Chapter Three #2
“Of course you are. I would not force you into anything, especially not of that nature.”
“And if I say I wish to marry you and that I never want another man besides you to touch me?”
“All right,” he said, feeling a dark current at that, perhaps a good current, perhaps something that would feel rather nice to hold over Wickham’s head.
“You still want me if I don’t engage in this?”
“Oh, quite, Miss Bennet. I don’t even understand how I want you. I have never wanted anything the way I want you. You have made me go entirely mad, and I tried to explain that to you during the proposal, but you were so busy being offended that I don’t think you understood.”
She smirked a little at him. “Perhaps I did hear you say that. It is not awful to hear it again, though.”
He sat up straight. She was going to say yes. Why? He had despaired of that, and now he could see that she was going to.
She looked away, a blush staining her cheeks.
“Miss Bennet,” he breathed, “are you going to marry me?”
“I am,” she said. “Yes. I accept.”
THERE WAS NO more discussion of Mr. Darcy watching Mr. Wickham touch Elizabeth or tup her or whatever it was that he wished to do. Elizabeth had said the thing to him about not wanting any other man to touch her, and then it had never been mentioned again.
Of course, they had not been alone.
They announced the engagement and Lady Catherine was horrified, and she went on for some time.
It was really rather embarrassing, because Elizabeth felt as if she was witnessing some kind of private family argument, but she supposed she was going to be part of this family now, so perhaps she must get used to it.
At the end of her little fit, Lady Catherine threw Mr. Darcy out of Rosings.
But he didn’t leave right away.
The next morning, however, he and Colonel Fitzwilliam made ready a carriage.
Elizabeth was not supposed to leave Kent for another week, but considering that she had also angered Lady Catherine, it was deemed prudent for her to leave along with Mr. Darcy and the colonel.
The three traveled together to London, and—of course—they did not discuss Mr. Darcy watching Mr. Wickham with other women in front of the colonel, who was red-cheeked and a bit of a blustering sort of man, not handsome but ever so easy to speak to.
She was taken to Gracechurch Street, and Mr. Darcy and the colonel accepted an invitation to dinner there, both with an easiness that quite surprised her, given how so much had been made of her relatives and her lack of proper connections.
And that night at dinner, of course, they did not speak of Mr. Darcy’s predilections.
Later that night, sharing a bed with her sister Jane, who was staying with her relatives there, Elizabeth thought about telling it to Jane.
But she couldn’t quite find the words. She supposed she would have to start by telling Jane about whatever it was that she had allowed Mr. Wickham to do to her in the first place, and she had never been able to muster the courage to tell that to Jane.
So, it didn’t come up. Elizabeth said nothing to anyone.
By the following day, when it was her and Mr. Darcy and Jane in a carriage back to Hertfordshire to go and speak with her father about the marriage, Elizabeth was beginning to wonder if it had even happened.
Every aspect of this was now all proceeding as normal, and she began to feel as if the sordid aspects of it, the way Mr. Darcy had whispered such untoward things to her, had been odd dreams, fantasies on her part.
She supposed she should have felt relieved, but she didn’t.
She was not entirely certain why she’d agreed to this marriage, she had to admit.
She could not rightly say that she liked Mr. Darcy, but she liked Mr. Darcy better when he was admitting to being affected badly by various things.
When he told her that he wanted her against his better sense and that he was mad to ask her to marry him, well, that made her like him.
When he got that look in his eye talking about whatever it was he did with Mr. Wickham, she liked that, too.
Oddly, against all sense, when he spoke about fighting over her, as if she was some prize in a sparring match with Mr. Wickham, she liked him then, too, though she wasn’t sure why she liked that. She shouldn’t.
She had within her a bit of a spirit for adventure.
Not too much of a spirit, of course, for she did not wish to get into trouble or to be harmed in the pursuit of such things.
But she was not satisfied only with the mundane in life.
She wanted a bit of excitement, a dash of romance, something that someone might write a poem about.
She supposed it was that spirit of adventure that had guided her into the woods with Wickham in the first place.
It was only that she thought she had likely gotten more adventure than she actually wanted. The thing was, she didn’t find it as frightening as she might have expected. Some part of her found it exciting. Some part of her craved more of it.
She did sometimes return to that day in the woods with Mr. Wickham.
He had been so very bold with her, but she had responded to him, and he had liked that, and she thought about it, thought about his hands, thought about the way her body had jumped against him, thought about the fact that the thing that was so very exciting about it was that it was forbidden.
And this, with Mr. Darcy, his dark and secret things, all of that was forbidden. So, perhaps this was all that it was, having things one was not supposed to have, going after the sweet temptation of something wicked.
However, she was apprehensive about it all.
She did not think marriage was the place to explore temptation or wickedness or forbidden things.
Marriage was supposed to be holy and sacred.
She could not help but think that whatever was being promised here, it was entirely wrong, obscene, and sinful.
And that made it all the more enticing, did it not?