Chapter 15
ELIZABETH
I knew Fitzwilliam had spoken to Colonel Forster when Lydia wrote that some tiresome officer had taken it upon himself to question Mr Wickham’s intentions.
The letter arrived two weeks after we had settled at Pemberley.
Lydia devoted three indignant lines to the matter, then six pages to the prospect of leaving for Brighton with Mrs Forster.
She mentioned no danger. She saw balls, uniforms, the sea, and freedom from our father’s distracted supervision.
I reread the letter in the small morning room.
“She’s going,” I said.
Fitzwilliam set down his newspaper.
“Your father has given his consent?”
“He seems to find it less tiring than keeping her at Longbourn.”
Anger tightened my throat. I loved my father. I also knew his weakness: he preferred to laugh at an imprudence rather than make the effort to prevent it.
“I can write to Forster again,” Fitzwilliam offered.
“He cannot refuse his wife’s company to a gentleman’s daughter simply because you despise an officer.”
“I do not despise him. I know him.”
“The result is the same for those unaware of your reasons.”
He rose and came to my side.
“Do you wish me to write to your father?”
A few weeks earlier, I would have taken this as another attempt to make decisions for my family. Now I saw he was simply asking how to proceed.
“No. He would take offense at receiving a lecture from his son-in-law.”
“Even if it is necessary?”
“Especially then.”
Fitzwilliam rubbed the back of his neck.
“Then we must hope Forster will heed my warning.”
“I do not like depending on hope.”
“Neither do I.”
The previous Monday, I had ridden up to the Thwaites’.
The yard smelled of warm manure and laundry. Mrs Thwaite had let me in without a word, her hands still red from her washtub, and had left me standing while her three daughters watched me from the stairs.
I had not spoken of reading.
I had asked who kept the farm accounts.
She had replied that her husband kept them in his head, that he made mistakes twice a year, and that the last error had cost them eleven shillings at the grain merchant’s in Lambton.
I had said that Ann already knew how to add three-digit figures.
Mrs Thwaite had taken a long moment to set down her cloth.
The girls had returned on Wednesday. Two other families had followed. Mrs Allen had sent me a note of four lines, the last simply announcing that she was keeping her apron.
I had said nothing of it to Fitzwilliam.
He had learned of it from his steward. That very evening, he had only asked how I had convinced the Thwaites, then listened until I finished. This restraint was worth more than another apology.
My anxiety over Lydia darkened the morning, however. After luncheon, Fitzwilliam proposed a ride. The sky was overcast, but the air mild. He assured me we would return before the rain.
“That’s remarkable confidence in your power over the elements,” I observed.
“Pemberley is a well-administered estate.”
“Even the clouds?”
“I am still negotiating their cooperation.”
We set off with a groom who kept his distance. My mount, a bay mare named Juniper, had been chosen for her calm temperament. Fitzwilliam rode a large black horse that seemed to have inherited his pride and his poor opinion of the rest of the world.
I pointed this out to him.
“Orion possesses excellent judgment,” he replied.
“He tried to bite your valet yesterday.”
“My valet had fastened a girth incorrectly.”
“So you defend all the arrogant creatures of this house?”
“Only those who resemble me.”
He smiled as he said it.
I still had not learned to resist his smile.
We rode through the woods, then across a sloping meadow where the tall grass undulated in the wind.
Fitzwilliam showed me the boundaries of a farm, the location of the school I had visited with Mrs Reynolds, a small bridge that had been carried away the previous winter.
Each project revealed a part of him: his need for order, his sense of responsibility, the genuine attention he paid to the lives that depended on the estate.
Perhaps I already loved him.
The thought came unbidden.
I pushed it away with irrational fear. Naming it too soon might make it false.
The first drop fell on my cheek.
“Your negotiations have failed,” I said.
Fitzwilliam looked up.
The sky had darkened with alarming speed. The rain began before we reached the trees. Within minutes, it grew so dense that the path disappeared beneath a gray curtain.
“There’s an old gatehouse not far,” he shouted. “Follow me.”
We galloped less than a quarter mile. Despite my coat, water soaked through my clothes. My hair came loose beneath my hat. Juniper slipped once in the mud; Fitzwilliam was at my side before I had time to be afraid.
The gatehouse was a small stone structure, once used during hunts. The groom led the horses under a lean-to while Fitzwilliam forced open the door, swollen with moisture.
Inside stood a table, two chairs, a bench, and a fireplace where dry logs had been kept.
“Take off your coat,” he ordered.
“You’re getting bossy.”
“You’re shivering.”
I was. He helped me undo the fastenings. The coat, heavy with water, fell into his hands. My dress was hardly drier. The fabric clung to my arms, my waist, my legs.
Fitzwilliam’s gaze traveled down over me before he could stop it.
The heat in his eyes made me forget the cold.
He turned away and removed his own coat.
“Take this.”
“It’s as wet as mine.”
“Less so.”
He placed it over my shoulders. The garment was warm from his body, steeped in rain, leather, and that subtle scent I now knew. I pulled the edges around me.
Fitzwilliam lit the fire with the precise movements of a man who refused to acknowledge that his fingers were trembling.
“Your shirt is soaked,” I said.
“I’ll survive.”
It clung to his chest. Beneath the linen, now almost transparent, I could make out the line of his muscles, his skin darkened by moisture, the rise and fall of his breath.
I didn’t look away quickly enough.
“Elizabeth.”
His voice held a warning.
“Yes?”
“Don’t look at me like that if you only wish to get warm.”
Heat rushed to my temples.
“And if I wish for something else?”
He remained crouched by the fire, motionless.
“You must be certain.”
“You always ask me to be certain. I’m beginning to believe you never are.”
He straightened slowly.
“I am certain that I want you. That’s precisely the danger.”
The groom was a few yards away, separated from us by a wall and the sound of the rain. The door was closed. We were married. Nothing in this situation was truly forbidden, yet the isolation lent each word the intensity of transgression.
I approached the fire.
“Kiss me.”
He came to me.
His mouth was warm despite the cold. I closed my arms around his back and felt the water from his shirt against my chest. He held me beneath his coat, one hand at my waist, the other in my wet hair.
The kiss deepened almost immediately. There was nothing but the rain striking the stone and the fire beginning to catch.
I slid my hands over his chest.
The wet linen hid almost nothing. I felt the firmness of his body, the muscles contracting beneath my palms. He groaned when my fingers found the opening of his shirt.
“You like that sound,” I murmured.
“You like provoking it.”
“Perhaps.”
He kissed me harder.
His hands slid down to my hips. He lifted me and set me on the table, exactly as in his study. My wet skirts hung heavy around my legs.
“Pemberley’s furniture inspires strange uses in you,” I said.
“I’ll have a list of recommendations drawn up.”
I laughed against his mouth.
Then his hand slipped beneath my knee.
The laughter died.
He moved slowly up along my calf, beneath the layers of my skirt. His fingers were warm on my cold skin. I gripped his shoulders.
He slowed when he reached my garter and looked up at me.
I took his wrist and guided his hand higher.
His touch traveled up my bare thigh, beneath the layers of skirt and petticoat. I had never been touched there. The intimacy of it made me close my eyes.
“Look at me,” he said.
I obeyed.
He stood between my knees, his shirt open, his hair damp, his face taut with desire. No moment of our marriage should have been more indecent. None had ever seemed more beautiful to me.
His fingers found the hem of my shift, lifted by the weight of my skirts.
He went still.
“I want to give you pleasure,” he murmured. “Nothing else.”
The promise burned me more than his hand ever could.
I tightened my fingers around his wrist without pushing him away.
He understood.
He pushed back the linen with infinite care. The first direct contact made me start.
Fitzwilliam went still. When his hand began to withdraw, I held it against me.
His mouth found mine.
He murmured my name against my lips and held still, waiting for my body to adjust. Shame made me want to close my legs. I held his gaze and chose not to hide. There was no amusement, no judgment—only a focus so complete that I felt precious even in my ignorance.
He caressed me slowly.
The sensation was strange, too vivid, almost unbearable. Then he found a spot that turned my breath into a moan.
“There?” he asked.
I nodded, unable to speak.
He did it again.
Each movement built an unfamiliar tension in my belly. I clung to him. My lips wandered against his jaw, his neck, the bare skin of his chest. I no longer knew what I was doing. I only knew his hand was leading me toward something I both wanted and feared.
“Fitzwilliam…”
“Let go.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. I have you.”
His voice broke on that word.
The tension shattered.
I brought a hand to my mouth to muffle my cry. My body clenched around his fingers, swept by waves of pleasure that left me boneless. Fitzwilliam held me against him, his mouth at my temple, his murmurs lost in my hair.
When I finally caught my breath, I was nestled against his chest, my skirts still raised, my face burning.
“Good God,” I breathed.
He gave a low laugh.
“I cannot claim all the credit.”
I swatted him weakly on the shoulder.
He withdrew his hand gently and straightened my clothes. The tenderness of it made the moment even more intimate.
I became aware of his arousal, hard against my thigh.
“And you?” I asked.
“Later.”
“You always say that.”
“Because you are not yet ready.”
I placed my hand on his cheek.
“I think I am getting closer.”
His face shuttered for a second. He received hope the way one receives pain.
“Do not hurry to reward me.”
“It is not a reward.”
“Then say it when you are certain.”
The rain eased. The groom knocked discreetly to announce that the horses could set off again.
We separated, adjusted our clothes, and returned to Pemberley under a still-gray sky.
No one could guess what had happened in the hunting lodge.
I knew that something had changed.
I had not only entrusted my pleasure to Fitzwilliam.
I had entrusted him with my vulnerability, and he had held it with more care than many men held a promise.