Chapter Eight
CHAPTER EIGHT
BUT REGARDLESS OF whether or not it was a bad idea, the conversation continued. Elizabeth felt increasing warmth and curiosity as they carried on discussing lines that must not be crossed.
Richard said that since both Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy were so worried about the possible dissolution of their marriage—which they both loudly protested, breaking in to say that they neither of them really thought that would happen—and Richard pressed on, doggedly determined, shredding his chicken into strips with both hands as he spoke, that what he thought was that he would not do anything to either of them without express permission from the other.
Richard glanced at her, giving her a careless and lopsidedly boyish smile, and said, “I shall ask if I may undress your wife, Will, and you will either give permission or not, you see?”
And the mood shifted, subtly, and Elizabeth began to feel as if her stays were a bit too tight. She nodded, wordless, liking that.
Richard held her gaze.
“Well, I’m going to direct it all, though,” said Darcy in a lilting voice. “So, you may take my direction as permission.”
“Ah, well, yes, that will do just fine,” said Richard, glancing at the other man
“I think,” said Mr. Darcy, “that undressing her entirely is rather moving too quickly, though. Lizzy?”
She turned to her husband. “Yes?”
“I think Richard and I would very much like it if you would rearrange your skirts so that we can see your ankles. Perhaps your knees as well.”
“What about my stockings?” she said. Her mouth was dry. She looked up to find them both gazing at her eagerly, and she could find nothing to complain about that. She had taken off her shoes to sit down on the quilt earlier, or else her feet could not be tucked under her as they were.
“Oh, definitely remove your stockings,” said Mr. Darcy. He watched her but addressed Richard. “She has very lovely legs, my wife.”
Elizabeth shifted, tugging up her skirts, not all the way, but baring enough that she could get in to pull off her stockings. She was slow about it, presentational, peeling one down quite slowly, revealing inches at a time of her bare calf, drinking in the greedy way they both watched.
Richard stuffed shreds of his chicken in his mouth as he watched her, and then licked his fingers.
Elizabeth leaned over, bold, and seized his hand. She put one of his fingers in her mouth and licked it clean.
Richard grunted.
She glanced at her husband, worried that she should not have taken such initiative, but Mr. Darcy was all approval.
Richard lifted a strip of chicken. “May I feed your wife, Will?”
“You may,” said Darcy.
Elizabeth opened her mouth and Richard pressed the food inside. He brushed his thick thumb over her lip as her mouth closed and she chewed.
Mr. Darcy scooted closer to the both of them. “You’re likely still hungry, aren’t you, Lizzy?” he breathed, running a finger over her neck, feather soft.
“Yes,” she said softly.
“Well, Richard?” said her husband.
Richard fed her more.
She touched her lip. “I think… I have a little…”
Richard looked to Mr. Darcy. “May I?”
“Kiss her,” said Darcy in a guttural voice.
Their lips met. She had never kissed a man who wasn’t her husband, and the sensation was similar, but different. Richard still hadn’t shaved, and she found she liked the scruffy feel of his barely-there whiskers. He tasted differently, too, and she liked it, liked being close to his smell, masculine and potent.
Darcy hummed his approval. “Again,” he ordered. “I like that more that I could have imagined.”
Richard kissed her more thoroughly this time, his tongue swiping sweetly against hers.
Elizabeth felt shivery and excited and full of that heady, permissive feeling, which probably led her to say the next thing, which was positively scandalous. “Now, kiss Will,” she said to Richard.
The two men looked at each other, and Elizabeth saw that her husband’s face was frankly devastated at the prospect of it. It should have made her feel jealous, but it didn’t. She only wanted him to have it, to have the kiss. And she wanted to see it.
Richard leaned over and reached up to cup Darcy’s face with one of his large hands. Darcy tilted his face back. And then, there was contact and Elizabeth’s body tightened in a way that she had not been expecting.
What was it about that?
They were both so hard and angled and firm, and there was something so sweet about the way their lips touched each other. She liked the way those two opposite elements settled against each other. It was positively delicious and she could not stifle a delighted giggle.
Darcy was out of breath, affected. He shot her a look, half-apology, half-gratefulness, and she only felt a surge of happiness. He kissed her and then pushed her back at Richard.
They took turns kissing each other moving around the quilt, rearranging things, tossing aside the plate of chicken, and somehow she lost her other stocking, and both men had their hands on her knees and calves, and both men were kissing her in various other places, one claiming her mouth while the other kissed his way down her neck to her clavicle.
She gasped at the sensation of it, the sheer sweetness of how overwhelming it was to have them both on her at once. She caught hold of her husband’s cravat. “Aren’t these frightfully uncomfortable?” she managed. It was hard to catch her breath. “I’ve always thought it must be awful having something tied round your neck like that?”
“Frightfully uncomfortable,” agreed Mr. Darcy, smiling at her. “Would you like Richard to remove his?”
“Please,” she said.
“Well,” said Mr. Darcy, “you wouldn’t displease our Lizzy, would you?”
“Never in a thousand years,” said Richard, untying it and tossing it over his shoulder. His shirt gapped open now, showing off his throat and just a hint of his chest. He grinned at the other man. “Yours too, Will.”
Mr. Darcy untied his cravat.
Elizabeth took this opportunity to reach over and touch Richard’s chest.
“Now, now,” said her husband, his voice velvet, “Lizzy, did I say you could touch Richard?”
She giggled, pulling her hand back. “You did not, husband. Ever so sorry.”
“Yes, you’ve been naughty,” he said to her, waggling his eyebrows.
“Oh, do I have to be punished?” she whispered, breathless, rather used to this game, which they played often. They both liked it.
“I think Richard should punish you,” said Darcy, turning to the colonel.
Richard swallowed, looking back and forth between them. “Punish her?” his voice was guttural.
She gave him a shy, little grin. “You’ll have to lift my skirts and put me over your knee and teach me a lesson, I suppose, Richard.”
Richard rubbed the back of his neck, looking back and forth between them again. He was hesitant.
Elizabeth couldn’t help but feel embarrassed. She looked away. “Oh, never mind it. Will, he likes to spank me, and I thought maybe—but if you don’t wish to, let’s just… not.” She hunched up her shoulders.
“You strike her, Will?” said the colonel.
Darcy let out an embarrassed laugh, ducking down his head. “All right, perhaps we needed to have a better discussion about this before we started. Clearly, that sort of thing doesn’t arouse Richard, which is fine, of course, but a number of people are aroused by it. However, we don’t need to engage—”
“No, we don’t,” said Elizabeth.
The colonel seemed speechless. He drew in a breath as if he were going to say something, then shook his head, and didn’t.
It was quiet.
Elizabeth leaned in and kissed him again, trying to just kiss away the awkwardness. But the colonel pushed her away, gentle but firm, and her husband said, “Lizzy, I have not given you permission to do that.”
The colonel scrambled to his feet, picking up his cravat as he did so. He looked down at the other two as he tied his cravat back around his neck. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m ever so sorry. I…” He shook himself all over and then simply turned and walked off.
They both stared after him.
Elizabeth turned to her husband. “I could go after him, but if I do, you’ll likely be jealous.”
Mr. Darcy winced. “And if I do, you’ll be jealous.”
“No, if you know what you wish to say to him, go ahead,” she said.
Darcy shrugged, looking helpless. “In truth, I do not. We didn’t have the discussion about lines not to cross very well, I don’t think. We got ahead of ourselves.”
“Well, you and I never had a discussion like that,” she said.
“Certainly we did,” he said. “A number of discussions wherein I told you what travesties I was fantasizing about visiting upon you, and you, my dearest adventurous darling, told me you wished to try every single one.”
She flushed, but she was smiling. “I suppose you’re right. We must be careful with him. We are used to each other in this way, and it is all new to him.”
“Indeed,” said Darcy. “We’ll talk to him together. Later. After dinner.”
RICHARD WAS STANDING right at the door of his bedchamber. He had the door closed and he was facing Elizabeth and Darcy, who were both in the room with him now. It was after dinner. “The truth is,” he said to both of them, “I do find it arousing. I’ve even done it… but never to a woman like her. The thought of it, Will, punishing your wife like that.”
“Well, we only do it as play,” Darcy said. “I would never think to actually strike her if I was displeased with her behavior. I simply don’t hold with that. I’m not so progressive as some of those crazies like Godwin, who make arguments against marriage itself as an institution that promotes the denigration of women—”
“Is Godwin against marriage? Wasn’t he married?” said Richard.
“Well, anyway,” said Darcy. “What I’m saying is that I don’t think of myself as having any right to punish her. We are equals, at least sort of, as much as we can be while being very different. We can never fulfill the same roles in a marriage, obviously. But I don’t think my role is to rule over her.”
“It’s just play,” said Elizabeth. “And he doesn’t… well, sometimes it is hard, but usually because I ask him to do it hard.” She looked at her husband. “And he does this bit where he sort of rubs the sting of it out, which usually feels very nice, and… I don’t know, it’s nice.”
“Nice, yes, right,” said Richard. “No, women do seem to sort of—well, who knows with women who you’re paying, though, right? They pretend to like it.”
“Maybe they pretend,” said Darcy. “Maybe not. There’s no way to know.”
Richard nodded, feeling stricken, perhaps because he had to admit that some part of him was aroused by the idea of having it done to him .
“The point is, Lizzy likes it,” said Darcy.
“I do,” said Elizabeth. “But we don’t have to do that, and we were coming here to say that we don’t have to do it.”
“Yes, perhaps we’re getting a bit out of…” Darcy spread his hands. “We know why we’re here, and we ought to try to get back to that.”
“Why we’re here,” echoed the colonel.
“Yes,” said Darcy. “We’re here to get my wife with child.”
The colonel nodded. “Aye.”
“So, let’s leave aside all the rest of it,” said Darcy. “It’s my fault, I think. I’m abominable. My tastes, they are so very perverse, and I am inflicting them on you, Richard.”
“No,” said Richard, for the truth was that nothing that Darcy had proposed had failed to arouse the colonel, nothing at all. He wanted to try every single filthy thing Darcy wanted to do. “I don’t think it’s that way, not exactly, I only…” He shifted on his feet. “Let me explain why I left earlier?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Darcy. “I have thought it through, and I have decided it should simply be more straightforward. You in Lizzy, you getting Lizzy with child, that is all. Whatever else there is, it’s unnecessary.”
“When did you think this through?” spoke up Elizabeth. “You said nothing to me.”
Darcy glanced at his wife. “I thought we’d all talk about it together, I suppose. I’m the one directing everything, so—”
“So, is that the way it ought to be, though?” Elizabeth seemed worried. “You have been concerned that if it were that way, you’d be jealous—”
“I’m more concerned now we lose him,” said Darcy softly, eyeing Richard. “I’d rather not lose him. I should be happy to take what I can get, I think. If it’s only watching you with her…”
“Let me explain,” said Richard again.
Darcy shook his head. “No need, none at all.” He turned back to his wife. “Lizzy, come here? I should like to undress you and show the colonel your bosom.”
Richard’s clothes were tight. He had not seen Elizabeth’s bare bosom, not yet. He let out a long, noisy breath and gestured with one hand. “Well, then, by all means.”
Elizabeth caught his gaze, giving him a little smile.
Richard sat down on his bed. He lifted his chin. “You’re all right, are you not, Lizzy?”
“Perfectly fine,” she said, moving in front of her husband, who began to work at her buttons.
Darcy’s fingers were busy with his wife’s dress as he looked over her shoulder at the colonel. “I should never have told you about the women when we were young.”
“No, I don’t mind knowing that,” said the colonel.
“Well, I could have been quite happy to never know,” said Elizabeth, glancing over her shoulder at her husband.
“Oh, Lizzy,” sighed Darcy, planting a kiss at the corner of her jaw. “I’m ever so sorry about it. I have never felt about anyone the way I feel about you. You must know this.”
“Not even Richard?” she said, looking at the colonel.
“We’re not doing that, not anymore,” said Darcy. “We shall wipe all that out of it—”
“Darcy, that isn’t why I left you both earlier,” said Richard. “I do wish to explain, but you simply keep stopping me, and then distracting me, and I haven’t had a chance to, erm… say what is that I wish… to… say.” But his voice was now not very strong, for he was looking at Elizabeth Bennet in her stays, her dress peeled down off her shoulders to bare her there.
She was lovely, and her bosom spilled over the top of the undergarment fetchingly, creamy and round and ample. He looked into her cleavage and then up into her eyes, and she was smiling at him, looking amused and pleased and even more fetching.
“Lord, she’s beautiful,” was all he managed.
“Yes,” said Darcy affectionately. “Likely the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Elizabeth snorted. “Ah, yes, but not handsome enough to tempt you to dance.”
“You always bring that up,” said Darcy, who was unlacing her stays.
“Do I?” She was grinning, enjoying teasing him.
“I wish to point out that the lighting in that place in Meryton was very dim,” said Darcy. “And smoky, too. Ever so many candles were lit, and I really could barely see anything at all.”
Elizabeth snorted again.
“What are you two on about?” said Richard, shaking his head.
“Just the first time we met,” said Elizabeth with a little laugh.
“As I have told you a number of times,” said Mr. Darcy, “what I said was not meant for your ears. It was for Bingley, and only to get him to leave me alone.” He tugged on the back of her stays and they loosened and her breasts bounced.
Richard’s cock was hard. He wanted to reach down into her stays and scoop one of her lovely breasts out, hold it in the palm of his hand. He gazed at her skin. “What did he say, Lizzy?”
“He said I was only tolerable,” said Elizabeth.
“He did not,” said Richard, mouth curving into a smile. “Is he blind?”
“I do think I just got finished explaining the lighting was quite dim,” said Mr. Darcy. “Lift your arms, Lizzy?”
She lifted her arms.
“How dare you, Will?” said Richard.
“I know. Why do you think she refused me the first time I asked for her hand?” said Darcy, as he slowly pulled Elizabeth’s stays up and over her head.
“Has he apologized for saying this?” said Richard.
Elizabeth’s dress was clinging to her waist, the bodice hanging down the front, her stays gone, and her shift the only thing covering her breasts. It was see-through. He could see the dark circles of her aureoles. His prick pulsed. She was ever so lovely. Elizabeth giggled. “No, never.”
“Only a thousand times,” said Darcy at nearly the same time.
She looked back at him, and he at her. They both smirked, and it was obvious how in love they were.
“Well,” said Darcy, reaching around to fondle one of his wife’s breasts, “I suppose I didn’t think this through. Lizzy, if we want to show Richard your bare bosom, I think we have to take off all of your clothes.”
“Oh, dear,” said Elizabeth, putting her fingers to her mouth in an exaggerated motion. “You’re going to let some other man see all of me, husband?”
“I think I am,” said Darcy to her, his smile widening. “But you will be a very good, submissive, sweet wife and let me present you to him, will you not?”
“If it is what you wish, husband, how can I refuse you?” she said, still smiling so widely that it belied how much she was enjoying this.
Richard could find exactly nothing to complain about in this moment either. “Are you so very sweet and submissive, Lizzy?” he said in a scratchy voice.
“Oh, she is,” said Darcy, who was pushing Elizabeth’s skirts off. “She is the picture of perfection in that way. Does just as her husband wishes, don’t you, pretty Lizzy?”
“I do my best,” said Elizabeth with that wide grin.
“Step out of your skirts,” said Darcy.
She did. She was only wearing her shift now, and Richard could see through it to see the outline of the dark curls of the hair between her thighs, and he remembered touching her there, remembered the feel of her slickness around his prick. He tried to stifle a groan and failed.
Darcy pulled her shift up, baring her body. “What do you think, Richard? Are you grateful that I’m giving you this look at my wife?”
“Quite grateful,” he managed. “She’s beautiful, Will.” He gaped at Elizabeth’s bare skin, the curve of her ample thighs and her rounded hips, the dip of her waist and the sway of her breasts. He groaned again.
“Do you wish to touch her?” said Darcy, his voice dropping in register.
“Very much,” said Richard.
“Undress yourself first,” said Darcy.
“Am I doing as you say as well, Will? Am I to be sweet and submissive as well?”
“If you don’t mind, I’d love it if you’d submit to me, Richard,” said Darcy, and his voice was quite affected.
“All right,” said Richard, his own voice not strong. “What would you like me to remove first?”
“Shoes,” said Darcy. “Socks as well.”
Richard did that. Elizabeth was in her stockings still, but he liked that, liked it a great deal, how she was bare everywhere but still had her feet and ankles and some of her legs covered. It was delicious in some way. “Now what?”
“Your jacket,” said Darcy.
Richard shrugged out of it.
“Your waistcoat,” ordered Darcy.
Richard started to unbutton it.
“Faster than that,” Darcy said.
Richard grinned and went faster. He shed each article of clothing at Darcy’s behest until he was standing up, pushing off his trousers and small clothes to stand utterly naked before both of them. His prick was painfully hard, pointing straight at Elizabeth, and Darcy was still wearing all of his clothes. Richard thought, in some other circumstance, he might have felt embarrassed or ashamed but he was too aroused to care. “I’m undressed now, Will. May I touch her now?”
“I’m quite pleased you asked for permission,” said Darcy. “You are sweet and submissive, Richard, are you not?”
This made heat unfurl in Richard’s belly. “Tell me… direct me with her, then?”
Darcy nudged his wife in Richard’s direction. “Go ahead, then, Lizzy, go to him.”
She turned back to her husband, offering him her lips, which he claimed with a quick but thorough kiss. Then he gave her backside a gentle swat and she giggled in response as she came over to Richard.
Richard let out a breath, unsure of what to do with her when she got close. He’d kissed her earlier, put his mouth on her skin, and it had all seemed good, then, even natural, he’d thought, passing her back and forth between himself and Darcy.
This was different, but just as good.
“What do you wish to touch, Richard?” asked Darcy softly.
“Everything,” said Richard.
“Lizzy, where would you like to be touched?” said Darcy.
“Mmm,” said Lizzy, shyly looking up at him. “I want a kiss, Will.”
“Ah, yes,” said Darcy. “Kiss my wife, Richard.”
Richard grunted. Something about being ordered to kiss another man’s wife made his prick even stiffer than it already was. He bent and kissed Elizabeth gently on the mouth, without touching her body in any way, just a joining of their mouths.
“Better than that,” said Darcy when he tried to withdraw. “Use your tongue.”
So, Richard kissed her more deeply, tasted her mouth like he had on the picnic quilt earlier.
“Hands on her hips,” said Darcy.
Richard complied.
“You like her hips?” said Darcy.
“Obviously,” said Richard. “They’re very nicely shaped.” He ran his hands over them, then paused. “Sorry, should I have asked for permission to do that?”
“Probably,” said Darcy in a strangled voice. “But do it again. Touch her backside.”
Richard obeyed.
“Isn’t her skin a wonder?” said Darcy in a low voice.
“So soft,” agreed Richard. “Please, may I…?”
“What?”
“I wish to touch her breasts,” said Richard.
“I’m quite partial to that part of her body,” said Darcy. “So lovely and round and soft, curled up there on her chest, just perfect.”
“Yes,” said Richard in a raw voice.
“Go ahead,” said Darcy.
Richard did it.
Elizabeth gasped.
Richard gasped.
Darcy gasped.
“Tease her nipples, Richard,” said Darcy very softly. “She likes that.”
Elizabeth threw her head back as Richard began to gently pleasure her. Her breasts tightened into taut, little points in the center as he toyed with her. Her nipples grew harder and harder.
“May I…?” Richard trailed off.
“Yes, use your mouth,” Darcy urged him. He was close now, standing next to them, watching.
Richard turned to look at the other man.
“I…” Darcy sighed. “I wasn’t going to touch you, but…” He reached up and gently urged Richard’s mouth down onto Elizabeth’s nipple.
She tasted like the morning sun, Richard thought, and her little noises of pleasure were bright and good, too. (It was all right for them to make noise, they hoped. The servants quarters were all the way below, in the very lowest level of the house, so an entire empty floor was between them.)
But then Darcy wasn’t touching him anymore. He backed away, disappearing off to another part of the room. He came back with a chair. He settled down into it and dragged a hand over his features as he met Richard’s gaze.
Richard was still busy tasting Elizabeth’s tight, hard nipples as she moaned and sighed in his arms.
“I wish…” Darcy squared his shoulders. “Just… as if I’m not here. I wish to feel as though I’m watching you have her and I’m… do it however you’d like, but don’t…”
Elizabeth glanced at him. “Oh, truly, Will? Are you sure because—”
“Quite,” said Darcy in a voice that brooked no argument, his naked need for such a thing obvious.
The colonel wanted to give it to him, whatever it was he wanted, but he had been appreciating Darcy’s orders. Without them, he wasn’t sure what to do. He kissed Elizabeth again, pulling her into his arms, feeling her small, soft form against him, enjoying the soft, roundness of her body against his.
He met Darcy’s gaze again, and Darcy was just staring, eager, as if waiting for something.
Well, she was… they were here for one thing, weren’t they? Richard pulled back to look into Elizabeth’s eyes. “Are you all right?”
Her eyes were half-lidded. “Oh, yes.”
He smiled, focusing on her. Should he attempt to pretend Darcy wasn’t here, since the man had just said he wished it to be that way?
Well, that was impossible. Even if Richard wasn’t looking at the other man, he could feel Darcy’s dark gaze on the both of them, and everywhere it touched Richard, it seared into him. It was good. He liked being watched, actually.
He turned Elizabeth, turned to her to face her husband. Richard stood behind her, kissing her neck, kissing her shoulder, running his hands all over her. He cupped her breasts, held them out to show them to Darcy, whose lips parted at this little show.
Then Richard reached down to nudge a finger between Elizabeth’s dark curls, and he found her shockingly wet. He grunted, driving himself into her ample backside as he began to toy with her there, and she shuddered against him, letting out little wounded sounds of pleasure.
Suddenly, Richard found he was too aroused. “Now, Lizzy, it must be now, or I shall spill outside of you like an untried adolescent,” he breathed. “Lie down on the bed for me, if you please?”
She did it, still wearing her stockings.
Damnation, he liked that. He touched them as he parted her thighs, as he crawled between them. He pulled her legs apart, baring the glistening center of her. “Going to get you with child, then, Lizzy, just as we planned.”
“That’s why we’re here,” she said, wriggling her hips at him. “Get me with child, then, Richard. Please.”
He took hold of his prick and lined it up with her. “Yes, don’t worry, that’s just what I’m about, Lizzy,” he murmured. He pushed into her, and she gripped him, tight and slippery and very, very good. “Just going to work myself in you, over and over, until I can get you very much with child.”
She sighed. “Please, Richard, please.” She reached between them and began to toy with herself, rubbing her own clitoris.
He took hold of her hips to keep her in place as he began to thrust, jabbing her there, just there, right in that slick, little hole of hers. “Good Lizzy,” he gasped, “lie there like that and take my prick.”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Take my seed,” he said, his voice labored.
“Yes.”
“And we’ll just get you with child, very much with child, just like that, because you’re such a good Lizzy, aren’t you? Such a good Lizzy, with such a perfect little cunny.”
She moaned. “Please, Richard, please,” she said.
And then he exploded inside her, a hot wash of white-hot pleasure as he pumped her full of wave after wave of his seed.