There was certainly more to look forward to.
Fitzwilliam returned a couple of minutes before Elizabeth emerged from behind the screen in her nightgown, her hair braided and hanging over one shoulder.
The dying fire cast wavering shadows across unfamiliar furniture, making everything feel dreamlike, unreal, as if she had stepped into someone else’s life rather than her own.
And there, on the far side of the enormous bed, was Fitzwilliam.
He had already settled beneath the covers, his back to her, his breathing already steadied into what sounded like sleep. He had spared them both the awkwardness of climbing into bed simultaneously, lying rigid while pretending sleep, of the terrible awareness of another person occupying what had always been private space.
She crossed to her side of the bed, her bare feet silent on the thick carpet. The mattress dipped as she slipped beneath the covers, the fine linens cool against her skin.
The bed was large enough that considerable distance separated them. She could hear his breathing but could not feel his presence through the expanse of mattress and blankets between them. They might have been in separate rooms for all the contact permitted by this arrangement.
Yet she remained acutely conscious of him. The sound of his breathing, steady and even. The slight warmth that seemed to radiate from his side despite the gap.
She should feel afraid and even vulnerable. Trapped in proximity to someone who possessed legal rights over herperson and property, who could demand anything and expect society’s support in claiming it.
Yet fear eluded her.
Instead, she felt a curious sense of rightness, as though this arrangement, absurd as it was, somehow fit in intricate ways.
He had promised her protection from expectations, had given his word that proximity would not equal demands, and she believed him.
More than that, this arrangement felt strangely familiar, almost as if she had lain beside him for years rather than minutes. His presence in this bed seemed natural, expected, fundamentally correct in some way her rational mind could not explain but her instincts accepted without question.
Which made no sense whatsoever.
She barely knew him. By all logic, this enforced intimacy should feel wrong, frightening or at minimum deeply uncomfortable.
However, her body was relaxing into the mattress. Sleep crept over her in waves and took her.
Her last coherent awareness was of comfort and safety and the inexplicable conviction that sharing this bed with Darcy was exactly where she was meant to be.
Chapter Thirteen
Darcy
The breakfast room stood empty save for servants arranging chafing dishes on the sideboard.
Darcy had risen before dawn, abandoning any pretence of sleep after hours lying motionless beside his wife, acutely conscious of her presence mere inches away. The temptation to close that distance had kept him wakeful long past reason, imagining how she might feel curled against his side, her head pillowed on his shoulder, her breathing soft and even in slumber.
Foolish thoughts for a man whose wife had only just begun tolerating his presence.
He accepted coffee from a footman and settled at the table with the morning’s correspondence, the words blurring before his eyes. Exhaustion tugged at his concentration. More than exhaustion, it was a restless energy born of a new proximity and wanting without having.
He had acknowledged Elizabeth’s beauty before, but lying beside her in darkness had transformed abstract appreciation into visceral awareness.
If circumstances had been different, if they had met at some assembly or dinner and been permitted proper courtship, would they have arrived at the same destination? He thought they might.
Now they were bound together yet more distant than strangers, and the irony rankled.
He must remedy this and find ways to recapture that initial ease. But that would have to be done slowly. Elizabeth needed more time to adjust and come to terms with what their marriage could become, rather than what it currently was.
“Fitzwilliam.”
The voice cut through his reverie abruptly. Lady Catherine swept into the breakfast room, her bearing as imperious as ever and her expression promising unpleasantness.
“Good morning, Aunt.”
