Page 34 of Wickham Likes 'Em Young
Once arrived at their destination, they sat next to one another on the large cloth Hill had provided, positioning the baskets nearby. They had three blankets to pile up, and Elizabeth said, “I suppose we will have no possibility of catching a chill.”
“None at all,” Darcy said. He was busy removing his hat and Elizabeth’s bonnet. Then he hesitated and said, “I know it’s against all the rules, but…”
During his slight pause, Elizabeth’s heart pounded with both desire and nervousness. She did not want him to suggest anythingveryimproper…did she?
“…I have longed to see your hair down. Do you think…”
Elizabeth breathed out a sigh of relief and immediately began removing hairpins. With her thick mane of curly hair, she had to use a lot of hairpins, and he quickly joined in the task of their removal. His gaze as her hair tumbled down to her waist was so…penetrating…and longing, she supposed was the word…. She could barely draw breath.
He ran his long fingers along her scalp, and then down through her hair. “You are magnificent, Elizabeth.” He combed his fingers through her hair, over and over again, and even lowered his head to nuzzle her loose tresses. “God, I so love your hair. It is even more beautiful down than I had imagined, which ought to be impossible.”
Elizabeth laughed. “It is just ordinary brown hair that always manages to spring free of hairpins and seems destined for disorder!”
Darcy sat up and frowned. “It is not in the least ordinary. It is a multitude of shades of brown, all the loveliest colours of precious metals and enriched earth and polished wood, so richand lovely. As for the disorder, I love it. I shall treasure every time your hair fights a hairpin and wins, and every time it bounds into freedom.”
“Oh, my!” Elizabeth did not feel like laughing over his excessive praise. Instead, his words sank into her heart and began to heal a wound she never realised she had.
Thoroughly distracting her from her contemplation of old wounds, Darcy bent towards her and brushed his lips over hers.
“Was that a kiss?” she whispered.
“You have never been kissed?”
“Never.”
He said, “Well, that was not quite a kiss, in my opinion. It was a near-kiss.Thisis a kiss.” And he proceeded to place his lips on hers with just the perfect amount of pressure, the perfect amount of firmness, and the perfect amount of softness. Then he moved his mouth, causing her to move hers in accompaniment, and his hands moved from holding her head to cupping her cheeks, then drawing her closer with hands on her upper arms, then her back. Elizabeth could not keep track of all the sensations that a pair of lips and a pair of hands could elicit, but when his tongue entered her partially-open lips, she gasped into his mouth.
Pulling away, he rested his forehead on hers and stared into her eyes.
“I…I….” Elizabeth wanted to acknowledge the profound feelings her first kiss had elicited, but she could not seem to find the words.
He said, “I very much enjoyed that, dearest, and I believe I can tell that you did, as well.”
“How did it compare to all of your other kisses?”
“What?” Elizabeth felt him try to pull away, but she kept him in her arms. “Why would you ask that?” he asked.
“You asked if I had ever been kissed before….”
Darcy said, “I suppose that I should not have. Our society is set up in such a…well, such an unfair way, expecting girls and women to remain utterly untouched—and I imagine uneducated about their own bodies and what occurs between men and women….” He was blushing, now, and he said, “I should not have said that as well…. I seem to….”
“Dearest,” Elizabeth said, “you were a man, all grown up, the first time I saw you, when I was still just a girl. I cannot imagine that, in all that time it took me to grow up, you never called on women, fell in love, perhaps, broke some hearts. I hate that you have such a romantic past, but I accept that it is inevitable. But I believe that we should be able to speak of it.”
“Oh, God, I love you. Of course you are right. If we are to marry, we should be able to speak of such things.”
“And yet my question remains unanswered,” she said.
“You will not break with me, based on my past?”
“Fitzwilliam, I knew when I looked into your eyes, when I was just eleven years old, that you were a good man. Everything I have discovered about you, nine years later, has proven your goodness over and over again. I will not break with a good man because he has a past, although I would certainly break with you if you plan in the future to kiss other women, lay with other women, go to those…those places to be with those sorts of women…or keep a mistress…or….”
“I promise you that our future will be only me and you. When I take the marriage vows, I will mean them, and I will keep them.”
Elizabeth promised, “I will make the vows and keep them as well. But…I am awaiting answers.”
He sighed. “First, you seem to have the idea that I might have courted another woman or fallen in love with another. Neither of those things is true. I have never called on any woman. I have been introduced, and I have danced, but I have kept to only onedance per woman, because I feared giving expectations that I had no desire to meet. I have never begun a courtship, and I have never been in love—not until you.”
“Ohhh.” Elizabeth found herself smiling, feeling relief at his words.
