Twenty-Five
Darcy stood in the corridor outside the mistress’s chambers, the door the only thing separating him from his wife.
His wife.
The words still felt new, sacred, too large for his chest. Two weeks of stolen kisses, heated glances, and the memory of her on his desk had done nothing to prepare him for this night.
He had given her half an hour, thirty minutes of solitude to prepare, to breathe, to let the day settle around her.
He had used the time: he had bathed, changed into a fresh shirt and breeches, dismissed his valet with a curt thanks, and paced the length of his own chamber with no clear thought in his head beyond the passing of each minute.
He had caught his own reflection in the glass after bathing. His hair was still damp, his mouth unguarded, his eyes bright with a brightness he did not recognise until he named it: happiness. The word had struck him strangely. He had long since stopped expecting it.
He raised his hand and knocked—two measured raps that sounded far steadier than he felt.
“Come in.”
Her voice carried through the door with the weight of a summons he had been waiting for since Hunsford. Darcy turned the handle and stepped inside.
The mistress’s chambers glowed with candlelight.
A low fire murmured in the grate. Fresh flowers scented the air—roses from the garden, cut that afternoon by a maid he must remember to thank.
The great four-poster bed had been turned down, the white linens crisp, the canopy drawn back on three sides to open the space.
And there, at the window, was Elizabeth.
She turned at the sound of the door.
She was in a simple white nightgown, high-necked and long-sleeved, the fabric so fine it caught the light in a soft glow and suggested, rather than declared, the body beneath.
Her dark hair fell loose over one shoulder in the curls he had memorised from a thousand stolen glances.
Her feet were bare on the Axminster rug.
She drew a small breath and squared her shoulders.
Darcy closed the door behind him with a click that sounded, in the hushed room, very loud.
He crossed the carpet slowly, holding her gaze.
He would not rush her. He had sworn a dozen silent vows over the past two weeks that this first night would belong to her as much as to him, and the form of his own desire would not be permitted to override the pace she set.
He stopped an arm’s length away.
Close enough to see the rapid rise and fall of her chest and the faint flush climbing from her throat to her cheeks.
Close enough to catch the clean, familiar scent of her—lavender soap and a warmth beneath it, a scent he had carried in his memory since she had first passed him in a Darcy House corridor months ago, and altered the quality of his own air.
“Elizabeth.” His voice came out low and rough. “My wife.”
A small smile curved her lips. “My husband.”
The word was a vow renewed, and he felt the last steady place in his chest give way.
He reached out and lifted her hand, the one bearing his mother’s sapphire and the plain band he had placed beside them at the altar. He raised her knuckles to his mouth and pressed a kiss there.
“You are trembling,” he noted.
“So are you.”
Her fingers curled around his, and yes, his own hand was unsteady.
The restraint he had practised for months, through every midnight visit, every heated touch that had stopped short of consummation, every deliberate withdrawal, all felt paper-thin now. But this was their wedding night. She was his wife, and he would not rush her.
“I have wanted this for so long.” His voice barely rose above a whisper, and he did not trust it with greater volume. “Not just your body, though God knows I have dreamed of that too. But you. All of you. As my partner, my equal, my love.”
Her eyes filled but he did not turn away.
“Everything I have wanted the last eight years since I met you in the Meryton assembly is here, in this room. You are here.”
Elizabeth stepped closer, closing the small distance until her nightgown brushed the front of his shirt. Her head tipped back to hold his gaze.
“Then show me, Fitzwilliam. Show me how much you love me.”
He cupped her face in both hands and kissed her.
Slowly at first. Her mouth was soft beneath his, her breath shaky, her lips parting the instant his own settled against them. She tasted of the wine from the wedding breakfast and the cherry ice she had shared with Anne, and beneath both of those tastes, of Elizabeth.
She rose onto her toes to meet him. Her hands slid up his chest and found his shoulders, then the nape of his neck, then his hair. When her fingers threaded through it and tightened, a low sound escaped him.
The kiss deepened.
Their tongues met. Her mouth opened to him and she gave a helpless sound against his lips that he felt in his spine.
He drew her closer. His arm went around her waist and gathered her against him, the length of her body meeting his through the two thin layers of linen.
She felt what she was doing to him and she did not flinch. Instead, she pressed closer.
He dragged his mouth from hers to breathe.
“Elizabeth—”
“Yes.”
The word was not an answer. It was a permission.
He lowered his hands to the ties at the front of her nightgown.
The ribbon at her collarbone came loose with the faintest tug, and he worked the small bow below it with fingers not quite steady.
The fabric parted over her chest, slid from one shoulder, then the other.
He drew it down her arms slowly. It pooled at her feet in a white drift on the rug.
He stepped back to see her.
Candlelight painted her in gold and shadow. He saw her small, rounded breasts with the nipples already tight and flushed, the gentle curve of her waist, the slope of her hips, the dark triangle at the apex of her thighs.
“You are perfect,” he breathed.
Her cheeks flushed a darker rose, but she did not reach to cover herself.
Instead, she lifted her hands to the hem of his shirt and tugged it upward.
He helped her. The linen came off over his head and was dropped somewhere to the floor.
Her palms settled flat against his bare chest, and he felt the small tremor in them, and forgave himself entirely for the answering tremor in his own body.
Her fingers traced the line of his collarbone, the curve of his shoulder, and the dark hair across his chest. Then they moved downward, following that line to the waistband of his breeches, and when her knuckles brushed the hard ridge straining against the fabric, he drew a sharp breath through his teeth.
“Elizabeth.”
“Show me. All of it.”
He lifted her into his arms.
She gave a small, surprised laugh. The sound was so unexpected in its brightness that he laughed too, briefly, against her hair.
He carried her to the bed and laid her down on the cool sheets as though she were made of a material he could shatter.
He discarded the last of his clothing in two quick, unceremonious movements and joined her on the linens.
For a long time, he simply kissed her.
He kissed her mouth, her jaw, and the soft skin below her ear, the place he had watched for months and not been permitted to touch.
He kissed the hollow at the base of her throat, the line of her collarbone, and further.
He drew one peaked nipple into his mouth and heard her breath catch on a sound that was half a gasp and half his own name.
He drew slowly on the tight bud, then harder.
Her back bowed off the linen and her fingers found his hair again.
His hand travelled lower, over her ribs, over the flat of her stomach.
He caressed the inside of one thigh, and the other, his touch slow, his mouth still at her breast. When his fingers reached the warm, slick centre of her, he found her already ready for him, and the sound he made into her skin was very nearly undone.
His touch was patient. He had learned her body long ago and meant to repeat the knowledge now as her husband.
Slow circles at the sensitive peak. Then two fingers, curling, the movement he had first discovered from her shivering response and had since catalogued like a scholar. Her hips rose against his hand.
“Fitzwilliam... please... “
He moved lower.
He kissed down the line of her stomach and settled between her thighs. He lifted one of her knees over his shoulder, and the other, and let his gaze travel the length of her body, to the flushed heave of her chest, the unfocused eyes, the parted mouth.
He lowered his head and worshipped her with his mouth.
His tongue teased her with long, slow strokes and gentle suction at the swollen bud at her centre.
His fingers moved within her in the rhythm he had taught her to crave.
He loved the taste of her. She was salt and sweet, and her scent drove him mad.
Her thighs trembled at his temples, her fingers fisted in his hair and tugged, a low growl escaping him.
She found her pleasure with a broken cry, her thighs clenching around his head, her whole body shaking. He worked her through it, gentling only when the tremors eased, pressing one last soft kiss to the inside of her thigh before he pushed up.
He moved up her body slowly, his length hot and heavy against her hip. He settled over her, braced on his elbows, and found her mouth again. She tasted herself on his lips and made a small, astonished sound, and he could not decide whether to laugh or weep.
“Are you ready?” His voice was strained with the effort of holding back.
Elizabeth lifted her eyes to his, wrapped her legs around his hips, and nodded.
“Yes. Now. Please.”
He positioned himself at her entrance and pressed slowly into her, inch by careful inch.
She was tight, hot, perfect. He watched her face for any sign of pain, and when her breath hitched and her brow tightened, he paused.
He kissed her mouth, then her temple, and held there with his whole frame strung tight in the effort of stillness until the tension in her eased.
He pressed forward again, another inch, then another.
She shifted beneath him, adjusting, and he slid home.
When he was fully seated within her they both stilled.
Forehead to forehead, breath to breath. He did not move.
He could not have moved for all the world.
The heat of her, the grip of her, the small adjusting shift of her hips beneath his—he closed his eyes and breathed through it.
He felt her breath on his mouth, and knew he would never again be the man he had been one minute ago.
“Elizabeth—” His voice cracked. “God, you are everything.”
Her legs tightened around his hips and her palms flattened against his shoulder blades.
“Move,” she whispered. “I want to feel all of you.”
He did, slowly at first. Long strokes, deep and measured, letting her learn him.
Pleasure built up inside him, and he forced himself to ignore it.
Her breath came faster beneath him, her nails biting into his shoulders.
Small, helpless sounds escaped her with each thrust, and each sound undid him by fractions.
He shifted his angle, found the place inside her that drew a sharper cry from her throat, and held there, moving carefully, her whole body arching to meet him. Their rhythm deepened. Her eyes never left his, and his never left hers.
He reached between them, his thumb finding the swollen bud and pressing.
Elizabeth’s breath broke, her head falling back on the pillow.
Her body tightened beneath him, around him, and with a cry she shattered.
She clenched around his length so tightly that the stars he had watched wheel over Pemberley for five-and-thirty years all wheeled at once behind his eyes, and with a deep, guttural groan he followed her.
His hips stuttered, jerked, and he spent inside her in hot pulses that seemed to go on, and on, and on.
He collapsed over her, his weight braced carefully on his elbows, his mouth at her hair.
For a long time, neither of them spoke.
He could feel the rise and fall of her breathing slowing. He turned his face into the curls at her temple and held there, his eyes closed, for if he moved, he might weep, and he did not want to embarrass himself.
Eventually, carefully, he lay to her side, settling her against him. He pulled the linen up over both of them.
Her head found the hollow of his shoulder as though it had lived there always.
“I love you.” His mouth was against her hair. “My wife. My Elizabeth. Forever you.”
She tipped her face up and found his mouth with hers, her eyes shining.
“Forever you.”
The End