Epilogue #3
Carefully, he pushed inside, a low groan escaping him as he did.
He leant over her, moving slowly, thrusting in and out with a measured rhythm, feeling smugly satisfied when she lifted to meet each surge of his hips.
She moaned, her back arching as he hit a particular spot inside her, her breasts pushing against his chest.
When she begged him for more through a ragged breath, he stood up, gripping her hips, and moved with increasing vigour while he enjoyed the vision of his wife splayed across his desk.
She constantly made sounds, from soft breaths to erratic moans and gasps, lifting her hips to meet each of his thrusts that were building into a deeper and quicker rhythm.
He reached down between them, touching her, causing her to moan.
He slowly built the rhythm again, her voice echoing through the room as she cried out, her fingers clutching at anything she could find on the desk to hold on it.
Bending to kiss her, she finally clung to the fabric of his coat as she shook.
His release came without warning, making him groan long and low until he collapsed against her.
When he stood, he looked down at Elizabeth. Her chest was heaving, eyes lidded and dark, and looking delightfully dishevelled. “I love you too,” she murmured, answering him from earlier as she sat up to arrange her skirts.
As Darcy dressed, he noticed the coloured marking stitch on the hem of his shirt. His initials and a number were at the bottom to mark them for when they went to the laundry and to keep inventory. Yet another small gesture of Elizabeth’s ever-present care for others.
He had been fortunate enough to find himself a wife as capable and caring as Elizabeth. Would they have married if Georgiana had not eloped from Ramsgate? Would they have met when Bingley leased a house near to her home? Would they have met in town while she visited the Gardiners?
He supposed at the time he would never have pursued her. Attracted and nervous as he was around her, eager for her approval, he was still too proud back then to fall for a woman beneath him in fortune and consequence.
The words burst from him, unable to be kept back. “I am glad you were impulsive and had us run to the mail coach.”
She stared in confusion for a heartbeat until she realised what he meant.
She laughed as she stood, blushing a little at the memory of what she had done.
“It worked out well for us, thankfully. But we can both be wilful. Two wilful people might have pulled against one another, or perhaps crashed into one another.”
“I think we are both determined people,” he corrected before giving her a kiss. “Loyal. Confident. And we are both honest and caring. And we had the sense, and the attraction to one another, to try to have a harmonious union.”
“You must admit you were a little impulsive too,” she teased. “In agreeing to rescue Lydia, in letting me drag you to Scotland through the night.”
“No, I was never that young and eager and impulsive,” he said drily.
“Oh no?” she said, putting her hands around his shoulders.
“Then I am fortunate you never resented me for leading you astray.” Her grip on him tightened.
“I mean it, Fitzwilliam. You never blamed me for getting us into a situation where the only way to keep our respectability was to marry a near-stranger.”
“It was both of our faults, and our actions were done not in service to ourselves but for the sake of people we loved.”
“Still, you were never once bitter or resentful, and you had every right to be.”
He shook his head as he took her hand to lead them upstairs. That would have solved nothing, and she had just as much reason to be disappointed that day in Scotland. She had not once punished him for their being forced to marry. “I would have been a weak man if I faltered.”
“That is the last word anyone would use to describe you,” she said pointedly. “‘Vivacious’ or ‘silly’ would be used before you were called ‘weak.’”
“I can admit that I was impetuous that day in Ramsgate when I promised to bring back Lydia and let you come with me. And the same when I let you drag me to the mail coach. In that moment of realisation of my sister’s foolishness, all rationality was gone, only despair and shock remained.
” He had not been impulsive so much as lost and tilting toward despair.
“You would have come to your senses and acted eventually, of course, and gone after her,” she assured him as they reached their chamber. That was Elizabeth’s way: to be encouraging and kind. Even if the truth hurt, he could trust her to be honest but compassionate.
“It would not have mattered if I had; there was no convincing Georgiana. And instead of returning with a sister”—he squeezed her hand—“I came home with a wife.”
Elizabeth gave him a glowing smile as she led him through their chamber door. “We may not have chosen each other, but we chose to be happy with one another, so of course, love followed.”
The End