Chapter 8
DARCY
All night, the door remained closed.
I had not truly believed she would open it. Yet I had woken several times at the slightest sound, torn between wanting to see her appear and relief that she would not act out of fear or duty.
I came down to breakfast at eight o'clock. Elizabeth was already there, dressed in a cream-colored gown, her hair arranged with less severity than the day before. She was reading a letter but folded it as soon as I entered.
We looked at each other with the awkward awareness of having slept apart on our wedding night.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Good morning.”
I took my seat across from her. The staff had laid out enough food for six people. I poured tea to occupy my hands.
“Did you sleep well?” I asked.
“Well enough.”
Faint shadows ringed her eyes. I probably looked the same.
“And you?”
“Very little.”
Her hand paused above the sugar bowl.
“Because of the door?”
“Because of my thoughts.”
“That answer hides several others.”
“Not all of them are worthy of sharing yet.”
She studied me, but I gave her no coldness to fight against. I took a piece of bread, passed her the jam she was reaching for, and waited.
“I feared you might think you had been rejected,” she said at last.
“You refused me nothing I asked.”
“You could have asked.”
“You did not yet know what answer to give.”
A faint blush rose to her cheeks.
“So you understood that.”
“I understood that your peace of mind mattered more than a night that conformed to the world's expectations.”
She nodded slowly. The tea cooled between us, its scent filling the silence where my words should have been.
The silence that followed was neither a weapon nor a punishment. It was an empty room where something could enter at its own pace.
“We will leave for Pemberley in an hour,” I said. “The journey will take several days. I have arranged comfortable stops along the way, but we can change them if you wish to see your aunt and uncle in London or stay here longer.”
“You had planned to leave immediately.”
“I had not anticipated that we would need time before we even arrived.”
“I wish to see Pemberley.”
I searched her face for any eagerness that concerned the estate itself. I immediately hated my suspicion.
“Then we shall depart.”
Before leaving Darcy House, I gave her a small key tied to a dark blue ribbon.
She examined it.
“What does it open?”
“A writing desk in your apartments at Pemberley. There you will find copies of the marriage contract, the provisions for your jointure and the annual sum set aside for your personal use, as well as the names and addresses of the men responsible for administering them.”
Her brows drew together.
“Why give me all this today?”
“Because you must know what belongs to you and whom to contact without going through me.”
“You fear I might believe I must please you to get money?”
The question wounded me for what it revealed about her understanding of marriage.
“Above all, I want you never to have to flatter me to receive what the agreements guarantee you.”
She closed her fingers around the key. The metal warmed against her palm before she let it go.
“My uncle Gardiner read the contract.”
“He defended your interests with great care. My solicitor sent him a copy. The desk contains another, annotated in plainer language.”
An almost amused gleam flickered in her eyes.
“You had a contract translated for me?”
“I doubt that conjugal happiness depends on a wife's ability to decipher legal jargon she has not mastered.”
“That is the most sensible remark you have made since we met.”
“I feared my marriage might harm my reputation.”
Her smile appeared, cautious but real.
She slipped the key into her pocket.
I followed the movement of her hand and understood, with an unwelcome clarity, what I had just done.
I had just given her the means to do without me.
The man I had been at Hunsford would have called this foolishness. He would have kept the contract, the money, and the keys in a drawer only he knew existed, and he would have waited for her to come asking. That man believed a woman is won by withholding from her everything that is not oneself.
He had obtained a wife who did not love him.
I descended the stairs behind her, setting my conditions.
I would not enter her chamber. I would seek no tenderness she had not offered first. I would never ask her the question whose answer would destroy me.
So much for what was forbidden.
There remained what was permitted…
I could learn what she loved, open Pemberley to her without presuming to dictate how she used it, offer her the chance to know Georgiana, the tenants, the horses, my father's library, and the estate school. I could show her the man I was and leave the rest to her.
I could make waiting a discipline.
I had administered Pemberley for many years. I had drained lands that three men had declared lost, rebuilt a mill, won an eleven-year lawsuit against a neighbor. I had never failed in an enterprise to which I had applied method and time.
I resolved to apply to myself the only discipline I knew.
It was absurd.
Above all, it was the only thing that would keep me from forcing her door that very evening.
I climbed into the carriage with the serenity of a man who has just solved a problem.
The journey toward Derbyshire altered our relationship by degrees so minute that I noticed them only afterward.
The first day, we spoke almost exclusively of our families.
Elizabeth asked me about my parents, about Georgiana's childhood, about the management of Pemberley.
I answered with unusual frankness. I told her of my mother's death, my father's long illness, the weight of the estate received too soon.
She listened without seeking a joke to lighten what needed none.
At a halt, I saw that she was shivering in the inn yard. I removed my coat and placed it on her shoulders.
“I have a shawl in my baggage,” she protested.
“Your baggage is strapped to the back of the carriage.”
“And your coat was on you.”
“Making it easier to reach.”
She protested again, but drew the collar close against her throat.
The second day, she fell asleep in the carriage.
Her head slid against the wall with each jolt. After several minutes, I changed places and offered her my shoulder without waking her. She nestled against me with a sigh.
I did not move for nearly two hours.
The warmth of her body passed through our clothes. A curl brushed my jaw. Her hand rested on her skirt, a few inches from mine. I could have taken it. I did not.
When she woke, she understood our position at once. She straightened, her cheeks pink.
“You should have woken me.”
“Why?”
“Your arm must be numb.”
“Somewhat.”
“And you said nothing?”
“You were sleeping. And I would not have moved for the world.”
She looked at me in a way that made the two hours of discomfort perfectly worthwhile.
That evening, at the inn, our rooms were adjacent. I asked the servant to check the lock on hers before retiring. Elizabeth watched me from the corridor.
“Do you fear someone will enter?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
I could not tell her that I wished to erase the fear I had glimpsed in her eyes the night before. I answered more simply.
“Because you will sleep better knowing the door is secure.”
She understood nonetheless.
“Good night, Fitzwilliam.”
“Good night.”
I bowed over her hand. She no longer wore gloves.
My lips touched her bare skin. Since Hunsford, I had been granted nothing like this.
I felt her pulse quicken.
I should have been satisfied with that contact. My desire made my restraint more fragile. I gently turned her hand and pressed my lips to the center of her palm.
Elizabeth drew in her breath.
Her scent, her skin, the slight tremor of her fingers around mine—it all sent an almost unbearable heat coursing through me. I raised my eyes without lifting my lips.
She was watching me.
I saw desire in her dilated pupils.
Not love.
This time, I didn't confuse the two.
I released her hand.
“Sleep well.”
I made it to my room before giving in to the urge to ask her for more.
On the third day, she chose to sit beside me rather than across from me.
Our shoulders touched with every movement of the carriage.
I didn't comment on her choice.
I only noted, with satisfaction, that it had taken her just three days.
Three days to come sit on my side.
I had the rest of my life to make her mine.