Chapter 14 Elizabeth
Elizabeth
As she had expected, Mr Darcy did not bring a quilt the next morning. But that was perfect, because she had brought a sheet.
His face, when he arrived at their meeting spot a few minutes after she reached it, was marred slightly by faint circles under his eyes. She reached her hands out to him, cupping his cheeks briefly, and said, “You look tired.”
He smiled, and his smile reached his eyes, dimpled his cheeks, and proved that everything essential was as it should be. He shook his head a bit and said, “Many dreams last night.”
“Oh?”
He blushed but did not look away. “I wish I were as priggish as people say. I…am embarrassed at how…well, how much of a rake I must be.”
She laughed, although she moderated the volume of her laugh, and she replied, “I am not positive you qualify as a rake if all of your dreams and schemes are about one woman, the woman you will marry. And…if you still do deserve the term rake, I will be very pleased, because you will be my rake.”
He gave a chuckle of his own. Then he asked, “And did you dream of me?”
She nodded, determined not to be embarrassed by the particulars of her dreams. “I suppose I am quite wanton, but only with you.”
“Perfect. I will be your rake; you will be my wanton woman. And hopefully we will figure out how to actually deserve those epithets, together.”
“We will. You have assured me that you have a very active imagination, and I am positive that there are more books than you and I have ever seen.”
“Shall we?” Mr Darcy asked, waving to the trail.
They walked up together. Mr Darcy helped Elizabeth spread the sheet she had brought. They ate hard cooked eggs topped with salt Elizabeth had twisted into a small piece of paper. They shared brioche and blackberry jam, strawberries, and a rout cake. They sipped lemonade and ginger-beer.
“Our picnics are becoming more and more extensive; have you noticed?”
“Indeed they have,” Mr Darcy replied. He was calmly repacking his saddlebag and her basket. She hurried to help him and then reached out both hands to him when they were finished.
“Your father will be looking for signs of—”
“My father will be hiding in his library. He has, I am positive, learnt his lesson about poking his nose out yesterday, and accidentally seeing something he felt he should, as my father, address. He will avoid me much more assiduously today, because he will not wish to have to do or say anything. My father likes his creature comforts, sir. He dislikes having to stir himself to be a good master, or husband, or father.”
Elizabeth heard the bitterness in her own voice, and she looked up at her beloved to see if he had detected it as well. He obviously did; he laid down next to her and held her tenderly, murmuring, “I am sorry. You deserve better.”
“Well, I have found better,” she said, a bit muffled, into his waistcoat.
“Darling Elizabeth, wonderful Lizzy, I should truly wish not to resort to an elopement. If he does not respond to losing his three eldest daughters to Netherfield every afternoon, we should enlist your mother’s help, as you suggested yesterday, and then your uncles’ help, as you said to your father. ”
“I quite agree, Mr Darcy. But you would elope with me if it was the only way, would you not?”
“Of course. I, too, do not wish to wait three years. I already feel I have waited for you long enough.”
“I am only eighteen years old, and I have not even known you for three full months, and I have only wanted…what I have learnt to want…for just a few weeks. But I cannot imagine waiting three years!”
“I am certain my bedchamber would ignite before even one additional year had passed.”
She gladly allowed a peal of laughter to burst forth without a care for how loud she might be or who might hear her.
For one thing, the songbirds were in full throat, and for another, the two of them were high enough that the wind snatched at their voices and laughter and, if the fluttering of her bonnet ribbons was any indication, carried them upwards.
Only the birds could hear his dry jest and her delighted response.
Instead of kissing her mouth, as Mr Darcy had every other day since they had made the joint discovery of how wonderful kissing could be, he gave her little chaste kisses everywhere else.
On her cheekbones and her forehead, her nose and her chin, and then—oh, how lovely these new kisses felt—on her neck, behind her ear, across her collarbones.
“I feel…. What is it I am feeling?” she asked. The stirrings she had felt other days had sharpened to what seemed to be an ache located lower than her abdomen.
“Desire,” he whispered. He kissed up the other side of her neck, spent some time behind her other ear, then placed the tip of his tongue inside her ear—Elizabeth gasped at that—and then Mr Darcy began to use his tongue to slowly lick many of the places he had kissed, and she moaned.
Even though his hands and his lips and his tongue had gone nowhere that was covered with clothing, body parts that remained untouched and firmly clothed were tingling, as if ready for action.
And…Elizabeth realised that her “rake” had been quite correct in his assertion that he had plenty of imagination.
She could little believe that her practically perfect suitor was even more perfect… but he gave her no choice but to do so.
At the bottom of the hill, Elizabeth rubbed Gulltoppr’s velvety muzzle, petted his white neck, and combed her fingers through his blond mane. “You are so beautiful, Gulltoppr,” she murmured.
“You are so beautiful, Elizabeth,” Mr Darcy said.
She looked up at him. “You called me Lizzy earlier today.”
His cheeks became faintly pink. “How do you feel about that?”
“I liked it, but I like hearing you call me Elizabeth, too.”
“I intend to call you Elizabeth almost entirely,” he said, “since that suits you. But I hope I can call you Lizzy on special occasions.”
“Yes, please. And what should I call you, sir?”
“Anything other than Fitz. My worst enemy used to call me that, even after I asked him two hundred and ninety-five times not to.”
“You surely did not count the times you asked him not to call you Fitz.”
“You are correct; I did not. I was using specificity to bring humour to the grim topic of my enemy.”
“I do not think I have ever heard tell about this enemy. I cannot conceive that you even have one!”
“I will tell you, of course. I suppose it did not come up in our three million, four hundred and eight-three thousand, six hundred and twelve conversations.”
“Specificity for humour’s sake?”
“Indeed.”
“It is not that funny, dearest.”
Mr Darcy shrugged. “It is a little bit funny. You are smiling, even though you have just learnt that I have an enemy. One might even call this man my personal nemesis.”
“Returning to my original question, if I may call you anything, I would love to call you William most of the time, Will for especially tender conversations, and Fitzwilliam when I am scolding you.”
“That will do. And you will never call me Darcy, as most friends and relations do?”
“Does your sister call you that?”
Mr Darcy grinned and promptly answered, “Never. I am certain you have heard her call me William and Brother.”
“Yes, and I believe that one reason she does not call you Darcy is that she, herself, is a Darcy. And do you know what I will be, when we wed?”
She was enveloped in a crushing embrace, and Mr Darcy said with joy evident in his voice, “You will be Mrs Darcy!”
“Yes, I will. Now, put me down, if you please. I wish to return to Longbourn and then prepare to go to Netherfield.”
“My carriage will arrive at one.”
“We will be ready.”
Elizabeth never saw even so much as a whisker of her father that morning, not even during luncheon.
As she had foretold, he hid in his library even more diligently than usual.
Since the two loudest Bennets—her mother and her youngest sister—would be left behind when Mary, Jane, and Elizabeth went to Netherfield, she doubted that her father would notice that they were gone.
Mr Darcy’s carriage arrived one minute early, and the sisters eagerly climbed in.
“Oh, Lizzy, this carriage is very comfortable,” Mary said, running her hand over the velvet upholstery.
“It is,” Elizabeth agreed. “I hope Netherfield’s pianoforte is up to your standards, Mary.”
Mary giggled—and Mary never giggled—and she said, “Oh, yes, it is doubtful that it could achieve the sound that our Broadwood square pianoforte does!”
Jane said, “Georgiana said that the pianoforte at Netherfield is very fine.”
“You do know that we were jesting, do you not?” Mary squeezed Jane’s hand lightly. “We were not attempting to criticise Mr Bingley, although I would not be surprised if you are sensitive about criticisms after Father’s rudeness yesterday.”
“Why is Papa terrible to Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy?” Jane asked. Her voice was stricken.
Elizabeth made certain that the sarcasm in her voice was unmistakable. “He likely just wishes us all to be spinsters and to live with him always, to have no husbands or homes or children of our own.”
Mary said, “I am just afraid that our father is lazy enough that, even if he wishes to marry us off for the sake of saving money and to make his precious library even quieter, he will never lift a finger to help us find eligible suitors.”
Sighing, Elizabeth asked, “Do you not see that the laziest thing Papa could do in regards to Mr Darcy and me is to simply give us permission to get married? He is not being lazy; he stands against us, and I wish he had not chosen this specific issue on which to take the harder road.”