Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
COLONEL FITZWILLIAM WILLED himself to get up from the table and walk out of the room right at this instant. Except he did not actually move.
Elizabeth was still talking. “We’re only having a conversation, that is all. We are not doing anything. It’s quite innocent, and it doesn’t mean anything. So, don’t worry.”
“I am not worried,” he said. “I am, in fact, going to bed.”
“I know you are. So am I,” she said.
He finished the rest of the wine in his glass. “I can’t do that to him, you must realize. It’s wrong on every level. It’s against God and nature, but it’s also a trespass against our friendship and our bond as cousins. I have known him since we were boys, and I would never betray him in such a fashion. It’s wrong , Elizabeth.”
She nodded, sipping at her wine, nodding ferociously. “Oh, yes, agreed on all counts,” she whispered.
He ran a finger around the rim of his now-empty glass. “On the other hand, you know what else is wrong? That you cannot have children, when you so dearly want them, and when being denied them has hurt you deeply for so long. And if I did this, if I did trespass against him in this way, I could give him… he must want… you both must want…”
“We do,” she said, very softly.
“It wouldn’t have to be, erm, romantic,” he said. “We could do it sort of businesslike. We could keep on most of our clothes. No kissing. Just…”
“I suppose,” she said with a nod. “But would you be all right afterwards?”
“Me?” He touched his chest. “What would it do to me?”
“When I spoke to my husband, I did not mention my attachment to you, Richard, because I think your attachment is stronger than mine.”
“Oh, please, you did not mention your attachment, because you would never tell your husband you had thoughts like that about another man!”
She made a face.
“Do not deny that, Elizabeth, do not—”
“Do not dodge what I am saying,” she interrupted. “You have never married, Richard. You come here often. When you are here, you and I, we…”
“Do nothing at all!”
“But after this, Richard, will it not be harder and more painful for you?”
He scoffed. “Oh, Elizabeth, come now. It’s not as if I am in love with you.”
She surveyed him. “No?”
“Of course not,” he said with a little laugh. “It’s not like that.”
“Are you certain? Because I would not create pain for you. I would not dangle this in front of you—”
“There’s nothing to dangle.”
“If it happened, you could be involved, of course, but the child would never know. The child would think of you as a cousin, nothing more, and—”
“Oh, obviously!” He nodded firmly. “No one would know. If we do this, you won’t tell Will.”
Her eyes widened. “I have to tell him!”
“You most certainly do not. You have just agreed he will be angry.”
“Well…” She chewed on her lower lip. “We tell each other everything.”
“You will not tell him this.”
“Then he’ll think he’s somehow gotten me with child?”
“Yes. That’s better, isn’t it?”
She considered for long, long moments and then nodded. “Yes, I suppose it is. Better. All right.”
“We shall do this,” he said. “It will be straightforward and just about getting the job done, yes, just about, erm, breeding you.”
“God, Richard.” She flushed, giving him a little smile.
He wished he’d said a different word. His hard prick had liked that word a bit too much, he thought. “Just about depositing seed is all,” he amended. “And then, we shall never, ever speak of it again. And we shall tell no one of it, no one at all. We shall take this secret to our graves. Are we agreed?”
She hesitated, but then she nodded. “Yes, all right. Agreed. I shall tell no one.”
“Right.” He ran a hand through his hair and then got up from the table.
“Should we… go to a bedchamber, yours or mine?”
“No,” he said. “Too risky. My valet will be asleep in the chair by the fire, waiting for my return. There could be other servants who might see us. We could pay them off, but you can never trust servants to be silent, not in the end. Best to do it here. Lock the door over there.” He nodded at it.
“Yes,” she said, going over to lock the door.
He clawed at his cravat. His prick was still hard. It was pulsing at him. His heart was beating very fast. He looked around the room and then decided it would be best on a couch. He thought through the various ways it could be accomplished. He pictured bending her over the couch. He pictured her straddling him. He shook himself. “Come and sit,” he said to her.
“Oh, there?” she said.
He nodded. “Here.”
She came over and sat down on the couch.
He ran a hand through his hair again. His heart was beating very fast, and his stomach was in knots. And he was still so very, very aroused.
Breeding her.
Oh, damnation, he did not wish to think that.
He knelt down in front of her.
“Like this?” she said. “Do you wish me to lift my skirts?”
“Well, I don’t need to… look at you,” he said, walking on his knees, closer to her.
She parted her thighs, allowing him between them.
“Good, yes,” he whispered. “Very good. What I’ll do is just…” He gathered up her skirts, but he didn’t look down. He looked at her face. “Just… are you wearing any drawers or anything?”
She shook her head. “No. Not at home. I never do at home.”
“Lots of women don’t wear them at all,” he said.
“I know,” she said.
He pressed in close, and then he draped her skirts down and around, and he couldn’t see her body. He worked at the falls of his trousers quickly. His hard prick was free in moments. He tried—
“Let me,” she said brightly, reaching down, between them.
“Oh, but—”
She was touching him.
His heart stopped beating. He panted. That was… God in heaven, Elizabeth had her hand on his prick. She was touching him there. He didn’t know how to feel in this moment. He liked it, her hand on him there, but he knew he should not like it. It wasn’t meant to be about pleasure.
Just breeding, said a dark and knowing voice in his head.
His cock jerked.
Just going to led a helping hand, er, prick, and stud your cousin’s wife for him, hmm? Doing Darcy a right favor by sticking your hard cock right into her wet, little cunny, and—
Oh, damnation, he could not think thoughts like that!
Elizabeth was pushing her skirts out of the way, revealing her mound to him, the dark curls that gathered there almost demurely, and he could not stop looking at her. She giggled, turning red as she transferred wetness from her mouth to between her thighs. “Just to ease your entry, is all,” she breathed. “All right?”
He couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t move or think or even really draw in any air.
She still had hold of him, and she guided his prick right to her opening and then pushed the tip of him right in.
Oh.
She was wet and warm and good .
He stifled the groan of pleasure he wanted to make as he slid all the way to his hilt.
She, however, made noise, a little fluttery, feminine noise.
He looked down at her.
She looked up at him, reddened mouth open, eyes wide.
He looked away immediately. No, no, no. It was to be businesslike. He fixed his gaze elsewhere, at a point on the wall, and told himself to do this as quickly as possible.
He rocked into her, and she felt like soft, sweet bliss, but he refused to make noise.
There was nothing romantic about this, he told himself. It was not about love.
No, indeed, spoke up the wicked voice in his head, it’s quite filthy, in fact. You’re breeding your cousin’s wife, breeding her nicely, just in and out, dragging the head of your very sensitive cock back and forth deeply in her tight little breeding hole.
If only she would stop making those noises, he thought, because her breath was hitching each time he stroked into her.
Nice and deeply, just like that. Look at you, such a bad, bad man, breeding this woman who isn’t yours.
He crested.
It came quickly and he was glad of it. He stabbed his prick all the way to the center of her and pumped her full of his seed, and, well, he couldn’t stop making noise when he did this. He made a series of awful, strangled noises like some kind of drowning animal, truly.
And then, he knew he should withdraw.
But he didn’t.
He looked at her instead.
She raised her eyebrows. “That was quick.”
“Apologies.”
“No, that’s… likely good.” She nodded. “You said you were quite drunk, so I… sometimes, when men have had a lot to drink, I understand that things… take longer.”
“I…” He pushed her skirts out of the way and started to rub her. “I didn’t think we were—”
“We’re not,” she said. She shut her eyes. “That’s nice.”
“It’s not fair for me to have a, erm, and you not to.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s necessary, though,” she said, reaching down and taking his hand, moving his finger.
“There?” he whispered, feeling the tiny jump of the pulse of the nub of her.
“There,” she whispered. “But you don’t have to.”
“I know,” he said, and then he began to gently stroke that slippery little part of her, while his prick was going soft and still buried all the way inside her.
The floor was hard under his knees, but he stayed where he was, rubbing her, listening to the little noises she made, watching her expression as she finally surrendered to her pleasure and he felt her clenching on him. She clenched so hard that she drove his soft member right out of her.
It must have gotten too sensitive for her, because she pushed his hand away with a little cry, pressing her legs together as she lay down sideways on the couch.
He got to his feet, putting his back to her, doing up the falls of his trousers. He looked at the table, at the stack of cards, at the wine glasses. “We shouldn’t have done that,” he breathed.
“We didn’t,” came her voice from behind him. “Remember? We shall never speak of this.”
“Yes,” he said. “I do remember.”
WHEN HE GOT back to his room, Richard’s valet barely woke up to help him undress, and the valet didn’t comment on the lateness or the smell of sour wine, or… or any other smells, if they were present. Richard didn’t know.
He fell asleep almost immediately, but he woke with a pounding head to a stabbing feeling of panic.
His eyes snapped open and his first thought was, Oh, damnation, I did not do that.
He rolled over in bed and tried to convince himself it was some sort of dream. It wasn’t as if he had never dreamed of bedding her, after all. He had.
But he knew it had happened.
He rolled onto his back and gazed up at the ceiling and tried to imagine going down to the breakfast parlor and behaving as if it hadn’t happened.
I can do it, he thought.
He had to do it. He couldn’t go to Darcy and tell him the truth and beg for forgiveness, after all. Darcy would never forgive him. There were things you forgave another man, after all, and this wasn’t one of them.
I tupped Darcy’s wife, he thought in a ecstasy of guilt and horror.
He checked his watch, which was lying out on the table beside the bed, hoping that he had slept late and he would be able to avoid breakfast altogether. But it was actually rather early.
He grunted, pulling the pillow over his face.
Only three quarters of an hour later, he was in the breakfast parlor. Darcy was sitting at the table when Richard came in. He was gazing at him, just staring at him.
Richard did not like the scrutiny. “Will?” he said. “Everything all right?”
Darcy laughed, a funny sort of laugh. He held Richard’s gaze. “How are you this morning? I expected you to sleep until noon. You and Lizzy were awake till all hours.”
Wait, did he know? What had she told him?
Except Elizabeth was not in the room yet.
“Lizzy’s still abed,” said Darcy.
“Is she.”
“What games did you play?” said Darcy, and his voice lilted in a funny way.
Richard’s stomach seized up. He might vomit. He fled the room in search of a chamberpot.
But when he found one, nothing came up.
Red-faced, ill, he slunk back into the breakfast parlor, but Darcy was not looking at him, now, instead in some conversation with Kitty about whether it looked as though it would rain or not.
She said she thought it would, but Darcy said the sky was clear.
Richard sat down woodenly as Elizabeth came into the room. She seemed to be floating. She looked rather radiant, if he did say so himself. She went straight for Darcy, and he smiled up at her, and then actually pulled her into his lap .
“Mr. Darcy, sir!” she gasped, giggling. “This is highly untoward. We have guests.”
He kissed her forehead. “Sometimes when I see you, my very beautiful wife, I lose my head.” He released her, putting her back on her feet.
She grinned at him.
Richard thought he might vomit for the second time, but he didn’t move. He sat there, grimly gazing at his plate until the words burst out of him. “I was looking over my papers that I had brought along with me this morning, and I realized I had planned this all out rather badly. I have an important engagement in London, four days hence. I must away today, I think.”
“You’re leaving?” said Darcy. “You really don’t have to do that.”
“No, I do,” said Richard. “I shall go directly after breakfast, in fact. On horseback. My valet may come along later, with my luggage and my carriage, but I think I must go immediately. I shall, of course, miss everyone terribly. I am ever so sorry for cutting the visit short.”
“It’s going to rain today,” said Kitty. “I don’t think it’s a good day to travel horseback, Colonel Fitzwilliam.”
“Nevertheless, I must go,” said the colonel.
“Truly?” said Elizabeth. “Will, you must talk to him, convince him to stay.”
“Oh, of course, my love,” said Darcy. “Let’s have a quick chat in my study after breakfast, Richard?”
“I won’t have the time, I’m afraid, Will,” said Richard in a choked voice.
“Ten minutes is all,” said Darcy.
“I need… to be getting ready right now, in fact,” said Richard, springing up from the table. He fled the room.
Darcy came after him, but he took one look at Richard’s valet, and said that he would prefer to speak to him in his study. Would Richard come?
Richard’s nostrils flared. “Did she tell you?”
“Who?” said Darcy, looking confused. “Tell me what?’
“No, nothing,” said the colonel. “Erm, did the maid I spoke to tell you that I must be off at once?”
“What maid?” said Darcy, looking more confused. “You promised Elizabeth a month-long visit, you know, and she misses you when you’re gone, and I do, too, of course. You haven’t even been here a fortnight. You can’t go yet, Richard.”
Richard thought about weeks more of this, of seeing Elizabeth, of thinking about Elizabeth, of wondering if she had told her husband, of feeling this kind of horrid shame and anguish over his drunken decisions.
No, he could not do it.
“I’m ever so sorry,” he said to his cousin. “The fact of the matter is, I have an engagement in London, and I must leave.”