Chapter 21 #2
While they talked in the meadow tonight, she could not precisely read his earnest gaze.
It was certainly admiring, but was that as far as Mr Darcy’s interest went?
She might have thrown her arms around his neck and kissed him, but he gave her no indication that he would return her embrace.
Or, more importantly, her love. She might be nothing more than his sister’s friend in whom he had found an estimable companion.
It would put her in such a melancholy state of mind during her final days if he told her he could not love her in return.
There was a knock at the door, and Elizabeth expected the maid.
To her surprise, Mr Darcy entered wearing his shirtsleeves and with his cravat discarded, as though he had begun to undress for bed and wandered away in the middle of it.
Her spirits were a little fluttered by the sight of him.
In a hurried, awkward manner, he began an enquiry after her health.
“Forgive me, I had to know—you retired so soon after our walk, and it seemed quiet in here . . . and I hoped you might be asleep, but I had to be certain—you walked far today, and I wanted to know. . .”
His countenance showed real anxiety. She remembered the evening of the Longbourn ball, the stabbing pain in her chest, the quivering in her hands, and her racing pulse, and how Mr Darcy had entered her chamber to check if she still breathed.
She hated the reminder of her impending death, but she could not fault him.
She wished they could both forget that she had a fatal disease.
“I have had scarcely more than a prick of pain and breathlessness since we laid Georgiana to rest.” The night they dined at Longbourn was her last paroxysm of heart pain, but it was gone well before they arrived at home.
“I am—” She might have said “perfectly well” but that was not truly the case.
“I am pleased to find myself capable of activity.”
“I am glad to hear it.” Mr Darcy then looked her up and down and must have noticed she was in her dressing gown, a lawn wrapper over her night shift that none but her sisters or a maid had seen her in.
There was a faint hint of pink in his cheeks.
“You must, of course, be ready for bed.” He bid her goodnight and turned to the door.
Elizabeth did not want to part from him yet and thought of some reason for him to stay. “I have never been to the Lakes!”
Mr Darcy turned, nonplussed. It made him look quite endearing. She gave a nervous laugh and said, “You wanted me to ask you if there was anything I might like before . . . It could be costly so you need not agree, but I have never been to the Lakes.”
He came nearer, and his expression brightened. “You wish to visit the Lake District?”
“I have always wanted to go, but my father never stirred from home. I once travelled with the Gardiners to Bath, but have never been farther from London than that.”
“The Lakes are sublime. You must see them. I am fond of Grasmere, in particular. You would be happy there in the summer with the gleams of sunshine, the stirring trees, and the cheerful lake.” He gave a rueful smile.
“I imagine you would spend your days traipsing the countryside and admiring every picturesque scene, and then demanding that after dinner we walk all the way to Ambleside.”
His tone about her activeness was not quite approving.
While his care was appreciated, she did not want to hear a word about her heart.
It seemed to validate her decision to not tell her mother or Jane and risk their feeling overwrought, and suffering their constant insistence that she rest. “You would truly allow me to go?”
His smiling countenance shuttered, and he even took a step back.
“Of course. You know I am not the sort of husband to tyrannise you or restrict you. You are a married woman and can travel as you like.” He looked anywhere but at her.
“Perhaps Lydia would be an amiable travel companion. I shall arrange everything to your liking.”
Mr Darcy was at the door when she realised her blunder.
“Wait! You mistake me, entirely mistake me!” He stopped but did not turn.
She took a few steps toward him. “I am sorry, but you misunderstand me.” He turned to face her.
“I did not mean that I wish to go without you. I was surprised that you would allow me to go at all because you worry I will strain my heart and it will hasten my death.”
“You do not like my mentioning your illness, but if you want to see the Lakes, I have nothing to say against it.”
Mr Darcy’s manner was less assured than he was before, and Elizabeth was afraid that he would leave the room without understanding what he meant to her.
“I also thought that you might not wish to travel because it means that you must tell people you are back in England and travelling with your wife.”
“I have no concern about that, either. I was uncertain whether you wished to spend”—he sighed—“what is likely to be your final days in only my company.”
He looked at her as though he wanted to believe her but could not bring himself to trust in it.
She hoped her expression returned the same thought of affection and desire that was strengthening in her.
Whatever he saw in her countenance, he came nearer, and although he stayed silent, the intensity of his gaze never wavered.
“I want to go to the Lakes with you,” she cried.
“But I want to keep what sense of a normal existence as far as I can, and I do not need your reminders about how short that is. An active life might hasten my end, but my end is upon me regardless. Do not speak of my heart or my death again. Promise me?” She needed Mr Darcy to see her as alive and whole.
“Promise!” He managed a nod but was still silent.
“I want to go to the Lake District with you. I cannot imagine spending my final days with anyone but you.”
Mr Darcy’s reply, to her astonishment, was to reach his hand around her to clasp the base of her head and press a short, but eager kiss to her lips.
His hand fell away quickly, and he then took two steps backward with a look of shock on his face.
His kiss was an impulse, an intimate act rising from feeling rather than rational deliberation.
Elizabeth needed Darcy to know that she ardently wished for the same thing before he felt he had done wrong—that he had disrespected her—and left.
Elizabeth brought her hands to either side of his face, without touching him elsewhere, and kissed him firmly on the lips.
He did not have time to kiss her back before she pulled away, and he stared, bewildered.
She dropped her hands and looked into his eyes, trying to convey an invitation as well as all the affection she felt.
He must have found the assurance he was looking for because Darcy then caught her in his arms and kissed her with an ardour she wondered if he had ever ventured before.
It was unlike any chaste kiss she had given or taken as forfeit due in a parlour game.
Darcy’s embrace was a longer, more fervent kiss that increased the beat of her heart.
There was something surprisingly lovely about how his soft lips moved over hers, and how she felt pressed against him.
She was disappointed when he stopped kissing her until she saw his expression.
The way Darcy looked at her while he held her in his arms felt deeply intimate.
His face slightly flushed, lips parted, eyes dark with delighted expectation.
Elizabeth smiled and looked into his eyes for a long moment before he kissed her again.
Darcy tightened his hold on her, and her hands were against his chest, then on his shoulders, and her arms were around his neck before she realised she had done it.
After kissing for a long while, she drew breath to say that she loved him, but he kissed her too quickly, and his tongue flicked against her lips.
A low, urgent sound came from deep in his throat after she opened her mouth to his that made her heart pound faster.
Kissing Darcy was a burning, heartfelt activity.
Does he feel the same yearning as I do to abandon our clothes and follow through to the natural consequence of our desires?
He was not an open, loquacious man, but he expressed his passionate feelings through the movement of his lips, the bold sweep of his tongue against hers, his hand running through her hair, and the way he firmly held her against him.
She knew she was breathing harder, and her heart beat wildly.
She wanted Darcy’s hands to move from her back and hips to her breasts, and she gave a little moan at the hope of it.
He brushed a few tendrils of hair away from her shoulder and trailed his lips and teeth down her neck with the same fierce energy he had kissed her mouth.
Darcy roughly tugged at the sash around her dressing gown and tore it open.
Her heart drummed eagerly, and a wave of anticipation heightened her senses before he moved his hand inside her gown.
She could not catch her breath, and his hand on her breast made her certain she would faint in a melting swoon.
The intensity of the sensations this produced was indescribable.
His mouth on her neck was all tongue and teeth, and it made Elizabeth hope that his lips would move to where his hand was now squeezing.
They were both now in a fury of passion, and Darcy brought his lips eagerly back to her mouth.
He gave a small groan that kindled another flame within her.
After wondering for so long what Darcy’s lips tasted like, what it would feel like to be pressed against him, she finally knew, and it was not enough to satisfy her.
Elizabeth tried to steady her pounding heart by slowly unfastening every button on his waistcoat, but his lips continued to urge her, and his hand finally moved from one breast to give attention to the other.
She had only just given a low, satisfied moan at the feel of his hand stroking her when Darcy abruptly released her.
Elizabeth thought he paused to tear off their remaining clothes or make an avowal of all he felt for her, but the look in his eyes was desolate as he stood there with his chest heaving.
“We have to stop,” he rasped. “This”—he took a ragged breath and gestured between them—“this is not what we agreed to.”
“What?” Elizabeth’s mind was still in the place where they were wrapped in each other’s arms. His lips were still swollen from kissing her, and hers felt the same.
“We agreed to a chaste union.”
Elizabeth gave a strangled laugh. Darcy, at times, was too deliberate a man. He could not mean it. How were they to have known in May what they would feel for one another in the beginning of August? “Perhaps we must be guided by developments?” she said out of breath with a little smile.
“This is not what we agreed to,” he repeated softly. He gave her a look she could not quite comprehend. “We have to stop.”
“You have decided? Ought there to be a committee meeting to discuss the matter?” Elizabeth was absolutely incredulous. A glance at the critical part of him was enough to prove that he wanted to be with her as much as she wanted him.
He swallowed and shook his head. “I govern myself in all things,” he said this more to himself before heaving a weary sigh. “I am exceedingly sor—”
“Stop!” She felt hot tears in her eyes and a crushing disappointment in her heart.
“Do not demean me or cheapen what you were willing to do one minute ago by apologising for it.” Darcy admired her, but he could not bring himself to go to bed with a woman he did not love.
“Unless you plan to stay with me for the rest of the night, get out!”
In the corridor, Darcy leant against her door with the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes.
The sounds he heard were likely Elizabeth moving across the room to throw herself on the bed in tears.
He cursed quietly and turned to grip her door handle, but he hesitated and, rather than re-enter, sighed heavily, resting his forehead against her door.
They had both been wild in the midst of passion, and the ferocity and ardency of her kiss sent his mind whirling.
But of all the glorious sensations from the last five minutes that his mind could pass over, the ones he lingered on were the sounds of her ragged breathing and the feel of her heart beating erratically in her breast. She was out of breath, and her ailing heart pounded from one amorous embrace.
I do not give myself to the indulgence of appetites or passions.
He could not forget that Wickham had seduced his consumptive sister, and the resulting child had precipitated Georgiana’s death.
Elizabeth was ill, her heart weakening—she could not even dance at a ball—and he would never hasten her inevitable demise.
She fiercely wanted the power of choice over her final days, and she had asked him—made him promise—not to speak of her ailing heart.
It would wound her feelings if he told her why he left, and she would only try to argue him out of his opinion.
He could hardly engage in an act that could damage her heart.
He loved her too much to do her harm, even if it left them both unsatisfied.
He was not in a calm state of blood and if he re-entered that room to explain, Elizabeth would likely say it was a risk she was willing to take.
But he could not live with the consequence of giving in to temptation.
Darcy crossed the draughty corridor to his own room.
Returning to his bed alone was a cruel punishment, but one he had to resign himself to because he loved her.
He was to live in the agony of knowing that if he were to give in—to take his wife in his arms and render their union as true as it could be—it could be the death of her.