Chapter Seventeen
Elizabeth retired to her rooms as early as politeness allowed.
Darcy had failed to rejoin their guests with the other gentlemen, so she had done her best to ensure everyone was comfortable before she could reasonably slip away.
She was angry with him for his rudeness, angry with him for the feelings he inspired in her and angry with herself for being so entirely incapable of understanding what she wanted from him.
Her maid followed her inside and began preparing to help her undress, but Elizabeth shook her head. "No, thank you. I can manage perfectly well tonight." The young woman hesitated, surprised, but wished her goodnight and withdrew.
Elizabeth remained before the looking glass.
She had thought herself looking very well earlier, having put an embarrassing amount of effort into her toilette.
All so that Darcy might look at her. Which he had, she supposed, before proceeding to tell her that she looked very well.
Very well. It was the sort of thing her father might say to her mother without ever actually turning his head in her direction.
"Very well indeed," she muttered. Her own face stared back at her, flushed and discomposed. Slowly, her gaze shifted towards the connecting door which led to the sitting room between their apartments.
This had gone on long enough. Could she really walk through it?
And if she did, would he even receive her?
He had not so much as said goodnight. Anger and frustration drove her across the room and then she stopped, one hand hovering over the handle.
For more than a week she had listened from this side of it, like a child eavesdropping. And on whom? Her own husband.
Tonight, for several seconds, she heard nothing at all. Then came the faint clink of glass against wood from somewhere beyond. Darcy was there, just feet from where she stood. Elizabeth wrapped her fingers around the handle and pushed the door open.
Darcy was seated near the fire with one arm resting along the back of the chair and a glass of brandy upon the table beside him. His coat had been discarded and his cravat removed, though he was otherwise still dressed for dinner. At the sound of the door, he turned.
"Elizabeth?" He came to his feet so quickly that the chair shifted backwards against the rug. "Are you well?"
"No, Darcy, I am not well." She stepped properly into the room and closed the door behind her. "I am not even very well, in fact."
His brows drew together, clearly unsure what to make of that. "I do not understand."
"No, I rather think you do not." Elizabeth folded her arms. Now that she had begun, a week's worth of frustration seemed to bubble to the surface.
"You abandoned our guests this evening without so much as a by-your-leave.
You did not return to the drawing room, you did not explain where you were going and you did not even condescend to say goodnight to your wife. "
Darcy looked genuinely taken aback. "I did not think you would mind."
"Well, I did."
His expression altered. "I beg your pardon. I was not attempting to be rude. I only thought..." He stopped and glanced towards the fire.
Elizabeth waited. "You thought what?"
"That you would prefer to remain with Jane and Anne."
"Why?"
Darcy looked back at her, plainly bewildered by the question. "Because you wished for friendship. I have been attempting to give you space."
"Space?" Elizabeth stared at him. "Darcy, if you give me any more space I shall require a telescope to find you."
His mouth opened, then closed again.
She might have laughed had she not been so thoroughly vexed. "For more than a week you have behaved towards me with such flawless courtesy that I sometimes wonder whether you remember we are married at all."
"I thought that was what you wanted."
Elizabeth's anger faltered. "So did I, when I asked for it. I thought friendship would make everything easier."
Some of the defensiveness left his face as he watched her.
"It has not," she admitted. "I do not know what I want half the time. That is rather the problem."
She sank into the chair beside his, and Darcy returned gingerly to his own seat, though his attention never left her.
"I asked for friendship because everything had happened so quickly.
One moment I was refusing your proposal, the next I was waking in a wine cellar with your coat wrapped about me and not long after that I was your wife.
" She gave a small, helpless shake of her head.
"I needed something that felt simple. Friendship seemed simple.
" Elizabeth looked at him again. "Only it is not. "
Darcy was leaning towards her now, his eyes wide.
She drew in a breath. "I have spent every evening listening to you through that door. Wondering... hoping..." Her face burned. "It is so cowardly of me that I can hardly bear to admit it."
Darcy moved before she had finished speaking.
One moment he was seated and the next he was on his knees before her, close enough that she could feel the heat of him through her skirts.
His hands hovered for a second then settled over hers, the feeling of it so warm and solid that she could have cried.
"Elizabeth," he said, and there was so much feeling in the single word that she could not look away.
"I have been waiting for you to come through that door every night," she whispered. "I did not know whether you had begun to feel differently. To regret… you seemed so composed, so unmoved, when your presence causes me to feel like I am on fire."
"Regret?" he echoed.
Elizabeth winced at the word. "You have kept your distance so carefully that I did begin to wonder."
"Elizabeth." His thumb traced a delicate pattern over the back of her hand.
"I have spent every day of the past week trying not to frighten you with how little I regret it.
" Darcy gave a short, humourless laugh and dragged one hand through his hair.
"Do you imagine I leave you every evening because I wish to?
I go back to my rooms because if I remain with you much longer I begin to think about kissing you.
Or touching you. Or doing a great many things which would not fall comfortably beneath the heading of friendship. "
Heat rushed into Elizabeth's face.
He noticed and looked stricken. "Forgive me. That was too plain."
"No," she said quickly. "I think the plain honest truth is what we need at this moment."
Darcy looked at her for a long moment. His eyes were dark in the candlelight and she could see his pulse thrumming at his throat. The heat from his hands on hers radiated through her and she leaned towards him, unable to bear any distance between them.
"What would you have me do, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth?" His voice had dropped to a murmur, a low rumble that seemed to travel through every sinew of her body.
Elizabeth tightened her fingers around his. "I think, William, that I would very much like you to stop being my friend."
Something seemed to snap within him at the use of his name and he pulled her to him, his mouth meeting hers with ferocious intensity.
There was no misunderstanding or caution now, only an overflow of everything that had built between them since that night in Lady Catherine's wine cellar.
His mouth burned over hers and she met him hungrily, eager for the taste of him and the feel of his arms around her.
When he finally drew back, both of them were breathing hard.
Darcy rested his forehead against hers, a smile beginning at the corner of his mouth. "Still friends?"
Elizabeth opened her eyes and gave him a look. "Never," she breathed.
He stood, pulling her to her feet with a laugh before sweeping her into his arms. Elizabeth gave a startled little cry and caught at his shoulders, but Darcy only held her closer, burying his face in her hair and breathing deeply. "The scent of you is intoxicating, my love," he murmured.
His lips found the place beneath her ear and moved slowly down the side of her neck.
Elizabeth tipped her head without thinking, giving him greater access, and his hand spread warmly across the small of her back as he kissed the delicate hollow above her collarbone.
She gasped and felt his smile against her skin.
"Mr Pemberley," she whispered, somewhat breathlessly. "I believe you are taking liberties."
She felt him smile against her skin, while continuing the trail of fire back up her neck before taking her mouth in his.
He pulled back and brushed a loose curl from her face, drinking in the sight of her before commanding, "Turn around, Elizabeth," in his best Master of Pemberley voice.
It should have been vexing, but it sent a pleasant shiver down her spine and she complied.
Darcy moved behind her and reached for the pins in her hair.
The first came free with a gentle tug, then another, his fingertips occasionally brushing her scalp as he worked.
Elizabeth closed her eyes. There was something wonderfully intimate in standing quietly while he dismantled the careful arrangement her maid had spent so long creating.
One by one the pins landed upon the small table beside them until the weight of her hair began to loosen and thick curls tumbled down her back.
His hands slid into her hair, spreading it between his fingers before gathering it together and letting it fall again. "I have wanted to do this since Netherfield." He buried his face in its mass before letting it loose once more.
Elizabeth turned her head enough to look at him over her shoulder. "You have been thinking about taking down my hair since Netherfield?"
"Among other things."
"Mr Darcy, you are quite the romantic," she said teasingly.
"William," he corrected, bending to kiss her shoulder.
His arms slipped around her waist and drew her back against him, his cheek brushing hers.
For several seconds neither of them spoke.
Elizabeth rested her hands over his where they were clasped at her middle and felt a bone-deep contentment she had never known.
She turned in his embrace and touched his face, running her fingers over the roughness beginning to shadow his jaw.
He leaned instinctively into her palm and she smiled before drawing him down to her.
The kiss began slowly this time. His hand slid into her loosened hair, drawing her closer while the other trailed up and down her spine.
Elizabeth curled her fingers into the soft curls at the nape of his neck and Darcy made a low sound against her mouth.
She smiled into the kiss. "You made that sound in the cellar.
I have heard it often in my dreams." Darcy kissed her harder for that, his arms tightening around her.
By the time they parted, his hair was thoroughly disordered beneath her fingers and Elizabeth smiled up at him. "You are entirely undone, William."
"That I am, my Elizabeth. My love." His hands remained at her waist as he searched her face. "Are you certain this is what you wish?"
Elizabeth slipped her hand into his. "I am."
His fingers closed around hers and he lifted her hand to his mouth, pressing a lingering kiss against her knuckles before leading her towards the other door of the sitting room, the one she had spent more than a week listening to him disappear through each night.
At the threshold he stopped. Elizabeth looked from the open doorway to him. "Do not tell me you intend to become gentlemanly again now."
His mouth curved. "I was giving you another opportunity to change your mind."
She stepped into his room and tugged firmly on his hand. "Come along, Mr Pemberley. You have wasted quite enough time already."
His laughter was warm against her neck as he followed her through and closed the door behind them.
???
Darcy lay on his back staring at the canopy above his bed and wondered whether it was possible for a man to die from excessive happiness.
Elizabeth was curled against his side, her head resting upon his chest and one bare arm lying across his stomach. Her hair was everywhere, spread across his pillow, over his shoulder and tangled around his fingers. It was glorious.
"What are you thinking on, William?" she asked, her fingers trailing lazily over his chest.
"I am thinking that I am the luckiest man alive, although do not tell Bingley that. He will probably call me out."
"Then I must be the happiest woman alive," she said, placing a kiss upon his shoulder.
Darcy tightened his arm around her. "I am sorry it took us this long to get here."
"It has been less than a fortnight," she said with a laugh.
"Not for me. I have been falling more deeply in love with you since I insulted you at the Meryton assembly."
Elizabeth lifted her head to look at him. "It is a strange beginning, to be sure. A strange journey altogether. Perhaps all couples should be locked in a cellar for a night. It certainly builds resolve."
Darcy smiled and brushed a curl back from her face. "Then I am resolved to love you for the rest of my days, Elizabeth Darcy."
Her expression softened. "That is fortunate, Mr Pemberley, because I believe I am quite resolved upon the same."
He drew her up and kissed her, slowly this time, with no urgency left between them. When she settled against him again, Darcy closed his eyes and held her a little tighter. He kissed her temple and knew he had found his peace.