Sense and Sensibility (The Wild and Wanton Edition)

by Lauren Lane

  “But have you not received my notes?” cried Marianne in the wildest anxiety. “Here is some mistake I am sure — some dreadful mistake. What can be the meaning of it? Tell me, Willoughby; for heaven’s sake tell me, what is the matter?”

  He made no reply; his complexion changed and all his embarrassment returned; but as if, on catching the eye of the young lady with whom he had been previously talking, he felt the necessity of instant exertion, he recovered himself again, and after saying, “Yes, I had the pleasure of receiving the information of your arrival in town, which you were so good as to send me,” turned hastily away with a slight bow and joined his friend.

  Marianne, now looking dreadfully white, and unable to stand, sunk into her chair, and Elinor, expecting every moment to see her faint, tried to screen her from the observation of others, while reviving her with lavender water.

  “Go to him, Elinor,” she cried, as soon as she could speak, “and force him to come to me. Tell him I must see him again — must speak to him instantly. I cannot rest — I shall not have a moment’s peace till this is explained — some dreadful misapprehension or other. Oh, go to him this moment.”

  “How can that be done? No, my dearest Marianne, you must wait. This is not the place for explanations. Wait only till to-morrow.”

  With difficulty however could she prevent her from following him herself; and to persuade her to check her agitation, to wait, at least, with the appearance of composure, till she might speak to him with more privacy and more effect, was impossible; for Marianne continued incessantly to give way in a low voice to the misery of her feelings, by exclamations of wretchedness. In a short time Elinor saw Willoughby quit the room by the door towards the staircase, and telling Marianne that he was gone, urged the impossibility of speaking to him again that evening, as a fresh argument for her to be calm.

  But Marianne had been calm since that day some months ago when Willoughby had quit Barton so suddenly. She could not tolerate his absence from her life — and her bed — any longer. She knew she must find him at once. “Which way did he go?” she asked her sister.

  Elinor pointed the direction, and Marianne took off without another word. She heard the pleas of her sister to halt, to come back, but they soon faded away, as Elinor would never raise her voice above what was proper in the company of others, no matter the circumstances. Why should Elinor wish Marianne to stay behind, anyway? Surely her sister, of all people, knew the severity of her need for Willoughby; Marianne was quite sure that Elinor was in quite a similar place after the hasty, inexplicable retreat of her Mr. Ferrars from Devonshire.

  Marianne ran as fast as she could, uncaring of who was watching. She passed through the door and out into the brisk night, stopping just long enough to get her bearings and spot Mr. Willoughby walking away about ten yards from where Marianne stood, quickly retreating into the darkness. Even in the dark, and even after all this time, Marianne would recognise that back, that walk, anywhere.

  “Willoughby!” she cried out!

  He stopped in his tracks and turned. The expression on his face grew clearer as she ran towards him, though it was such an unlikely combination — surprise, pain, joy, regret — that she hardly knew what to make of it. It didn’t matter, though — all that mattered was that she and Willoughby were finally reunited at long last!

  Marianne leaped up and attached herself to him, wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. He responded immediately, and held her to him tightly. Their lips met with the fire of their pent up desire over these last months, and soon they couldn’t keep their hands off one another.

  “Oh, Marianne,” Willoughby growled in between kisses along her soft white jaw. “These past months have been torture without you.”

  “I could hardly bear it,” she told him, gasping and he ground his arousal against her thigh. “Why have you not come to see me earlier? Why were you behaving so strangely in the party?”

  “There shall be plenty of time to discuss everything, my darling. For now — ” he took her mouth with his once more “ — I need you — all of you.”

  With that, he placed her on her feet, entwined her hand with his, and pulled her farther into the darkness. They ran together, the crisp wind in their hair, Marianne giggling with glee, and stopped at the bottom of a steep hill, out of view and hearing range of the house. Then they were all over each other once again, hands, lips, tongues everywhere, buckles being undone and laces untied like their very lives depended on getting to each other as quickly as possible.

  Willoughby ran his hands under Marianne’s dress the way he had during their first encounter that day on the hill, but this time he did not ask and he did not hesitate. He knew exactly what she wanted. He thrust a finger inside her and found her so wet and ready for him that he immediately added two more. She moaned in response and moved her hips in encouragement. As he worked her from the inside, she leaned down and took him in her mouth, just as she’d yearned to do since their perfect afternoon at his aunt’s house. He was rock hard and smooth, and she covered him in a coating of her saliva before teasing him with feather-light brushes of her fingertips, tiny little nips with her teeth, and the cool breeze of her breath as she lightly blew across his shimmering skin.

  “Dear Lord, Marianne,” he groaned, his eyes very nearly rolling back in his head but his fingers not pausing in their massaging of her plush, wet warmth. “Where did you learn to do that? You have not been unfaithful to me, I hope?”

  She ran her tongue across his head, lapping up the tiny bead of salty moisture that had collected there, and then replied, “Of course not, my love. I have just had a lot of time on my hands to let my imagination run wild and plan what I would do with you when you returned to me.” With no warning, she took the length of him in her mouth and began pumping him forcefully.

  “What … else … did you … come … up with?” he asked between the bobs of her head and the moans they elicited.

  She pulled away and looked up at him shyly. “Well, since you’ve asked … I was wondering if … ” She paused, suddenly shy. “If you could use your mouth on me the way I do on you.”

  Willoughby smiled down at her and guided her mouth back to him. “My dear, what an imagination you have!” he said as she giggled and went back to work. “I’m sorry to say that that is something that men simply cannot do to women. The way our bodies are formed, it is much better for men to please women with this — “ he pointed to his manhood “ — or this — ” he wiggled his fingers “ — than this.” He gestured to his mouth.

  Marianne was disappointed for a moment, and confused for a moment more — she could have sworn she’s heard John and Fanny doing something along those lines — but the feeling didn’t last long. The joy she felt at being with Willoughby again was enough to wash away any feelings of sadness or disappointment she’d felt in the entirety of her life. After a few more moments, Willoughby withdrew his hand from between her legs, eased his arousal away from her mouth, and asked her if she wanted to try something new.

  “Oh, yes!” she cried. “Anything!”

  He kissed her hard on the mouth, gazed into her eyes with sheer love and admiration, and then positioned her so she was on her hands and knees, facing away from him. Then he entered her from behind, hitting a completely different spot inside her than she was used to. She let out a long moan, and immediately began pulsing her hips backward to meet his thrusts forward. “Yes,” she moaned. “Oh, Willoughby, please, more!”

  Willoughby thrust within Marianne in perfect rhythm, half expecting a spark to ignite between them each time his hips collided with her gorgeous, round backside. He could live inside of this woman for the rest of his life and it would not be long enough. But he now knew he wouldn’t get anywhere close to the rest of his life to spend with Marianne. After she found out the truth about everything, she would be lost to him forever. The thought caused him to feel a sudden urgency, as if he feared someone would find them here and tear them apart be
fore they were done, and so he pumped harder and faster and soon exploded inside her.

  They collapsed together on the cool ground, righted their clothing, and then kissed, wrapped in each other’s arms, for what felt like hours.

  “I want you to know, Marianne,” Willoughby said sadly as he brushed her hair out of her beautiful eyes, knowing that the moment had come to do what he must, for things had changed severely in the time since he saw Marianne last, “that no matter what happens after this moment, I have treasured every moment I have spent in your company.”

  Marianne smiled. “As have I. Have you quite finished your business in town? Will we finally get to be together now? Shall we announce our engagement?” She kissed the palm of his hand sweetly, gently.

  Willoughby took a deep breath and forced himself to say what he could not avoid any longer. “Marianne … I’m afraid … you have been operating under a misapprehension.”

  She sat up then, and he did the same. “What do you mean?” she asked cautiously.

  He swallowed. “I must make it clear that I am not now, nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be, in a position to offer you … what you ask.”

  Though his words were ambiguous enough that her mind barely even understood what he was telling her, something deep within Marianne knew that this was all wrong, and thus her heart began to break. The pain soon found its way throughout her body and up into her eyes, where it came out in the form of unbridled tears.

  Suddenly, Marianne’s knew she could not stay in this place a moment longer. Willoughby had clearly not yet finished his speech, and she did not dare wait around for the words to be uttered that would destroy the last reserve of hope left within her. Ignorance was far preferable to the alternative. Before Willoughby could stop her, she pushed to her feet and ran back across the grounds and into the party.

  She found her sister right away and instantly begged her to entreat Lady Middleton to take them home, as she was too miserable to stay a minute longer. Elinor saw the tears in her sister’s eyes, and noted — though she hoped she was the only one who did — the haphazard lilt of her clothing, and knew that something was very wrong, and that Willoughby was at the centre of it all. She went in search of Lady Middleton immediately.

  Lady Middleton, though in the middle of a rubber, on being informed that Marianne was unwell, was too polite to object for a moment to her wish of going away, and making over her cards to a friend, they departed as soon as the carriage could be found. Scarcely a word was spoken during their return to Berkeley Street. Marianne was in a silent agony, too much oppressed for any more tears; but as Mrs. Jennings was luckily not come home, they could go directly to their own room, where hartshorn restored her a little to herself. She was soon undressed and in bed, and as she seemed desirous of being alone, her sister then left her, and while she waited the return of Mrs. Jennings, had leisure enough for thinking over the past.

  That some kind of engagement had subsisted between Willoughby and Marianne she could not doubt, and that Willoughby was weary of it, seemed equally clear; for however Marianne might still feed her own wishes, she could not attribute such behaviour to mistake or misapprehension of any kind. Nothing but a thorough change of sentiment could account for it. Her indignation would have been still stronger than it was, had she not witnessed that embarrassment which seemed to speak a consciousness of his own misconduct, and prevented her from believing him so unprincipled as to have been sporting with the affections of her sister from the first, without any design that would bear investigation. Absence might have weakened his regard, and convenience might have determined him to overcome it, but that such a regard had formerly existed she could not bring herself to doubt.

  As for Marianne, on the pangs which so unhappy a meeting must already have given her, and on those still more severe which might await her in its probable consequence, she could not reflect without the deepest concern. Her own situation gained in the comparison; for while she could esteem Edward as much as ever, however they might be divided in future, her mind might be always supported. But every circumstance that could embitter such an evil seemed uniting to heighten the misery of Marianne in a final separation from Willoughby — in an immediate and irreconcilable rupture with him.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  Before the housemaid had lit their fire the next day, or the sun gained any power over a cold, gloomy morning in January, Marianne, only half dressed, was kneeling against one of the window-seats for the sake of all the little light she could command from it, and writing as fast as a continual flow of tears would permit her. In this situation, Elinor, roused from sleep by her agitation and sobs, first perceived her; and after observing her for a few moments with silent anxiety, said, in a tone of the most considerate gentleness —

  “Marianne, may I ask — ”

  “No, Elinor,” she replied, “ask nothing; you will soon know all.”

  The sort of desperate calmness with which this was said, lasted no longer than while she spoke, and was immediately followed by a return of the same excessive affliction. It was some minutes before she could go on with her letter, and the frequent bursts of grief which still obliged her, at intervals, to withhold her pen, were proofs enough of her feeling how more than probable it was that she was writing for the last time to Willoughby.

  Elinor paid her every quiet and unobtrusive attention in her power; and she would have tried to sooth and tranquilize her still more, had not Marianne entreated her, with all the eagerness of the most nervous irritability, not to speak to her for the world. In such circumstances, it was better for both that they should not be long together; and the restless state of Marianne’s mind not only prevented her from remaining in the room a moment after she was dressed, but requiring at once solitude and continual change of place, made her wander about the house till breakfast time, avoiding the sight of every body.

  At breakfast she neither ate, nor attempted to eat any thing; and Elinor’s attention was then all employed, not in urging her, not in pitying her, nor in appearing to regard her, but in endeavouring to engage Mrs. Jennings’s notice entirely to herself.

  As this was a favourite meal with Mrs. Jennings, it lasted a considerable time, and they were just setting themselves, after it, round the common working table, when a letter was delivered to Marianne, which she eagerly caught from the servant, and, turning of a death-like paleness, instantly ran out of the room. Elinor, who saw as plainly by this, as if she had seen the direction, that it must come from Willoughby, felt immediately such a sickness at heart as made her hardly able to hold up her head, and sat in such a general tremor as made her fear it impossible to escape Mrs. Jennings’s notice. That good lady, however, saw only that Marianne had received a letter from Willoughby, which appeared to her a very good joke, and which she treated accordingly, by hoping, with a laugh, that she would find it to her liking. Of Elinor’s distress, she was too busily employed in measuring lengths of worsted for her rug, to see any thing at all; and calmly continuing her talk, as soon as Marianne disappeared, she said —

  “Upon my word, I never saw a young woman so desperately in love in my life! My girls were nothing to her, and yet they used to be foolish enough; but as for Miss Marianne, she is quite an altered creature. I hope, from the bottom of my heart, he won’t keep her waiting much longer, for it is quite grievous to see her look so ill and forlorn. Pray, when are they to be married?”

  Elinor, though never less disposed to speak than at that moment, obliged herself to answer such an attack as this, and, therefore, trying to smile, replied, “And have you really, Ma’am, talked yourself into a persuasion of my sister’s being engaged to Mr. Willoughby? I thought it had been only a joke, but so serious a question seems to imply more; and I must beg, therefore, that you will not deceive yourself any longer. I do assure you that nothing would surprise me more than to hear of their being going to be married.”

  “For shame, for shame, Miss Dashwood! how can you talk so? Don’t we all know that it m
ust be a match, that they were over head and ears in love with each other from the first moment they met? Did not I see them together in Devonshire every day, and all day long; and did not I know that your sister came to town with me on purpose to buy wedding clothes? Come, come, this won’t do. Because you are so sly about it yourself, you think nobody else has any senses; but it is no such thing, I can tell you, for it has been known all over town this ever so long. I tell every body of it and so does Charlotte.”

  “Indeed, Ma’am,” said Elinor, very seriously, “you are mistaken. Indeed, you are doing a very unkind thing in spreading the report, and you will find that you have though you will not believe me now.”

  Mrs. Jennings laughed again, but Elinor had not spirits to say more, and eager at all events to know what Willoughby had written, hurried away to their room, where, on opening the door, she saw Marianne stretched on the bed, almost choked by grief, one letter in her hand, and two or three others laying by her. “It’s as if he has become a different person entirely!” she wailed, seemingly unaware that she was no longer alone. “It’s as if he doesn’t remember all the things we … said, all the things we shared! It’s as if … “ She choked down another sob. “It’s as if he doesn’t even remember just last night! Oh, Willoughby!” she cried, kicking her feet against the bed. “What has happened?”

  Elinor drew near, but without saying a word; and seating herself on the bed, took her hand, kissed her affectionately several times, and then gave way to a burst of tears, which at first was scarcely less violent than Marianne’s. The latter, though unable to speak, seemed to feel all the tenderness of this behaviour, and after some time thus spent in joint affliction, she put all the letters into Elinor’s hands; and then covering her face with her handkerchief, almost screamed with agony. Elinor, who knew that such grief, shocking as it was to witness it, must have its course, watched by her till this excess of suffering had somewhat spent itself, and then turning eagerly to Willoughby’s letter, read as follows: