Eleven #2
Long after Richard left, Darcy remained seated, staring at the papers on his desk without seeing.
He read his aunt’s letter again, and the words blurred, rearranged themselves, and dissolved into nothing.
His mind refused to focus. The study felt too small, the silence too loud.
He rose, crossed to the connecting doors that led into the library, and pushed them open.
She was there.
Elizabeth stood on the lowest rung of the rolling ladder, one hand braced on a higher shelf, reaching for a volume just beyond her fingertips.
The sunlight caught the line of her neck, the delicate shadow beneath her jaw, the way her body stretched upward.
Her fine but sensible new gown pulled taut across her back and hips as she strained.
Darcy’s breath stalled.
He should announce himself. He should retreat. Instead, he moved forward without conscious decision, his footsteps silent on the thick carpet.
She did not hear him until he was directly behind her.
He stopped mere inches away. Close enough that the heat of her body brushed against the front of his coat.
He could feel the faint warmth radiating from her shoulders, the subtle shift of her spine as she breathed, the soft curve where her waist met her hips.
His own body reacted with humiliating swiftness—a heavy, insistent ache that tightened low in his belly and spread downward.
For one suspended moment, he simply stood there, bracketing her without touching. His chest hovered just behind her shoulders. His thighs aligned with the backs of hers. The space between them was so narrow he could have closed it with a single shallow breath.
He lifted his arm slowly, reaching past her for the book.
His forearm brushed the air beside her ear. He felt her go very still.
“Allow me,” he murmured, his voice low and rougher than he intended.
His fingers closed around the leather spine she was touching.
As he drew the volume down, his body leaned in by necessity—or perhaps not entirely by necessity.
The front of his waistcoat grazed the back of her dress.
Then his hips, just enough that the hard, unmistakable ridge of his arousal pressed lightly against the small of her back.
She did not flinch. She did not step down from the ladder. She remained exactly where she was, breathing shallow and quick.
Darcy’s pulse thundered in his ears.
His hand stayed on the book. So did hers. Their fingers overlapped on the worn leather, skin against skin for the first time since that night in his chamber. Her knuckles were warm beneath his. He shifted his thumb, just once, a slow stroke across the delicate bone.
Three heartbeats passed in perfect, airless silence.
He could feel every inch of her—the faint tremor running through her frame, the way her breathing had grown shallow.
He was painfully hard now, his arousal pressing against her with undeniable insistence.
The fabric of her dress was thin enough that she had to feel him.
She had to know exactly what she was doing to him.
And still she did not move away.
Darcy’s free hand tightened at his side, nails biting into his palm.
The urge to close the last inch, to let his chest settle fully against her back, to press his mouth to the warm skin just beneath her ear, was so fierce it bordered on pain.
He could almost taste her—lavender soap, warm woman, and something indefinably Elizabeth.
He lowered his head until his lips hovered beside the shell of her ear.
“Miss Bennet...”
The words were barely more than breath, and he heard her sharp inhale.
A small, bright voice shattered the moment.
“Miss Bennet! I need my book!”
Anne burst through the doors and skidded to a halt at the sight of them on the ladder.
Darcy jerked back as though burned. The book slipped from both their hands and thudded onto the carpet. Elizabeth stepped down quickly, her cheeks flushed, her eyes wide. Her fingers trembled as she smoothed her skirts.
“Anne,” Darcy managed, his voice hoarse. He cleared his throat and tried again. “A lady never runs like a street urchin, sweetheart.”
“I need it, Papa!” Anne exclaimed, oblivious. She looked between them with curiosity. “Why were you both reaching for the same book?”
Elizabeth recovered first, though her voice was not quite steady. “We were... choosing the right one, Miss Darcy.”
Darcy bent to retrieve the fallen volume, his hand shaking. When he straightened, he saw that hers was shaking as well. Her colour was blazing—crimson across both cheekbones—and her breathing was ragged.
Their eyes met for one brief, charged second.
“Here it is, Miss Darcy,” she said, taking the book from his hand. Her voice was astonishingly warm, giving nothing away. “Shall we read it together upstairs?”
“Yes, please. Alice cannot do the voices properly.”
She took the child’s hand and led her out without looking back.
Darcy stood alone in the library, his body throbbing with unspent need. His chest felt too tight. The scent of lavender still lingered in the air where she had stood.
He pressed his forehead against the cool wood of the ladder and exhaled a long, shaky breath.
God help him.
He was never going to survive this.
He went to his study still trembling, and stayed rooted there until darkness fell. He lit no candles. He poured brandy and carried the glass to the chair by the cold hearth without drinking. He merely turned the glass in his hand, lost in sensation, in memory.
Every detail came back, vivid and merciless.
The warmth of her back against his waistcoat. The catch of her breathing. The moment his arousal had pressed against her and she had—
She had stayed. That was the fact he could not reconcile.
She had felt him and she had remained exactly where she was.
She had not retreated, had not swooned. She had not slapped him, which he would have richly deserved.
Her fingers had tightened on the book, pressing his hand closer.
Her breathing had gone shallow and quick, and she had stayed.
She was equally affected. He was certain of it. Her pulse had raced beneath his thumb. Her cheeks were flushed when she turned. Her hand had been shaking as she led Anne from the room.
And this was precisely the problem.
Because Elizabeth Bennet could not afford to be equally affected.
She was his employee. She depended on him for her wages, her room, her family’s survival.
He was the roof over her head and the name on the banknote.
If she believed—even for a moment—that her position in this household was contingent on tolerating his advances, on enduring his proximity, on standing still while he pressed his body against hers in a library—
The brandy sloshed in the glass, his hand tightening.
What if she panicked? What if she went upstairs tonight and packed her carpet bag to vanish before morning?
He had witnessed her withdrawal before. He had watched her excuse herself from dinners, retreat from drawing rooms, fold herself into the smallest possible space when the distance between governess and family became too sharp.
She knew how to disappear without making a sound.
And Anne. God, Anne. The child who had bonded with Elizabeth so completely that separation would leave a wound he could not mend. He had seen it before—three governesses, three departures, three mornings of bewildered grief from a girl who could not understand why the people she loved kept leaving.
He had to apologise. He had to find her alone and say—what? I apologise for pressing myself against you in the library. It will never happen again. You are safe in this household. Your position is secure. I give you my word.
He rehearsed it. He moved the words around, tested them, discarded them, tried again. Every version sounded either insufficient or grotesque. I apologise for my conduct was too formal. I lost control was too honest. It meant nothing was a lie so vast it could not fit in his mouth.
He would tell her it would never happen again.
He would promise that he would keep his distance, his hands, his treacherous body to himself.
That she need not fear working under his roof.
That Anne’s education and Anne’s happiness were paramount, and he would do nothing—nothing—to jeopardise either.
Time passed. The sacred ritual of Anne's bedtime came.
Tonight, the story was about a queen who rode a dragon across the sea to rescue a stolen horse.
Anne had dictated the plot. The queen bore a suspicious resemblance to herself and the horse was called Muffin.
The dragon had no name because dragons deserved no names.
“The queen was very brave,” he said.
“She was not brave, Papa. She was angry. The horse was hers and they took it. That is not brave; that is furious.”
“A fair distinction.”
“I would be furious too.”
“I have no doubt.”
She approved of the ending, which involved the queen setting fire to the thieves’ castle and riding home on Muffin. Then prayers—brief, efficient, addressed to the Almighty with the familiarity of a regular correspondent.
Anne reached up with both hands, her palms finding his jaw. She studied his face with the enormous blue eyes that belonged to a man she would never know, and Darcy loved her so fiercely in that moment that his ribs ached with it.
“Goodnight, Papa.”
“Goodnight, sweetheart.”
She released him and turned onto her side, her breathing slowing within minutes.
Darcy stayed longer than usual. He adjusted the blanket, smoothed a curl from her forehead, and stood by the bed in the quiet, watching her breathe. The nursery was warm, the lamp turned low, and the world beyond this room was full of complications he was not ready to face.
By the time the dinner bell sounded, he was certain he had some semblance of dignity. He moved to the dining room to find that it was set for two. Elizabeth entered and took the seat at his left, her hands folded in her lap, her face composed.
She was wearing the evening gown, one of Georgiana’s commissions. Cream silk, fitted at the bodice, the neckline modest but low enough to reveal the hollow at the base of her throat. The candlelight caught the shadow there, and Darcy reached for his wine before the soup arrived.
Barton poured and a footman served. The ritual of dinner proceeded with its usual mechanical precision, and the tension between the two people at the table could have been cut with the fish knife.
He drank a lot and ate nothing. The soup cooled before him while he emptied his first glass and the butler refilled it without comment. His colour was high—he could feel the flush spreading from his collar to his jaw—and his expression, he suspected, was dour.
“The weather has been remarkably fine this week.” Elizabeth’s voice was light, careful, an offering extended across the chasm. “Anne and I walked in the garden this afternoon. The wisteria is beginning to bloom.”
“Yes.”
She glanced at him and tried again.
“I have been reading her the fables of La Fontaine. Her French is improving considerably. She translated eight words yesterday without assistance.”
“Good.”
She paused again, for a bit longer this time. The footman cleared the soup and laid the second course. Darcy picked up his fork, set it down, and reached for the wine instead.
“Mr Darcy, are you quite well? You seem—”
“I am well, Miss Bennet. Thank you.”
The syllables landed on the tablecloth like stones. Elizabeth’s mouth closed, and she returned her attention to her plate.
She did not try again.
The meal continued in silence. Barton stood at the sideboard, his face a masterwork of professional blankness. The footman served and cleared. The candles burned. Darcy drank his way through a third glass and tasted nothing.
Finally, Elizabeth set her napkin on the table.
“If you will excuse me, Mr Darcy. I find I am rather tired this evening.”
She rose, pushing her chair back with a composure so perfect it was armour. Her eyes met his for a fraction of a second—searching, uncertain—and then she was gone. Her footsteps crossed the hall, light and even, and faded up the staircase.
The dining room was silent.
Barton cleared his throat. “Will there be anything else, sir?”
“No. Thank you, Barton.”
Darcy walked to his study and closed the door firmly behind him. He sank into the chair, pressed his face into his hands, and exhaled.
“You imbecile.”
The study offered no contradiction.