She pushed open the first door, and stepped into a vast nursery. It was still full of all manner of toys, two rocking horses and stacks of blocks and balls. Rows of dolls were arranged on a shelf in between the windows. There was a bed frame, and a mattress on it, but the bed was covered in a number of dolls as well, soft cloth ones with yarn hair, who were arranged there. It didn’t look as if the bed was often slept in.
At the far end of the room, the nursery gave way to what looked like a classroom. There was a desk, an easel for painting, and a piano.
Elizabeth stood there at the juncture between the two rooms, and imagined that this was where Mr. Darcy’s sister Georgiana must have spent most of her days. She did not know much about Georgiana, only that she was quite a lot younger than Mr. Darcy, and perhaps he had striven to keep her young, not having her leave the nursery, even as she grew older.
Elizabeth left the nursery, closing the door behind herself and then she opened the next door.
It was a bedroom, much like her own bedroom, in fact, although it was a good deal smaller. Elizabeth stopped to look at the desk, which still had a stack of paper sitting on it. She picked one up off the top, expecting to find a letter, but instead it was a sonnet of sorts, written in a girlish hand. The title was, “A Verse on my Governess Miss Younge.”
At the bottom, Elizabeth could see that it had been signed by Miss Georgiana Darcy.
She set the sonnet back on the desk and left that room as well.
The next bedroom was larger, and there were a great many clothes in the wardrobe, all the perfect size for a young girl. This must have been Georgiana’s room. Elizabeth walked around, afraid to touch anything. The place was exactly as Georgiana had left it. It hadn’t been touched.
There were papers on Georgiana’s desk too, but these looked as though they had been crumpled up and then later smoothed out.
There were three different attempts at the same subject, which was to beg permission of her older brother to spend more time on horseback and less time practicing the piano and learning French.
Everyone says I am already very good at the piano, and why must I get even better? I know I will find someone to marry even if I am dreadful at it, because I am an heiress.
Elizabeth chuckled to herself. Yes, she could see why that attempt had been abandoned. It was the sort of thing a girl might say, but she recognized it was not polite to flaunt her status, even to her own brother.
Then Elizabeth thought of the conversation at breakfast with a pang.
Of course Mr. Darcy would now think that women should do what they liked. How guilty he must feel for depriving Georgiana of pleasure in her short life.
But he couldn’t have known she would be killed. No one could predict such accidents. Death came for everyone, though when it came for the young, it was monstrous.
She sighed. It had been wrong of her to come into this place. It was a shrine of sorts, to a girl that Elizabeth had never known, and she was disrupting it all with her presence.
She hurried out of the room, feeling a bit ashamed of herself.
She shut the door, or she tried, but it seemed it was catching on something, and so she opened it again, and then tried to pull it closed.
This time it latched.
When she looked up from the closed door, she realized she wasn’t alone.
Mr. Darcy was standing in the middle of the hallway, not four feet from her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Elizabeth’s jaw worked.
Caught. Of course I would be caught. It’s as if I’ve never read a novel in my life. I know what happens to curious young women. It’s Pandora’s box all over again. Eve in the garden. I know better.
Mr. Darcy stalked over to her and took her by the arm.
She didn’t offer him any resistance.
Stiffly, he dragged her out of the wing, and they did not stop walking until they were far enough away that the house had a semblance of warmth to it.
Then he let go of her. “I hope you’re pleased with yourself,” he said in a flat voice.
“I-I’m most incredibly sorry, sir,” she said. “I should have respected your wishes. I shouldn’t have intruded upon your sister’s memory. I… it was unforgivable of me.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Truly, I did not know what to expect when I went up there,” she said. “You might have simply told me it was your sister’s old quarters and that you didn’t want them disturbed, and I would have understood. I would not have gone there.”
“I do not like to speak of her,” said Darcy, and there was a hint of steel in the undercurrent of his tone now.
“Of course,” said Elizabeth. “Of course. Well, I am sorry. I will never go back.” She bowed her head. “Truly, my sincere apologies.” Then she turned and started away from him. She would go back to her room, and perhaps read a book and—
He took her by the arm again, stopping her movement. “Are you pleased with yourself?”
She looked at him. They were so close now. His face was mere inches from hers, and they hadn’t been this close since the time he kissed her.
Warmth went through her, followed by icy cold.
“Well?” he said.
“Of course not.”
“Defying me doesn’t give you some kind of pleasure?” His voice had dropped in register again.
“No,” she breathed.
He moved closer, and his gaze flicked down to her lips and then back up to her eyes. “I ordered you not to go, and I recognize that was barbarous of me, so I asked you, with as much civility as I could muster. And yet, still, you ignored my wishes.”
“I don’t know what else to say. I am sorry. Truly sorry.”
“I would have a care, madam,” he whispered. “It would not be wise for you to make me angry.” He let go of her and stepped back.
She nearly lost her balance, but she managed to right herself.
And then she hurried away from him as quickly as she possibly could.
* * *
Meg asked Elizabeth what had happened, but Elizabeth did not want to speak of it. She was ashamed of herself, truly, and she spent the rest of the afternoon staring senselessly at the pages of books. She found she could not concentrate, that she would get to the end of a page and find she had only pronounced all the words in her head but had not attended to them, so she did not actually know what they meant.
She would start again, going to the top of the page, but only comprehend half of it.
When it was time for dinner, she was happy of the distraction, even though it meant she would have to face Mr. Darcy again.
She did feel badly for what she had done, but, she reasoned, what was it against all the things that Mr. Darcy had done to her? It didn’t even compare. She had apologized, but it was the only she needed to apologize for.
He must forgive her, and in return, she would forgive him for forcing the marriage.
Then they could begin again, on even ground.
It was a reasonable proposition, more than fair, really, because what she had done did not even compare to how Mr. Darcy had wronged her. He must agree to it.
But when she entered the dining room, Mr. Darcy was not there.
She was informed he had decided to take his dinner in his room that night. She would be eating alone.
This perturbed her more than she might have expected it would. She had spent the entire afternoon alone, thinking about speaking to him, and he had hidden from her.
Was this the way things were going to be for the whole of her marriage to this man? Was it going to be a series of explosions, followed by Mr. Darcy avoiding doing anything to correct the situation?
Because that, she decided, was the true problem for Mr. Darcy. He was stuck in a pattern of behavior, stuck in his ways, stuck in the past.
She didn’t finish her meal. She threw her napkin on the table and got up from the table. The footman asked her, concerned, if everything was to her liking, and she responde
d that it was delicious and she would like it sent up to her room as well, that they could extinguish the fire in the dining room and dispense with all the pageantry.
But then she did not go to her room but went through the house, seeking out Mr. Darcy.
She found him in a room upstairs, curled around a glass of whisky, staring into the fire. “Listen, Mr. Darcy, we had best settle all this.”
He looked up at her, and she could see from the way his movements were exaggerated that he was drunk. “Why, it’s my lovely wife.”
This angered her. “Are you a drunkard as well, sir? Shall we add that to your many sins? Pray, what is it that you have about you to recommend you to anyone?”
He laughed. “Well, you are in a fine temper, are you not?”
“Why did you not join me at dinner?”
“I did not think I’d be good company.”
“Indeed, you are rarely good company,” she said.
“Well, that may be true,” he said. “Which is why I removed myself from you.”
“But I wished to speak to you,” she said. “I wished to make some sort of peace between us, but you did not appear, and now… well, now I find that I want badly to wring your neck.”
“Truly?” he said, arching an eyebrow. “I did not realize you were craving my company so deeply. Perhaps I am growing on you.”
“It is not because you did not come down for dinner. Well, it is not only that. That is one part of a great many things that seems to raise my ire.”
“Yes, I suppose you mean to enumerate them? That is why you’ve come here to interrupt my peace and quiet?” His eyes flashed.
“Oh, are you becoming angry? I’m not to anger you, am I? You say that would not be wise, but I am not interested in any more of your threats.” She folded her arms over her chest. “What do you expect from your future? Will this be the way it is until the end of your days? Morosely going through your sister’s rooms, allowing her things to gather dust, leaving her old toys there like some kind of shrine?”
His nostrils flared. “I have told you that I do not like to speak of her.”
“That is the nursery of the house.” She pointed in the direction of the east wing. “Where did you expect our own children would play and sleep?”
“Our children?” He let out a wild laugh. “You cannot be serious.”
“Why not? You must move out of this cloud of sadness in the past. You have been dogged with tragedy, sir, but your entire life need not be about pain and sadness. We could have guests for dinners, fill that enormous dining room. We could host balls. We could have a marriage, a life, together, but if you will not let go—”
“Stop,” he snapped, and he got to his feet.
“I won’t stop,” she said. “Perhaps I’m saying this wrong. I don’t know. If I could have not raised my voice and been gentle, perhaps… but I am saying it anyway, and I am trying to say that we must wipe it all clean, our trespasses to each other, and start anew. This marriage, you said you wanted me, and I am here, and yet you…”
“What?” He advanced on her. “What is it you want? Do you know how children are made, madam?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“Explain it to me.”
She blushed, looking down at her feet. “I hardly think this change of subject is warranted, sir.”
“So, you don’t know.”
“There is… the man m-mounts the woman and there is… I have seen animals coupling, sir. I am no blushing innocent.” She raised her chin.
His lips parted, and something came over his expression something almost harsh, but something eager as well. “And you are willing to do that with this?” He pointed at his face.
She licked her lips. She searched for her voice, but it had deserted her. She stepped closer to him and she reached out one tentative finger to trace the rope of angry red flesh that marred his face.
He shut his eyes, going stock still.
She let out an audible breath, a hissing sigh.
He seized her about the waist. He kissed her.
The kiss was like before, like on the dance floor, his tongue in her mouth, teasing wild pleasures through her, making her body alight with tingles. The kiss was warmth and sweetness and everything good, and she was undone.
It went on for some time, and when he stopped, he trailed smaller kisses over the corner of her mouth, down to her jaw and onto her neck.
She gasped.
He pulled away to look at her.
And she took a step backward, shaking from head to toe. Without a word, she turned and ran from the room.
* * *
Elizabeth shut the door to her room and tried to still the wild pounding of her pulse, which was going at a terrifying pace, and she could feel it at her wrists and at her neck, and she shut her eyes and then opened them and then shut them again.
All at once, she drew herself up, blinking. She threw herself at her desk, clawing about for some paper and a pen and ink.
She smoothed out a fresh sheet and began to write.
Dear Jane, I have been lying to you all along about my husband. He wants to be intimate but I cannot allow it, and I have run from him, just now, because he is a beast. A dreadful beast, yes. And he is ugly. I have never seen such an ugly man, and I will not, I can not allow him to touch me.
A choking sob escaped her lips and she picked up the piece of paper and crumpled it into a ball.
She got out a new sheet of paper.
Dear Jane, she wrote. My husband is the most cruel and capricious man I have ever met. He is likely to be in a foul temper whenever I meet him. I cannot know from one moment to the next which man I will meet. He can be good and kind and even generous, but more often than not he is selfish and angry and sarcastic. And when he kissed me, I had to run from him because I cannot kiss a man like that. I cannot even be married to him. I don’t know what I’ve done to myself and I—
At once, she picked up the sheet of paper and ripped it in two. Ink smudged on her fingertips. She rubbed it into her skin, irritated.
She sat back in her chair, and she gazed at the ceiling.
Then she sat forward again and her movements were slower, more deliberate.
She selected another sheet of paper.
Dear Jane, what was it like when you knew you were in love with Mr. Bingley? Did it feel rather lovely, as though you had been surrounded by softness and light? It must have, because Mr. Bingley is so amiable and good and cheerful. If I could have it another way, I would fall in love with a man such as him. I would not fall in love with a man such as Mr. Darcy, even if he summons within me feelings that I cannot control, that seem to consume every part of my body, that seem to fray me at the edges and then set the frayed edges on fire. I would not have it, but I am afraid it is happening. Will I survive loving a man such as this? Have I lost my wits? Jane, I am frightened.
She left the letter there, unfinished, and she got up and went to the window of her bedroom. She pulled aside the curtains and peered up at the night sky, which was dotted with a sea of stars. Tremors went through her, and her shoulders shook, but her eyes stayed dry.
After a time, it passed, and she was tired. She would not send Jane that letter, of course, but she did not throw it away. She folded it up and put it in a drawer. Then she rang for Meg to help her undress.
She fell into bed soon enough, exhausted.
CHAPTER TWELVE
She ran from his kiss.
Of course she ran.
Why had he done it?
Darcy wondered if he would ever learn to check himself. He had done nothing except transgress against this woman, and he continued to do so, much to his horror.
Sometimes, he did not know himself. He had the feeling that somehow he had been inhabited by another man when he had been injured, and he was not sure if he liked this new man that resided within his skin. He was certain that Georgiana would not have liked him.
But then his sister had often been angry with him.
He had been too strict with her. She had been kept away from society, and she had been bursting at the seams for more, for adventure, for fun. Why couldn’t he have indulged her a bit more?
Perhaps then, Wickham would not have been able to entice her.
But there was no worrying about it now, was there?
He could not change anything.
He told himself not to go after his wife, to leave her be. If she wanted his company, she could seek him out again, and he was certain she did not want his company.
But as the night wore on, and he had more and more glasses of strong drink, his better judgment was eroded.
He found himself outside her door, a candle in hand.
He tried the door and he stepped inside. It was dark in there, and she was asleep. He came too close to her, shining the candle over her face so that he could look upon her, even though he knew he risked waking her. When she woke and found him here, watching her sleep, she would not be pleased.
She was so beautiful, lying there with her hair splayed out on the pillow, her eyes closed, that his chest hurt.
He didn’t deserve this beautiful woman for a wife. He had gotten her by trickery and by base behavior. Now, she was his, and he was the very devil to her.
Still, he gazed at her, and he could not tear his gaze away.
“Listen,” he said in a low whisper. “Elizabeth.” He liked the way the name felt coming out of his lips. He sighed, and then he murmured it again. “Elizabeth.”
She stirred in her sleep.
He jerked back.
But she did not wake, so he continued. “Elizabeth, I promise to you, I will never touch you again. Not unless you specifically request me to touch you.”
She stirred again.
He chuckled softly. “Let’s be honest, you’ll never do that. Why should you? I don’t blame you for it. I am sorry to have been such a bad man so far, but I want to be better, whatever that means, and I will start by respecting your wishes. I promise. I will take nothing else from you that you have not freely given.”
* * *
The next morning, Elizabeth broke her fast alone. She was rather relieved when Mr. Darcy did not appear. She did not seek him out, even when he was not there for luncheon or dinner. Admittedly, his presence at luncheon was not something to be counted upon, anyway. She was used to not seeing him then, and sometimes she was not hungry and asked only to have a bit of bread and butter and tea.
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