Wanton and Worthy (Spicy Pride and Prejudice Variation)

Chapter 1

ONE

Awoman knelt by the grave, sombre, though there was the hint of a smile on her lips, the same lips he’d kissed a thousand times in his dreams. Her bonnet tipped forward, hiding half her face…

then she laughed. A quiet, irreverent little sound, in a graveyard of all places.

And just like that, his throat tightened, palms dampened, and he knew.

It was her. Who else would find anything remotely amusing about laying down flowers on a grave?

Only his Elizabeth. Not Miss Elizabeth. Just Elizabeth.

Because in his mind, he had long taken her as his own.

Of course, he had seen her before. A hundred times in crowds, through carriage windows, across crowded rooms, each sighting a knife to the heart before the inevitable truth revealed itself.

Never her. Always a stranger wrapped in his wishes.

Fifteen years had taught him to distrust his own eyes, to steel himself against hope.

The phantoms had grown mercifully scarce over time.

Which made the impossible sight before him now, her unmistakable figure standing not ten paces away, all the more devastating.

For reasons he could not name, Darcy turned and swiftly retreated, making his way down the path, only slowing once the graveyard gates were safely behind him.

A couple of deep breaths were needed to calm his trembling body.

It wasn’t just surprise he felt; it was also indignation—how dare she haunt him so?

After all these years, after all that did not happen.

And the pain! Not just the pain of humiliation, but the pain of loneliness sentenced upon him because no other woman could measure up to her.

Darcy’s reverie was interrupted by his arrival home. The door opened before him, and the trusted butler took his hat and walking stick.

“I am going to be in my study. I am not at home for anyone,” his voice betrayed more than a morsel of vexation.

“Will you require tea, sir?”

“Tea would be too weak for today,” he mumbled to himself.

“Pardon, sir? I did not quite understand what you were saying.”

“I am sorry, Cranston. No, I do not want tea.” He contemplated saying he didn’t want dinner either, but that would only result in drinking himself to oblivion.

God knows why he felt this way, and how to silence all those feelings that seeing Elizabeth unearthed.

He laughed sardonically as he poured himself two fingers of brandy.

Disappointment in his own weakness tugged at him.

He had truly believed himself safe from such a reaction.

Sinking into the large armchair by the fire, he swirled the amber liquid in his hand and watched the flames dance.

His thoughts began their familiar descent into the past. That was always the worst part.

He tossed back the drink in one swallow.

The burn tore through his throat, forcing a groan from him.

He rose, poured another, and drank that one just as quickly.

Elizabeth had arrived at Netherfield on foot; she looked positively wild, the hem of her petticoat six inches deep in mud.

The sight struck him like lightning. Her beautiful eyes sparkling, cheeks reddened, and her chest heaving after the exercise.

His mind’s eye saw her splayed in his bed, and himself as the source of her breathlessness.

“I came to see my sister, Mr Darcy. Can you show me to her, please?”

“As you wish.”

He had to walk half a pace in front of her to conceal his budding arousal and the blush creeping into his face.

To her it probably looked like yet further proof of his implacable rudeness.

The best moments of those few days were the battles of wit they had shared.

Unfortunately, what he perceived as flirting had been well concealed barbs of hostility on her part.

When he closed his eyes, he saw her. First, the small figure by a grave. Then the vision shifted: she was running down the hill at Rosings. And then it came to that day. The day everything fell apart.

“In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

He could still see the shock on her face.

How becomingly she had blushed; of course she had.

Such words, such an offer; it was bound to startle her.

She knew as well as he that he had no business making it.

He had spoken of his struggles then, the obstacles that now seemed almost absurd.

He had never truly obeyed his family’s wishes anyway.

He had defied them, withdrawn from society, made himself a kind of proud exile, and remained desperately alone.

He took another swallow of brandy and braced himself for the memory that followed: the avalanche of words with which she crushed him after he had laid his heart bare.

“In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should be felt, and if I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot. I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed yours most unwillingly…”

He had stood there, staring at her, waiting for her to smile, to laugh, to tell him she was jesting and would accept his hand after all.

But the silence only stretched, heavy and unforgiving.

At last, he cleared his throat and said, “Forgive me for taking up so much of your time, madam, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness.”

He had barely made it out the door before the sting rose in his throat. Once beyond her sight, he broke into a run, desperate to shake off the humiliation and the fury.

“Here lies Fitzwilliam Darcy, the bachelor.” He raised his glass with a slosh, chuckling to himself and finishing the amber liquid.

While he sat stretched out in his winged armchair by the fire, he contemplated why exactly he never truly overcame his feelings for Elizabeth.

Why was it that in his darkest moments he always drifted back to her in his mind?

He began to suspect that the Elizabeth of his mind and Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn had very little in common.

The Elizabeth of his mind was always kind to him, teasing, but never cruel, while Miss Elizabeth rejected him most heartlessly.

He was so stumped back then he failed to ask why, with such a lack of civility he was rejected?

Would she have accepted him if he flattered her more, if he omitted to speak of his scruples?

* * *

The morning sun brought him nothing but a headache.

He felt old and foolish, cursing the liquor abuse he subjected himself to the previous evening.

He poured a cup of coffee - black. He deserved no such treats as cream or a lump of sugar.

The only thing remotely appealing to him seemed to be the toasted bread.

He sat down with his selection and opened the newspaper.

His eyes were on the page but his mind wandered back to yesterday’s sighting of Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

He promised to himself he would attempt, again, to remove her from his mind altogether and addressing her formally even in the privacy of his mind was a good start.

It struck him then. Was she still a Miss?

There was every possibility she was a married woman, that is if she ever deigned to accept anyone.

He smirked. As if to punish himself for the unkind thought, he realised that all those things he dreamt of doing with and to her, she had most probably done with someone else.

He rarely ever allowed himself to think of such details but it was high time to take her off the pedestal he had built for her.

Darcy removed himself to his study. Determined not to spend the day pining, he allowed last evening to get over the shock of seeing her, to wallow in the bittersweet memories.

Bittersweet they were… Or rather the memories were quite sweet but he himself grew bitter.

He did try to convince himself he blamed her for the rejection.

She was positively out of her wits to reject him and all he had to offer, but the fact was he knew he was the delusional one.

Who in their right mind would disparage the beloved family of a woman during a proposal?

He was proud of her for rejecting him; he loved her all the more for it.

She was brave, fearless… Every woman he‘d ever met made it abundantly clear there would never be any objection to any sort of proposal.

His reflection was interrupted by the booming voice of his cousin, Richard Fitzwilliam, who always somehow managed to bypass the butler everyone else lived in fear of.

“Darcy! What is that ominous scowl for?” he called jovially. Darcy lifted his eyes to him, his headache raged with every sound his cousin made.

“By my Lord, if I were not so well acquainted with you, I would swear you are suffering from katzenjammer!”

“I am afraid you are correct, Richard.” Darcy rose to follow him to the two armchairs next to the fire. “I indulged a little too much last night.”

“What happened?” Richard asked worriedly.

“I saw her.”

“Aah, the ghost reappeared?”

“Yes, but this time there was no ghost. It was Miss Elizabeth Bennet in flesh.”

“Did you speak to her?”

“No… No, I did not. I left unseen as fast as I could and took it out on my brandy.”

Fitzwilliam let out a loud snort of laughter. “Only you, Darcy, would pine over a woman for the past — how many years?”

“Fifteen”

“Fifteen years, and when you finally see her, you run away like a school boy from a bully?”

“I could not think what to say to her…” Darcy murmured.

“It was a beautiful day yesterday. You could have started with that.”