This Mad and Sinful Thing

Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

ELIZABETH WAS SITTING next to her husband, who was soaking in the bath. He had just dismissed all of the servants, and he was grinning at her from the water like a man who had just been given his heart’s desire.

He beckoned. “Lizzy, my lovely, would you put your foot in the bath here and spread your pretty thighs so that I can have a look at you?”

She could not help but smile at him. “What if I refuse?”

“You’d like me to beg?” His grin was infectious.

She grinned too wide.

“Oh, my perfect wife,” he breathed, his voice low and affected, “I have been away for ever so long, and I have missed you, how I have missed you.”

“You mean you’ve missed what’s between my thighs,” she said impishly.

“I have missed every square inch of you, but you know how partial I am to your pretty cunny. Didn’t you miss being looked at, wife?”

She lifted her foot, removed her slipper and stocking and then settled her bare foot into the bath.

He hissed his approval. “Now, lift those skirts, Lizzy. Show me, please.”

She moved her skirts out of the way. “This is what you wished to see, husband?”

“Aye,” he said, sighing in appreciation. “Nothing as lovely as that, Lizzy. I thought of you every night when I slept alone, thought of how good it would be to be back with you, to have you in my arms again.” He reached out to brush his fingers over her inner thigh and then closer and closer to the juncture between her legs. “I wish to tell you what happened with Richard.”

“Oh,” she said, surprised, because she hadn’t thought they’d be discussing this while he was putting his hands on her.

“I should have made you come along,” he murmured. “Of course, we likely all would have gone at each other, and that would have been a disaster. We must keep it from the servants at all costs.”

“It’s going to happen, isn’t it?”

He stroked her sensitive flesh. “Oh, yes, Lizzy, it is quite going to happen.”

Elizabeth was excited about it, but she also felt strange about it. Her husband had strange appetites when it came to these matters, and she had long known that, but she had never thought it was possible he would wish to share her with another man.

She was still trying to come to terms with it.

When she had left Richard that night, now six weeks ago, she had hurried up to her own bedchamber, feeling abashed and strange and having a bit of a headache from too much wine.

She had already decided that she would never tell her husband, despite the strange conversations they sometimes had, where he talked about seeding her with some other man, where he had—in fact—said he thought Richard was the best option. She had not thought those conversations were true conversations. For one thing, they tended to excite him, and he often put his mouth on her sex after them or during them. He would sink fingers into her cunny as he licked her clitoris, telling her to imagine that she was being taken by another man while he was on his knees licking her. Except he wouldn’t say ‘taken,’ because he liked to use forbidden and vulgar words, and she liked it too.

So, he would be rocking his fingers into her, mouth on her, breathing into her body, Would you like that, Lizzy, would you like being fucked and sucked at the same time?

And she liked thinking about it, anyway, so she would say yes, and then she would climax, because it was arousing.

But…

Well, she didn’t think her husband really meant it.

Of course, they’d had other sorts of conversations along similar lines. For some time, after they were married, her thoughts would return to the two women that her husband had bedded before he married her. She would feel sick about it, really and truly physically ill, and she found she must know everything.

She would ask him what the women looked like, what they were wearing, how it all went, to walk her through every single detail of it, and this was not because she found the idea of her husband with another woman the least bit arousing.

She hated it.

She would cry sometimes.

At first, he refused to answer her questions, claiming that he had felt nothing for those women and that he never thought of them and he did not remember and she must see that they didn’t matter.

But when she would not leave it be, he finally filled in all that he could for her. Once she had no more questions to ask, it was at least somewhat better. He told her, once, offhand, that perhaps if she wished to take another man into her bed, simply to even things up, she should.

She had not enjoyed this thought at all.

She didn’t know why she was so dreadfully jealous of those women. She simply was.

And she thought that Mr. Darcy must also be jealous when he found out that she had lain with Richard. He must be.

But no.

He had not been.

She had resolved never to tell him, which she thought might be hypocritical, but she didn’t care. If her husband had lied to her, a sweet and merciful lie, telling her that she was his one and only, she would have been spared such heartache and pain. She would do for her husband what he had not done for her. She would conceal it. He would never know.

But then, that night six weeks ago, he’d been in her bedchamber.

He’d sat up and looked her over, and it was as if he’d seen the evidence of it in her expression. His lips parted, and he said, “You’ve been with Richard.”

And she couldn’t deny it.

He pulled her down against him and made short work of her clothes. He put his mouth to her cunt and spoke of the colonel’s seed there, telling her how much it stirred him.

And then they had made love in a frantic, frenzied way that had been wonderful, like a series of stars, falling brightly from the sky, singeing into their bodies. It had been very, very good.

Of course, then, he’d admitted that thing to her, that both of those women, that he’d only tupped them after Richard had.

And now, she was wondering if she’d been jealous of the wrong people all along. Perhaps she should never have been jealous of the women at all. Perhaps, she should have been jealous of Colonel Fitzwilliam.

But when it came to Richard…

It was hard to be jealous of Richard. Richard didn’t even have breasts or a cunny or anything a woman had. If it was between her and Richard… well, that was ludicrous, because she knew it wasn’t. Her husband loved her.

Maybe, though, he loved Richard, too.

Well, he obviously loved him. As a cousin. And a friend. Like the way he loved Mr. Bingley or something of that nature?

No, it was different between her husband and the colonel.

Now, as her husband began to rub his fingers, wet and wrinkled from the bath against her body, she shut her eyes and sighed to him, “He wants you, too, doesn’t he?”

“Oh, Lizzy, he let me see his prick.”

“You two did things together?” She angled her pelvis away, not letting him touch her for a moment. “Without me?”

He let out a noise, one of understanding. “Oh.”

She shook her head.

“Elizabeth Darcy,” he said in an indulgent voice, “you have already done things with this man without me .”

“Yes, but not for pleasure,” she said.

“You told me he toyed with you until you clenched round his soft cock,” said her husband. “Did he not do that? Did you not allow that?”

She sank her teeth into her lower lip.

“But all right, my love, I am sorry,” he said, reaching out and swiping his thumb against her clitoris. “I promise never to touch him or look at him unless you are present, all right? But I shall wish the same promise from you.”

“Of course,” she said. She let him stroke her. “I’m sorry, Will. I don’t mean to be jealous. I don’t seem to be able to help it.”

“It’s all right,” he said, rubbing her. “I am not free from it either. I told him, more than once, that he must not think to claim you. I wish to share you with him, you see. I can think of nothing more exciting than presenting him with your sweet, supple body and watching him work himself between your lovely, shapely thighs, but… I worry, too.”

“Worry about what?”

“Well, he’s so different than me, isn’t he?” Her husband was stroking her, and it was stirring a warmth in her pelvis. “He’s so sunny and I’m so dark and quiet. If he can give you a babe, and I can’t, why would you stay with me?”

The warmth was growing, and she surrendered to it. “Will, that’s silly. You’re the first in my heart, and you always will be.”

“You are my Lizzy,” he said. But he did not say that she was the first in his heart.

Because Richard was there first, she thought in a kind of horror. “Tell me about his prick.”

“You’ve seen his prick.”

“Sort of,” she said. “It wasn’t like that, Will. We were both ever so ashamed of ourselves.”

“It’s rather beautiful,” said her husband fondly.

She was jealous, but her pelvis was lit up and his finger there was quite nice. She didn’t care. “You touched it?”

“I sucked it,” said Darcy in a strained voice.

A tremor went through her, through her sex, through all of her, as she pictured that. She liked the thought of it, of the men pleasuring each other. “I should like to see that,” she breathed. “Could he be convinced to do it to you, do you think?”

“He did,” said Darcy with a groan.

She let out a shaky breath. “Truly?”

“But he made sure to say he wants you, Lizzy, and I wish you had been there,” said her husband, still stroking her. “I want you between us, I want your beautiful bare flesh, and I want… mostly I want to watch the two of you enjoying each other.”

The warmth built into something that was more than warmth. It was heat. It stuttered and then burst and she let out little mewling noises as she came to her peak against her husband’s finger.

Her husband wanted to give her to Richard, as a gift, to the man he was in love with. That was what it was. Her husband had always been in love with Richard, and he’d been obsessed with this man forever, and she was just a pawn, some bit of frippery to give to this man to placate him.

No, no, I won’t think this, she told herself. She shook her head firmly, as if that could clear away the thoughts.

THE ARRANGEMENTS CAME together quickly, but Elizabeth supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised, given how eager her husband was for all of it to occur.

For her part, she was eager, too. After all, she had always liked Richard.

This might be an awful thing to admit, but she found Richard more likable than her husband. Of course, she was madly and indelibly in love with Mr. Darcy, and nothing would change that, nothing at all could.

But if it came down to which man was easier to be around, which man was a better conversationalist, and which man put her at ease, well, it was Richard.

Darcy was… exciting, dark, mysterious even. He was everything to her.

Even so, she couldn’t help but think that having both of them would be very nice, even if it was only temporary. And it would be temporary. They would do this until she was with child, and then it would end.

But some part of her knew that might not be the way of it. However, she refused to listen to that part, just as she refused to feel jealous of Richard.

Colonel Fitzwilliam was in love with her.

There was no reason to be jealous, because whatever was to occur between the three of them, she could be assured that both of the men wanted her. She did not need to worry that they would somehow run off together, just the two of them, leaving her behind. That wasn’t even possible. It wasn’t as if two men could get married or be together in that manner.

She refused to feel the worry, then, but it was maddening how often the thoughts surfaced, how diligently she must argue against them.

Before long, she and her husband were setting out in a carriage for a house that her husband had arranged for them to rent, something small in the north. The house was owned by some Scottish laird, someone none of them had ever met. Of course, Mr. Darcy had rented the house under an assumed name, and they would have to address each other thus in front of the few servants in the house.

It was quite important that no one knew what they were about, and Elizabeth felt this keenly as she had to lie to Georgiana, who was staying with them at Pemberley since her husband was away on the continent. Georgiana had married a man who was quite successful in the tobacco trade, and he was often away, seeing to business matters, meeting with men who might like to invest, things of that matter. She could have stayed in her own household. Her husband had a house in town and another in Shropshire, but Georgiana lived with them much of the time, saying she preferred it to living all on her own, and Elizabeth never minded.

She doted on Georgiana’s small son Maxwell, who was three years old, blue-eyed with dark curls, a beautiful sweet-dispositioned little one. Truly, she loved Maxwell as her own. She had resigned herself to the idea that she would not have children of her own and that she could simply be a doting aunt for the rest of her days.

She wondered, as they set out for the north, if she was fixating on her strange jealousies because she did not want to really and truly consider the possibility that she could have her own child. It was too painful to hope for that again, not after the many disappointments over the years. Somehow, the prospect of jealousy seemed easier to fixate on.

The house was located near a river, a sturdy sort of dwelling that reminded her of Longbourn in its size and construction. It was not a grand estate, and it was currently kept up by only two servants, a sister and brother in their mid-forties who greeted them as they dismounted in the drive.

Elizabeth wondered about the size of the place and whether or not it would not be obvious to the servants what they were about. She felt nervous about such things. If it ever came out, what she was doing here with these two men, they would all be socially ruined and the taint of scandal would touch all of her family as well.

She had not been able to tell Jane about it, of course. And her sister Kitty, still unmarried, had been lately staying with them at Pemberley. Kitty would have stayed on and on if Elizabeth hadn’t broadly hinted that with herself and her husband traveling, it might be best if Kitty went home. She and Kitty had never had a close relationship, not of the nature where they confided secrets in each other. But they had a bit of kinship now as the only of the Bennet sisters who had no children. She was not sure what would happen if she was with child. Would that small bit of closeness dissipate?

The colonel would not arrive until the morrow, so she and her husband settled in that evening, and it was a quiet night that passed with them having a light supper—they were too tired from traveling to dress for dinner—and then reading until they both retired to their separate bedrooms.

She woke sometime in the night because her fire had gone out. It was entirely out, only darkness in the fireplace, and she wondered if this chimney in her bedchamber might not be prone to drafts. In Pemberley, well-staffed with a number of servants, she would have rung for someone, but here, she thought she must not rouse the two servants and set about building the fire herself.

She mused that she was glad that she had not been brought up in a place like Pemberley, or she should never have learned the skill. As she was doing so, she heard movement in the house, and she went to investigate. If one of the servants was already up, she could ask them if it was common for the fire in this room to go out. If so, they could think on whether it would be better to simply move her to another room.

But it was not a servant and it was not her husband.

It was the colonel himself, moving about in the sitting room downstairs.

She spied him trying to make himself comfortable on a couch there, yawning. She stood in the doorway, holding an oil lamp.

He saw her and sat up. “Elizabeth.”

“Richard,” she said in a tiny voice.

“I made good time,” he said. “I thought it would take longer to get here, but I suppose I may have ridden fast. I don’t know. I didn’t wish to wake anyone at this hour. I thought I was being quiet.”

“No, you were,” she said. “I was already awake because the fire went out in my room.”

“Oh,” he said, getting to his feet. “Do you need some assistance building it back up?”

“No, I think I have seen to it,” she said with a smile. “It is still cold there, though, so I was sitting up in a chair warming myself and waiting until there were some adequate coals to fill the bed warmer again before I got back into bed.”

“Ah,” he said. A long pause. “I’m sorry you had to see to that yourself.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “There are only two servants here, after all.”

“Yes, quite. By design. Will planned this out rather painstakingly.” He grimaced.

Well, now it was awkward, wasn’t it? She had not seen him since he rushed away the morning after they had coupled, and now, it seemed the ease between them had been quite shattered. She wished to repair it somehow, but she was not entirely sure how.

They stood there in the darkness, neither meeting each other’s gaze.

“Well,” she said finally, “will you really be all right here on this couch?”

“Oh, quite,” he said with a firm nod. “I slept last night outdoors on the ground. This is a marked improvement in terms of comfort.”

Right, he was a rugged man in many ways, wasn’t he? He’d been in the wars. He had a certain roughness to him, something that was in contrast to her husband’s civility and suaveness.

“I suppose I shall go back to my room, then,” she said.

“Oh, yes, of course.” He nodded, staring at his shoes. Then, he looked up. “Oh, wait but a moment, you did just indicate it was cold in your room? Will you be all right?”

“I am certain I shall be,” she said.

“Well, this room was quite warm when I arrived, but I did stoke up the fire myself,” he said. “If you wish to stay here until your own room warms a bit, I would not mind.”

She hesitated. But then she nodded and came further into the room. She sat down on an easy chair as he settled back down on the couch.

It was quiet again.

He bent down his head and rubbed one large hand over his neck and the back of his hair, gazing down at the carpet.

She watched this, liking the way the scant bit of light from the fire and her lamp lit up the outline of him, liked how it made the muscles in his back glow.

“I am worried about what this does to us,” he said finally, in a low, low voice. “It’s likely too late to be bringing this up, since we are already here, and it is already in motion, and you and I have already… and Will and I have already… but I am worried.”

She let out a little breath of relief, hearing this said aloud. “So am I,” she said.

He lifted his head and gazed at her. “Are you? We don’t have to, you know. It will all be strange between us considering what has already transpired, but it could stop now and go no further, as I’m sure you realize. And I would rather die than cause you pain, Elizabeth, you must know this.”

She shook her head, refusing to address that. “What gives you cause for concern?”

He leaned back against the couch, sprawling out, his legs stretching out. He groaned. “Oh, Lord, where to even start?”

“I’m worried about jealousy,” she said, and she wondered why it was so easy to say this aloud now, when she had been so adamant to try to keep the thought at bay earlier.

“No, no,” he said, still sprawled out. “Will has made all of that quite clear. You are his, and I well know this, and it would be foolish for me to be jealous of the two of you. I know you are never going to feel for me what you feel for your husband. I have observed the two of you for years now, and I see what the attachment is between you.”

“I meant that I am going to be jealous,” she said.

He sat up, as if this statement startled him. “You?”

“I already am,” she said with a sigh and she turned to stare into the fire. “But I suppose it is not a new feeling for me. I have been jealous of my husband’s history with other women since I first heard about it. But it is only recently that he told me that those women, both of those women, the only other women besides me, were your women.”

“Wait a moment,” said the colonel. “You are telling me that those women are the only women he ever tupped?”

She glanced at him, shrugged, nodded, and then went back to the fire. “He is in love with you, Richard.”

“That’s preposterous,” said the colonel. “Men don’t love each other like that.”

She scoffed. “Yes, well, we all know that isn’t true. One only need read The Illiad and see how Achilles reacted to the death of Patroclus to see that love between men of that nature is quite possible.”

He didn’t say anything.

“And there are rumors, you know, things whispered. I have heard stories about the Earl of Facswich. He is always in the company of some young man or other and his wife is always elsewhere.”

“Well, all right, perhaps, Elizabeth, but I don’t… I would never…” Except his voice sounded pained.

“Sometimes, I think men prefer other men,” she said.

“Perhaps,” he said again. “But if we are speaking of The Illiad , we cannot forget that Achilles was moved to conflict with Agamemnon over Briseis, was he not? A woman. So, I don’t think it’s quite so simple.”

“Yes, true,” she said softly, nodding, thinking that through. “Achilles loved them both, a man and a woman.”

“It was a different time,” said Richard. “Now, such things, they are considered…”

“A sin,” she said.

“We are here to do exactly that,” he said, his voice heavy. “To sin.”

She lifted her gaze to his, and he was beautiful, lit up by the firelight. Her heart skipped in its rhythm. “We are.”

“I do not wish to…” He sighed, his expression softening. “Elizabeth, you are loveliness personified. When I am with you, I cannot but be moved by your beauty and grace. Sullying you with this, with whatever this strange, tangled thing is between him and me, it worries me.”

But the thought of being sullied stirred her, or perhaps everything seemed more permissible in the darkness, or perhaps it was the magic that was Richard Fitzwilliam, because it was always so easy to talk with him, and he had a straightforward earnestness to him that warmed her. So, she only gave him a little smile, a suggestive smile. “Do not worry about sullying me,” she said, and her voice was throaty.

He coughed, shifting on the couch, and she caught sight of the outline of him in his trousers, illuminated in the light of the fire. He was aroused.

Her breath hitched.

He regarded her, his eyes half-lidded, and he rubbed one of his massive hands over his jaw. It was stubbled. He needed a shave, and the men would have to do without valets, just as she would have to do without a maid. “All right,” he said in a gravelly voice. “I shan’t worry about that, then.”

Her smile widened, and something bubbled up in her, a feeling of expansiveness, of being given permission to taste the forbidden, and it was a heady feeling. “I do love you both, you know. He is my husband, but you… you have always been…”

“Elizabeth, don’t,” he said gruffly.

She leaned forward. “And you love me. And him.”

“Elizabeth.”

“And he loves you and me as well,” she said. “I am only saying, whether it is a sin or not, it is more than just some strange, sullied, tangled thing, is it not? Or perhaps it could be? And if we make a child, together, all three of us, that will be…” She could see it suddenly, a child that belonged to all of them, a permanent tie that would cement the three of them as a unit, and she wanted that, she found, wanted it badly.

“No, Lizzy, it won’t be that way,” he said gently. “The child will be yours and his.”

She heard some hidden yearning there, and it smote her deep inside. “Oh, Richard, if you want—”

“Your room is likely warm enough by now, I should think?”

Oh, he was dismissing her. Well, then. Just when she was starting to feel better about everything, too. This arrangement, it was ever so complicated, wasn’t it? Perhaps they were right to be concerned. Perhaps they were all playing with fire out here, attempting this mad and sinful thing. Perhaps they would all be burned up.

After all, the wages of sin were death.