Page 40 of Bitten By Mr. Darcy
She sighed. “I am already yours, of course. You may do with me as you like.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “Yes, yes, I think I know this. And this is why this is all a very ill-advised notion, all of it.”
“Yes, everything is doomed and we shall reap all manner of consequences,” she said archly. “Are you going to bite me now?”
“May I?” he gasped.
She tilted her head to one side, giving him access.
He latched onto her and she was struck through with silvery threads of sweet pleasure, like moonbeams taking charge of her entire body. She swooned against her demon lover in the darkness of the garden, and she surrendered to him utterly.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHEN MR. DARCYwoke that evening, he went to the Bennet household straightaway and called, though it was late. It was December now, so it grew dark early in the day, but it was still far too late for callers. He asked to speak to Elizabeth alone, and they stood together in her sitting room and he had to do everything in his power to keep himself from tasting her.
It would not do, of course, for her family to come upon them that way, him latched to her skin, drinking down her blood as he clutched her. He must not do that. Not here, not now. But he wanted her, wanted her quite badly.
In the bond, she was all anxiety, but it was a good anxiety.
They barely spoke. Instead, they mostly looked at each other. They waited enough time for a conversation to have been had, of course, so that her family wouldthinkthey were having a conversation. When they opened the door, they announced to the gathered family that Mr. Darcy had heard of Elizabeth’s engagement and had realized he could not bear it if Elizabeth married someone else, so he had come to beg her to break her engagement with Mr. Collins and to marry him.
Everyone was shocked.
Mrs. Bennet was not sure if this was very good news or very bad news.
Mr. Collins, who was still a guest in the house, was hearing this news now, and Darcy realized that wasn’t very good, but he did not look surprised, and he wondered if Elizabeth had already spoken to him. For the man’s sake, he hoped so. He did not wish Mr. Collins ill. He only could not have the man imposed upon his lovely Elizabeth.
So, when he spoke to both Collins and Mr. Bennet—well, when he charmed them both—he made sure to include within the charm a directive for Mr. Collins not to feel overly devastated by the end of the engagement, indeed to think that he had wished it but had been unable to end the arrangement himself, for a gentleman does not break his word once he has given it.
He charmed them to draw up the papers to break the entailment. It was something that could be done if the current owner and the heir both signed. Collins, of course, had no inducement to do it, so Mr. Darcy settled money on him.
In the end, Collins got out of it all rather well, if Mr. Darcy said so himself. Mr. Collins had liquid assets, and he felt rather smug at not having had to marry Elizabeth.
The Bennet family was better off as well, since the house could now be kept in the Bennet family.
As for marrying Elizabeth, he found himself rather impatient.
Also, he did not wish to tarry at Netherfield for too long, for it was going to get back to Bingley sooner or later, especially since word of his engagement had already spread all over Meryton and the surrounding areas, and everyone would soon be abuzz with it. Bingley would wonder where he was staying and then discover that Darcy had stayed in his estate without permission.
Darcy was not titled, though he had spent generations living as the third in line for the Matlock earldom. He could charm the archbishop to get what he wanted, anyway, so he didn’t need tohave a title, but it looked better if there was some connection to a title, so Darcy was glad to be connected to the Matlocks.
He got a special license.
This necessitated his going back to London, and while there, he broke the news to Georgiana that he was getting married. She was quite surprised, saying that she hadn’t been aware that those like him did such things.
It was the only time she had ever acknowledged aloud that she knew there was something preternatural about him.
He did not elaborate on it, and he accepted her congratulations and promised that he would introduce his wife once they were well settled in their marriage.
Then he went back to Meryton. He chanced riding in one of his special carriages which had no windows at all, so that he could travel in daylight. He did not use these often for so much had the possibility of going wrong in one. What if he were stopped and someone opened the door and he burned to death? But this time, he did, so that he could collect Elizabeth once it was night and take her off to London for the wedding.
Her family did not like the idea that the wedding was to be conducted without them, privately, but Mr. Darcy charmed them until they stopped objecting.
He and his bride were married in the sitting room in his town house at nearly midnight, and then they were left alone in the house. She smelled quite dizzyingly of cinnamon and honey, but somehow, he managed to wait until the bishop who’d performed the ceremony was gone before he sank his teeth into his new wife’s neck.
THE FIRST NIGHTall he did was drink from her.
He took her to his bedchamber, a room in the middle of the house with no windows and padlocks on the doors and he hadbeen drinking from her as he carried her through the place, and she was a little dizzy and drunk on it.
