Chapter 8 #3
“You could have given me directions, Sir!” she snapped, marching into the room, her wrapper swirling around her ankles. “We have to pretend there is no… nothing improper occuring! How dare you expose me like that?”
Darcy only smiled slowly, devastatingly. Her anger made her even more beautiful. The fire in her eyes, the trembling in her hands, he would provoke her a thousand times just to see it again.
“I am sorry, Elizabeth,” he said, voice low and rough with want. “Truly. I will endeavour to be more careful.”
He stepped closer, heat rolling off him in waves.
“But it is difficult,” he murmured, reaching up to trace a finger under the neckline of her dress, feather-light, maddening. “To think of directions and manners when you are standing here, looking at me like that.”
“You arrogant,” she began, but her breath hitched, betraying her as his mouth brushed the sensitive skin below her ear, “maddening man!” she finished, almost a gasp.
Darcy smiled against her neck.
“I never understood your dislike of me…” he whispered, kissing her lips, once, searing. She melted into him, clutching his shirt, desperate to get closer. “…when you clearly burn for me.”
He pulled back when she tried to deepen the kiss, holding her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. He wanted an answer.
“You hurt my family, my neighbours, and my friends,” she said fiercely, breaking from his hold.
Darcy reeled, frowning, confused. “I cannot see how!” he protested, straightening his back.
Elizabeth’s hands clenched. “You let Mr Wickham move amongst us…” she trailed off as if swallowing the real accusation.
Darcy froze, opened his mouth, and closed it. Guilt carved deep lines into his face.
“What did he do?” he demanded, voice raw.
Elizabeth’s smile was bitter, broken. “Mr Wickham ‘eloped’ with my sister Lydia,” she said. “She was fifteen, if you recall.”
Darcy whitened.
“We never found them,” she whispered. “Her.”
The silence crushed the room.
Darcy paced the room now, frantic.
“Why did you not tell your father to write to me?!” he burst out. “I would have, I…”
Elizabeth laughed, sharp and humourless. “Do you think I could have made him write to the most arrogant, self-important man in England for assistance?”
Darcy flinched, pride bleeding out of him like water from a cracked vessel. He stopped pacing, facing her squarely.
His voice was raw, almost hoarse.
“Is that why you had to marry a physician?” he asked, stepping closer. “Because of… the ruin?”
The word cracked between them, ugly and heavy.
Elizabeth looked at him for a long moment, too long. Then, very slowly, she smiled.
Not cruelly. Not mockingly. But almost… kindly. As if he were a stubborn child, clinging to the wrong conclusion.
“No,” she whispered. “I married Tommy because I loved him. Truly. Deeply.”
Her smile deepened, soft and aching, and it struck him harder than any slap could have. She looked at him as if he were simple, as if the very idea that her marriage was anything but a choice of love was absurd.
Darcy staggered a step back, not physically, but inside, as if she had pulled the ground out from under him. He opened his mouth and no words came.
Elizabeth’s gaze softened further, but she stayed where she was, rooted, unashamed.
“I chose him,” she said simply.
Darcy swallowed. His voice was a ragged scrape.
“What are we doing here, Elizabeth?” he asked, barely a whisper. “What do the last two nights mean?”
Elizabeth lifted her chin, fierce even in her softness.
“It is lust,” she shrugged. “It is need. It is attraction.”
Darcy stood rigid, every muscle straining.
“I was not lying,” she continued, “I found you… very handsome. From the very first moment I laid my eyes on you.”
She smiled, almost kindly, and it wrecked him.
“I wanted you. I fought it. I was ashamed of it. But it was always there… ‘Against my better judgement’, as you said.”, she chuckled.
Darcy’s chest rose and fell sharply. His voice scraped out, rough.
“And now?”
“Now…” she paused, “Nothing changed.”
Only want. Only need. Only lust.
No affection. No promises.
Darcy stood perfectly still. Then, slowly, mechanically, he straightened. His face smoothed into something cold, unreadable.
He bowed. A perfect, mechanical gesture.
“Forgive me,” he said, voice flat. “I have… business to attend to.”
Without another word, without another glance, he turned, crossed the room, and left her standing alone by the fire.
The door clicked shut behind him.
Elizabeth did not move. The fire crackled uselessly in the hearth, its warmth a poor substitute for the growing void in her chest.
And she was utterly, terrifyingly alone.
* * *
The air was thick with the hum of late summer when Elizabeth crested a rise in the park and saw him.
Darcy.
He stood at the edge of a small clearing, one hand resting lightly on the head of his riding crop, the other loose at his side. His coat was open, the breeze tugging at the loose edges. He was the picture of tension barely restrained.
Elizabeth hesitated, but he saw her. And in the space of a breath, it was inevitable.
“Mrs Morley,” he said, bowing slightly.
“Mr Darcy.” She dipped her head, her voice steady.
They fell into step without speaking, following the winding path down into a grove of silver birches.
The world closed around them: white trunks, golden light, the faint whisper of wind through leaves.
It felt private. Removed from the ordinary rules.
They walked side by side, Darcy’s hand flexing around the riding crop he hadn’t put down since the stables.
Elizabeth didn’t look at him. Not at first.
Then,
“Why did you never marry?”
Darcy blinked. The question hit like a stray musket ball, unexpected and perfectly aimed.
“I tried,” he said, after a moment. “After… Hunsford.”
Her eyes snapped to his, disbelieving.
“I went to the balls,” he said. “Dinners. I danced, I called, I smiled, God help me, I even considered marrying Anne.”
“How romantic,” she muttered.
“It was never about romance,” he said, jaw tight. “It was duty. Obligation. I was hunting for an eligible match to produce an heir. Nothing more. By the time Georgiana was out, I was tired. I felt like a hunted fox.”
“And instead,” she said, her voice soft but sharp, “you married off your sister.”
Darcy nodded once. “Her marriage is solid. She’s happy. And her sons are healthy. The second will inherit Pemberley. The line is secure.”
Elizabeth stopped walking. She turned to face him fully now, eyes narrowed.
“You secured your convenience.”
Darcy frowned. “I secured her future.”
“No,” Elizabeth said. “You secured your freedom.”
He flinched, and she stepped closer.
“You could afford to choose your comfort, Mr Darcy,” she said, voice tight with fury.
“A woman has no such freedom. She accepts or refuses, and then she hopes. Prays the man who owns her is also kind.”
Darcy said nothing. There was nothing he could say.
After a long moment, he asked quietly, “What happened to your family?”
Elizabeth exhaled. The breath shook on the way out.
“When my father returned home and told us Lydia was lost, my mother suffered apoplexy.”
Darcy turned pale.
“She died not three weeks later,” she continued. “My father outlived her only by a year.”
A pause. Her voice was flat now, like a ledger being tallied.
“Jane and I went to live with the Gardiners. Mary joined a mission and went to Sierra Leone. The only one of us left in Hertfordshire is Kitty. She married a curate eight years ago.”
Darcy looked stricken. “I did not know.”
Elizabeth’s jaw clenched. “You knew what he was,” she snapped, stepping over a twisted root as they walked beneath the birch canopy.
The filtered light dappled her cheeks, flushed with emotion.
“You knew what Wickham was, and still, you let him move freely. You let him charm your friends, your neighbours… me.”
Darcy’s jaw worked. “I had no position to speak…”
“You had eyes! You saw him fawn and flatter, you watched me fall into his snares. And said nothing. And then you claimed you loved me?”
He halted, his boots scuffing the mossy ground. “Yes.”
His throat moved. His hands were fists at his sides, the riding crop dangling from one white-knuckled grip.
“The truth was not mine to give.” he said hoarsely.
But even as the words left his mouth, he felt them unravel. It wasn’t only Georgiana’s secret he’d been protecting. It had been his pride. His comfort. His unwillingness to dirty his hands with scandal even to prevent ruin.
Elizabeth saw it. Of course she saw it. She smiled slow, sharp, merciless. She turned, facing him fully, her chest rising and falling. “Then how do you want to be punished, Mr Darcy?”
He stood utterly still. “However you see fit.”
Her gaze dropped to the crop in his hand. “Give me that.”
He hesitated only a moment before surrendering it. She took it slowly, weighing it in her hand. Smack! Lashed it lightly against his thigh. Darcy’s breath caught.
“You already punished yourself,” she said, circling him, her voice lowering, “and found yourself condemned to solitude.”
He didn’t speak. His hands remained fists at his sides.
She stepped closer. “But if what you need is a little pain…” Smack!
He jolted, not in protest, but with a groan of want.
“Get naked, Darcy,” she said, voice silken and commanding. “I want to take my pleasure.”
He blinked at her. Birds chirped overhead, the wind stirred the leaves and she looked like a goddess with a weapon.
“I…”
Smack! This time against the back of his knee.
His cock twitched at the strike.
Slowly, methodically, he began to undress.
First the coat. Then the waistcoat. Each layer shed to the rustling of trees and her watchful eyes.
The crop traced lines over his chest, pausing at the laces of his breeches.
When his shirt finally fell, he reached for her, only to be stopped by a firm command.
“Your breeches,” she said, lifting the crop to nudge at the hard line beneath. “They seem to be bursting. Take them off.”
He swallowed hard.
“If you hesitate, I may be forced to strike you again, sir.”
His fingers moved at once. And when he stood bare before her in the shaded grove, she smiled.
“Show me,” she whispered, “what you do when you think of me.”