Chapter Eleven
CHAPTER ELEVEN
RICHARD CHECKED HIS watch. They must all move back to their rooms, he supposed. It was after midnight. He should wake them.
On the other hand, they were married. He could leave them here and if the servants discovered them together, there was no worry. Yawning, he moved to extricate himself from the bed and find his smalls. He didn’t think he’d bother getting entirely dressed, just throw on his underclothes and dart through the darkness back to his own bedchamber.
“Richard?” came Elizabeth’s whisper. “What are you doing?”
He smiled at her from the foot of the bed. “You two stay asleep. I’m going to my bed. You can stay together, though.”
“No, I shall go, too,” she said, stretching and sitting up. “It’s a violation of the rules we set up, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. “It’s just sleeping, Lizzy. I don’t mind. It’s not as if it matters, anyway. You’re always going to be married to him. And if we’ve successfully sowed this child in you, that’s always going to be his child.” He said this in a matter-of-fact tone, but it made something inside him throb.
Dash it all.
He yanked on his smallclothes.
She was there, next to him, totally bare, and with her hands on his body. “Oh, Richard,” she breathed.
He looked down at her. “Don’t, Lizzy.”
She put both of her bare hands on his bare chest. “That isn’t true, you know. It will always be your child.”
His chest was too tight. He could not breathe. He glanced down at Darcy, sleeping there in the bed, and then down at this woman, this woman who he’d done his level best to get with child, this woman who he had filled with his seed constantly, four or five times a day for over a week now, and he felt… he didn’t know what he felt…
Panic, perhaps?
He gently removed her hands from his chest. “Please, Lizzy,” he said, and then he gathered up all his clothing and fled.
But he was only in his own bedchamber for a few moments before there was a knock on the door.
He went to open it.
It was her. She was dressed now, though her dress wasn’t buttoned in the back, just hastily thrown over her shift. “Let me in, Richard, we need to talk.”
“The time to talk about this was before I spent in you a thousand times,” he whispered furiously. “It’s done.”
“Let me in,” she said.
He sighed, moved away from the door, and let her in. Once she was inside the room, he shut the door behind her.
She hugged herself, standing in the middle of the room. “You wouldn’t speak of this with me the first night. And somehow, we all got talking about so many other things that I forgot about this, and this is likely the most important part of it all.”
“There’s nothing to speak of,” he said.
She turned to him. “Tell me what that look is on your face.”
“What look?”
“You wish to be father to your child,” she said, lifting her chin. “Admit it.”
“No,” he said, but his whole body reacted to the word, and it hurt him somewhere.
“That’s a natural desire, Richard.”
“I shall… this is for you, Lizzy, for you and him, it’s always been—”
“Everything between the three of us is different now!”
“No, it isn’t. If you are with child, all of this ends. I go home, you both go home, and we…”
She opened her mouth to protest this, but nothing came out.
“You know that’s true, Lizzy.”
She bit down on her bottom lip. “I may not be with child. I could bleed.”
He found himself wishing for that. Wishing for that with every part of him being. But he spread his hands and said, “I think it’s likely you are with child, Lizzy. We have been quite diligent. If you aren’t, then—”
“Then it was never Fitzwilliam’s fault in the first place,” she said. “It was always mine.”
He swallowed. He sort of wished for that, too, though it was monstrous. But then, everything could go on between them, for a very long time, maybe forever. Maybe if she didn’t have a child at all… He sighed heavily. “It might not mean that at all. It takes time, they say. I’m sure you heard that.”
She nodded. “Right. Will said we would be here trying until it worked, even if it took months. He was quite eager…” She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them. “But Richard, you do want to be a father.”
“I’ll…” Richard spread his hands. “I’ll be a father with someone else, with my wife when I get married. This is for you and him.”
“Oh,” she said in a different voice.
“Well, what did you think, Lizzy, that I was going to do this with you two forever?” He didn’t mention that some part of him wanted to do this with them forever. He didn’t mention that at all.
She was hurt. “No, I suppose… obviously…”
“Your babe will have a father,” he said. “Your babe will not need me to be its father.”
“And you’ll go,” she said softly, shaking her head. “If you have gotten me with child, you will go, because you won’t want to bond with the idea of the babe at all. You’ll want to break with me, because it hurts you, doesn’t it, thinking of your own babe without you there to be its father? Without you there to watch it grow? Without you there to—”
“Stop it,” he growled.
“But I don’t wish it,” she said, and tears were forming in her eyes. “Richard, it will be your babe, and I wish—”
“Wish what?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t want you to leave, and I want…” She let out a heaving breath. “Your hand… earlier…” She seized his hand now and placed it against her now-flat belly.
He pulled away. “Lizzy—”
“I want that,” she said. “For you. For me. For the babe.”
“What about for Will?” he said woodenly.
Tears spilled out over her cheeks. She wiped at them, and her dress fell off her shoulder.
He righted the dress. He wiped at her tears with his thumb. “Oh, Lizzy, my Lizzy, my sweet, beautiful Lizzy, what are we doing?”
She pressed her face into his chest.
He wrapped his arms around her.
She cried.
He tugged her down with him, into his bed, because it was late, and they were both tired. He told himself he would not close his eyes, just would rest here, with her in his arms, and if she fell asleep, he would let her rest, but he would keep his own eyes open.
But, in this, he failed.
WHEN ELIZABETH WOKE in Richard’s bed, her first thought was of being discovered there by the servants. She was dressed, at least mostly, so she didn’t have to worry about that. She climbed quickly out of the bedcovers and scampered across the room to the door.
Carefully, she opened the door and peered into the hallway.
She saw no one.
The door to her own bedchamber was open, however, and she realized it must have been open all night.
What if Mrs. Bittleby was in there, seeing to the fire, and she’d had an eyeful of Elizabeth’s untouched bed?
Panicked, Elizabeth shut the door to Richard’s room very quietly and tiptoed down the hallway. She looked into her room.
Mrs. Bittleby wasn’t there.
But Mr. Darcy was.
Her heart sank all the way into her stomach.
She pulled the door shut behind herself and faced her husband.
He was dressed, ready for the day. He rose early sometimes, she knew. He liked to take walks in the morning, then come in for his first cup of tea in the dining room all alone, just him and the hot drink and a book. So, he must have gotten up and been on his way downstairs, but noticed her door was open.
He must have come inside and seen she had not slept in her bed.
He must have known where she did sleep.
“Nothing happened between us,” she said to him. “I was crying and he comforted me and I fell asleep there is all.”
“Crying?” said her husband in a very small voice.
She nodded.
He scratched his chin. She had to admit he wasn’t very good at shaving himself. The colonel was better, but this was likely because he had been forced to do without a valet during the war, she suspected. Her husband had missed spots. There were dark whiskers here and there. Why was she paying attention to that, though, in this moment of all moments? He said, “What were you crying about?”
How was she to explain this? “He is going to leave us,” she said finally.
Darcy took a step towards her. “He said that?”
“It hurts him, thinking of my having his child, but it not really being his.”
Darcy lifted his chin. “Oh, of course. Yes.”
“We’re not running off together, Fitzwilliam!” she protested.
“You’ve gone right to that,” he said in a tight voice.
“Only because I thought you were worried! I only want to reassure you—”
“Why was it that it was making you cry exactly? He’s annoyed that I’m raising his child, but you—” He broke off. “Oh, no, you said, didn’t you?” He sighed. “You were crying because he was leaving.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That is not fair, Will. You don’t want him to go either. You are just as in love with him as I am, possibly more—”
“In love, are you?”
“Do not pretend that you do not feel it, too,” she said.
He sighed again.
“Will, please, don’t be hurt by this.”
“I don’t understand how you two even ended up in his room.”
“He was trying to sneak out without waking us, and before, when I spoke of my bleeding being due, he touched me in such a way that let me know something was amiss, so I went after him when he left the room, and then—”
“How could he touch you in a way that let you know something was amiss? Did I witness this touch?”
“He put his hand on my stomach,” she said.
“And this let you know?”
“Yes.”
He squared his shoulders. “Well, you two have become quite atuned, haven’t you.”
“Oh, God,” she said.
It was very quiet for several long moments.
Then, she pointed at him. “I wish to bring attention to the fact that I did not make this happen, Mr. Darcy. You did it. You went after him. You sucked his prick. You convinced him—”
“In point of fact, Mrs. Darcy, you’re the one who let him lift your skirts,” he hissed.
She clenched her hands into fists. She started across the room, shaking her head. As she walked, she could feel the telltale sensation of Richard’s seed sliding out of her, just like always, because she was always feeling that these days. Sometimes she liked it, because it made her feel claimed and happy but right now, in the midst of this argument, it only seemed sort of awful. “Let me get myself together, if you don’t mind. Go back to your bedchamber, and I shall join you there in but—”
“Lizzy.”
Something in his voice stopped her.
“Your, erm, your dress.” He came closer, pulling up the skirt, showing her the dark stain there. “You’re bleeding.” His voice was gentle, apologetic, and soft. But that made it worse somehow.
She snatched the fabric from him, and her throat felt so tight that she could not swallow the lump in it. Her eyes stung. Not Richard’s seed slipping out of her, then, no. No, that was the sensation of her bleeding coming in, was it not?
“Look, it doesn’t mean anything,” he was saying. “We knew it might take more than one—”
“Get out, please,” she said.
“Lizzy, I know we—”
“Can you find Mrs. Bittleby and ask her about rags?” Her voice was too high-pitched.
He hesitated. Nodded. “Aye, my love, I can do that.” He left the room.