Chapter Eleven
I married her three weeks later.
I did not tell anyone. I did not even finish those letters to my family members. There was an announcement in the local papers near Meryton, but nothing in London, and I would have married her sooner, but I had to wait for the banns to be read.
She could not walk up the aisle, so she was carried up by her father and by Bingley, and then she sat down to say her vows, and I stood and looked down at her, and it was over rather quickly.
The wedding breakfast took place at her parents’ home, and I had us in a carriage by the mid-afternoon, and I took her straight to my house in London.
I left her in her room, saying we’d have supper brought up separately.
After all, we had surprised the servants, who had no notion I was coming home, and who were shocked when I introduced her as my bride, my bride who could not put much weight on her ankle and who would need extra care and attention, who I had simply brought here unannounced.
I would not have told them to whip up a formal dinner.
It would have been insult to injury. “I shall see you in the morning,” I said, gazing at her, “Mrs. Darcy.”
Because I had said to her that we would wait on anything of that nature, anything carnal, and I was a man of my word.
“The morning?” she responded. “Oh, come now, Mr. Darcy, you have your improper wife, and there is only one reason for a scandalously short engagement, and you did say you wanted me.”
My mouth was dry. I sputtered, there in her doorway, looking at her.
“So, why the morning?”
“You—I had told you—I would not wish to trespass against—” I sucked in a sharp breath, toying with my cravat.
“Is this not the entire reason you have married me?”
“No,” I said.
She laughed at me. There was a bitterness to it, and I heard it, but I did not know quite what to make of it.
“We shall wait,” I said.
“We shall not,” she said. “You will come back and consummate this marriage. I shall not have you getting out of it. If you have had me, I shall be your obligation. Is that not right?”
“I am not going to abandon you, Mrs. Darcy,” I said.
“You wish to come back, though.” Her bright eyes sparkled. “You want me.”
God help me.
I went back.
I had her.