Chapter Twenty-one
THE NEXT WEEKS were a blur of afternoons just like that one.
Wickham kept to his house, and they always went there for their trysts.
He never set foot in the Darcy town house, and he did not see Georgiana or Lydia, Kitty, or Mary.
Elizabeth spent her evenings shuffling the girls to balls, her nights falling exhausted into bed alone, though occasionally, her husband would join her, but he was careful not to penetrate her between her thighs.
Once, he stretched and greased her arse again, but the other times, they simply brought each other with their hands.
Wickham sent the carriage for her three times without Darcy there at all.
She alighted and he ushered her inside. Once he didn’t even manage to get her to his bedchamber.
He pushed her into the sitting room, shut and locked the door, bent her over the couch, lifted her skirts and had her right there.
He made her beg him to get her with child, and she was so bothered by it all that she imagined it that night in her bed, stroking herself and remembering Wickham’s voice at her ear.
“You want my babe, do you not, Lizzy? Say it, say it, that’s a good wife. ”
She knew her husbands were at each other often during this time as well.
There were little twosomes, but most often, it was the three of them.
Wickham in her cunny, Darcy in Wickham’s mouth was the way it typically went—she loved watching them take each other’s pricks that way, loved seeing them suckle each other—but sometimes they pressed her between them, and one night, she did get to see Wickham deflowered when they sandwiched him between them, Darcy buried in Wickham’s arse.
She supposed it was to be expected that her bleeding did not come.
But even still, as the days went on and it did not appear, she began to feel as if she had done something rather dreadfully daft.
She wanted to have a babe but she wondered at all of it.
She knew enough of the way that women were when they were increasing to know her first few months would be marked by tiredness, sheer exhaustion, and that her whole body would become tender.
She did not think she would be as eager for the attentions of her husbands once the babe was lodged in her, and she felt a twinge at the thought of that, wishing to stay in this heady haze of lust and arousal for longer.
She also wondered if it was going to be as easy between them as they seemed to think it was. She would be carrying a babe, not her husband’s babe, and this would be their first child. Would Darcy truly be as pleased about it when it was real?
She didn’t tell them.
But then it began to affect their lovemaking. Her voice would choke when Wickham urged her to beg for his seed, and she could not say it, and after one such afternoon, she rolled over in the bed in his bedchamber and buried her face in a pillow.
Both men stroked her bare back.
“Lizzy?” said Wickham. “I am sorry if I—”
“My bleeding is late,” she said into the pillow.
Both men’s hands stilled on her.
Then Wickham wasn’t touching her. He eased his way off the bed.
“George?” said Darcy.
She rolled over to see Wickham standing beside the bed, entirely naked, his hand tangled in his light hair, a stricken expression on his face.
Darcy looked back and forth between them. “Neither of you seem pleased about this.”
“I am,” said Wickham, nodding.
“You are not?” she breathed, because he did not sound pleased, not at all, and he was the one who had urged her into it, had talked to her over and over about all of it.
“Lizzy, I am,” he said forcefully, finding her gaze.
“We did it on purpose. We knew it would happen. I am. It is only I…” He sought out Darcy’s gaze.
“I think…” Then he shook himself and he smiled at them both.
“No, it’s all done and it is done the way it has been done.
We shall all get to watch Lizzy’s belly swell and it will be as we have imagined.
” He climbed back into the bed and pulled her into his arms. He looked into her eyes, and she looked back.
She let out a breath. “Yes, all right.”
“All right,” said Wickham and kissed her.
Darcy swallowed audibly.
They both turned to him.
“I’m all right,” he said. “This was my idea.”
“Yes,” said Wickham, holding his gaze. “It was.”
BUT THEN, TWO days later, her bleeding came. It was heavier than usual, but not painful. She told Darcy, and he said he would tell Wickham, and then the next afternoon, she was being summoned in a carriage to go to Wickham’s house.
They sat in the sitting room with cups of tea that Wickham had made himself. Wickham employed no servants at all in this house, but he was being fed out of the kitchens at Darcy’s house. Otherwise, he saw to himself. It was a good arrangement for them, no prying eyes.
And Elizabeth could have sworn that tea was not something that required great skill, but the water was tepid and the leaves did not steep.
They drank it anyway.
“It’s good,” said Wickham, to both of them.
“We did not think that through.” He touched his chest. “I’m the one who does those sorts of things, but I rely on the both of you to think of the consequences of such things, and you both…
” He looked back and forth between them. “Did I sweep you up in it?”
“No, it was my idea,” said Mr. Darcy. “I don’t understand why you are saying that it’s good she’s not with child.”
“I don’t either,” said Elizabeth quietly.
“Yes, but you’re relieved,” said Wickham. “You are, are you not?”
She twisted her hands together in her lap.
“I suppose I think that once I am increasing, much of this between the three of us will likely have to end. I shall become tired and huge and uncomfortable. I don’t know if either of you really know anything about women who are increasing.
It’s not some erotic fantasy time, my lying around with a rounded belly and huge breasts for you both to toy with. ”
“We know this,” said Darcy quietly.
“Obviously we know this,” said Wickham. “So, you just don’t want to do it yet, you’re saying. But you are all right with it being mine?”
“I thought that was the whole reason it worked out between us all,” said Elizabeth. “You father the heir and then you are part of the Darcy family and you and I are connected in such a way that rivals the way that Fitz and I are connected, since only he and I have a legal tie.”
“Well, yes,” said Wickham. “But I don’t know. I worry about it, thinking it through. He and I, we…” He looked at Darcy. “We don’t look much alike. It may be quite obvious that I have fathered your child, Lizzy, and this may cause all manner of problems.”
“No,” said Darcy. “It will not, and I don’t care if it is obvious. I claim the babe and the babe is mine. Elizabeth is my wife and any child she bears is mine. That’s the legality of it. You’re the lawyer, George.”
“No, I know,” said Wickham. “No, but this is my babe we are speaking of, and I am knowingly making him and putting him in a position wherein I know he is not legitimate, and it seems irresponsible. What sort of father knowingly does that to his own son?”
“He will be legitimate,” insisted Darcy.
“In point of fact, Fitzwilliam, if people look at him and know he is mine, and you are carting me all over the country, as we have spoken of, we could all be in quite a bit of danger. Especially if you seem complicit in it. This is not the sort of arrangement we can have in England, do you realize? We have all engaged in sodomy, and that is a hanging offense.”
Darcy sighed heavily.
“I’m only saying,” said Wickham, “that it was one thing before I had thought it through. Now, it feels purposeful. I do not wish my son to be the heir.”
“But then, what of our inequalities?” said Darcy. “How will you bear it, when you may often not be able to reside under the same roof, when she is not yours in a legal sense, when you feel excluded from our social circle, when—”
“I shall not bear any of those things easier because I have sown her womb first,” said Wickham.
Darcy sighed. “I don’t know if I agree with any of this, George.
Lizzy and I both have dark hair and dark hair tends to cancel out light hair like yours, and I think there are strong odds the child looks enough like me that no one notices anything.
But perhaps we have rushed into this due to our, erm, arousal.
Lizzy wishes to wait, and I feel we can do that.
Not for too long, I suppose, but there is no need to have her with child right away, so we shall just stop spending inside her and we can discuss this and come to a conclusion at another time. ”
“Well, I don’t know,’ said Elizabeth. “This is the second time that my bleeding has been late and I wonder if… if something is wrong with me.”
“Wrong with you?” said Wickham.
“Yes, what if I cannot carry a babe?” said Elizabeth. “I think we must get me with child just to be sure that I am capable of it. Otherwise, I shall fret over it and worry and think of nothing else.”
“Oh, no, Lizzy,” said Darcy. “This is common, these sorts of scares.”
“Quite,” said Wickham. “Anytime one is with a woman, the same woman, for any extended period of time, one encounters it at least once, and twice is quite ordinary as well.”
“Scares,” said Lizzy.
“Well, when it is not your wife, it is less welcome,” said Darcy with a smile.
“Right,” she said, nodding at the both of them.
“How often I forget that you two have been out there, nearly impregnating women together, since you were able to get your pricks hard.” She didn’t mean to sound so bitter about it, but in that moment, she felt acutely the idea that she was just an afterthought, some erotic prop they used between them.
“No, Lizzy,” said Wickham.
“Lizzy, you are different,” said Darcy.
“You are our wife,” said Wickham.
“Yes, and if you say that one more time, I think I shall scream.”
Darcy winced. “This is my fault. I neglected you all that time when George was gone, and I fixated on the idea of his having to get the heir on you, so I stopped touching you—”
“That was why?” she said.
“It’s not just your fault, Fitz,” said Wickham.
“I think we all get caught up in her being our pretty little plaything, and it makes Lizzy very wet, so we tend to think it’s something she likes, but I think…
rather like this bit with my fathering a child on her, it’s something that is quite erotic, but feels differently outside of the bedchamber.
Lizzy needs her agency, she needs to be allowed to lead our pursuits.
We must support her, not simply ask her to serve us. ”
“I am not complaining—”
“No, he’s right,” interrupted Darcy. “We shall do exactly that, my love.”