Chapter 8 #2
Mrs Reynolds’ smile deepened into something sly. “Oh, I think there’s more to it than that. One does not get roses in her cheeks merely by breathing.”
Elizabeth forced herself to sip her tea calmly. “Perhaps it is the relief of seeing you recovered, ma’am.”
“Aye,” Mrs Reynolds said, tilting her head. “Or perhaps…” Her eyes gleamed with a sharpness that belied her frail posture. “Perhaps Pemberley suits you better than you yet realize.”
Elizabeth smiled politely, but she could feel her pulse hammering beneath the lacing of her stays.
Mrs Reynolds watched her a moment longer, then relented with a chuckle. “I do not ask,” she said, sipping her tea. “But I have seen enough new brides and old lovers in my time to recognise a woman who has found herself… wanted.”
Elizabeth set down her cup with deliberate care. “You are mistaken, madam.”
Mrs Reynolds only smiled more broadly. “Am I?”
The old woman turned her gaze toward the small garden visible through the window. “No shame in it, Mrs Morley. No shame at all.”
Elizabeth stared into her tea for a long moment, willing her hands to be still.
Behind her eyelids, she could still see Darcy. The way his mouth had moved against her skin, the way he had murmured her name like a prayer.
She swallowed. “I should return to the house. There is much to prepare.”
Mrs Reynolds said nothing, only nodded with a knowing smile that lingered long after Elizabeth rose and gathered her things.
As Elizabeth stepped out into the cool morning air, she felt the weight of the older woman’s gaze between her shoulder blades, not unkind, but piercing all the same.
* * *
The phaeton wheels crunched softly over the gravel as Darcy guided the horses back toward Pemberley.
The morning mist was lifting, but the world still looked washed and new, damp grass shining silver, hedgerows heavy with dew.
He ought to have been thinking about logistics. About the guests arriving, the dinner to be planned, the estate accounts that needed his review.
Instead, all he could think about was her. Elizabeth. Mrs Morley. No longer a fever dream or a memory half-scorned. Real, and warm, and pressed against him in the shadowed dark, her mouth opening under his, her voice gasping his name.
His hands tightened on the reins.
He hadn’t wanted to let her go, pleading with the minutes it took to deliver her safely back to Mrs Reynolds’ cottage to last longer.
If he could have, he would have wrapped her in his coat, carried her past the staff, past propriety, straight into his own chambers and bolted the door behind them.
But he had not. Because she deserved better than scandal. Because he was not seventeen anymore, and because Elizabeth Morley would never tolerate being manhandled, even by the man who worshiped the ground she walked upon.
He rode the last stretch of drive in silence, the phaeton rocking gently beneath him.
At the service entrance, he handed the reins to a waiting groom, barely registering the startled look the boy gave him. Darcy realised dimly he must look a wreck: boots dusty, cravat askew, hair an unruly mess.
Good.
Let them think what they would.
He slipped into the house through the back hall, the skirts of his coat brushing the flagstones. A footman paused mid-candle-trimming to bow hastily; Darcy barely nodded in response.
The house hummed around him: maids laying fires, breakfast trays being polished, boots being buffed for guests who had not yet arrived.
None of it touched him.
He reached the grand staircase and considered, just briefly, going to his study, or the steward’s office. Then he thought better of it. He needed a moment, no, he needed to surrender.
Without ceremony, Darcy climbed the stairs, turned down the long west wing corridor, and entered his own chambers.
The bed loomed, broad and untouched, the covers still turned down by a maid.
He kicked off his boots carelessly, shedding coat and waistcoat as he went. His cravat dropped in a crumpled ribbon beside the hearth. His shirt he left untucked, his breeches loosened at the waist.
He crossed the floor, dropped onto the mattress fully clothed, and lay there staring up at the canopy for a long, suspended moment.
The scent of lavender clung to his skin.
He closed his eyes.
Sleep claimed him like a sudden fall.
* * *
The sun was at its apex by the time Elizabeth left the cottage.
She had spent the morning with Mrs Reynolds, checking her pulse, adjusting the tincture, and grinding fresh feverfew for the next few days. The older woman had looked better, colour in her cheeks, and a spark of irritation when Elizabeth insisted she stay in bed. It was a good sign.
Still, Elizabeth lingered. Not because Mrs Reynolds needed her, but because she wasn’t ready for what waited at the house. She was not ready for him.
The walk back to Pemberley was long and warm, the path winding through hedgerows thick with bees. Her thighs ached with every step an echo of the night before. She could still feel him. The press of his body. The command in his voice. The way her name had sounded on his tongue when he came.
She hated how much she wanted it again.
The house came into view as she crested the final rise and she stopped dead.
There, on the lawn, beneath the spreading shade of a chestnut tree, sat a little tableau of perfect civility.
Her aunt. Her uncle. And Darcy.
He was seated slightly askew in his chair, one elbow hooked lazily over the backrest, his coat draped beside him, glass in hand. His head tipped back in laughter at something Mr Gardiner had said.
The sound reached her even from here, low, surprised, unguarded. It knocked the breath from her chest. She had never seen him like that. He looked like a man free.
Not the coiled, complicated Darcy she had known and devoured, but something softer. Simpler. Human.
“Lizzy!” her aunt called, spotting her. “Come and sit. You have missed all the scandalous stories!”
Elizabeth forced her legs forward. Her smile felt strange on her face, like a mask she’d forgotten how to wear.
“Forgive me,” she said lightly, curtsying. “I had a prolonged conversation with Mrs Reynolds. She kept me far too long.”
Darcy rose. Of course he did. His eyes flicked over her, hair still mussed, shawl askew, cheeks warm with memory, and he smiled.
It was the faintest smile. But it felt like an embrace.
She sat, picked at a plum tart, and pretended to follow the conversation. Mr Gardiner regaled them with some story of a failed fishing trip. Darcy leaned in, adding a dry remark about trout with too much self-respect. They laughed.
Elizabeth could barely breathe.
“I think,” she said, standing, “I shall change before we go into Lambton. I feel quite wilted.”
Her aunt nodded, distracted. Mr Gardiner was pouring more cordial. Darcy’s glass was nearly empty.
Elizabeth stepped away, then paused.
She looked back over her shoulder.
Right at him.
Her mouth curved, subtle, sly. Just enough. Come, it said, and ruin me.
* * *
Elizabeth unfolded a note and read it once, then again, slower, a smile tugging at her mouth despite herself.
Madam,
Your absence has become intolerable.
If you are willing, I am waiting for you in my private library.
Yours,
F.D.
P.S. You would greatly ease my suffering if you wore something yielding.
She pressed her fingers to her lips, smothering a laugh. Of course. Of course he would write her a note like this, restrained, aching, absurdly proper even while begging her to come undone for him.
The man was ridiculous. Ridiculous and beautiful and so tightly wound she could almost hear him breaking apart from here.
Elizabeth smoothed the note once more, savouring the words, the trembling formality of it.
Yielding.
She was already half-naked, flushed, aching for him, and somehow he had made it worse, sent her heart pounding harder, and sent slick heat curling low in her belly with a few words written. Arousal prickled under her skin, sharp and giddy.
She shrugged into a thin wrapper, the first thing her fingers found, something soft and loose enough that a single tug would bare her completely. She caught her reflection in the mirror, hair mussed, mouth pink from the teeth she pressed into her lower lip, and laughed again, breathless this time.
This was madness, absolute madness. Yet her hands moved before her mind could stop them, tying the morning dress loosely over her thin shift, and smoothing her hair into something that could pass, at a distance, for respectable. She left her room quietly, the note crumpled in her palm.
The great library lay along the main corridor. She slipped inside, pulse roaring in her ears. At first glance, the room was empty. Then, movement behind the far shelves.
Fletcher, Darcy’s valet emerged, dusting cloth in hand, his expression perfectly bland except for the faintest glint of mischief in his grey eyes.
Elizabeth froze, burning.
“Mrs Morley,” Fletcher said, bowing with impeccable gravity. “May I assist you?”
She forced her chin up, keeping her voice light and casual. “I was hoping to find a book Mr Darcy recommended.”
Fletcher blinked slowly, almost smiling. “Of course, ma’am. You will find it in the private library. West corridor. First right.”
Elizabeth nodded stiffly, cheeks flaming, and fled before he could say anything else.
The west corridor was narrower, quieter. The carpet muffled her steps; the walls seemed to close in. Her hand trembled when she found the door, plain and tucked into shadow. She lifted her hand, hesitated, then knocked.
The door opened almost at once.
Darcy stood there, shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, waistcoat gone. His eyes darkened the moment he saw her. He stepped back, letting her in. The door clicked shut behind her.
Before he could touch her, before the fire between them could reignite, Elizabeth spoke, sharp and furious.