Chapter 7
DARCY
Darcy House had been prepared for a wedding night.
I understood this the moment we arrived. White flowers filled the vestibule. A fire had been lit in the great drawing room despite the mild evening. On a table waited wine, fruit, and a cold supper that no one would touch anytime soon.
A few hours earlier, every detail would have seemed to herald the happiness I had awaited for months.
Now, they only measured the distance between what I had believed I would receive and what Elizabeth could truly give me.
My London housekeeper curtsied before her.
“Welcome home, Mrs Darcy.”
Elizabeth responded gracefully. Only her fingers, tightened on the ribbon of her reticule, betrayed her unease.
Home.
I had promised her a house. I must take care never to turn that house into a price she would have to pay to possess it.
I offered her my arm and led her to the drawing room.
“Would you care for some wine?” I asked.
“A little.”
I poured two glasses. My hand remained perfectly steady.
Elizabeth was watching me.
“You are even more reserved than usual.”
“Fatigue makes me unsociable.”
“Fatigue or marriage?” she asked with an attempt at lightness.
I met her gaze.
“I have no regrets about the marriage.”
The answer was true. She seemed to hear it, for some tension left her shoulders.
She raised the glass to her lips, then set it down almost immediately.
“I do not know what is expected of me tonight.”
Her frankness tightened my chest.
The old Darcy might have welcomed this confession as permission to guide, to decide, to take charge of what a young wife did not know. That man had too often confused his certainty with a right.
“Nothing that you do not wish,” I replied.
She turned the ring around her finger. Once. Twice.
“Yet the vows we spoke are quite specific.”
“They do not authorize me to make your ignorance into consent.”
She raised her head abruptly.
“You will not come to my chamber?”
The question contained relief, but also an anxiety that immediately awakened my desire to reassure her.
I approached without touching her.
“My apartments adjoin yours. The door can be locked from your side. I will not enter unless you open it or invite me.”
“And if I do not yet know whether I wish to open it?”
“Then it will remain closed.”
She gazed at me, unable to conceal her surprise.
“Without discussion?”
“On this point, none.”
“Yet you seemed disposed to negotiate on almost everything during our engagement.”
“I have learned that certain victories cost too much for the one who wins them.”
The word victory displeased me as soon as it was spoken. Elizabeth was neither an adversary nor land that my name permitted me to claim.
I extended my hand.
“May I?”
She placed her fingers in mine.
I slowly removed her glove, finger by finger. Her breathing changed. The bare skin of her palm appeared at last, delicate and warm beneath mine.
I raised it to my lips.
The contact stirred in me a hunger so violent that my entire body tensed. Elizabeth saw it. Her pupils dilated.
“Do not doubt my desire,” I murmured.
Color rose to her cheeks.
“I did not know if your restraint meant…”
She stopped.
“It means only that I prefer to wait for a choice you will not doubt tomorrow.”
Her fingers closed slightly around mine.
“I had not imagined you patient.”
“Neither had I.”
A smile touched her mouth.
That smile gave me more hope than I yet wished to allow myself.
We supped in the small drawing room. The conversation remained cautious at first, then Elizabeth began to comment on the portraits she had glimpsed on the staircase.
She decided that one of my ancestors looked as though he condemned the entire existence of the family and that another certainly concealed a passion for pastries.
I answered. I let her make me laugh.
Not once did I ask what she felt for me.
When she yawned a second time, I stood.
“You need rest.”
“You're already giving orders.”
“I'm making a remarkably accurate observation.”
“That sounds more like the man I married.”
I accompanied her to her apartments. Her lady's maid waited inside, as propriety demanded, despite the presumed intimacy of the night.
Elizabeth turned on the threshold.
“Good night, Fitzwilliam.”
My name on her lips pierced me with an almost cruel sweetness.
I bowed over her bare hand.
“Good night, Elizabeth.”
I did not bring my lips to her skin this time. I knew I would not have the strength to stop at that single gesture.
The door closed.
I went to my own chamber, dismissed my valet, and remained standing before the fireplace.
The composure that had sustained me in Elizabeth's presence was no longer necessary.
I placed both hands on the marble mantel and lowered my head.
My name. My fortune. My protection.
The anger returned—less sharp than at Longbourn, but heavier. It turned against her, then against me, before losing any clear target.
Elizabeth had accepted the security I could offer her family. She had not denied it. Part of my pride wanted to reduce her consent to that single truth, to make my wound easier to bear.
But she had also said she feared losing me.
She had spoken of desire. Of esteem. Of a heart that was changing.
And long before this morning, she had warned me that her opinion was not fixed.
I straightened slowly.
I had not been deceived.
I had deceived myself.
I had heard her reservations as a man certain that his love, his rank, and his fortune made the outcome inevitable. I had taken every blush for tenderness, every gesture for a promise, and her consent for the confession she never voiced.
She had then lacked the courage to disabuse me. That fault existed. I would not excuse it in one night.
But no accusation would create the feeling I desired in her.
I could obtain a wife's obedience. The law, custom, and the vows spoken that very morning gave me powers she could scarcely counter.
I wanted none of that.
I wanted Elizabeth.
Her laughter offered without fear. Her wit free to contradict me. Her desire freely given. Her affection granted to the man I was, not to the master of Pemberley or the protector of Longbourn.
The word came to me with almost military clarity.
To court her.
Even if Elizabeth was neither a fortress nor a victory destined to flatter my pride.
Yet I must earn what I had believed I received.
I would show her the man behind Pemberley, and I would learn to listen before acting.
I would court her after marrying her.
And I would tell her nothing of my intentions.
A declaration would transform my every gesture into a maneuver. I wanted her to remain free to welcome them, to refuse them—and even to never love me.
This last possibility seemed almost unbearable.
I accepted it nevertheless.
A slight sound reached me from the other side of the connecting door, then silence.
I did not approach.
Elizabeth would not know what I had heard.
She would see only what I chose to do with it.