“You are reading Cecilia?” Elizabeth asked.
Fitz held the book up to show the title. “I am once again humbled, my love. It was easy for me to despise what I called ‘ladies’ novels,’ never having read any. But now I am forced to concede the merits of the form. A perfect combination of sharp satire and gentle comedy, yet also an appreciation of the finer human qualities, so as not to fall into the trap of despising all mankind. And written by a woman—a lady.”
“And a very moving, absorbing story,” Elizabeth said. “It’s not simply an argument or a debate, like a sermon or an essay, but an account of events that could be real. That’s what I admire most in Madame D’Arblay’s writing.”
“I suppose it’s why novels are held in low esteem,” Fitz said. “Unsophisticated readers no doubt believe they are reading a history, an unembellished account of a young lady’s life, and only the discerning appreciate the art that goes into it.”
Elizabeth nodded, admiring once again her husband’s ability to keep pace with her thoughts. “And why poetry is the more respected. It’s not possible to mistake heroic couplets for everyday speech. The reader can never forget that the poet is working hard at his craft of meter and rhyme.”
“Now I see the truth,” Fitz said, “that a good novel, more than any other work of literature, conveys the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, and the liveliest effusions of wit and humor, all in the best chosen language.”
Elizabeth arched her brows. “You cannot in good conscience claim to be the originator of those words.”
“You have found me out,” Fitz said. “It was my cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam.”
“He is a thief,” Elizabeth said. “But of words only. Still, they were mine and I labored to produce them.”
“I ought to have guessed he couldn’t have constructed such a perfect turn of phrase on his own,” Fitz said. “Why did I not know it for yours?”
“You and I had never discussed books and music in the standard way of men and women becoming acquainted. We were convinced of our contrary opinions, and had yet to discover how much better we agree with our clothes off.”
Fitz laughed and shook his head. Deliberate baiting, this time.
“But I confess I like both forms of literature,” Elizabeth said, returning to the safer ground of reading. She had learned that her husband held up better if given an occasional respite. “Crabbe has long been my favorite for verse, and Madame D’Arblay for novels.”
“May I infer from that,” Fitz said, “that my gift to you was redundant?”
“Do you mean, had I read Crabbe before? Yes, of course. Papa had all of Crabbe’s works in his library. But it makes me value your gift all the more. It is every romantic poet’s rule that husband and wife must share the same taste in reading or the marriage is doomed to failure.”
“You are not merely claiming it now because I have been converted to Madame D’Arblay?” Fitz asked.
“Fitz!” Elizabeth rose from her chair and settled herself in the less comfortable but more stimulating seat of her husband’s lap. “We have been married for a whole month.”
“Have we?” he said, putting his arm around her and kissing her mouth and her neck. “It feels like a week at most.”
“That is the only permissible answer,” Elizabeth said, returning the kisses and nibbling on her husband’s ear. “But I mention the elapsed time because you ought to know by now I don’t dissemble. I thought it was why you married me.”
“Yet I have found you to be far gentler in private than the fierce, uncompromising Boadicea you pretend to be in company,” Fitz said. “I thought it possible you might occasionally say what you hoped would please me. After all, you do so many things to please me.” This last statement was punctuated by a hand descending into the front of Elizabeth’s gown.
“Oh no,” Elizabeth said, her words coming somewhat breathlessly as she lifted her skirts and turned to straddle Fitz’s hips. “You misunderstand my motives. I do such things purely to please myself.” She flipped open the buttons on Fitz’s breeches. “As this.” Kneeling on the edges of the chair’s seat, she raised herself until her spread thighs just met the tip of her husband’s already engorged member.
Fitz groaned as he was released from his drawers and as suddenly captured by her hot opening. “Oh God, Lizzy. Someone might come in.”
Elizabeth put her hands on Fitz’s shoulders, pushing herself up and sliding down. “Don’t worry, Fitz. If anyone does, he will have the sense to go away and come back later.”
Later
“There really is no excuse for only now ascertaining our mutual admiration for George Crabbe,” Elizabeth said, between mouthfuls of long deferred and greatly needed buttered toast and boiled egg. “When our grandchildren inquire, we will have to hide the awful truth from them.”
“That we were too far along in love to bother with the usual manner of determining whether we were compatible?” Fitz said.
“Precisely,” Elizabeth answered. “It is such a shocking lapse that our courtship did not originate in a shared poetic preference, and that we only found it out weeks after we were wed, that I will have to save it for a deathbed confession, like a sixth months’ child.”
“At least we need not fear that.” Fitz looked up from his somewhat dry roast beef. “Lizzy. Do you feel that you are—? Have you any of the signs?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Don’t be silly, Fitz. It has been less than a fortnight since I had my—well, you know, that is not a fit subject for the breakfast table.”
Fitz laughed. “I am astonished you have found one.”
“Oh, I shall be able to think of a dozen, once we are no longer alone.” Elizabeth inserted a knife into a pot of raspberry preserves, smeared a large glob onto a strip of toast, and, extending her tongue to draw in the tip with its covering of glistening red, swallowed the rest of the bread in a gulp.
Fitz felt as if he was peeping through a spy hole in the wall of a lady’s bedchamber. “We cannot continue like this,” he said in a low voice, very much afraid he would be unable to avoid a repetition of this morning’s disgraceful lapse.
Elizabeth looked up from her plate. “No,” she said, equally glum. “I am sorry, Fitz, for my misdirected enthusiasm.”
“Never reproach yourself, my love,” Fitz said, putting his hand over hers where it rested on the edge of the table. “As soon blame the idol for her worshipper’s excesses.”
“But I inspire them,” she said. “And I cannot claim ignorance of the effect my actions have on my devoted follower.” She stared pointedly at his hand, which, not satisfied with merely grasping, had turned its prize over and was now gently, if persistently, stroking the palm. “I think it’s time we allowed a visitor or two to encroach on our cloistered solitude.”
Fitz snatched his hand away. “I suppose we must have company,” he said. “Nothing else will prevent me from committing idolatry at every canonical hour.”
“Surely your sister ought to be allowed to return home from her town exile,” Elizabeth said.
Fitz laughed, grateful that the mention of Georgie had subdued his disobedient flesh as reproving words could not. “Dragged back by force, more likely. What sixteen-year-old girl would wish to leave her own establishment in London and live under her married brother’s roof?”
“I think Georgiana will prefer it,” Elizabeth said. “She has the wit to value guidance over independence; and I will like having a sister again, as I am accustomed. Even though it means curbing my conversation at the breakfast table—and my behavior.” She used her spoon to scrape the remainder of preserves from the pot, clamping her lips around the bowl of the spoon and working at it with her tongue. “Of course, we could always take breakfast in bed and come down late.”
Hard again, damn it. “You must not sway me from the path of improvement,” Fitz said. “I would all too readily let everything fall into disrepair if it meant an extra hour or tw
o of indulgence.”
Elizabeth wiped her sticky hands and face. “You forget,” she said, “that I married you precisely because you are the master of a well-run and productive estate worth many thousands of pounds. I would never allow things to deteriorate that far, or there would have been no purpose to my polluting the shades of Pemberley in the first place.”
“Wretched old sow,” Fitz muttered, deflated once more. “I wish, just once, my aunt had kept her offensive opinions to herself.”
“Not at all,” Elizabeth said. “By speaking frankly, she gave me the perfect excuse not to invite her to add to the pollution. No, Fitz, let us begin with some more deserving visitors, perhaps a couple of them.”
“Oh, Lizzy,” Fitz said. “Not your parents, please. Not yet.”
“I don’t think I could stand it either. No, I was thinking of someone who at one time seemed to have a genuine claim on your affection. Someone with the initials C.B.” Counterbalance love with love, she thought.
“Caroline—that is, Miss Bingley? Lord, that’s worse. I do feel sorry for her, but honestly, I was hoping to distance myself from that connection.”
“Definitely not Miss Bingley,” Elizabeth said. “While I most heartily approve your sentiments—a man can never feel a partiality for a woman he pities—I am not yet ready to disturb our perfect equilibrium. Knowing her, the mere fact of your marriage would not necessarily destroy all her hopes.”
Fitz laughed. “You may say what would appear insufferable vanity in me. But whom have you invited?”
“No one, yet,” Elizabeth said, “but I was thinking of my sister Jane. You do remember her? She’s married to a former friend of yours, a Mr. Charles Bingley. And if there are no objections on either side, I believe it might help us ease into the wider world if we had Jane and her husband for a short stay—perhaps a month or two.”
God, she was astonishing! “It’s as if you know my thoughts, as if we are of one mind,” Fitz said. “How do you do it?”
“It is not difficult with so attentive and generous a husband,” Elizabeth said. “I must say, for a man who does not like women, you have made an excellent beginning at marriage.”
“Whatever gave you the idea I do not like women?”
“Oh, Fitz, you know very well that a man who has a particular friend can’t possibly like women as well.”
Fitz frowned. “You go too far with that jest sometimes. I know you take pleasure in this line of teasing, but—”
“But I am perilously close to the border that separates vulgarity from obscenity.”
“It is a very narrow line,” Fitz said, “and one you frequently enjoy surveying. But you are incapable of saying anything that I find truly objectionable.”
“Well, to be fair, you don’t have to like women in the plural. One is really all that is required. In fact, in our society, it is usually recommended that a man love only one woman at a time. The one he is married to.”
“I can safely promise there will be no other,” Fitz said. “Come, tell me how things stand between you and your sister.”
“It’s difficult to know. Never have we sent such empty letters, polite words with little of substance. I have written to inform her of my married bliss, and she has shared similar tidings with me, but of deeper sentiments, nothing. In my next letter I hoped to extend an invitation, so that we might talk of those things we cannot write.”
“Then she has forgiven me?”
“That I cannot say. You will have to ask her yourself.”
JANE WOKE EARLY and sat by the window to read the letter a third time, just to be certain.
Mr. Darcy has expressed his wish several times now, that his old friendship should not be forgotten in the pleasures of marriage. He is heartily sorry for the wrong he committed and hopes that one more gracious than himself can be persuaded to forgiveness.
All this trouble over something so simple. Charles loved her and she loved him. They were alike in every way except that one that made it most suitable for them to marry: she was a woman and he a man. When she was a girl she had worried sometimes, how it would be to be married. In charge of the household all by herself; managing the money and the staff, making sure they stayed within their budget, and giving orders without being either arbitrary or indecisive; planning the menus and arranging parties and dinners. But with Charles it was all so easy. Any time she had a question she could ask. He didn’t make fun of her for not knowing or expect her not to bother him with women’s work. Most of the time it turned out she knew the right way all along, better than he did. It was voicing her question out loud that helped her clarify her thoughts. That and having an amiable, kind husband who valued her for her solicitude and caution.
She thought back to their wedding night, how innocent they had both been, and yet how natural and joyful the consummation. It had not mattered one whit that she had so small a portion or that Mama was sometimes vulgar. Or that Charles’s sisters wished him to marry Miss Darcy. No, on that night, and every night since, for an entire month—and even, on several delicious occasions, during the daylight hours as well—all that mattered was that they were husband and wife, man and woman—even, to say it truly, lovers.
It was not wrong, she decided, to admit that she loved his body as well as his character. Before marriage one dared not think such thoughts. Now, it was sanctioned by society and, more important, by the church and by God. Charles’s dark, silky hair; his slender yet well-defined limbs; his stomach with those faint ridges of muscle (“from riding, I suppose,” he said diffidently when she asked); his little pink nipples peeking through the thick foliage on his chest. Who would have guessed that men’s nipples were as exquisitely sensitive as a woman’s? Jane could bring her husband to the very edge of release, just by licking him there…Even that unmentionable part of him, the male member, was beautiful, sweet, and gentle, just like him, but easily roused to masculine force if required. She giggled to herself. Yes, it was so often required these days!
Her only lack, it seemed, was Elizabeth. How she wished for her sister’s friendship and wisdom, to compare their respective states of wedded happiness and see if perhaps Charles had started a child in her. Lizzy would know. To be able to talk as they were used to, to say anything—anything at all. Oh, if only there were not this cloud hanging over them of deceit and cruelty.
CHARLES LAY FEIGNING sleep, watching through slitted eyelids as his wife read her letter. How lovely she was, and how kind. How generous to him. And how well matched they were, despite Fitz’s worries.
He had known it from the first meeting, at that assembly in Meryton. She was the one for him. Yes, she was more beautiful than any other girl, but that wouldn’t have convinced him if she hadn’t been the one in every other way, too. She was gentle and thoughtful, unhurried and methodical, never out of sorts or in low spirits. She even came to Charles for advice or to ask his opinion. Him! He could laugh if he didn’t feel so proud—although, really, when you considered, it was a hell of a lot of responsibility. But there again, Jane proved her superiority, for while she made a show of deferring to Charles’s judgment, the truth of it was they always thought alike. Not for Jane the cutting sarcasm of her sister Elizabeth, or the quick, darting movements that matched her sharp wit—what Fitz liked so much.
Charles could smile at his old self, fretting over the wedding night, and now to see how easy it was. It wasn’t hard to please a woman; a man didn’t need superior intellect or the experience of a libertine—else how would there ever be happy marriages among ordinary folk? All one had to do was pay attention. It was like school, if a thousand times more interesting. You just had to study and apply yourself. He laughed silently in his thoughts, imagining how much better school would have been if they had had lessons like these. Listen to how she breathed: calmly as at rest or rapidly, as if she’d been startled, like a horse at a gate. Touch her and see whether her muscles tensed or stayed slack. Feel her heartbeat hammer and hear her little moans turn to gasps. When
her inner walls began to contract and release, oh, then it was bliss. You could push inside her and she welcomed it, begged for it as if she were the one receiving the favor. And the best of it was, a leisurely pace was rewarded. The bedroom was not a steeplechase or an auction. It was the parable of the tortoise and the hare made real. Slow and steady…
He thought of his first sight of her, the revelation of the abundance of rounded shapes, the fleshiness of thighs and breasts, stomach and buttocks, all with the palest, delicate skin and blond curls everywhere, not just on her head but under her arms and between her legs. Even her upper thighs had invisible hairs, as fine as spider silk, except they tasted delicious and weren’t sticky. He was one fly who didn’t struggle in the web, but was delighted to be captured…
That had been an inspired notion, kissing her below the first time, instead of going straight for penetration. It was such a great pleasure for Charles when Fitz used his mouth; why should it not be the same for a woman? Tonguing her deeply and thoroughly, burrowing his way inside her like a mole in a garden, like an earthworm in dense soil, he had churned her, turned her up wet and yielding. If his skill was not yet sufficient to bring her to satisfaction, still, by the time his own need was so great he could not hold back any longer, she was ready for him. He had thrown himself into her flesh like a horse let out to pasture in spring, wallowing in mud.
No poet, indeed, he thought, recalling his one poor attempt. All his comparisons sounded horrid; but he meant only reverence for her motherly warmth, the sense of viscous, yielding liquid, thick and enveloping, that defined her. She surrounded him like the waves of the ocean embracing a floating log, lapping at his sides, spilling over his back, bathing him in love. Every night he began with the kiss, and each time he improved in ability. By now he knew her secret pathways, every little fold and covered lane. As she came gushing into his open mouth, he was so hard he could barely move up in time to meet her, rod to cleft and face to face.
Ann Herendeen Page 33
