Page 61 of Bitten By Mr. Darcy
“Time, my love,” he said quietly, reaching up to run his fingers over her arm. “We must have time together, that is all. These things between us, they will either get better or worse with time, and this will tell us what we need to know about our future.”
“Just wait?” she said. “That is all? There is nothing else?”
“I think not,” he said. “Do you wish to have the colonel in your bed in the meantime?”
“No.”
He chuckled.
“I truly do not,” she said. “And I don’t know that he really likes me either. I think he has some concern about you, some idea that you are unjust towards me, and he has it all tied up in seeing himself as my savior or some such. I have been paying too much attention to it, but I shall stop, and I think it will all fade rather quickly.”
“If you change your mind, I shouldn’t deny you anything.”
She gasped.
“I…” He got up from his chair to look at her. “You don’t like that answer, for you would wish to deny me things, I suppose. You would not be so sanguine if I wished another in my bed.”
She bit down on her lip, thinking it through. “I don’t know. If it were a man, I suppose it might be different.”
He laughed.
“That seems nonsensical, doesn’t it?”
“No, quite normal, I think, for you don’t feel it as a threat, that I should prefer him to you?”
“Maybe,” she said. “But are you not worried that I should prefer the colonel? You say you are jealous, but you would still allow it?”
“You are not here for my pleasure, Lizzy,” he said. “You are here for yourself. I have been in a number of arrangements over the years, and vampires grow tired and bored with each other. Fidelity becomes a cage. It’s common for them to unlock it and let themselves frolic where they wish.”
“But if a person you love is hurt by your actions, and you keep doing it to them, that’s cruelty.”
“By the same argument, if a person you love craves something, and you deny it because of your own selfishness, that is cruelty.”
She thought about that, but she wasn’t sure she believed it. It wasn’t exactly the same. “After you took me to bed, it changed us. We are closer now. Did it not… in those arrangements, did it not foster closeness with the people they were being unfaithful with?”
He shrugged, looking away.
“Like Caroline,” she said in a sour voice. “Caroline who belonged to Bingley and now cannot shake whatever closeness she has to you.”
“And you are jealous of her,” he said quietly. “Whilst she is jealous of you, and—”
“This is why infidelity is a cage one should perhaps abide by,” she said pointedly.
He shrugged. “Yes, yes. There is no right and wrong in the end, but there are always consequences for every action. One may think, ‘Well, I shall sit down and line up all the bad consequences and never do any actions that lead to bad consequences, and then I shall be happy all the time,’ and then lightning strikes and burns down one’s house, and one realizes being happy all the time is neither possible nor desirable.”
She blinked, unsure if she had followed all of that.
He chuckled again. “Time, Lizzy. Let us have a bit of time.”
Her shoulders sagged. “All right.”
“All right.” He took her hand and kissed her in the middle of her palm.
She bit down on her lip, feeling his love for her in the bond, feeling flooded with it, and it was too much and too good, overwhelming. She gasped and burrowed into his chest. His arms came around her. They stayed that way for some time, wordless, his lips meeting the crown of her head from time to time, her hand grasping and letting go of his cravat, but otherwise just standing there, together, still.
“If you want your sister to come, you should write to her and tell her so,” he said softly.
She looked up at him. “You don’t wish her to stay, though.”
