Chapter 9 #2
Darcy stepped forward to greet his cousin, and the Brigadier caught him in a brief, brotherly embrace.
He stiffened halfway through. Paused. Pulled back just a shade too quickly.
His nostrils flared. His brows lifted. His eyes, sharp and assessing, darted to Elizabeth.
Then back to Darcy. A moment passed. Two.
“My word, Darcy,” he murmured, sotto voce. “What… have you?”
Darcy’s look was immediate. Flat. Dangerous.
Fitzwilliam closed his mouth. Nodded once.
A soldier receiving orders.
* * *
The dining room at Pemberley glowed with candlelight and polished silver, the low murmur of conversation blending with the clink of cutlery and the occasional pop from the fire.
At the head of the table sat Mr Darcy, composed and genial, his coat perfectly cut, his voice warm with a hospitality that, by the second glass of wine, had surprised even Mrs Gardiner.
“So there I was,” Brigadier Fitzwilliam declared, gesturing grandly with his fork, “thirty feet up the blasted yew, trying to coax Charlotte down with nothing but a walking stick and a piece of gingerbread.”
Laughter rippled around the table.
“She would not budge,” he went on. “Stared at me like I was a turnip. I had already torn my coat, barked my shin, and was hanging on with three fingers and an oath not fit for company, when little Emma decided to climb up after me.”
“He had not thought to call for the ladder,” Rita interjected from the other end of the table, smiling serenely as she buttered a roll. “Or the governess. Or, indeed, the gardener, who had been pruning roses not ten yards away.”
“A tactical error,” the Brigadier conceded with mock humility. “But I did rescue them both. Eventually.”
“He fell out of the tree,” Rita said cheerfully. “Landed on his back like a sack of flour. Emma slid down quite sensibly and Charlotte jumped into the gardener’s arms.”
“The gardener still sends flowers to her room,” added Rita with a wicked smile.
Elizabeth laughed along with the others, but something in her expression dimmed as the conversation turned.
“They are delightful girls,” Mrs Gardiner said fondly. “Raising children is exhausting and miraculous in equal parts.”
“A miracle with jam on its face and opinions about crusts,” Rita agreed, dabbing her lips.
Mrs Gardiner turned to Elizabeth, eyes a little glassy from the wine. “You would have made a wonderful mother, Lizzy.”
Darcy, who had been reaching for his wineglass, paused.
Elizabeth’s smile froze.
“You have such clever hands,” Mrs Gardiner went on, oblivious. “And a patient manner. And goodness knows you raised Mary and Kitty more than anyone else did.”
“Not all women wish to be mothers,” Elizabeth said softly.
A hush fell around the table.
“Of course,” said Rita, quickly. “Some of the happiest women I know have never had children.”
Darcy set down his glass without drinking.
The moment passed.
After dinner, the party moved to the parlour, where candlelight softened the edges of the room and decanters made the rounds. Cards were brought out, and the conversation lightened again.
The Brigadier turned to Elizabeth. “Do you still play, Mrs Morley? I recall you had a fine hand at the pianoforte.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “It has been more than ten years since I touched a key. I fear the strings would protest.”
“A pity,” he said with a smile. “I had hoped to hear something bright.”
“Mrs Morley has other talents,” Darcy said lightly, though his voice was tight.
Mrs Gardiner leaned in as Elizabeth poured another glass of port. Her tone was conspiratorial, her cheeks pleasantly flushed. “They are such agreeable people,” she whispered. “And Mr Darcy is such a pleasant host. So agreeable. Why, Lizzy, did you dislike him so much for so long?”
Elizabeth smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. “Oh, I had my reasons.” She stood. “I believe I shall take a turn before bed.”
Darcy was on his feet in an instant. “Allow me to escort you, Mrs Morley.”
The room watched them go, some with curiosity, some with amusement.
* * *
They did not go to her chamber, they wandered instead until they found the old nursery.
“I always wanted children,” Elizabeth said, her fingers curling around the smooth flank of a wooden horse.
It had been left behind in a basket atop the nursery dresser, the paint chipped, one wheel missing.
A toy untouched for years, waiting for someone who never came.
Darcy didn’t speak at first. His arm slid around her waist instead, his chin resting against her hair. When he finally exhaled, it came like surrender.
“I am sorry,” he said quietly. And he meant all of it, not just for her empty arms, but for every time she’d faced the world alone. He kissed the crown of her head, tasting the salt of her skin and the ache in his own chest. Behind his eyes, the sting of tears gathered.
“We tried everything,” she went on, voice barely above the hush of the room. “Tommy read every book he could find. Wrote letters to every man of medicine he trusted. We charted and measured and counted and hoped, and prayed.”
She gave a breathless, mirthless laugh.
“He became something of an expert. Helped others, in time. Quite a few of them,” she added, with a kind of defiant pride.
Then, slowly, she turned to look up at him. The tenderness in his gaze, unguarded, undemanding, utterly present, struck her so hard it stole her breath.
“You do not have to speak of this,” he murmured.
“I want to.” She turns to him now. “Because you would want an heir… I am not able to give you one.”
Darcy said nothing. He simply lifted his hand to her cheek, stroking a thumb along the bone. She had looked for judgment and found only understanding.
“I guessed as much,” he said quietly, his voice a thread of breath between them.
It wasn’t an accusation. Not even a surprise. Just truth, gently offered.
“The way you never stopped me,” he added, eyes fixed on hers. “How you never seemed to worry about consequences…”
His thumb brushed along her jaw.
Elizabeth didn’t flinch. She didn’t look away.
There was no shame in her gaze, only the slow exhale of being seen.
Known. Darcy leaned in, not with hunger, nor with possession.
A kiss that asked nothing, that promised nothing but presence.
His mouth met hers gently, their lips brushing like a vow spoken too soft to be heard aloud.
The kiss deepened, slightly lazy, tender, unhurried. As though they had all the time in the world. As though time, quietening for once, allowed them this, this hush, this moment, this knowing.
Her hands curled in the linen of his shirt. As if she, too, had been starved of gentleness. Elizabeth’s fingers moved to the front ties of her practical gown, chosen for ease, not elegance. She pulled the knots loose one by one, her breath steady despite the thrum beneath her ribs.
Darcy said nothing. He watched.
When the fabric loosened, she pushed the garment from her shoulders.
Underneath, her short stays, wrapped around her like armour.
She tugged at the tapes with practiced ease.
They gave way with a soft whisper of cotton on linen, the tension melting from her ribs.
Her shift fluttered next, caught briefly against her skin before sliding free to pool around her ankles.
She stood before him bare, deliberate.
Darcy undressed without rush, his fingers grazing the ties of his cravat, his coat folding over the nursery chair like a discarded uniform, until he stood bare before her, the light gilding the lines of his body in gold and shadow.
No shame. No show. No pretence. Just skin.
He reached for her then. Her hand slid to his chest, splayed over the steady rhythm of his heart. His palm found the curve of her spine. They stood like that, breath mingling, bare from collarbone to ankle, not for lust but for the sheer miracle of another body.
He stepped to the side, looked at the berth he slept on in his boyhood and the old mattress covering it. He moved a crate off to the floor. Then, without a word, he took his shirt from the pile and spread it over the fabric, smoothing the wrinkles as best he could.
A gesture without ceremony. An offering.
Elizabeth watched him, something aching and warm swelling in her chest.
He glanced back over his shoulder. “It is not much,” he murmured, a bit sheepish.
“It is perfect.”
She stepped towards him, there was nothing between them. Nothing hidden. No lies, no fabric, no barriers. Darcy held out his hand. Elizabeth took it, sinking to the mattress with him, the lawn of his shirt cool beneath her spine, his palm warm against her ribs.
They lay there, not kissing yet, not speaking. Just… adjusting to the miracle of being beside one another without tension. Without urgency.
Naked, but not exposed.
Open, but not demanded.
His hand rested on the small of her back. Hers cupped his jaw. She kissed him softly, like a question, not a claim.
“Fitzwilliam?”
He hummed.
“I did not mean to be cruel… earlier.”
His eyes met hers, so open she could barely stand it.
“You were not,” he said. He kissed her forehead. “You were sovereign.”
Her leg slipped over his hip, drawing him closer by instinct. His hand found the bare curve of her thigh, fingers tracing slowly upward.
No rush.
No plan.
They kissed again. A languid, deep, almost sleepy kiss.
When their hips met, it wasn’t hunger. It was gravity.
A shared exhale. A need to be close. They moved together like tides.
They didn’t rush towards release. They drifted into silence; warm, tangled, naked in every way.
Her head tucked beneath his chin, her breath slowing, fingers curled in the hollow of his shoulder.
“You feel so warm and safe…” she murmured.
Sleep found them skin to skin, the scent of summer between them, and all the wounds beneath their ribs quieted… for now.
* * *