Page 63 of Elizabeth and Caroline
Mr. Darcy snickered. “Oh, dear, I didn’t mean it inthatway.”
“Yes, please, the less we picture that, the better, I think,” exclaimed Elizabeth.
He settled into the carriage seat, tightening his griparound her. “I am not jealous, my love.”
“I know that,” she whispered.
“I am only… you are too good for me, and you don’t realize it, and someday, I live in terror that you will awaken and see that you could have had any man on earth,anyof them, and you will be quite disappointed to only have me.”
She lifted her head, rather shocked. “Never!”
He searched her gaze.
“Never,” she said again, her voice low and firm. She kissed him.
He sighed into her mouth.
She tangled up her hand in his cravat and the kiss deepened.
When the carriage reached their destination, Mr. Darcy had to yell out for the driver to give them “but a moment,” whilst they put themselves together enough to disembark.
Giggling like children, they stole into the house, into his bedchamber, where he roared at his valet that his services would not be necessary, and they left a trail of the finery they had worn to the ball on the path to her husband’s bed.
He touched her with expert fingers, as if she were a treasured and valued instrument he had taken the time to learn with care, and she bowed up against him, bursting as he played her with careful skill, bringing her to a climax that was like the exaltation of sweet music.
When they were joined, she had that sensation again, the sensation of becoming one with him, as if they were more than the sum of their parts, as if together, they became something beautiful and whole, like a masterpiece of an orchestra.
It was only later that he was rueful, holding her in his arms, his finger tracing patterns on her bare shoulder. “I forgot,” he whispered. “I know you didn’t wish me to spill inside you.”
“Oh,” she whispered in realization. Then, she shrugged, rolling into him, kissing whatever bit of his bare skin she could find. “Well, I no longer have to find Caroline a husband. Perhaps I don’t mind. Perhaps I should rather likeit if you got me with child.”
He stroked her features, tucking away a lock of her hair. “But you said you were not ready.”
“Only because I thought I would be too busy.”
“Don’t you have an entire society of London women to conquer as of yet? Don’t you have all of my aunt’s influence to undo?”
She sighed, thinking that over. “I don’t know if I do. I don’t know if I rightly care. The colonel said some things to me this evening. Some of them were a bit cutting, truly, but it made me realize that I have never wanted any of that.”
“Any of what?”
“All the ins and outs of manipulating one’s way into a position of, well, let’s call it what it is, power. It is not something I’ve ever truly desired.”
“But you’re quite good at it.”
Perhaps. Perhaps she was not. Perhaps it was only momentary bits of impulse she could manipulate. It was as her husband had said to her the day after they were wed, that though she might have convinced him to propose to her sooner than he would have, changing his action in the moment, it would have happened anyway. She could not manipulate the true motivations of a person.
It was a relief, actually. That was too much responsibility for another person to bear. She did not wish it. She never had.
“All I have ever dreamed of, truly,” said Elizabeth idly, “was for some rich and wealthy man to come and fall desperately in love with me and whisk me off to be his wife. And that has already happened.”
Her husband laughed. “Well, then what shall we occupy ourselves with?”
“I have told you. You must work very diligently on getting me with child. It may be an arduous and difficult task, but I think you may be up to it.”
He made a deep noise in his throat, one of approval. “Yes, yes, I think I could be convinced to undertake it.”
She lifted her face to be kissed and he surrendered readily to that temptation.
