by Lily Lord
“Of course,” Elizabeth said, her smile turning up at the corners. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
Bingley turned to her. “Is he looking for a wife, Mrs. Darcy? I never think of such things, myself.”
The entire table laughed, though Georgiana’s response might have been tempered by her wish not to appear too transparent in her interests. Elizabeth looked toward her husband, and saw him gazing thoughtfully at his sister.
He spoke up. “Georgiana, did you not mention that you had been introduced to Lord Stanley by our aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh?”
Elizabeth saw this as a very kind gesture by Darcy. He was trying to give his young sister an opportunity to raise the topic of her potential suitor. But Georgiana was apparently thrown into such confusion by his statement that she could find no ready response.
“Yes indeed,” Elizabeth said, trying to be equally helpful. “I think you did bring up his name at dinner the other night, did you not?”
“I hear only good things about this individual,” Mrs. Gardiner said. “It is quite remarkable, really, when most of the time when only hears about strangers when they are misbehaving. To get news of someone who is admired by one and all is very unusual, don’t you think so, Mrs. Bingley?”
Jane smiled. “It well may be, Aunt Gardiner. However, since most people are really very good at heart, I tend to believe the positive reports and credit any negative intelligence to some sort of misunderstanding between the parties.”
Elizabeth shook her head, smiling at her sister. “Oh Jane, it is so wonderful to have you here. You and your good heart, which always and only sees the best in everyone.”
“That is not completely true, Lizzy,” Jane said, her eyebrows raised in mock surprise. “I hope that I am not so easily duped as all that. There are certainly individuals of whom I disapprove, and with good reason.”
“Lord Stanley…” Georgiana seemed finally to have found her voice, but now she hesitated. “Indeed… I have had the pleasure of meeting Lord John Stanley. He seems to me to be the very essence of a gentleman. He has qualities to recommend him in every regard. He is so… very… much to be admired.”
She looked down in her lap, her young face beautiful in its tenderness and evident love. Slowly, she raised her eyes back to those of her brother. “It is my hope that you will be in a position to meet him soon as well, Willy.”
Having made her brief speech, Georgiana returned her eyes to the table.
“I should be very glad to meet any young man that you hold in such high esteem, Georgiana,” Darcy said. When his sister looked up, a tremulous smile on her face and her eyes brimming with unshed tears, Elizabeth felt the affection between brother and sister beaming in their respective faces.
The rest of the evening passed in a blur of good cheer and happy conversation. All of the burdens that Elizabeth had felt in the last several days seemed to have disappeared. Other than a slight tiredness, she was feeling very well, surrounded as she was with loving family and friends. The rift between her husband and his sister seemed to have been mended. And more critically, she felt that she and Darcy would be able to come to some sort of mutual understanding about the cautious but appropriate activities of a mother to be.
It was a wonderful Christmas day, and when she retired to her dressing room, after embracing her sister Jane one more time, she was certain that her husband would be paying her a visit in her chambers before too long. Elizabeth had Fiona take down her hair and helped her prepare for the night. She took special care to wear her nicest robe, and she waited up for some time, expecting him to arrive.
When he did not, she finally blew out the lone candle in her room and lay down amongst the warm bedclothes. Why he did not make an appearance, she did not know. Certainly he did not seem be angry at her any longer.
She fell asleep and drifted into fitful dreams about a future in which she was surrounded by babies, one after another crawling around her on the floor and pulling on her gown in an attempt to reach her lap. Turning over during a period of wakefulness, she realized that someone was opening the door.
“Lizzy.” It was Darcy.
“I thought you were not coming tonight…” Elizabeth said, her voice husky from sleeping.
Darcy came across the room and sat beside her on the bed. He carried with him the stub of a candle. “I believe you have ruined me for life, Lizzy. I do not like to sleep without you beside me. Without you in my arms.”
Elizabeth smiled, moving over in the spacious bed and opening her arms to welcome him. “I feel the same. You are always welcome here.”
Darcy shook his head. “I dare not. If I could trust myself to sleep beside you without in any way disturbing your person, I would be only too happy to do so. But I do not. Your charms are irresistible to me, and I am sure I should slip, or torture myself trying to quash my natural urges.” He looked down at her, his dark eyes reflecting the light of the single candle. “I could not trust myself to leave you unmolested.”
It was Elizabeth’s turn to shake her head. “And why must you resist your natural urges?”
He made a sound like a chuckle under his breath. “The baby. Of course.”
“Fitzwilliam, I am quite certain that since time immemorial men and women have been enjoying marital relations… with or without the benefit of holy matrimony… while the woman was with child. And no harm came to their future offspring.”
“That is not what doctors are saying. Modern medical practitioners proclaim that it is best for the husband to eschew connubial intercourse during his wife’s confinement period.”
“I do not believe it.”
“You do not believe me, or you do not believe the doctors?”
Elizabeth could see that he was smiling by the light of the candle. Encouraged, she spoke saucily. “I do not believe that doctors always know what is best. I do not see animals forgoing physical relations when the female is expecting offspring.”
“Are you comparing humans to animals?”
“I am comparing my desire for you, and yours for me, to that of the natural world. Both natural and to be expected. And unnecessary to resist.”
Darcy’s eyes opened wide in the candlelight and he leaned down to push a curl off of Elizabeth’s face. “Are you flirting with me, Mrs. Darcy?”
“And if I am, Mr. Darcy?” Elizabeth looked up at her husband and hoped that her eyes conveyed the strength of her desire.
“My resistance will crumble if you continue to look at me like that, wife. Between your highly scientific arguments about the wisdom of husbands and wives engaging in marital relations even when the latter is with child, and my view of your creamy flesh as you lie in bed, I am becoming quite willing to be persuaded to join you in whatever type of relations you desire.”
Elizabeth pushed the heavy bedclothes off of her, knowing as she did so that her sheer sleeping shift would reveal details of her person that would further inflame her husband’s lust. She did not have long to wait to observe the effects, as Darcy stood up with alacrity, removed every stitch of his clothing from his breeches to his most intimate garments, and slid into bed beside her.
Soon Darcy’s arms were around her, warm and strong, and her body was tight against his powerful chest. Elizabeth tangled her fingers into the curling hairs at the back of his neck and let herself be pulled into a deep kiss. As his tongue probed her mouth, she felt her husband’s hand reach down and lift up her sleep shift. Hot fingers caressed her knee and then rose slowly up the inside of her thigh. She gasped in pleasure and delight.
“Oh, Lizzy,” Darcy moaned. He pulled her shift gently over her head and off, tossing the gossamer fabric away. Looking down at her, he hesitated. “I want you so. But I am worried… what if…”
“You are worried that you will hurt the baby?”
“Yes. I am so heavy on top of you. I could injure you.”
“I could…” Eliza
beth stopped, feeling herself color. Then she shook her head in impatience at her own embarrassment and continued. “Perhaps if I take the superior position.”
Darcy smiled, his eyes glowing with surprise and delight. “Yes. That would alleviate my concerns.” He positioned himself on his back and swung Elizabeth gently above him. “It is very kind of you.”
Elizabeth laughed. “My pleasure, Fitzwilliam.”
Slowly she settled onto his extended member, eagerly rampant as it was, and felt the exquisite moment of womanly fulfillment. Once again, a miraculous moisture heralding her most intimate desires had been reawakened by his caresses. As they relaxed into a blissful co-mingling of parts, Elizabeth looked down at her husband. His hands were teasing and pleasuring her at every sensitive point, and her body began to sing with the bliss of this most intense expression of marital connection.
In her mind, all was haze as rich sensations of sweetness and honey filled her consciousness. In her physical person, there was a more primitive thrumming. It seemed as though each blood vessel was expanding. Each limb filling with the glow of sensory satisfaction.
Elizabeth leaned down and put her mouth on Darcy’s. As she did so, she changed the position of her connection with his manly rod. She gasped in delight.
Darcy looked up at her, startled. “Did I hurt you?”
“No. Quite the contrary,” she said. She leaned back down to meet his lips again. His tongue meandered around hers. His hand stimulated the taut peak of her left breast and created a sensation that was somewhere between pain and pleasure. His rigid member caressed her over and over again in the most delicious manner, each movement teasing and tantalizing the sensitive petals at the opening of her womanly delta.
He put his warm lips on her nipple and the wet lapping of his tongue drove her wild with desire. She quickened the pace, exultant in her position on top of this powerful man. Darcy’s eyes opened and he looked drunk with lust and love as he gazed at her above him, blissfully exploiting her opportunity for such a wild ride.
Elizabeth felt like a violin whose strings were tuned to a fine perfection. And Mr. Darcy was the concert master… a brilliant musician who knew the precise point of contact that would extricate the most sublime responses.
Elizabeth heard herself moaning softly. Every part of her was alive with joy. Darcy pulled her to him even more tightly, and the sensation of the tight curly hair on his chest against her tender skin drove her to ever more intense heights of pleasure.
She could feel his member swelling inside her, and she was aware, in the tightness of his musclebound shoulders and arms, that the same throbbing delight was pulsing through his own body. Rising and falling, again and again, the two climbed to the peak of their respective sensual journeys. Just as Elizabeth believed that she could not sustain any more physical stimulation, she felt Darcy explode inside her, his emanations entering her like a salty ocean wave, breaking on the beach and then slowly abating. In response, she too exploded, the power of her desire seeming to separate her into a thousand different droplets of hot wet delight.
Falling fully into her husband’s arms, Elizabeth felt her breathing begin to slow. For a moment, she lay there, savoring the deliciousness of the peace that came after. They lay there in the quiet, allowing their hearts to calm, the beats echoing one to another.
Darcy reached up and tucked an errant curl behind Elizabeth’s ear. Gently lifting her and placing her beside him on the bed, he gathered up the bedclothes and covered her again, almost as one would a child.
“Oh, Mrs. Darcy. You overwhelm me.”
Elizabeth smiled at her husband in the flickering light of the candle. “And I thought that it was you who overwhelmed me.” She lifted her hand lazily and placed it on his strong jaw, feeling the small prickly whiskers along his chin. “I do hope that I did not distress you by persuading you to engage in marital relations tonight.”
“Distress would not be the word that I would choose,” he said, his smile broadening. “But we do have to talk. We have to come to some sort of compromise about how to keep you healthy and safe…”
“… and sane,” she added. “I trust that you do not want your future child to have a mother who has lost her reason due to unnecessary confinement.” Elizabeth said it with a smile.
“Agreed.”
Elizabeth turned on her side, her head on her husband’s broad shoulder, and her hand draped across his chest. “You know why I came to church today?”
“To demonstrate to me that you cannot be tamed?” Darcy said, but there was amusement and even admiration in his tone.
Elizabeth propped herself up on her elbow so that she could look at him. “No. Well, perhaps a bit of that, if I am honest. But more than a show of defiance, it was because I was worried. Fitzwilliam, if I had let you command me to stay in my room for nearly a year, I would have grown to hate you. And I love you too much to let that happen.”
Darcy opened his eyes and looked at her. There was trust and respect in them. “You are very wise, Lizzy. I would never want to cause you to stop loving me.” He put his finger softly on her lower lip. “So we will have to fashion a kind of marriage that works for both of us.”
Elizabeth lay back down on his shoulder with a sigh. “I agree. And I am sure that we can.” She opened her mouth and yawned, feeling like a cat who had just had its cream and was lying down for a contented nap. “Tomorrow, let us talk about marriage and compromises. For now, I will say happy Christmas one more time, and bid you good night.”
“Happy Christmas to you, Lizzy, though I think we are well past midnight and it is now the day after.” He kissed her sweetly. “You are the best gift that Providence has ever given me.”
But Elizabeth was fast asleep, deep in dreams about the many Christmases to come with Mr. Darcy and the future Darcy children.
Want more Lizzy and Darcy? Coming in 2016, a new series, Baby Bliss, by Lily Lord.
And if you missed reading Lily Lord’s Marital Bliss series, about the first week of Elizabeth and Darcy’s marriage, read on for a free excerpt.
Buy the first book, Wedding Night, for $2.99
Buy the Marital Bliss Box Set I, Books 1-4, for $6.99
Or pick up the entire series, Marital Bliss Complete, Books 1-7, for only $9.99
… an excerpt from
Wedding Night
Book 1, Marital Bliss
a Pride and Prejudice Intimate
Wedding Night is the first book in a series of seven books that each describe a day and night in the exciting first week of the Darcy-Bennet marriage.
Lily Lord serves as the nom de plume of a bestselling author who has been a fan of Jane Austen’s books since she was a girl. Like many readers, she has often wondered about the intimate parts of Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship, and fantasized about what happened after the happily ever after.
The Marital Bliss series is Lily’s slightly steamy account of what took place between our two favorite characters when they got married. Written in the language of the era, this series explores the explicit details of post-wedding relations between handsome Regency period “billionaire” Fitzwilliam Darcy and his virginal (of course!) wife Elizabeth Bennet.
Wedding Night
Lily Lord
Elizabeth stood before her new husband in the bedchamber at Netherfield, hardly daring to look up at his handsome visage. She knew she colored under his gaze, and was surprised at her own timidity. Had she not longed for this very day, when at last they were lawful man and wife? And yet, now that the moment was at hand, and they were alone in the bedchamber at his friend Bingley’s Netherfield, she knew not what to say to Mr. Darcy.
His eyes seemed to bore into hers. She understood that he would soon be taking liberties in accordance with the duties of a wife and the rights of a husband. Probably she should disrobe—but how could she do so in the presence of a man? Elizabeth shivered in anticipation and a kind of horrible delight for what awaited her. She longed to feel her husband’s
masculine embrace, but feared… what? The pain, the confusion, the embarrassment? Or perhaps… her own shameless pleasure?
Oh, it was all such a vexing conundrum! As a properly raised young lady, she could not be expected to know the grim details of married life, though all around who had entered that state before her were certainly aware. She was right on the precipice of discovering all of the carefully guarded secrets, with no guide save her own wits.
Most of all she was determined to please Mr. Darcy. But how was she to do so when all information had been purposely withheld from her?
For his part, her new husband seemed to be harboring a wolfish glee about what tonight would bring. And yet, his kindness and good breeding was keeping him from rushing her into any shocking familiarity. Thus far, at least.
Elizabeth and her dear sister Jane had spent the last evening in the privacy of their home at Longbourn, daring to touch on the subject of what would greet them on the morrow. Elizabeth knew she would long treasure that final night with her sister, when the two bid adieu to their single state and prepared for the morning’s double wedding and celebratory breakfast.
“Lizzy,” Jane had ventured, “Do not doubt that I await our mutual wedding day with great joy. I know that you and I will be the happiest of wives, blessed as we are with such felicitous matches. However, and pray forgive me for introducing such an intimate subject, a prospect which must be only lightly discussed even among sisters as close as ourselves….” Jane hesitated before continuing, her kind face turned away in shyness for having raised the matter.
“Jane, you must feel free to speak to me. I am your sister, and who, if not myself, can you address regarding such thoughts?” Elizabeth moved closer to Jane as they reclined on her older sister’s bed in their dressing gowns, sharing a whispered conversation just as they had as girls.
Across the room their elaborate wedding attire was hung, the better to avoid crushing the elegant fabrics. It was hard to believe that tomorrow would make Elizabeth Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy, and that her beloved Jane would become Mrs. Charles Bingley. She turned back to her sister, who resumed speaking in a very low voice.
