Now, about your birthday. I do not wish to waste precious time discussing it when you arrive (I have much better plans for you when I see you) so I shall tell you all now. I have planned a picnic with your cousin and your favorite neighbors (the Grimsbys and the Carters), but we will end early for I know how you hate overlong events. Georgiana will go home with the Grimsbys and spend three days there with Miss Amelia. I will have you all to myself then. Well, I shall have to share you with the steward, but hopefully there will not betoomuch for you to oversee just then.
Then we will have an intimate dinner, just you and me. I thought we might eat in the conservatory, and perhaps look out of your telescope if the night is clear. And then I shall give you your present. I will not tell you what it is, for that would spoil the surprise, but I think you will be pleased.
I cannot wait to see you, my love. This separation has been awful and I never wish to repeat it. Twenty-two days is twenty days too long.
Your Loving Wife,
Elizabeth
16May, 1814
Pemberley, Derbyshire
My amazing, bold, perfect wife,
How do you manage to astound and impress me, even now, after all our time together? When I told you I wished for you with a bow on for my birthday, I never thought I would be so lucky as to actually receive it. Seeing you sitting on my bed with a ribbon about your bare waist was a sight I shall not soon forget. It is etched indelibly into my mind, along with the mischievous smile you wore and the look of passion in your eyes.
You undo me, my heart. I don’t think you understand how much. When I see you like that, when you are so breathtaking I can feel my heart racing, I lose the ability to string together words coherently. I am sure that in those moments, you wonder what is wrong with your husband, but I assure you, I am merely overwhelmed by your beauty, and your incredible grace, and your generosity in the way you give of yourself so freely.
I feel unimaginably lucky.
I have heard other men speak in the club, and I know of the marriages of some of my friends, and it may be ungentlemanly to say so, but I clearly have the best wife—I am the luckiest of them all. I have begun to think our ardor will never cool. The more I have you, the more I want you. The more I know you, the more I long to know. You are the most wondrous thing in my life, my sweet Elizabeth, and I wish to make you happy all my days.
I have an idea for your birthday. Since you gave yourself to me so prettily on my birthday, what if on yours, instead of a bow, you wore the jewels I am having made for you, and nothing else? Though that sounds like a gift for me, so perhaps it is selfish.
Thank you again, my dear. You are pure delight.
Your helplessly enamored husband,
Fitzwilliam
Fitzwilliam,
I love that idea. I shall meet you here again in July for my birthday gift.
E
5
In Which Jane Has a Babe
29August,1814
Hatfield Hall
Dear Fitzwilliam,
All is well at Hatfield and we made the journey without incident. It is only a few hours in the carriage, after all. But I know you will worry, so I have only just changed out of my traveling clothes and before I have even greeted my brother, I am sitting down to write to you.
Have I told you how very glad I am not to be with child? Poor Jane is enormous! She can hardly walk, and the journey from the door to my chambers was enough to tire her out. We talked as I settled in and she told me the most horrific things! I had known it was a difficult endeavor. I had not known one lost all dignity in the process.
I do not know if Jane will ever be the same. She has always been sweet and peaceful, but if even Jane is cross, can you imagine how vexed I would be in the same situation? She says all she longs for is a cool stream, but that Charles will not allow her to bathe in the one here as it is not private enough.
She told me she had her maid fill the largest tub with cold water. Cold water! And she soaked in it for over an hour! Can you imagine? I am not looking forward to experiencing the same one day. And in this heat! When we decide to have a child, let us make sure my confinement would fall in the colder months. I know it is unlikely we will have that much control over the event, but would it not be lovely if we did?
I miss you already. I am a hopeless creature. As I settled into the room we usually share when we are here, I found myself oddly unsettled. I will spend the next week without you, and I cannot like that at all. I know Jane needs me, and I would not miss this for the world.
I simply wish you were with me.
