Page 16 of Bitten By Mr. Darcy
“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Darcy, “and added to all this, she must be a great reader.” He smirked at Elizabeth.
Elizabeth couldn’t help but smile back.
“Cor meum, really, she knows her place. You have already gotten her to agree to be here to please you,” said Caroline. “You needn’t sell her on anything else. She will obey you if you but ask. Try it.”
“I don’t want obedience,” said Mr. Darcy. “It’s rather nice that you aren’t charmed, you know, Miss Elizabeth. Rather niceindeed.” He considered. “Of course, I know it doesn’t really mean you are choosing to be here.”
Elizabeth squirmed. “I want to leave,” she said.
“Yes, and I shall release you,” he said. “I promise it will be soon.”
She looked into his eyes, as if she was seeking the truth of what he had said there. But then, she could not seem to look away, and she was so pretty that way, gazing at him with obvious adoration, that he wanted to bite her right then and there.
With effort, he tore his gaze from hers, letting out a low groan. “Perhaps I must occupy myself in some other manner,” he said, and he got up to walk across the room. He found some paper and an inkwell and he sat down to compose a letter.
Miss Darcy knew he was not truly her brother, but she had been so young when they had imposed the ruse upon her, they had thought it kinder to say he was a cousin, like Richard. Hitherto, he had been posing as Richard’s younger brother, in fact, so it was what she thought of him. And Richard was also her guardian, so she did not question it. She was also willing to take on the ruse that he was her brother.
At any rate, he wrote her letters often, and he did what he could to protect her, when he had to protect her, which wasn’t always often, but was sometimes. That business with the Wickham boy had been a bit of a mess, after all.
He began to write, dimly aware that there was a card game going on, and that he thought Elizabeth was, in fact, going to read a book, and that Caroline would read as well.
But then, Caroline was hovering, too near. “Are you writing a letter,cor meum?” she breathed in his ear, her voice husky. “Let me mend your pen.”
He shook her off, disliking the thing she’d said and obvious double-meaning of it. “Thank you, but I always mend my own.”
She laughed, a long and throaty laugh. “Oh, do you, then?”
He rolled his eyes. “This is beneath us both.”
“Beneath,” she said, her voice very low. “It has been some time since either of us was beneath the other.”
He let out a sigh. “You are making it difficult to concentrate on the letter, I must say.”
“Write, then,” she said, straightening, but continuing to stand behind him.
He looked up at her, annoyed, hoping she would take her leave of him.
She only smiled, gesturing for him to go on and write.
He turned back to the page, and began to compose the letter.
“You write uncommonly fast,” she said.
“You are mistaken,” he said in a clipped voice. “I write rather slowly.”
“And the evenness of your handwriting, so precise,” she said. “I should expect positively nothing else from you, however.”
Another voice interrupted, from the card table. “Caroline! Leave Darcy be, and come here to join the card game.” It was Mr. Bingley.
Darcy glanced at him over his shoulder.
Caroline turned to the other vampire, smiling carelessly. “Oh, Charles wishes I was reading over his shoulder, I suppose, commenting on his writing.”
“Indeed not. My style of writing is different than his.”
Darcy realized that Bingley was coming over to the both of them. He set his pen in the inkwell, for he was not going to be able to write this letter, after all.
“Your style of writing,” scoffed Caroline. “What you mean is that you blot out half your words and it reads like a child composed it.”
