Page 30 of One Night with Mr. Darcy
“I don’t have to tell you,” she said.
“I have never seen him.” And his voice broke.
She suddenly realized something. Mr. Darcy cared about his son. He had never seen the boy, not really, and the well of emotion all over him about the child, it was more than she’d ever seen for Willie from anyone else.
It made her feel a certain sudden bond of kinship with the man.
“Fine,” she said. She turned on her heel. “This way.” She stalked through the hallways, careening around the bends, not even looking to see if he was behind her.
When she came to her bedchamber, she flung open the door, only then realizing what she was doing. She was bringing a man in here, and she was a married woman, and this was the only man who had ever known her carnally. She looked up at him; he was just behind her. She let out a little horrified gasp.
“Miss Bennet?” he rasped. Then cringed. “Mrs. Collins, I mean.”
“I… he still sleeps here with me,” she said to him. “I have kept him close, though I am subjected to accusations of coddling him, and I know I should not. But he is yet so small, and he needs me, and I am… he is a comfort to me. But I do not mean to bring you into my chambers, sir. I don’t mean to imply—”
“No, no,” he said. “Nor do I mean to indicate that I would take it in any manner as to—”
“Good, then.”
They gazed at each other for several moments.
She remembered his hands on her, then, and her whole body was suddenly alight in shudders.
THE NETHERFIELD BALL
ELIZABETH HAD KISSEDbefore. Not romantically; not with a man; not in a man’s arms. But she had assumed it would be like other kisses, the press of lips, dry against each other.
Mr. Darcy’s kiss was wet and he tasted of absinthe, and he eased his tongue into her mouth. She would have thought such a thing horrifying but it was nice, a soft and sweet intrusion. It made her entire being turn loose and willing, and she clung to him, and their tongues danced together.
When their lips broke apart, they were entangled. He was still holding her. He looked at her with half-lidded eyes, sighing. “Ah, I knew it would be different with you. I knew it would be good, just good.”
She didn’t know what he meant. But she found she was wounded at the thought of it being different, because it meant he had kissed other women in that way.
But of course he had. He was a man. He must have had all sorts of experiences, and she’d had none. Could she even please him with her kisses?
“Oh, I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m afraid,” she whispered.
“Me either,” he said. Now, he began to brush her hair away from her face, tracing the outlines of her features with his large, male fingers.
She liked that.
“So,” he said, “will you marry me, then?”
She laughed helplessly. “If you want me when you have slept off all this drink, if you come to my house tomorrow and speak to my father, then… yes.” It was foolish. He didn’t mean it. He was likely only saying it because he was drunk and idiotic.
He likely wanted to kiss other women, those women with whom it was different, and she was just a handy substitute.
She didn’t care, though, she realized. She felt privileged to have had this experience, to have been kissed this way, touched this way. He was looking at her with such desire, and that desire kindled something warm and welcome inside her.
“I shall be there,” he said.
“You don’t have to,” she said. “Let’s not do that, Mr. Darcy. I don’t need your false and drunken promises.”
“They are not false,” he said, and then he kissed her again.
Oh, shelikedthe kissing. She seized his cravat and tightened her grip on it, feeling as if she did not hold on she might tumble away into the ether. Was this really happening?
“Oh, fine, then, they are not.” She laughed helplessly. “But I want this. Just this tonight. Show me what it could be like with a man who I don’t despise, who I don’t wed out of duty, who looks at me in such a way.”
