Chapter Eleven
ELIZABETH EMERGED FROM her bath to find the house quite silent. It was nearly time for luncheon, so she sat in the morning room near her bedchamber, and attempted to compose a letter to Jane.
She had nothing to say, she supposed.
She wrote that the drive to London had been pleasant and that they were settled in here in the house in town. She wrote that her maid was… pleasant.
There must be another word than pleasant to use.
At luncheon, Wickham was not there, only her husband. Mr. Darcy said he thought they might attend the opera that evening, that Il Giorno Felice was still finishing up its run. Perhaps she’d seen it already, but even if so, a repeat viewing could yield surprises, elements not noticed the first time.
She had not seen it, she told him. She had rarely been to London, and when she had been here, often with her entire family, a passel of opera tickets had not been an expense that anyone had thought to make.
He smiled at her, quite pleased.
“But I haven’t anything to wear,” she said with a sinking feeling.
“No, no, that’s all been taken in hand,” he said.
“I wished it to be a surprise, so I had the woman here in town get your measurements from the woman in Meryton your family uses. She is bringing the first delivery of clothing today. If there are alterations to be made with the rest, she can do so, but I think it seems likely it should be close enough for now.”
She gaped at him. “You bought me clothes? When?”
“Well, we had to wait three blasted weeks to get married,” he said. “Damnable banns, after all. I got things ready for us during that time.”
Of course he had.
The rest of the day passed as if she were in a land of fantasy. First, she had to try on seven dresses, each more beautiful than the last, all of which were made of the finest fabrics and with the greatest of care, and all of which fit her perfectly.
By that time, it was time to prepare for dinner, so she sat while her maid worked on her hair and put on one of the dresses and then went down to dine with her husband, who eyed her and said she looked stunning, and then they took a carriage to the opera.
On his arm, they walked amongst all sorts of other people. He introduced her to everyone who stopped to speak to them. “You haven’t met my wife, Mrs. Darcy,” he said with a smile to each of them.
It was a dream.
On the carriage ride home, they sat on the same side of the carriage together, and she leaned into his body, and he wrapped an arm around her and said he was happy to have been walking around with the most beautiful woman in all of London on his arm, that she made him the envy of everyone there, and she laughed, pressing her cheek into his chest and said that he had said she was only tolerable the first time he saw her and he went stiff all over and said, “You heard that?”
She laughed and laughed.
He was mortified. He apologized, again and again.
And she said, “It’s all right. You said you didn’t notice me until George did.”
He sighed, pulling her against him again. “Does that not anger you?”
“I could not be angry about anything tonight,” she said with a sigh. “It was all perfect.” She paused. “Will he join us again tonight?”
“I think tonight you must rest,” he said. “You said you were sore, and I have been too eager, at you too often. Besides, he left in a huff earlier, and I do not know what has become of him.”
“He left?”
“He will return. Do not worry. He always does.”
She was quiet, thinking over the implications of all of that. Carefully, she said, “Well, we could do other things besides whatever it was that made me sore, could we not? Am I not to be alone with you, my husband?”
“We were alone this morning and all of last night,” he said.
This was true, but… “Is it as he claims, that you leave all of the pleasuring of women to him? That you would not stoop to bring me yourself?”
“I hope, with time, you will be able to come from our lovemaking,” he said. “ Just from me inside you. Both of us will get pleasure from it.”
“But would you never…” She stopped, shaking her head.
Of course he wouldn’t. He had been so stern about how Wickham should not spend in her mouth, and whenever Wickham had put his mouth on her, it had not be a clean sort of activity.
It was likely too disgusting for Mr. Darcy, and she supposed she could not blame him.
She did not know why she was not more reticent herself.
“I think, my darling, a night to rest will be good for us both,” he said.
“Yes, all right,” she said.
It was quiet.
She spoke again. “Is that something that I shall need to learn to do, to have a climax just from your, um, from you inside me?”
“I think so,” he said. “I must say, I am not entirely certain about it. But I know that women can do it. I have brought women that way before, and considering you have just been deflowered, it seems it may be something that comes with time and practice. It obviously would not happen if you are in pain.”
“Yes, but the pain… I think it was only because I wasn’t…” She squirmed. He had used a word. “Lubricated.”
He was quiet. “Yes, of course.”
“You said that you had done nothing for me,” she said. “And I said that I liked the way you touched me, and it wouldn’t have to be my… I think I could get quite ready from just my breasts, really, if you were diligent.”
He shifted next to her. “You are eager for me,” he whispered in her ear.
She squirmed again. “I…” Why deny it, she supposed? “Yes.”
He let out a long and noisy breath and captured her lips with a kiss. “Lizzy, Lizzy. Not tonight.”
She broke a little at the rejection of it. Why didn’t he want her?
Was it as she had said, so many times, that she was a bit character in this drama playing out on stage? He wanted Wickham primarily, and she was a prop to entice the other man?
DARCY THOUGHT ABOUT going to her.
He thought about sending for her.
He thought about having someone seek out Wickham.
The man had only a few haunts in London, and Darcy knew about all of them.
Besides which, he was rather certain Wickham would come here to sleep that night now that he knew that he had his own room in the house.
When he got there, Darcy could seek him out and demand his assistance.
The truth was, Darcy had never really been with a woman on his own, sad as that sounded.
Sometimes, after the women were procured, he might have time with them, solo sessions, him alone in the bed with her, Wickham elsewhere, but even that was sort of rare.
This, a wife, a woman all on his own? He was woefully idiotic about women’s bodies.
He did not know how to touch them. He did not know how to please them.
He should have asked for assistance before, he supposed, but he’d been too proud to lower himself to ask it of Wickham and too embarrassed to admit it, anyway.
Furthermore, he knew that Wickham did not have these sorts of issues. Wickham had women on his own, so Wickham had no need of him, not in the way that he needed the other man.
And this woman, she was so very perfect and he wanted so badly not to botch things with her.
He could have gone to her.
But he didn’t.
ELIZABETH WOKE TO the door of her bedchamber being carefully eased open. It was late, and she stirred in the bed, calling out in a whisper, “Fitz, is that you?”
“It’s George.”
She sat up straight.
Wickham was making his way across the room, and he was swaying a bit and he wasn’t wearing a jacket and his cravat was loose.
“You’re drunk,” said Elizabeth.
“Not so much I can’t perform.” He was whispering. “Quiet now, Lizzy, it wouldn’t do to have him discover us.”
“What are you doing?” she said, and she wasn’t whispering.
He put a hand over her mouth. He breathed in her ear. “I know I’ve been awful to you. I know I don’t deserve you. I know I made this about him when it should have been about you, and I—”
She shoved him off. Now, her voice was quiet. “What are you on about?”
“I am leaving,” he said. “Leaving this sham of a… oh, I don’t even know what it is. It’s only sordid, Lizzy. He will never love me the way I love him, and I don’t even know how I love him. And I cannot watch him with you and know that you will never be mine. It will eat me alive.”
“You can’t leave, George,” she breathed.
“I want you just once,” he said. “And do not worry about his precious heir.” He took something from his pocket in a little pouch. “It’s a French letter to catch my spend. Just tonight and then I shall go.”
Elizabeth breathed. What would happen if Wickham was gone?
Darcy would likely mourn him, grieve him, but she would be here to comfort him. He might not ever accept her as anything other than a pale substitute for the other man, but she would be here, and she would have a chance to make him love her the way a man should love a wife.
There had been moments between them, and she thought it could be possible.
And she wanted, she wanted rather badly, to be wanted for herself, not because she interested another man.
Maybe the only way to do that was with Wickham gone?
Besides, in the conversation earlier that day, and in the conversation with Wickham the night before, they had both painted rather bleak visions of the future.
In one, Darcy abandoned her and she was all alone.
In the other, she would be caught between these men forever, bearing them children who would jockey against each other in whatever competitive love affair they seemed to be having with each other.
Wickham would resent Darcy his wealth and his lands for all time and Darcy would never treat the other man like an equal, and…
She touched his chest. “All right, if you are certain that there can be no heir.”
“Definitely,” he said, and he kissed her.
She clung to him, wondering if it would be different with him by himself than it had been with her husband.
Wickham stood up and stripped off his clothes, and she lay there, watching him in the scant light of her room, as angles and planes of his body were revealed to her.
He pulled aside the covers and she scooted over to make room for him.
He slipped in next to her. She put her hands to his chest and his arms and his stomach, exploring him in a way she had not felt she had leave to do before.
He sighed into her temple, and her hands went lower until she found him there.
His prick was half-hard but it hardened entirely at her touch and he murmured to her that she was very good at that.
She tilted her head back to smile at him. “You taught me.”
“So I did,” he whispered, stroking her face. “I don’t wish to leave you, Lizzy, you must know that. It is only him.”
She did not wish to hear his professions of devotion to her when they were punctuated with some commentary about Darcy. It was the two of them obsessed with the other, always.
She silenced him with kisses, then.
He put his hands under her nightdress and found his way to cleverly tease her body until she was trying very hard to muffle her gasps of pleasure.
He turned her, her body facing away from him, his front to her back, murmuring that this position would be best if they were trying to be quiet, and that he should have better access to pleasure her.
“We must be quick about this, my Lizzy,” he said, one hand squeezing her breast and the other massaging her mound.
She sighed as he kissed her neck and removed his hands to slide his French letter over his member.
“Reach back, my sweet girl,” he breathed in her ear, “and tuck me in? I want you to put me inside you, to accept my prick in that way? Will you?”
“Yes, George,” she breathed, and she did exactly that, guided him to her opening.
He put his finger on her clit, right on the pulse of her as he slid home.
She gasped.
He covered her mouth. “Shh, Lizzy. If that hurts, give me but a moment, and I shall have you slick as a spring rain, hmm?”
It did not hurt. She tried to tell him that but he had covered her mouth, so she only made tiny noises against his fingers.
He was gently tracing the outline of her most sensitive spot as he began to move inside her. His breath started to go ragged at her neck. “Lord, but you feel like bliss,” he whispered to her.
She moaned her assent.
“Too loud, Lizzy,” he said, but his voice wasn’t strong. He moved his hand from her mouth to her breast and he began to let his fingers dance back and forth between her nipples.
She felt like she was being perfectly plucked, like a harp, all of her strings being seen to in a perfect way.
As he stroked her clit and teased her nipples, the press of his prick inside her began to become insistent in the most bothersome and pleasurable of ways.
She started to jerk her hips against it.
He kissed her jaw. “Good?”
“So good,” she managed.
“You like my prick in you, Lizzy?”
“Oh, yes, please,” she said, keeping her voice as quiet as she could.
“You like being mine, just mine, just us, just like this?”
“George,” she whisper-sobbed. “Oh, George.”
Because she was starting to crest now, and the steady in and out of his intruding cock inside her was giving her orgasm a deeper and sweeter dimension, a depth of goodness that she had hitherto not experienced, and her crest was stretching out, taking more time, and she hit a peak—
He pushed in and out and in—
And then she hit another peak.
She made a noise, too loud.
“Good Lizzy,” he panted at her back. “That’s just right.”
And then she was a shower of bright spring blossoms, blown from a tree in the storm wind, whirling everywhere as they detached. She was lost to nothing but the waves of her release. It was so, so good.
He covered her in kisses after and she clung to him. She put her face against his neck and she knew she had been wrong. “You can’t leave,” she said. “You must stay. I shan’t bear it if you go.”
He held her and kissed her eyebrows and her cheekbones and they slept.
It was dawn when he was kissing her back awake. They moved wordless against each other, and he was over her this time, their bodies kissing as the sun was struggling into the sky.
He made love to her again and she wondered, dully, at the back of her skull, where was the French letter this time, because she could feel it was different, could feel it was his bare prick inside her.
But it was too nice, too sweet, especially when he urged her hand between them, urged her to find herself and whispered in her ear to bring herself around him, that he wanted to feel her body fluttering around him before he could let go.
So she did, teasing herself to a bright height of pleasure.
And he pulled out and spilled on her skin.
And then he was gone.