“Not at all. Although, once we had reached the summit I was determined to ask if your feelings for me had changed.”
“I had wondered if you might rebuff me, but at other times I was certain your affections were what they had been in April.”
“I have been distracted these past few days, and foolishly thought that I could not speak until every other pressing concern was resolved. I am glad you did not give up on my being constant.”
“Oh no, I think until you said otherwise there would have always been a flame of hope alight in my heart.”
There was a hitch in her breath, and Darcy pulled her close again to bring his mouth to hers. The press of her lips against his sent a wave oflonging through him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tightly, pressing herself against him as he deepened the kiss. His arm went around her waist and he held her in his embrace, their breath coming in short, panting breaths as Elizabeth welcomed his tongue into her mouth.
What she was doing with her warm lips and tongue set his heart racing at a furious pace.His thoughts ran to wanting to untie her bonnet and throw it aside so he could kiss a path down her neck and tangle his hand in her hair. The truth of their circumstances intruded, and he reluctantly stopped doing what was fast becoming his favourite activity.
When she looked at him questioningly, Darcy cleared his throat and gestured to the countryside. “As secluded a spot as this is now, at any moment a carriage might drive past the hill or a shepherd might come in search of his sheep or other tourists might ascend.” He tried to apologise for kissing her so thoroughly where they might be seen, but she refused to hear him.
“You were distracted by passion and love, and I cannot fault you for that.”
“I did not think I had a heart susceptible to tender passion, dearest Elizabeth, but you unknowingly put love’s torch to it.” He could not help but kiss her again, and she made a satisfied hum against his lips that nearly drove him mad with desire. “And every smile, every lively expression, every clever quip fans the flame.”
“And every kiss?” she asked in a low voice.
He tried to look stern when he said, “I could not say. I have not been so lucky as to have enough of your kisses to be certain. It is poss?—”
Elizabeth swiftly took his face in her hands and pressed her lips against his, and he kissed her again with slow and thorough attention. He trembled when her nails scraped along the back of his neck, and she stroked her tongue along his lips before tasting his mouth again. It took all of his effort to keep his hands firmly on her hips and not allow them to wander. She gave him a self-satisfied smile when she pulled back, and he was rather pleased to see how swollen her lips were.
Let us hope that lessens before we reach the others.
“We should keep walking,” he said, still breathing heavily. “Do you still wish to reach the summit?”
She shook her head. “I am already breathless, and I am unwilling to chance making it worse for anything less than your kissing me again.”
They decided to wind around the hill and descend the other side to await their friends. This introduced a discussion of the intimacy between Fitzwilliam and Mrs Lanyon.
“I am not unconscious of their fond attachment,” Elizabeth said after he first made the hint.
“Is it fond on both sides? I could not say for certain what Mrs Lanyon feels for him.” She was a quiet woman, and so scrupulously polite that he found it difficult to discern her true thoughts.
“The lady would have to answer to their level of acquaintance,” she said, avoiding his eye.
From her tone, he thought Elizabeth had a stronger idea of Mrs Lanyon’s feelings than she was willing to admit. “He loves her.” She looked at him in surprise. “He has not said so, but I know him; he must.” Fitzwilliam would not waste the energy on a woman who gave him no encouragement if he did not have feelings for her.
“I think,” she said hesitatingly, “in general, Hester is afraid of opening herself to ridicule for any reason, including marrying a second time. She has to decide not if she loves him, but if Colonel Fitzwilliam is worth the risk of possibly being judged harshly. She is sometimes judged unfairly simply by walking into the room.”
Darcy shook his head at people like Caroline Bingley. “The world is moving forward. One day we shall neither be favoured nor hindered because of the colour of our skin.”
“That may be true, but I think the degree feels small to a reserved, serious, private person like Hester, particularly as a woman, for women are always judged more severely than men.” After a while, she added, “Given their... slips, she cannot be indifferent to your cousin.”
He was astonished that Elizabeth knew that they were, or, at least, that they had been lovers. “I am amazed Mrs Lanyon admitted to an intrigue.”
“I am sure a woman can be a good wife even after having anintrigue. A woman ought not to be assumed to be immoral for taking a lover when men do the same.” He looked at her, both wanting to ask the question and dreading the answer, when she cried, “Oh, not me. I meant Hester. She is widowed, after all.”
“And I did not mean to imply that Mrs Lanyon and Fitzwilliam have loose morals,” he said in earnest. “I was only surprised she admitted it freely since she is so reserved.”
Elizabeth was now blushing fiercely. “Well, both of them are free, after all. What harm is there really to a single person?” She looked about to ask him a question, and then turned away.
“For myself,” he said slowly, “the harm would come from the emotions of the entanglement, the possible disappointment when it ended. That, and the possibility that I could suffer a thousand pains for a pleasure,” he added drily.
“What do you mean?”
How to explain it without being coarse?“I did not want to risk a lifetime of mercury.” Her quiet “Oh” showed she understood him. “But I always thought the emotions required to engage in an affair would be too great a burden after the tryst was over.”
