon his backside.
"Are you injured?" she asked, doing a very poor job of keeping her laughter in check.
"Only my dignity."
"Good. I can laugh freely then."
Darcy picked up the bucket of rinse water beside the tub and without ceremony poured it over her head.
"You scoundrel!" she shrieked
"Is your hair properly rinsed or do you need me to dunk you again?"
Again she splashed him this time hitting him square in the face. He blustered comically and nearly fell onto his back again.
Lizzy took the opportunity to stand while she had the advantage. Darcy gazed up at her as though she were a goddess, Venus to be specific. With great satisfaction she watched his self-control go up in flames.
"You may dry me now," she said her eyes flicking over to the rack by the door where her towel hung alongside the servants' aprons.
He stood and crossed the room mechanically his eyes barely leaving her. She relished her power over him almost as much as she longed for his touch. It is the
nightmare that has made me so wicked. She had dreamed of the glass house and the wolves again last night and had woken frightened and feeling powerless. Now she felt anything but weak.
Darcy wrapped the towel around her body and pulled her close. His mouth captured hers and this time he took no quarter, molding her form to his own, parting her lips with his tongue. Her knees went weak under the force of his ardent demands. Lifting her off her feet before she could fall, he gathered her into his arms and carried her from the room as she giggled with surprise and elation.
The journey from the kitchen to the dinning room caused him no great difficulty, but by the time he had made it up to the first floor her weight, which had seemed no burden in the beginning, was now challenging his strength.
He paused on the landing outside of the drawing room.
"I will still think you rugged and virile if you must put me down here."
Darcy considered it. If he recalled correctly there was a settee in the drawing room that looked almost comfortable. No, the image of her splayed across her bed writhing in ecstasy was too striking a vision to forsake.
"I am fine," he said, his breathing obviously labored.
"Oh really?"
"I am not winded. I am panting with anticipation."
Her delighted laughter in reply heartened him. With a grunt (not of strain, no doubt it was a grunt of anticipation) he hefted her up the final flight of stairs.
Rather gracelessly, he dropped her upon her bed. Bending at the waist he clutched his knees and gulped air greedily, abandoning all attempts to hide his exhaustion. "I will ravish you . . .as soon as I catch my breath."
"I think ravishment implies unwillingness on the part of the lady. You will certainly find none of that here."Lizzy said as she unwrapped the towel, exposing her body once more.
The effect was immediate. Darcy hurriedly removed his boots then crawled across the bed
"You are so beautiful. I cannot resist you. I do not want to resist you."
And then he was touching her. Just like that all her power was gone. She was the thrall now. She could not bring herself to care in the least.
She began to warn him as his hand found her breasts—they were tender, heralding her courses would soon arrive—but, as if sensing her mood, he was gentle, cupping one almost tentatively, tracing its rosy peak lightly with his thumb.
"More," she begged and he smiled in a self-satisfied manner; he too had felt the shift in power.
He laid his lips upon hers softly. The kiss could have been chaste if she were not already quivering with need, instead it was torturous. She put her arms around him and tried to deepen the kiss but he pulled away. He shifted his attention to her other breast his touch still light, still teasing.
"Darcy."
"Fitzwilliam," he corrected.
She sighed but gave into his admonishment. "Fitzwilliam."
"Yes, Elizabeth?"
"Do not be a beast."
"A beast?" he said innocently, running his fingertips down her body. He paused when he came to that thatch of dark curls at the apex of her thighs then switched directions, traveling upwards. "Whatever can you mean?"
Her eyes narrowed. "You know precisely what I mean."
"Forgive me, I fear I do not understand you at all."
He returned to the task of torturing her, raining sweet kisses and gentle caresses upon her, stoking the flames of her desire, but not allowing it to build into a firestorm. The knowledge that she deserved this punishment after having seduced him against his scruples did nothing to lessen the torment, but she was determined to bare it nobly and not give him the satisfaction of hearing her beg.
He touched her in that languid manner of realized bliss, as if he had already taken his pleasure and was content let his hands idly explore until he was fit to mount her again. But he could be no more contented than she, his rigid need was pressed against her. She reached for the fastenings of his breeches but he stopped her before she could attempt to free him.
"None of that," he said then he pinned her hands above her head.
Darcy continued, running his lips down the elegant column of her throat, lavishing kisses over each of her breasts in turn, bestowing the occasional sweep of his tongue over a hardened nipple. Lizzy was wild with desire.
"More. Please, more," she cried forgetting her resolve not to beg.
Taking pity on her, he nuzzled a breast then drew its tender peak into his mouth and sucked hard, sending a bolt pleasure through her body straight to her sex where it settled and became a throbbing ache.
"Touch me."
"Where?" he asked.
"You know where."
"Here?" He circled the shell of her ear.
Her lips drew together in a moue of displeasure.
"No. Maybe here?" This time he dropped a kiss on her brow.
"I know," he said, seizing her foot. "Here."
She squealed as he tickled her toes.
"Or perhaps, here?" he asked as he brushed two fingers along her sex.
She moaned. "There."
He circled her most sensitive point with his thumb then glided a finger into her sodden passage. "Would you like me to kiss you here?"
Her cheeks heated at the suggestion but her curiosity was too great, her desire too intense to let embarrassment win.
"Yes."
A moment later she thought she might change her mind and declare embarrassment the victor as he knelt between her thighs, spreading her them wide. She did not think she could much longer bear so careful an examination of her sex as Darcy was now executing. His teasing began anew as he parted her folds, encircling her entrance, round and round.
He bent to taste her, burying two fingers within her as he did so. His tongue found that sensitive bud and passed over it again and again, his fingers working into her all the while. All sense of anything beyond the pleasure he was inflicting upon her was forgotten.
The aching need at her center coiled tighter and tighter until finally the cord snapped and she was falling, falling endlessly into a valley of ecstasy, never to crash to the ground for the pleasure was climbing the next precipice long before she could recover.
Darcy kept to his ministrations wringing every bit of pleasure from her loins until she could take no more, until she was in danger of losing herself completely.
She lay there exultant, replete, fully expectant he would now join their bodies together. Indeed his hand went to the fall of his breeches and then dropped. He rose from the bed quickly, and crossed to the far corner of the room where he turned away from her and attempted to regain his control.
When his eyes returned to her they were full of what looked like anguish. Lizzy wondered if it was unsatisfied desires or if he was angry with himself for succumbing to temptation.
It is the latter. I know it to be.
"I have made you break a vow to yourself," she said, her voice heavy with guilt.
Darcy shook his head. "Not quite. But my keeping of it depends on me staying on this side of the room for a while." He turned away from her again.
Lizzy donned a nightdress and began combing her hair while she waited for him to composed himself.
"I make for a rather poor lady's maid, do I not?" Darcy said as he approached. He nodded to the mass of tangled hair she was trying to work through, "Say I have not tangled it beyond all hope."
"You have done no permanent damage, but it will take some patience, and I do not know if I have it at the moment."
"Allow me. Leave the repairs to the one at fault."
"That hardly seems sensible," she replied but she permitted him to take the comb. She felt too agreeably exhausted to argue.
He sat down on the bed beside and she shifted to allow him better access to her hair. Darcy tended to her hair diligently working out the knots, careful not to tug. Lizzy relaxed into the silence, she was nearly asleep when he spoke.
"I spoke to my Aunt Miranda yesterday. She is willing to help us manage the reaction of the t
on if we will wait until my cousin's betrothal is finalized before we announce our engagement. Her assistance will not spare our family scandal but she feels confident we will eventually be accepted by Society if we do things openly."
Lizzy was fully awake now. She straightened her posture without warning causing Darcy to pull her hair. He began apologizing profusely. She ignored him.
"You told your family about me, about us?"
"Just my aunt, the others . . . I shudder to think . . . she says she will convince my uncle at least. Once our engagement is announced she would like to you to stay with her. She thinks a month of engagement festivities before having the wedding at the end of the season would be best."
"But your sister—."
"Is in support of the plan. Ecstatic about it, in fact. She is fully aware what our marriage may do to her chances and she is willing to brave the scandal. Georgiana she said she would come here herself to tell you if you will not hear it from me.
"While I cannot be completely contented with anything that will harm her, I can see no other way for our marriage to happen and it must happen. I know you must have thought I had taken leave of my senses when I made my offer last week, and it is true I was not thinking clearly. I cannot abandon Society, abandon my duties. Nor can I abandon you. So I will not. I can face the disapprobation of the ton if I face it with you."
She had listened to his speech with obvious surprise and he thought some pleasure. Yet still she did not speak. Her silence made him nervous.
"So you see, disgrace and disapproval have been rendered inconsequential, now I need only your acceptance," he prompted.
"Fitzwilliam," she said.
There was so much remorse in her voice. Darcy recoiled from it. "You are going to refuse me." He spoke not with anger or confusion but with dejected, dazed acceptance. Heartbreak never surprised him now.
Lizzy, however, was surprised at her own reluctance. Her thoughts had turned to a muddle as soon as he had begun to speak of his aunt and her plans to bring about their marriage. His proposal had been flattering when marriage was a vague idea, a desperate hope of a sorrowful man grasping at anything to stem his agony.
The Ruin of Elizabeth Bennet: A Pride and Prejudice Variation Page 19
