CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“YOU SAID,” MR. Darcy was saying, “the last time I was here, something about the dowager duchess bribing or threatening you with marrying Neithern, and then we got sort of, erm, distracted, and I didn’t find out more about that.”
It was three weeks later, and Elizabeth was pouring Mr. Darcy tea in the sitting room at Weythorn. They had been writing each other daily letters, though they had not been seeing each other. The letters veered in to the realm of silly love letters, but she liked them. They had decided not to see each other in the letters—too tempting, after all.
Then, Mr. Darcy had appeared here without any warning, and she could not but be happy to see him.
“Yes, well, the salient point was that she wanted me to marry Neithern,” said Elizabeth. “For the preservation of the bloodline.”
“Yes, obviously,” said Mr. Darcy. “It does make sense, of course. She wouldn’t have known that Neithern wasn’t of her blood. When she found that out, it must have been quite a blow. You’ve heard the news of Sulles, I suppose?”
“I hear no news here at Weythorn, Mr. Darcy,” she said, handing him his tea. “Here, we are practically ensconced in Faerie itself, where time does not pass and it is eternal summer.”
He laughed, smiling at her. “My fey bride. Mrs. Exley may have been right about you, you know. You are bewitching.”
“No,” she said.
“Or, what did Larilane say about a charm being cast on you or something?”
“Stop it, Fitz.” She took a drink of her own tea.
“All right,” he said, shrugging, smiling at her. “We could speak instead of the way I have been thinking about the look of your knees or your thighs, or what is between your thighs?”
“Is that why you’ve come?” she said in a soft and teasing voice. “Are we to be spending a great deal of time employing our mouths in filthy endeavors for the whole of my mourning period?”
He gazed at her steadfastly for several long moments, and then he broke the gaze to peer into his tea. “So, then, how did it become a threat, then? With the duchess?”
She smiled at the subject change. “Well, I protested, of course.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t wish to marry Neithern, since I am spoken for. Besides, Neithern wouldn’t want something as soiled as me.”
He coughed. “I wish I had never said that to you.”
“You want me, though.”
“You are never soiled, and you know that,” he said.
“No, just filthy,” she said, giggling. “But I think you like that about me.”
He coughed again. “We are getting frightfully off the subject.”
“Yes, and I don’t know who it was who brought up removing my clothing, do you?”
He flushed, grinning easily, happily.
“Anyway, when I protested, she had another scheme, one that was a bit convoluted and strange. In it, you and I would marry—”
“I like it already,” he broke in.
“But you must convince your sister to marry Neithern, and then we must betroth our children. That way, the following generation would get the bloodline back on track.”
Darcy raised his eyebrows. “Well, from her perspective, I see what she is saying, but having been subjected to one of those cradle betrothals myself—”
“Nothing binding, though, which I think she would insist upon.”
“True, but you can always break a betrothal if you’re intent on it, Lizzy. You simply marry someone else, consequences be damned.”
