Elizabeth brought her hands to either side of his face, without touching him elsewhere, and kissed him firmly on the lips. He did not have time to kiss her back before she pulled away, and he stared, bewildered. She dropped her hands and looked into his eyes, trying to convey an invitation as well as all the affection she felt. He must have found the assurance he was looking for because Darcy then caught her in his arms and kissed her with an ardour she wondered if he had ever ventured before.
It was unlike any chaste kiss she had given or taken as forfeit due in a parlour game. Darcy’s embrace was a longer, more fervent kiss that increased the beat of her heart. There was something surprisingly lovely about how his soft lips moved over hers, and how she felt pressed against him. She was disappointed when he stopped kissing her until she saw his expression. The way Darcy looked at her while he held her in his arms felt deeply intimate. His face slightly flushed, lips parted, eyes dark with delighted expectation.
Elizabeth smiled and looked into his eyes for a long moment before he kissed her again. Darcy tightened his hold on her, and her hands were against his chest, then on his shoulders, and her arms were around his neck before she realised she had done it. After kissing for a long while, she drew breath to say that she loved him, but he kissedher too quickly, and his tongue flicked against her lips. A low, urgent sound came from deep in his throat after she opened her mouth to his that made her heart pound faster.
Kissing Darcy was a burning, heartfelt activity.Does he feel the same yearning as I do to abandon our clothes and follow through to the natural consequence of our desires?He was not an open, loquacious man, but he expressed his passionate feelings through the movement of his lips, the bold sweep of his tongue against hers, his hand running through her hair, and the way he firmly held her against him.
She knew she was breathing harder, and her heart beat wildly. She wanted Darcy’s hands to move from her back and hips to her breasts, and she gave a little moan at the hope of it. He brushed a few tendrils of hair away from her shoulder and trailed his lips and teeth down her neck with the same fierce energy he had kissed her mouth. Darcy roughly tugged at the sash around her dressing gown and tore it open. Her heart drummed eagerly, and a wave of anticipation heightened her senses before he moved his hand inside her gown.
She could not catch her breath, and his hand on her breast made her certain she would faint in a melting swoon. The intensity of the sensations this produced was indescribable. His mouth on her neck was all tongue and teeth, and it made Elizabeth hope that his lips would move to where his hand was now squeezing. They were both now in a fury of passion, and Darcy brought his lips eagerly back to her mouth. He gave a small groan that kindled another flame within her.
After wondering for so long what Darcy’s lips tasted like, what it would feel like to be pressed against him, she finally knew, and it was not enough to satisfy her. Elizabeth tried to steady her pounding heart by slowly unfastening every button on his waistcoat, but his lips continued to urge her, and his hand finally moved from one breast to give attention to the other.
She had only just given a low, satisfied moan at the feel of his hand stroking her when Darcy abruptly released her. Elizabeth thought he paused to tear off their remaining clothes or make an avowal of all he felt for her, but the look in his eyes was desolate as he stood there with his chest heaving.
“We have to stop,” he rasped. “This”—he took a ragged breath and gestured between them—“this is not what we agreed to.”
“What?” Elizabeth’s mind was still in the place where they were wrapped in each other’s arms. His lips were still swollen from kissing her, and hers felt the same.
“We agreed to a chaste union.”
Elizabeth gave a strangled laugh. Darcy, at times, was too deliberate a man. He could not mean it. How were they to have known in May what they would feel for one another in the beginning of August? “Perhaps we must be guided by developments?” she said out of breath with a little smile.
“This is not what we agreed to,” he repeated softly. He gave her a look she could not quite comprehend. “We have to stop.”
“Youhave decided? Ought there to be a committee meeting to discuss the matter?” Elizabeth was absolutely incredulous. A glance at the critical part of him was enough to prove that he wanted to be with her as much as she wanted him.
He swallowed and shook his head. “I govern myself in all things,” he said this more to himself before heaving a weary sigh. “I am exceedingly sor?—”
“Stop!” She felt hot tears in her eyes and a crushing disappointment in her heart. “Do not demean me or cheapen what you were willing to do one minute ago by apologising for it.” Darcy admired her, but he could not bring himself to go to bed with a woman he did not love. “Unless you plan to stay with me for the rest of the night, get out!”
In the corridor,Darcy leant against her door with the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes. The sounds he heard were likely Elizabeth moving across the room to throw herself on the bed in tears. He cursed quietly and turned to grip her door handle, but he hesitated and, rather than re-enter, sighed heavily, resting his forehead against her door.
They had both been wild in the midst of passion, and the ferocity and ardency of her kiss sent his mind whirling. But of all the glorioussensations from the last five minutes that his mind could pass over, the ones he lingered on were the sounds of her ragged breathing and the feel of her heart beating erratically in her breast. She was out of breath, and her ailing heart pounded from one amorous embrace.
I do not give myself to the indulgence of appetites or passions.
He could not forget that Wickham had seduced his consumptive sister, and the resulting child had precipitated Georgiana’s death. Elizabeth was ill, her heart weakening—she could not even dance at a ball—and he would never hasten her inevitable demise. She fiercely wanted the power of choice over her final days, and she had asked him—made him promise—not to speak of her ailing heart.
It would wound her feelings if he told her why he left, and she would only try to argue him out of his opinion. He could hardly engage in an act that could damage her heart. He loved her too much to do her harm, even if it left them both unsatisfied. He was not in a calm state of blood and if he re-entered that room to explain, Elizabeth would likely say it was a risk she was willing to take. But he could not live with the consequence of giving in to temptation.
Darcy crossed the draughty corridor to his own room. Returning to his bed alone was a cruel punishment, but one he had to resign himself to because he loved her. He was to live in the agony of knowing that if he were to give in—to take his wife in his arms and render their union as true as it could be—it could be the death of her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Monday August 10
Netherfield Lodge
My dear Kitty,
As you have by now received my last, it is fitting that I should begin another, and I begin with the hope that the little embryo is not troublesome. What joyous news! I look forward to
Elizabeth set aside her letter with a weary sigh and looked across the table to Darcy’s empty seat. Until their calamitous encounter last Wednesday evening, they had passed every morning together while they wrote their letters. But he now avoided her. As promised, Darcy never mentioned her heart, but he also never showed a hint of the passionate nature he had demonstrated that night.
I had wrongly assumed I could never love him—and I wrongly assumed that Darcy had, like me, come to feel a passionate regard that moved beyond friendship or convenience.
Her heart beat fast at the memory of their embrace, of what his lips tasted like, of how his muscled chest felt through his shirt. She felt the jolt of attraction between them, but his affections were only slightly engaged—he would remember her fondly after she died, but that wasas far as Darcy’s feelings for her went. He had been tempted, he admired her to some degree, but his inherent sense of honour would not allow him to go to bed with a woman he did not love.
