Chapter Six
JANE SPOKE ALL night of Mr. Bingley. “He apologized almost the entire time, and I told him he needn’t do so, but he kept returning to it, saying that I should have deserved someone with more of a backbone than he, someone who would have fought for me, and that I should not forgive him, that I should spurn him. ”
“You’re not going to spurn him, Jane,” said Elizabeth, who was still thinking about Mr. Darcy’s hand clutching hers, thinking about the way his voice lilted, thinking about the way he let out longing breaths and the way his gaze crawled over her in obvious anticipation.
He had still not tried to kiss her, even though he knew that Mr. Wickham had put his mouth on her there.
What sort of husband was he going to be?
I am agreeing to something absolutely wretched all because I have some curious lust about it all, she thought to herself in a kind of horror.
Well, she hoped it was worth it, having two men at once, especially considering she didn’t even think she mattered at all to either of them.
They had done this a number of times, and they were both always there, but the woman was always different.
She was nothing to them, and she was signing her whole life away for a chance at it.
What was wrong with her?
“No,” said Jane, “I am absolutely not going to spurn him, and I told him he was being far too hard on himself. I think he is going to propose, and I wonder, Lizzy, perhaps you and Mr. Darcy could wait. It could be a double wedding.”
“Mr. Darcy won’t wait,” said Elizabeth, who knew this was true.
“Even so, you will ask him,” said Jane.
“All right,” said Elizabeth.
The banns were read a second time that Sunday, and Mr. Darcy was in attendance at church and so was Mr. Bingley and the men from the regiment as well. Elizabeth noticed how much time Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham both spent stealing glances at each other.
In love, Mr. Darcy had said.
Elizabeth knew such things happened in classical poetry. Men fell in love with each other, but it always ended badly, near as she could tell. Of course, that wasn’t saying much, considering almost everything ended badly in classical poetry.
They looked at each other a lot.
And if they ever managed to catch each other’s gazes, they both looked away immediately, each making faces as if it had been the worst thing in earth to catch the other’s gaze.
After the service, she did speak to Mr. Darcy. “My sister seems to think Mr. Bingley is bound to propose.”
“Well, I should hope so,” said Mr. Darcy. “He wished to propose, and I prevented it, and now I have paved the way. One hopes he will do it quite soon. Should we call upon you tomorrow?”
“My sister has an idea for a double wedding.”
“No,” said Mr. Darcy. “By the time that Bingley gets himself together, it could be another three weeks. I shan’t wait that long.”
She had known he would not.
He looked her over with a severe sort of gaze, one that made her feel as if he were searing away her clothes.
Her chest was tight. She wanted to ask all sorts of questions. What will you both do with me? What will I have to do to both of you? How are you going to manage to get Mr. Wickham in there in the first place? She only said, “Well, it will not be long then, sir.”
“Not long,” he agreed. “You will be my wife.”
Yes, his wife, one he intended to get with child as quickly as possible so that he could watch another man tup her.
She squeezed her thighs together. Her skin felt too sensitive, the fabric of her dress bothersome.
WICKHAM FOUND OUT that Darcy had paid someone else to take over his commission when the man came to him and introduced himself. Wickham was angry, but thought through the conversation he would have with Darcy about it, and he didn’t see the point in actually having it.
Why would you go to this expense but not give me enough money to marry her myself?
And the answer to that was clear, not that Darcy would ever admit it.
Because Darcy was happy to spend money if it gratified himself. It might happen to also gratify Wickham, but Wickham should never get the idea in his head that Darcy would do him favors or would spend money to please Wickham.
After all, Wickham was the servant and Darcy the master.
Darcy was allowed to have pleasure. Everyone else was only allowed to be pleased insomuch as it they were pleasing Darcy also.
If he tried to point it out, Darcy wouldn’t even know how to feel ashamed of himself. It was so ingrained in him and he was so entitled, he couldn’t see it any other way.
Yes, obviously, Darcy was to have pleasure and seek pleasure, and obviously, all these other people, they were just to cater to him, simply because he paid them.
That was simply the nature of things. Certain people got catered to; others did the catering.
Didn’t do any good to question it, of course. It just was.
He did go to ask Darcy about when the wedding was, where the wedding was, and where the wedding night was.
Darcy told him that the wedding would be right here, and the wedding breakfast at Longbourn.
“You must be there, of course,” said Darcy.
“Then we shall all travel to London, to my house in town. We’ll be more comfortable there, and the servants there…
well, you are adept at moving yourself about if necessary, at smoothing things over with servants. ”
“It is one thing when we are bringing home strumpets, Fitz,” he said. “This is your wife.”
“But you can still smooth things over, can you not?” he said.
Wickham nodded.
“Tell me again of it,” said Darcy, raising his eyebrows.
Wickham shifted on his feet, feeling himself get aroused, just from remembering. He looked around. They were standing together alone on the streets of Meryton, in the middle of the broad afternoon. “Here?”
“Keep your voice quiet,” murmured Darcy. “Tell me what you said to her?”
“I said that I should like to see her and she showed herself to me.”
“No, no, go back.” Darcy’s mouth curved into a smile. “About her drawers.”
“Oh, yes, I asked if she was wearing them.”
“And she said no,” said Darcy.
“Have you been staring at her dresses, knowing she’s got nothing underneath ever since?”
Darcy chuckled. “Tell me about what it looked like?”
“Like a cunny, Fitz,” he said with a grin, but he was throbbing inside his trousers now. “Quite prim, covered in little damp, dark curls—”
“Because she was wet for you?”
“Aye,” said Wickham. “Quite wet, sopping wet.”
“And she tasted…?”
“Tart,” he said. “Like cherries.” Of course, he wasn’t sure why Darcy asked that. Darcy never deigned to put his mouth on a woman there. Wickham held the other man’s gaze. “And the noises she made, Fitz.”
Darcy put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing him, sucking in a breath through his nose. “It’s all I think of, you know. I picture it and stroke myself every night, picture you and her together.”
Wickham grunted.
“You haven’t gone to her again?”
“No, I would have told you,” he said.
Darcy let go of his shoulder. “Soon,” he said.
“Soon,” echoed Wickham.
JANE WAS ENGAGED for a week before Elizabeth’s wedding, which had been planned matter-of-factly, no real fanfare except the fact that Mr. Darcy was insistent it happen immediately, so insistent that when her mother came in the night before Elizabeth’s marriage, she asked her if she and the man had anticipated their vows.
Elizabeth said no but she blushed in such a way that her mother didn’t believe her.
“Well, I see this is all pointless, then,” said her mother with a huff. “Quite a chance you took there, you know, Lizzy, with a man like that. It is a good thing he will still honor his promise to you. It could have gone quite badly.”
So, there was no discussion from her mother on what to expect, though Elizabeth supposed she had a basic idea of all of it. They had pricks. They would get hard. And then they would insert them into her… body.
They.
She pulled her pillow over her head and thought that most women did not have the specter of two men hanging over her. She was nervous.
The following day, she dressed in the dress she had selected as her wedding dress. It had not been specially made for the occasion, but it was a new dress, her newest dress, one that had been made only a few months before. It was cream colored and the fabric had tiny little pink flowers on it.
During her vows, she looked at Mr. Darcy’s shoulders and his chest. She was too frightened to meet his eyes, and she had to keep herself from letting her gaze flit down any further south on his body, not in front of the entire congregation.
He didn’t kiss her during the ceremony. There were couples who had a kiss during the wedding vows, in front of everyone, but there had been no question that Mr. Darcy would not be kissing her like that, in public.
So, she was married to him, and they had barely ever touched at all, only the hand-holding, that was all, and she was now his wife for the rest of her life.
As she walked up the aisle on her new husband’s arm, she caught sight of Mr. Wickham, looking at both of them with his wide and expressive blue eyes. He looked pained, looked devastated, looked as if he had been destroyed.
She looked away.
She did not understand that man.
But then, she didn’t understand the man whose arm she was on, either.