Elizabeth wanted to touch him, but they were sitting far apart, three large dogs between them.
“They all survived, though, all three of them,” said Mr. Darcy. “I remember her deciding which dog belonged to whom.” He pointed. “That one over there, Rex, is meant to be mine. But he’s never cared for me, I must say. He always loved everyone except me.” He laughed.
“Did you name him?”
“Name him? Oh, no.” Darcy shook his head. “Just because he was my dog, you mustn’t assume that meant Georgiana was willing to relinquish any part of it to me. No, she named them all.”
“So, then, Lily was hers.” Elizabeth got out of her chair and knelt next to the dog, who was lying on her side, looking into the fire. She rubbed the dog’s fur, and Lily closed her eyes in perfect satisfaction.
“Yes.” His voice had a catch in it.
Elizabeth looked up at him. “Oh, Fitzwilliam, I…”
“I remember I asked her who Lady would belong to since there were only two of us,” said Darcy. “She thought about it, and then she said, seeming very proud of herself, ‘Why, she must be Georgie’s!’”
Elizabeth got up from petting the dog and went to him. She settled her hand on his shoulder.
“She was good to Wickham. She treated him better than he deserved,” said Darcy. “And then, the way he repaid her for that goodness—” His voice broke.
She reached for him.
He clutched at her skirts, and buried his face against her stomach.
He cried.
She held him.
* * *
They went to his bed again not too long later, and they made love for the second time, and this time, Elizabeth thought it really was about comfort. Not just his, either. It was soft and warm and good.
After, cocooned in his arms, she felt safe. He dropped kisses on top of her head, whispering how much he loved her.
She ran her fingers over the scars on his chest.
“So, what do we do now?” he murmured.
“Now, we endeavor to be the least interesting and happiest people in all of Derbyshire,” she said.
He chuckled. “All right. I suppose I can attempt that.”
“And perhaps we change the draperies in the drawing room on the second floor.”
“Oh, really? Now, we discuss decorations? We are that uninteresting?”
“Indeed,” she informed him. “We are the dullest of the dull.”
He laughed, tangling his fingers in her hair. “Nothing about you is dull. You are brilliant, like a bright and wonderful star.”
“Oh, stop it, Mr. Darcy, you will turn my head.”
“Well, Mrs. Darcy, you must be attractive enough for both of us, you know. Of the pair of us, you are the only one handsome.”
“That is not true. I will never get my fill of looking at you.” She smiled up at him.
He kissed her.
She felt lost in the wondrousness of it, their bare skin pressed close under the covers in his bed, being so close to him.
He pulled back, and his voice was dark and rich. “What about the east wing? Ought we discuss decorating that?”
“We don’t have to yet,” she said. “If you’re not ready—”
“I am,” he said. “I have other memories of that place now, and it does not hold the same place in my mind.”
“Oh, yes,” she said quietly, thinking of the fact that it was the place Wickham had been shot.
“I was thinking, darling, of us together in the storm,” he murmured.
“Oh,” she said in a different voice. “Yes.”
“But now that you mention it, I am not sure it is the proper place for a nursery. We’ll turn it all into guest rooms and put the new nursery in the west wing.”
“You’re eager for there to be a nursery, are you?”
“Not if you’re not,” he said.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t.” She had wanted his babe to be growing in her before, after all.
He touched her cheek. “Well, if that is to happen, I should probably see the doctor sooner rather than later to reset the bone in my leg. Because it takes a frightfully long time to heal, you know.”
She lifted up a bit to look down at him. “You’re going to do that?”
“Well, if I want to be running after our children, I shall need to get rid of that cane, shan’t I?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “You will.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Elizabeth and Jane had been lax about their letter writing. Elizabeth was willing to forgive all that. Her sister was newly married, after all. But she set about writing letters on her own, one a day, and in them, she told Jane of everything that had happened.
She did not deviate from the story of Wickham being shot stealing horses. It would not do for that letter to fall into the wrong hands, after all. It hardly mattered when and where Mr. Darcy had shot Mr. Wickham, however. It didn’t change much of the tale. She told Jane that she was happy, that Mr. Darcy had changed, that she couldn’t imagine a better life for herself.
Jane wrote back, cautious about Mr. Darcy but glad her sister was happy. She told Elizabeth of her own life with Mr. Bingley, about hosting dinner parties at Netherfield and how much she was enjoying being the lady of the house.
They wrote often to the other that they needed to see each other soon, so eventually Elizabeth invited them both to Pemberley.
It was springtime and there was no longer the threat of snow making the roads impassable.
Jane and Mr. Bingley arrived one afternoon, their carriage coming under the row of trees that made up the drive to Pemberley. Now that it was spring, the trees were alight in pink buds, and they were beautiful, not the least bit ominous.
Elizabeth received them outside, embracing her sister the minute she stepped from the carriage.
“But where is Mr. Darcy?” said Jane.
“Oh, he is sitting just inside,” said Elizabeth. “He must stay off his leg while it is healing or it won’t heal properly, and all this will have been for naught.”
“What’s this?” said Mr. Bingley.
“Didn’t I tell you, Charles?” said Jane, looking up at him. “I thought for sure that I did. A doctor says that Mr. Darcy’s leg was set crookedly at first and that he could break it and reset it so that Mr. Darcy would no longer need a cane.”
“Oh?” said Mr. Bingley. “Well, capital. That’s very good indeed.”
They entered the house and Darcy waved to them from his chair. “Bingley, old chap, it’s been too long.”
Mr. Bingley crossed the room to shake his hand. “I don’t think I’ve heard you sound that pleased about anything in quite some time.”
Darcy laughed. “Welcome, both of you. We must go to the second floor drawing room, where my lovely wife has changed the draperies.”
“No, there’s no reason to go to the trouble of carrying you all the way up there,” said Elizabeth. Mr. Darcy could not put pressure on his leg, so in order to get to the second floor, servants had to carry him. “Besides, it’s been quite a journey. Perhaps our guests would like to settle into your rooms first.”
“Trust me,” said Mr. Darcy, “you’ll want to see these draperies. They are astounding.”
Elizabeth shook her head at him, smiling. “You are incorrigible, Mr. Darcy.” She turned to Jane. “Draperies are hardly the most important thing here, are they? Having you here is. Oh, I have missed you.”
“And I have missed you, too,” said Jane.
* * *
After dinner, Jane sat near the draperies in the second-floor drawing room, looking them over approvingly. “These are lovely.”
“Mr. Darcy likes to tease me about them,” said Elizabeth. “He couldn’t care less about draperies, of course. Men never care about draperies.”
“Oh, Mr. Bingley does,” said Jane. Then she considered this. “Well, he listens when I speak about them, anyway.”
Elizabeth laughed. “I get the impression your hus
band would listen to you talk about anything at all and with rapt attention. I remember the way he looked at you during your wedding, and he still looks at you that exact same way, as if the sun rises and sets in your eyes.”
“He is most attentive,” said Jane, blushing a bit and looking away. But then she looked up. “And your husband… he is different.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Yes, he is. But in some ways, he is exactly the same. This is who he always was, underneath it all. He was oppressed by the pain and the sadness of his history. He had a lot of things to work through.”
“But you loved him through it all.”
Elizabeth shrugged. “I fell in love with him by accident. I certainly didn’t mean to. And there were a number of times throughout when I felt it was quite the cross to bear. I would have been happy not to be in love with him.”
“But no more? Now, you are happy.”
“I am very happy.”
“Then I am happy for you,” said Jane. “And I feel as though I can finally see the good in Mr. Darcy.”
“It can be hard to see at first, I grant you that,” said Elizabeth. “But he is good. He is… quite everything I ever wanted.”
* * *
Bingley downed the rest of his brandy in one gulp. “You never told me all this.”
“I couldn’t,” said Darcy, who had barely touched his drink. The men sat in his study, opposite each other in tall leather chairs. “I simply couldn’t say any of it aloud. To do so was to experience it again, to be that failure as a man all over again.”
“Ah, of course you saw it that way,” said Bingley. “I wish I had known. I might have been a bit more sensitive with some of the things that I said.”
“No, you were rather more patient with me than I deserved, I think,” said Darcy. “I was wretched when I came to visit you.”
“So, you killed him, and then you restored your faith in yourself, you felt you were a man again.”
“No.” Darcy shook his head. “I thought that was what I needed, but I was wrong about that. No, that was giving him too much power over me. He had already taken so much from me, and I was letting him have my will and good nature as well. I was letting him utterly destroy me. When I got that letter from him about Elizabeth—”
“That must have been devastating. Lord, you thought he had actually done it.”
“Well, you know, it was devastating, but it wasn’t about me,” said Darcy. “That was the hell of it, Charles, this horrid thing happened to my sister, but she was gone, so I couldn’t do anything for her. My pain mattered. But Elizabeth was alive, and she was all that mattered. I didn’t matter and how I felt about it didn’t matter, and that was when I realized what an idiot I was being. None of it meant anything, you understand? He was a… beast. He was a rabid dog, and he’d gotten loose, and he needed to be put down, nothing else. Doing that, it didn’t prove anything, and it didn’t change anything. It was simply a thing that needed doing.”
Bingley nodded slowly.
“Am I making sense of it or am I simply talking in circles?” Darcy took a sip of his brandy.
“No, you’re making sense,” said Bingley. “I think I understand. It’s only that it’s all so awful. The things he did, it makes my skin crawl.”
“Indeed.” Darcy nodded. “Well, let’s cease to speak of him, then. Shall we find those wives of ours, see the draperies I have so often recommended?”
Bingley laughed. “I must admit, I am becoming overly curious about these draperies. I hope they will not disappoint me.”
“Perish the thought,” said Darcy. “And if they do, I feel impelled to tell you that I shall disavow friendship with you if you express such an opinion in front of my wife.”
“I see, then. You wish me to lie.”
“Through your teeth.” Darcy lifted his glass of brandy. “But you won’t need to, I assure you. They are very fine draperies. That is, I think they are. I own that I have paid little attention to draperies before now, but such are the mysteries and joys of marriage. Cheers.”
Bingley laughed. “Indeed, you are right. I would drink to that, but I haven’t anything left in my glass.”
“And I would fill it for you, but I am unable to stand, considering my leg.” Darcy gestured to it helplessly, shrugged, and tipped the glass into his mouth.
“You may be a beast yet,” said Bingley, shaking his head at him.
Darcy grimaced as the strong drink went down. “Depend upon it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
six months later…
Elizabeth squirmed against her husband in bed as morning light streamed around the draperies.
He tightened one thick arm around her, pinning her against him, making some kind of noise deep in his throat.
The sound was so male, and he was so close, that it went through her, thrilling her in all the right ways. “Let go, sir,” she breathed, even so. “I have a great many things that I have to attend to this morning, and we have already slept later than we intended.”
“No,” he muttered, his mouth against her neck.
She shuddered against the way his breath there made shivers run up her spine. “Stop it. You are making it more difficult than it should be to get out of bed.”
“I want you to stay,” he said. “You said we couldn’t share a bed while we had guests.”
She always slept here. After the business with Wickham, she thought they both needed the closeness of the other, and then it had simply become habit. She liked being close to him at night. Furthermore, it was warmer than sleeping alone. “Well, I hardly think it would be proper.”
“They don’t need to know,” he said, sounding petulant. “It’s going to be a trying time all around, what with both my aunt and your mother under the same roof.”
“True enough,” said Elizabeth. “But at least we will not also have Lydia’s shrill voice to contend with.” Lydia’s wedding had been three months before. She had married a man named Cumberville, who was an officer in the regiment. He did not seem to be a wolf, nor did he seem to be bent entirely to Lydia’s will either, but Lydia seemed pleased with the situation all the same. At any rate, she was too caught up in her new husband to visit.
“I shall keep you close to me while I can. Why, I shall barely have the chance to touch you while they are here. It will be a very long fortnight, I fear.”
“Perhaps it won’t be so bad,” said Elizabeth. “I’m sure my mother will wish to have Lady Catherine’s good opinion.”
“Yes, which she will attempt to secure by bragging,” said Mr. Darcy.
She chuckled, turning in his arms. “Already, you know my mother so well?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, brushing her hair away from her face. “I haven’t offended, have I? You know that I love your mother dearly.”
She snorted. “Oh, yes?”
“For your sake, my darling, my love, the light of my life.”
She kissed his chin, which was a little prickly in the morning. He needed a shave, but she liked seeing him like this. She ran her fingers over his stubble. “You are a wonder, my love.”
“And you, of course, will endeavor to love my aunt,” he said. “But you will fail, because she is unlovable. Also, she has never gotten over the fact that I had the indecency to become horribly scarred, thereby rendering me unfit to marry her daughter.”
“What? You were betrothed? But you never told me.”
“I was not betrothed. My mother nodded once when my aunt was prattling over the cradles of myself and Anne, and my aunt decided this was as good as a contract. But then, after the accident, she ceased to speak of it.”
“Well, your cousin is likely happy not to be married to one such as you. Indeed, hasn’t she made a very nice match?”
“She has. I’m sure she wakes up every morning and thanks her lucky stars not to be bound to me. In truth, I may have said some very insulting things to her in that period after the accident and before I met you.”
“You said i
nsulting things to everyone. Even after you met me.”
“Well, you were dreadfully slow about reforming me.”
“I see.” She nodded. “It’s my fault. Of course, you would rewrite history to throw off the mantle of blame.”
“I’m crippled,” he said. “I can’t carry any mantles.”
She snorted again. He hardly limped anymore.
He groaned, burying his face against her skin. “Do we have to get out of bed? Can’t we stay here all day? I can think of a great many ways to occupy ourselves.”
“They will all be arriving after luncheon, don’t be daft.”
“No way to put them off?”
“You know very well that I will be unable to accept visitors within a few short months.”
“Yes,” he whispered, and his mouth moved down her body to plant a kiss on her stomach, which was still mostly flat, with just a tiny hint of the babe that was growing inside her. “Good morning, little one.”
She stroked the back of his head.
He looked up at her. “Have I expressed my love for you lately?”
“Not this morning, no,” she said.
“I love you,” he said, his voice a little rough. “I love you most ardently.” He kissed her belly again. “Both of you.”
“And I love you, too,” she said. “Now let me out of this bed, or I shall be very cross.”
“Well, we can’t have that,” he said. “After all, you are the one with the temper in the household.”
“Yes,” she said. “A fearsome temper.”
“I would not stand in your way for all the world.”
* * *
Thanks so much for reading!
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Look for my other P&P variations:
Mr. Darcy’s Downfall
Mr. Darcy, the Dance, and Desire
Pledged to Mr. Darcy
Mr. Darcy, the Beast Page 18
