In his efforts to avoid thinking of Elizabeth and bedrooms, however, he had neglected to plan ahead to the moment when they would retire for the night. Georgiana seemed to be the first to recognize the awkwardness, but as the hostess, she could not retire first. It would be rude for Darcy to allow Elizabeth to walk to her room alone, especially as it was by his own.
Elizabeth allowed Darcy to lead her through a private sitting room to a large bedroom decorated in shades of blue. A maid stood in the corner, clearly awaiting her. She explored the room briefly, hardly able to believe that she would be staying in such elegance. Running her finger along the intricately carved edge of the vanity, she smiled at Darcy.
“I hope you will be comfortable here,” he said, standing stiffly just outside the door.
“How could I be anything else? It is truly lovely.”
“Blue was my mother’s favorite colour, but of course you may prefer to redecorate it.” He seemed somehow larger in this setting.
Elizabeth started. She had assumed it was a guest room. Her mouth grew dry at the thought that tomorrow night he would be coming to her there, and her breasts ached for his touch. Her instinct was to run into his arms, but she knew she could not obey it. “It reminds me of the sky on a summer’s day.” Or perhaps it was the heat burning inside her that made her think of summer. How was she to say goodnight to him?
“My room is on the other side.” He pointed to another door off the sitting room. “If you find yourself in need of anything, just ring and one of the servants will come.”
She walked closer to him and took his hand. “You are very kind.”
He drew her aside a step, out of the view of the maid. “Elizabeth, once your maid leaves, I want you to lock the door.”
She touched his lips with one finger that trembled slightly. “I have no concerns.”
He drew in a sharp breath. “Have I not told you that you tempt me quite beyond reason? There is only so much a man can bear, no matter how good his intentions.”
She stood on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his lingeringly. “I will bid you good night, then.”
“Damn the servants,” he muttered. He pulled her into his arms, kissing her with such thoroughness that Elizabeth felt her knees grow weak. His tongue danced with hers, sending a shock of desire straight to her most secret places. The kiss lasted only a minute, though it could have been an hour and it would still not have been long enough.
Darcy, breathing heavily, took several steps back. If he did not let her go this instant, he would drag her into his bedroom and make her his in every way. The image of Elizabeth in his bed, every inch of her displayed for his view, her face drugged with desire, her hair spread across the pillow was almost his undoing. He clenched his hands into fists and made a proper bow to her.
He could hardly bear it as the door closed behind her. Such a permeable barrier, just a door, but it must stand. He should be grateful that Elizabeth was here and would be his tomorrow. His loins ached painfully with need.
He gritted his teeth as he turned to his room. He allowed his valet to assist him in removing his frock coat and boots, but then dismissed him. His condition was all too apparent in his tight breeches without exposing himself further. He threw himself into his favorite chair and stared into the fire, trying to force himself to think of anything but Elizabeth only a room away, in the room that he had always dreamed would be hers.
Then he laughed suddenly. His sufferings now, such as they were, were nothing to what he had felt only a few hours earlier, believing that Elizabeth had run off with another man, and he would never see her again. To have had his hopes raised in Hertfordshire, only to have them demolished, leaving him worse off than before. Now Elizabeth was his, and she would be his wife in a matter of hours. Elizabeth, his sweetest, loveliest Elizabeth. And all he needed to do was to make it through a night of frustrated desire!
He had to admit it was very frustrated desire. Having had his dreams of Elizabeth snatched away so many times before, part of him could not believe that it would not happen again. But he would not let himself think that way. Instead, he remembered how she had kissed him.
He poured himself a generous glass of brandy and took up the book he had been reading, but then he set it down unread. He could not have taken in a word it said. Instead, he leaned back and sipped his brandy, staring into the fire and thinking of Elizabeth.
He must have drifted off to sleep. He was having the most marvelous dream. Elizabeth, clad in nothing more than a nightgown that did nothing to disguise her form, her curls tumbling in loose glory over her shoulders, leaned over him, her hand on his wrist. He breathed deeply of her fragrance of lavender and womanhood as it drifted past him. Odd, he did not recall dreaming of scents in the past.
Suddenly he was awake. It was no dream. It was the real Elizabeth, more lovely and desirable than ever. Automatically he averted his eyes from her, then a moment later they swerved back. If heaven was going to send him an opportunity to enjoy the sight Elizabeth in a flimsy shift, he was going to appreciate every second of it.
“Is anything amiss?” he managed to say.
“Only that I missed you, and you fell asleep in your chair. And you did not lock your door.”
“You should not be here.”
“So everyone would say. But this last fortnight has been dreadful for me, not knowing what had happened to you or why you had not come after me, and wondering if you had a change of heart. Now that I am finally here, I find I cannot bear to be parted from you.”
One fact managed to penetrate his sleep-fogged mind: Elizabeth needed comforting. As if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, he drew her onto his lap and held her soft, yielding form against him. When she laid her head on his shoulder, he thought life could never be sweeter than it was at that moment. “I was missing you as well,” he confessed.
“Do you know, while I was locked in that room for two weeks with nothing but a Bible to read, I spent hours just dreaming of being with you?”
“I cannot say I am sorry to hear it. You cannot know how often I have sat in the room which is now yours, grieving that you would never be there in your rightful place.”
“My rightful place?” she teased. “You are a gentleman of firm opinions, I see.”
“For myself, not for you. You have always been free to make your own decisions, but since I met you, I have never been able to picture another woman as my love. You were always here with me, in my heart.”
“You shall hear no complaint from me on that regard, sir.” Elizabeth laid her open hand against his chest.
“You need not call me sir, Elizabeth,” he said tenderly.
“Shall I call you Fitzwilliam, then?”
“I would like that.” In fact, he liked it so much that he could not resist lifting her chin and kissing her, first brushing her lips with his, then, finding himself needing more, deepening the kiss, his tongue meeting hers in an ancient dance that set a fire deep in his groin. Her response was everything he could wish for, all the passion he had always sensed in Elizabeth coming to life as she tangled her fingers in his hair. He relished the sweet taste of her and the warm softness of her lips. He told himself it would just be for one more minute, and then he would stop. Just one more minute. Just one more.
Then he felt Elizabeth’s hand lightly probing his chest, her fingertips tantalizingly touching the bare skin beneath his neck revealed by his open shirt. Good God, how much more could he desire her? He strained to hold her closer, which was a better option than allowing his own hands to explore her body, because if he started to do that, he might never be able to stop. But when her fingertip strayed beneath the collar of his shirt, he was overwhelmed by a surge of desire that made him press himself up against her in desperate longing. Just one more minute!
Somehow he found the strength to tear his mouth from hers. His breathing ragged, he said, “Elizabeth, I am only human. We must stop this.”
She nibbled his earlobe
. “Why?”
How could he possibly think while she was arousing every inch of his body? “Because we are not married yet.”
“And that, my love, is precisely why we should not stop.” Her lips moved along the sensitive skin of his neck, making him groan. Good God, had she somehow had lesson in how to torture a man, or was it simply natural talent?
The hot blood rushing through his body made it impossible to understand her. Or perhaps it was merely his wishful thinking that she might be telling him not to stop, but that could not be. “Not stop?” he managed to say.
She pulled away just far enough that she could look into his eyes. “Once I offered myself to you in exchange for your assistance. Tomorrow night I will be your wife, and it will be my duty to accept your attentions. Tonight is the only moment when I can come freely to you for no reason but that I love you, trust you, and wish to be with you. And that is why I am here.”
“Elizabeth,” he said, deeply moved. “You honour me. But it is my hope that duty will never be the reason you give yourself to me.”
A corner of her mouth quirked up. “Not solely duty, or even primarily, of course. It is just the knowledge that the duty exists that makes it less of a free choice. After all we have been through, I want you to have no doubt that I am coming to you freely.” With those words, she arched herself against him and wound her arms around his neck.
The softness of her breasts pressed against him drove any rational thought from his mind. His hand, travelling to cup her tender flesh, made the astonishing discovery that she was wearing nothing at all beneath her shift. He might have still managed to assert control over himself, but at that point Elizabeth moaned involuntarily, her eyes drifting closed with pleasure at his touch.
Suddenly he could not recall why there was any decision to be made. Nothing could be more right or more natural than for him to love and pleasure the woman in his arms, to make her his in every way, to make certain that nothing short of death could ever part them again. “Ah, Elizabeth, my dearest, loveliest Elizabeth,” he murmured. In one swift movement, he stood, with his tempting burden in his arms.
Elizabeth felt herself being gently placed on his bed, barely aware of anything beyond Darcy’s passion-darkened eyes and the astonishing sensations rushing through her. Her body ached for his, but instead of joining her, he stood over her and trailed his finger down the side of her face, then her neck, seeming to leave a fiery path in its wake. When he reached the sensitive notch at the base of her throat, she strained upward in a desire for more.
Darcy’s smile was incandescent as he sat down beside her, his hands moving the untie the ribbons of her nightgown. Elizabeth gasped as his lips skimmed along behind his hands, pushing away the fine lawn until her upper half was exposed. She moaned as his hands cupped her breasts, anxious for more of the pleasure he had given her on the riverbank, but it was his mouth, not his fingers, that found her most sensitive spots, sucking and teasing with his tongue until a sharp craving plunged through her, seeming to lead straight to her womb and between her legs. Then his hand was rucking up the bottom of her nightgown, over her ankles and past her knees till she felt the cool air touching the heat of her thighs. His mouth still in possession of her breast, Darcy’s hand reached into her most secret places with a tantalizing touch that only made her crave more. She twined her hands in his hair again, holding him tightly to her as if he were her only hope. When he finally began to explore her wetness, she writhed in an agony of need for something she could not even define. Her need threatened to consume her as intense jolts of pleasure rocked through her, building and building until at last she exploded into a fountain of ecstasy, her body shuddering uncontrollably.
As she finally returned to herself, an astonishing lassitude consuming her, she found him looking into her eyes, his fingers still touching her intimately.
“Ah, my Elizabeth,” he whispered. “My dearest, loveliest Elizabeth.” He straightened and stripped off his shirt.
Elizabeth was so mesmerized by the sight of his muscled torso that she did not even realize that his breeches had followed his shirt until he moved to cover her with his body, pressing hard against the part of her that was still throbbing from his earlier ministrations. Instinctively she parted her legs to make room for him, even as the astonishingly intimate sensation of his hot skin pressed against her breasts made her gasp.
Then she felt her secret places stretching, making room as his hardness pressed into her, claiming her in the most primal of ways. She could tell when he reached resistance, and braced herself for the pain she knew was to come. But he distracted her by kissing her tantalizingly and murmuring words of love, so that he was able to plunge into her, and the sharp pain was over almost before it was begun. She felt herself filled as she never had been before, and knew that she was now bound forever to him.
He began to move within her moistness, very slowly at first, and then in a rhythm that seemed as natural to her as her heartbeat. To her astonishment, the sense of need returned more strongly than she had known it before, coiling and twisting inside her until it reached a near-unbearable urgency. She clasped her legs around him, pulling him even deeper into her, seeking to become one with him. Then he threw back his head, a guttural cry of triumph emerging from his throat, as he once again plunged into her, and this time she convulsed around him as she succumbed completely to pleasure.
Darcy shifted his weight until he lay beside her, his legs still tangled with hers. He rested his head against the silkiness of her hair as it spread along the pillow, just as he had so often dreamed. He held her close, treasuring every moment, wondering if life could ever be better than it was now. He did not want to ever let Elizabeth out of his arms.
Eventually she stirred, and said, “I must return to my room soon.”
“Must you?” he said with a slight smile. He was already beginning to desire her again.
“Yes, I must,” she said archly. “I do not wish to be found here in the morning, and I must sleep. In case you have not heard, I am to be married tomorrow and will need my rest.”
He laughed low in his throat. “I suppose I cannot argue with that reasoning.” Especially as he suspected she had not slept much the previous night, if at all. A wave of tenderness swept over him. Taking care of her must come first. She had already given him her most precious gift, and he must not be greedy.
He did not argue as she tied the ribbons of her nightgown, just kissed her tenderly as she prepared to leave. When her hand was on the doorknob he said, “Elizabeth?”
She gave him a luminous smile. “Yes?”
He came to stand beside her and twined a lock of her hair around his fingers. “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. And you must allow me to tell you that frequently.”
She put her arms around him in a brief embrace. “If you continue in that vein, I may not be able to leave!”
“You have discovered my plan,” he teased. “Sleep well, my precious Elizabeth.” He watched as she glided across the sitting room and into her room. His own room seemed remarkably empty.
Elizabeth woke to a hand on her shoulder, uncertain at first where she was. The room was completely dark except for the glowing embers in the fireplace. Then she recognized the presence beside her, and remembered the many events of the day - and the night. “Fitzwilliam?”
He laid his hand on her cheek. “I thought I warned you to lock your door,” he said lightly.
She gave a wicked smile. “I thought it would no longer be necessary.”
His hand began to move, caressing first her face, then her neck, then travelling down to capture her breast in his hand. “It is now my turn to say that I found I could not bear to be parted from you, even for these few hours. Just as you came to me, now I am coming to you.”
With her body already beginning to long for his, Elizabeth could barely remember why she had returned to her bedroom in the first place. This was how it should be, and how it should always have
been between the two of them. She held her arms out to him as if it were the most natural thing in the world - as perhaps it was - and he came into them with warm sense of belonging and deepest love.
A Succession of Rain
Years ago, Amber Lore, the founder of the now-defunct Austen website Hyacinth Gardens, issued a challenge to me. We’d both write stories with dramatic tension without angst, stories where there was no antagonist, no misfortunes or misunderstandings, no interfering relations or embarrassing scenes. Amber, of course, had something written within weeks, while it took years for this story to percolate out of me. Nothing bad happens to the main characters except that it’s raining outside. Fortunately, Elizabeth and Darcy are quite able to provide their own dramatic tension!
A Pemberley Medley (A Pride & Prejudice Variation) Page 19
