But she couldn’t help but shine her light upward, illuminating the severe face of one of the ladies. This one had a small dog on her lap, and the dog seemed to be glaring as well.
Elizabeth shuddered. She shut her eyes and then opened them.
Resolving not to think of the portraits, she pushed forward.
But she could feel their eyes on her, boring into her back.
And as she walked, she found herself moving faster and faster, just to get away from them. She didn’t want them looking at her anymore.
She knew it was stupid, but she hurried, and as she moved more quickly, she was noisier.
The floor creaked.
Her footfalls were louder than she would have liked.
She winced with each noise, frightened that someone would come out of one of the rooms.
She imagined a guest opening the door, sleeping cap on her head, eyes squinting in the darkness, demanding to know where she was going.
What would she say if she were caught?
She couldn’t think of a thing that would be believable.
Finally, she reached the end of the hallway, and she let out an audible breath of relief.
But now, she emerged into a large open area.
Two staircases descended down to the foyer of the house, and another behind her ascended to the next level. The ceiling was quite high, another story above her.
Her first step away from the wing echoed throughout the entire house, so loud that she let out a tiny whimper in fright.
Someone had surely heard all that.
Someone was going to appear now. A servant. Miss Anne de Bourgh herself.
She waited.
No one appeared.
She took another step, this one more careful. It was not nearly as loud, but it was not utterly silent either.
She inched her way over to the west wing, trying with each step not to make any noise at all. And with each step, failing miserably. They were all so loud.
She was sure that she would be discovered. Positive of it. So sure that she nearly convinced herself to turn back and go to her room. Why keep going when she was sure to be intercepted before she even made it to Darcy’s room?
But she pressed forward in the end, and then she made it to the doorway of the west wing.
She slipped inside.
She was so close.
Now, she only had to go three rooms down, on the side facing the drive, and then she would be at his room.
Should she knock? Should she simply open the door?
What if she frightened him and he made noise, and they were caught?
Worse still, what if he was dead asleep and he wouldn’t wake?
She thrust her thumbnail between her teeth and chewed.
She stood in front of his door, flexing her right hand. To knock or to open?
Which should she do?
And then, before she could make her decision—
Someone cleared his throat. Behind her.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
She whirled, horror filling her, seeping into her bones. It had happened after all. She had been caught. If only she hadn’t dallied so long here in front of his door.
“Miss Bennet?” whispered a voice.
Wait. Was that…
She raised her lamp with shaking hands until she illuminated the face of Darcy.
She was limp with relief. After all of that, she had not been caught at all. “Why aren’t you in your room?” she said.
“I was, but I heard footsteps in the foyer. I looked out, and I saw you outside Mr. Haversham’s door.”
“Mr. Haversham!” She put her fingers to her lips. Oh, what if she had opened that door? “But your room is supposed to be the third door down, overlooking the drive.”
“And so it is.” He pointed. “That way is the drive.”
“Is it?”
He shook his head at her. “What are you doing here, your sense of direction notwithstanding?”
Could that really be the drive? It was true that she sometimes got dreadfully turned around inside houses, especially when she couldn’t look out the windows. But the drive was in front of the house, and she had just been in the foyer, which was…
Oh, dear.
That way.
“Miss Bennet?” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“I was looking for you. I came here for you.”
He sighed. “You are really stupid sometimes, you know that?” But he grasped her by the hand and dragged her into his room.
His bed was mussed, but the covers were still pulled up. He had not been asleep then, even though he was only wearing his nightclothes. He looked around the room, seized a chair, and moved it over. He gestured.
She sat.
“You shouldn’t have done this,” he said.
“Shouldn’t have come to your room, or shouldn’t have come to Rosings?”
“Both.” He thrust both hands into his hair. “I cannot—”
“Wait,” she said. “I know that you must think I want more from you than you could give. But I swear to you, I do not.” She got out of the chair and went to him. She put her hand on his chest. “I will take whatever you can spare.”
He moved her hand. “You do not understand. I should have explained to you before, but I find it all so dreadfully mortifying. I have a problem with opium.”
“I know that.” She put her hand back. “As it happens, I think I have a problem with you, so perhaps we’re quite evenly matched.”
He laughed a little, sounding helpless. “I cannot be what you want me to be for you.”
“Do you think I want you to marry me? I don’t.” She pressed closer. “I would be anything you wanted. Your mistress. Your whore. You could use me as you saw fit.”
He made a noise in the back of his throat. “Miss Bennet, you do have a knack for unwittingly saying the most erotic things.” He touched her cheek.
And then he was kissing her, and it was glorious. She was bursting to life, like a log catching flame in the fire place, sparks flying, tongues of heat and light climbing. She clutched him.
He pushed her away. “No, no. I can’t… I am worthless as a man.”
She didn’t understand. She cocked her head. “You’re not worthless.”
He rubbed his forehead. “I am taking rather a lot of laudanum daily. And I find that… certain parts of me do not function as they used to.”
She knitted her brows together. “What do you mean?”
“Oh dear Christ, Miss Bennet.” He closed the distance between them, snatched up her hand, and put it against his crotch. “I cannot make a whore of anyone without this, can I?”
She bit down on her lip. Oh. In her extensive readings on the subject, she had become a bit more knowledgeable on male anatomy than she had been years ago when they had first come together. She knew that the male member needed to be erect, and that there could be dysfunction with that process. “The laudanum does that?”
“At the levels of consumption that I am at, yes. So, you see, there is nothing in my future. There is no marrying, or siring heirs, or having you, no matter how much I might want to. I am worthless.”
She sat back down on the chair for a moment, thinking this over. “Well, we can still kiss, can’t we?”
He laughed, a low chuckle. “I suppose so, but I think it would be vastly frustrating to work ourselves up for something we can’t finish.”
She looked up at him. “Everything about this is vastly frustrating. But I did not come all the way to Rosings for nothing.”
He sighed. “Well, I’m sorry about that, but perhaps you did.”
“You won’t kiss me?”
He looked her over, and there was a brightness in his eyes, a hunger. But he turned to his bedside table, picked up a bottle of laudanum, and took a long drink.
“Can I have some of that?” she said.
He raised his eyebrows.
“I’m stuck here for a bit anyway,” she said. “There�
��s no way that I’m going back to my room through that empty hallway with all the portraits.” She shuddered.
He looked a bit confused, but he laughed and shrugged. He held out the bottle to her.
She stood up and crossed the room to him.
He handed her the bottle.
She took a drink. She made a face at the taste.
“Go easy,” he murmured. “You shouldn’t drink so much.”
She gave him back the bottle, and she searched his eyes with her own. “I want to be close to you. When I said before that I would take whatever you could give me, I meant it. Whatever you can give me is all I want.”
He reached out, his fingers barely brushing her cheek, and then he clenched his hand into a fist and looked away. “Miss Bennet…”
“I really do wish you would call me Elizabeth.”
“Oh, blast it all.” He seized her by the hand and tugged her. Together, they fell back on his bed.
* * *
He had his nose buried in her hair, and it smelled sweet. His eyes were closed, and he was lost in a world of swirling visions. His entire body thrummed, goodness pulsing through him. “What do you see?” he whispered.
“The ocean,” she replied. “It’s vast and calm, and the sun is rising, bright red in the sky, staining everything with purples and oranges.”
“Mmm.” He could see it too, now. “What else do you see?”
“Our ship,” she said. “You and I are standing on the main deck, and we’re looking out over the water together.”
“Our ship?” He was amused. He began to trace small, soft patterns on the bare skin of her arm. Their bodies were pressed close, their limbs entangled. He’d never felt closer to another person in his entire life.
“I suppose it’s your ship. You know what I mean.”
“No, it can be ours. I want it to be ours.” He wrapped his other arm tighter around her.
She was smiling. He could hear it in her voice. “Our ship, then. Where we live together. Not trapped here. Out where we’re free.”
“Free,” he echoed. “What else do you see?”
“There’s something in the sky.”
“Ah, yes, I see it,” he murmured. “It’s a bird. A beautiful, white bird with snowy feathers.”
Her breath caught. “I see it too!”
He chuckled. “It’s flying in a circle around our ship.”
“Yes,” she said, her voice breathy in wonder. “How is that possible? How are we seeing the same thing, even though we both have our eyes closed?”
“It’s because… I don’t know.” It was probably just a trick of the human mind, truly. After all, even if one wasn’t having opium visions, if someone instructed him to imagine something, he tended to picture what was described to him. But the truth didn’t seem all that important right at that moment. The closeness of Elizabeth’s body was important, the feel of her chest rising as she breathed, of her pulse pounding under the fragile layer of her skin. He never wanted to let go of her. “It’s because we have a bond.”
“Yes,” she sighed. “I know that we do. It’s the only thing that explains why I have behaved the way that I have since I knew you were back.”
“How have you behaved?”
“I have been shameless.” Her hands on his chest, burrowing under his clothes to touch him.
“Have you?” he breathed.
“Oh, yes. And I haven’t been able to understand why.”
“Because you believe you should hate me?”
She drew away. “What? Why would you say that?”
He missed the closeness of her, and he pulled her back against him. “Because,” he said in a low, dark voice, “all I have done is make your life worse since I met you.”
“That isn’t true.”
“I nearly killed you. I kept you captive on a pirate ship.”
“You saved me from those men. You killed them for me.”
“I stole your virtue. And now I’ve got you to sneak into my bedroom, which is quite scandalous.”
“You didn’t steal my virtue. I gave it to you. In fact, I seem to remember rather begging you to take it.”
He laughed, turning that memory over in his head. It seemed particularly fine now, the memory of her beneath him, surrounding him, little sighs escaping her mouth.
She ran her hands over his chest again. “And you didn’t get me to come here tonight either. I came on my own. And that’s what you’ve done for me. You’ve made me bold and brave. Without you, I’m invisible and mousy and proper. But when you’re here, I’m alive. I’m on fire.”
He sought her mouth and kissed her hard. This was all stupid, of course. He was nothing good for this woman. But she made him feel as if he weren’t utterly worthless, and he liked that. If she was so willing to let herself be destroyed, he didn’t know if he could stop her, anyway. He should take what she offered.
Hell, he was taking what she offered.
He gathered the skirt of her dress and pushed it up, baring her skin. “I want to feel your skin against mine,” he said in a throaty voice. “I want to feel all of your skin.”
She fumbled at his nightclothes. “Good idea. Very good idea, Darcy.”
He groaned.
She sighed. “The laudanum makes everything so nice.”
“Don’t like it so much,” he admonished, opening his eyes.
Her eyes were still closed. She was lying next to him, her night gown at her armpits, all of her lovely flesh bared, and he sucked in breath.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But it’s very hard not to like it, you know.”
He touched her breast.
She let out a tiny whimper.
He felt excitement go through him like a jolt, and surely, surely, that meant that he was growing erect—
But no.
He sighed. He shut his eyes, running his hands over her soft, soft skin. This would have to be enough, then.
She kissed him again. “I love you,” she murmured.
He kissed her forehead. “I love you too.” Right at that moment, he did, as little as it meant. “You’ll come back to me tomorrow night?”
“Yes,” she said. “Of course I will.”
* * *
Elizabeth meant to leave Darcy’s room while it was still night, but she underestimated her ability to resist the laudanum, and she fell asleep in his arms. When she woke up, sunlight was streaming through the windows, illuminating their bare bodies twisted amongst the bedsheets.
She wanted to stay with him. He was beautiful sleeping like that, and with light and shadows playing over the muscles on his chest and arms. He was gaunter than he had been when she had first known him, but he was still her Darcy, and he was still the most lovely man she thought she had ever seen.
She couldn’t stay, of course.
She shouldn’t have stayed as late as she did.
She didn’t have any idea how late it was, but she was fairly sure that it was still early enough to sneak back to her room. The sunlight still looked young, the light of early morning.
It only took her a few seconds to shrug back into her nightgown. She went to the door and opened it slowly. Peering out into the hallway, she held her breath. Would anyone see her?
But the hallway was mercifully empty.
Sighing with relief, she tiptoed out, closing the door to his room behind him.
She started down the hallway.
At the door to the foyer, she suddenly remembered that last night she’d whispered to Darcy that she loved him, and she was suddenly mortified. She was so caught up that she froze in place.
Oh, he’d said it back, but that didn’t mean anything. He’d probably felt cornered. She didn’t think it was her place to tell him that she loved him.
And besides, it made things problematic, because she had promised that she would not take more from him than he was willing to give. But she was afraid that she had just demanded love from him.
What if he found her to be a n
uisance? What if he got rid of her because she was too much trouble?
She cringed. Stupid, stupid, stupid, she thought to herself.
And she flung open the door to the hallway.
And came face to face with Mr. and Mrs. Haversham, both of whom were dressed in their riding habits.
“Oh my,” said Mrs. Haversham, a look of horror on her face.
Elizabeth’s jaw worked. She tried to think of something to say, something to explain away her presence, but she could think of nothing.
So, she ran. She ran right past them, past the stairs, to her own wing, and into her bedroom.
She threw open the door, hurled herself inside, and collapsed against it.
Her heart thudded in her chest.
That had just happened, hadn’t it?
Well.
She was ruined.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mr. Bolton was massaging the bridge of his nose. He sat in a chair in a drawing room where he, Kitty, and Elizabeth were alone. “I don’t understand.”
Elizabeth felt ill. She wanted to blame it on the laudanum, but she hadn’t felt ill until after she’d been caught. And when she did try to vomit, nothing came up, so she knew it was nerves, nothing truly physical. She sat opposite him, her hands in her lap, her back ramrod straight. She was perfectly poised, perfectly still, perfectly quiet.
“Is this why you wanted to come here?” Kitty said, her voice high-pitched. She sounded more like their mother than ever. “To chase that man? Darcy?”
Elizabeth said nothing.
“Oh, Lizzy, how could you?” said Kitty. “He’s that dreadful man who left the Meryton Assembly to go and fight a duel and he’s gambled away his fortune and he is quite, quite dishonorable and—”
“He’s obviously dishonorable if he used your sister in this manner,” said Mr. Bolton. “I simply don’t understand it, I must say.”
Kitty wrung her hands. “We have to leave Rosings, of course. I’m having arrangements made now for our departure. We’ll be gone before luncheon. We’ll likely never be invited back.”
Elizabeth grasped handfuls of her skirt.
“Yes, this is rather dreadful, Miss Bennet,” said Mr. Bolton, looking her over. “I don’t understand.”
Elizabeth really wanted to vomit now. Her stomach was roiling.
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