Because he could not marry her yet.
But then, eventually, he got some letter from her, inquiring about carriages and servants, and he didn’t know what any of that was about, and then he started to worry that she might have some other suitor.
He could not think of who it might be, of course, but that possibly didn’t matter.
All of his confidence went to dust.
She had known, all along, that he wanted her. He had proposed to her, and the next day, she’d agreed to that picnic with Wickham. True, Wickham had tricked her, had used her, had been horrible to her. She hadn’t chosen to be with Wickham, but she had chosen to go on a picnic with him.
And then, she’d gone straight for Richard, had she not?
Of course, Richard had the gumption to go and take her. He had gotten her alone and put his mouth between her thighs andthen she fell for the man, even though Richard was awful to her, and if Darcy didn’t want to lose her, he needed to not assume that she’d stick with him on the strength of having pleasuredhimwith her mouth.
So, finally, he went to her.
He left strict instructions for Georgiana to be kept in the house, and he tried to put all of that out of his head. Maybe Elizabeth would have some idea about what to do about his sister. She was a woman, after all.
He arrived at Weythorn and there were servants everywhere. He was shown into the sitting room and he looked about at the room, and it was rather cheerier than it had been. He supposed someone had been seeing to the decoration.
When she entered, he commented on the drapes, and she said that she had been spending her time settling in here, since she would be staying here for some time, and he said that he was impressed and then they lapsed into silence.
He grimaced into his tea and thought about looking down the length of his torso to see her face nestled against his lap, her mouth stretched around him.
He was already hard. He’d been hard since he conceived of the stupid idea of coming to see her that day. His erection twitched at him, as if it were taunting him.
“Who’s sending you carriages and servants?” he blurted out.
“Oh, it’s the Duchess of Neithern,” said Elizabeth. “Some sort of odd bribe, I think. Or perhaps a threat. It’s difficult to say.”
Mr. Darcy hadn’t been expecting that.
“She wants me to marry the duke,” said Elizabeth with a sigh.
He sat up straight. He had known there was some sort of competition. “You can’t.”
She gave him a little smile. “No? Am I spoken for, then? I know we were both very drunk when we said it.”
“Obviously, you are spoken for,” he said in an iron voice. “I have been waiting for you to want to marry me for some time now. You do wish to marry me still?”
Her smile widened. “Oh, yes.”
And then everything was all right and he was smiling, too. Maybe they were both smiling too much for too long.
She spoke, “You likely shouldn’t, of course, but I have said this before, and you seem insistent on torturing yourself with wanting me, even if it brings you nothing but pain and suffering—”
“Stop,” he said, laughing.
“Well, I don’t know, Mr. Darcy, I still don’t understand it.”
“Why have you come around to wanting me?” he said. “I don’t understand that. Did I simply wear you down?”
She laughed, too. She looked away, thoughtful. “Yes,” she said. “That’s entirely the way of it. You have worn me down.” She met his gaze again and her smile faded. “No, that’s not it, obviously. I only…”
“You don’t know,” he said. “And neither do I, and let’s stop questioning the why of it. It’s right, and it’s always felt right to me, and if it feels right to you, too, then that is only as it should be. It should have been this way all along.”
“I don’t know if it should have been this way all along,” she said. “I don’t think I was ready for you at first. Definitely not after Mr. Wickham, I wasn’t. Maybe I needed Richard… first…” She sighed. “But then, I don’t know. He had some idea about you, and I’m not sure if it’s accurate.”
He raised his eyebrows. “What idea?”
