Chapter 16 The Depth of Love #3
Her impertinent remark, which habit of hers he had admitted early in their relationship was particularly enticing to him, made Darcy forget himself.
He pulled Elizabeth into his embrace. The impetuous gesture startled her.
Her body went rigid, which prompted him to pull away, but she would not allow it; she put her arms around his waist and held him tight.
“I am sorry, I…” Elizabeth’s voice was muffled by the coat her face was buried in.
“I do not want to force my attentions on you, Elizabeth. You are not comfortable with me, which is natural and just.”
“I am not uncomfortable exactly. I fear you will regard me as wanton if I…”
Darcy tightened his grip around her and pulled her as close as possible.
“My heart bleeds for what we have lost. The tender familiarity we cultivated during our short months of wedded bliss has elapsed into awkward estrangement that may take years to amend—if it is at all possible. What I can do is to alleviate your fear of being deemed wanton, a concern you would never have harboured if not for my blasted cousin’s machinations.
I have never thought you wanton, Elizabeth. Not before, not now, not ever!”
“But why have you not exerted your marital rights? You must be in want of an heir if not—”
“I have an heir, an adorable one at that, but I cannot imagine you could tolerate my person, much less forgive my offences. Hell, I cannot even forgive myself!”
“The first few weeks of our marriage were the happiest of my life,” Elizabeth interjected, interrupting his torrent of self-reproach.
Darcy’s back went rigid.
“I am sorry.”
“No!” he exclaimed vehemently. “Do not ask for forgiveness. I am content with having you and Ellie in my life. The alternative is a bleak existence.”
That night, Darcy left a tender but chaste kiss on his wife’s lips. A week later, she was no longer on edge at the gesture, and he let his hand trail down her cheek before he turned towards his chamber.
#
St James’s Palace
The evening’s event was a crush. Elizabeth surmised they had invited approximately twice the number of people that the ballroom could comfortably hold.
Mr Darcy was now Sir Fitzwilliam, and Elizabeth was Lady Darcy.
“I want to go home,” she declared.
“We have stayed the required amount of time that the Prince Regent could reasonably expect.”
“While I am not opposed to returning to Darcy House, I meant away from London.”
“You want to visit Longbourn?” her dolt of a husband asked.
“I would like that, but I was thinking about Pemberley.”
“Even better,” Darcy replied, followed by a sigh of relief she felt more than heard.
The only one who opposed to the scheme of returning to Pemberley was Ellie. She was not at all inclined to leave Charlie and threw a tantrum worthy of a two-year-old that rattled the roof of the Hursts’ townhouse and awarded her the first mild reprimand from her father.
She immediately ceased her wailing when her father told her to be quiet, and she stopped demanding a baby brother (obviously, all babies were brothers) immediately.
The Darcys were crimson by the time their daughter had finished her fit of temper.
It added to their embarrassment that not only Mr and Mrs Bingley had witnessed the episode but Mr and Mrs Elliot as well.
#
Returned to Pemberley
Being back at Pemberley added another layer to rebuilding their relationship. No longer flitting about from one engagement to another, the Darcys had much time on their hands, together with few distractions.
It was not awkward per se, but their previous intimacy was gone.
They engaged with ease but not warmth. Darcy had thought Pemberley would make them more in tune, but instead, it made him conscious of the distance still lingering between them.
What the remedy might be quite escaped him.
He was not an eloquent man, nor was he adept at wooing a lady.
Not that wooing necessarily would send the right signal.
With each day that passed, the realisation of what they had lost became clear. Despairing of ever being able to atone for his mistakes, Darcy determined that desperate measures must be taken.
He had shown her every civility—even left her—to spare her the burden of his company.
He had paraded her around town to demonstrate the pride he felt in having Elizabeth for a wife.
He had made sure she had every comfort obtainable, yet he could not break the invisible barrier that had been erected between them on that blasted day in the library.
He should write her a letter; he could express himself better on paper than in person. The previous letters he had written had been well received. Not wonderfully, but well, and it had been a valuable means of changing her opinion of him. Yes, a letter would have to do.
Dearest Elizabeth,
I am half agony, half hope.
Part of me believes I do not deserve to be loved nor experience the bliss of a happy marriage, while the other part insists that you do.
There is nothing I would not sacrifice for a second chance—to act differently on the occasion that drove us apart—but I cannot.
The mistakes are carved in stone, insurmountable obstacles that have been lodged between us as we go about our daily routines as both strangers and friends.
If it takes a day or a thousand years, I shall never give up hope that one day this wall will crumble and my soul will reunite with yours.
Is this part of your hopes and dreams too? Do you yearn for the essence that once was us, Elizabeth?
Do you lie awake long into the night, wondering whether I am sleeping comfortably, or are you tossing and turning until the sun yet again forces his way over the hill?
Do you remember, Elizabeth, a time when we could hardly bear to spend a moment apart from each other?
The pull never left me. I am still drawn to you like water in the desert or a single candle glowing in the dead of night.
If you were the sea, I would like to be the wind caressing you.
If you were the wind, I wish for wings to glide on the breeze.
Still ardently in love and eternally yours,
FD
Darcy folded the letter and hastily pushed it under Elizabeth’s door before he changed his mind. He could hear it gliding across the floor until it hit an uneven board with a muffled tap.
It was done. He ambled back to his chamber, but sleep eluded him. His thoughts wandered while he undressed. The first letter he had written to her had been jotted down in anger, the next in anguish, while his last had been penned in melancholy. He could not decide which was the worst.
Darcy groaned and rubbed his hand over his face. What would Elizabeth think when she found such a maudlin letter lying on the floor? Or, heaven forfend, a prying maid should happen upon it. He had not sealed it; the wax was in his study, and he had not bothered to fetch it.
Darcy crossed the floor to his bed and let himself sink into the downy mattress. The boards creaked as they were wont to do when the chill of the night made the wood contract. The sounds of the house were soothingly familiar; his eyes grew heavy and closed of their own volition.
He drifted into a state between wakefulness and sleep. Like he was falling but could not be bothered to flail. Then an unfamiliar wetness touched his cheek, and a shadow wrapped around him like a comfortable cover.
“We are two wretched beings, are we not, Mr Darcy?”
He opened his eyes and discovered an apparition of loveliness.
Her hair curtained her cheeks and cast long shadows across her countenance.
The striking dark eyes that had enchanted him shimmered in the obscure light from the single candle on his bedside table, arresting his thoughts and compelling him into action.
He reached for her hand and pulled her to him.
She did not resist but fell eagerly onto him and blanketed him with her body.
He clutched her to his person with only a light linen cloth between them.
Elizabeth was in his arms, wetting his chest with her tears.
It was cleansing; his own cheeks were equally moist. It would never be the same, they could not retrieve what had been irrevocably lost, but peace and contentment were attainable.