“What I feel…with you.”
“What? This?” He touched her lips and then delicately caressed her bosom over the thin fabric, making her cry and shout again.
“Stop.” He stopped, looking at her as she opened her eyes and whispered, “Do not listen to me—do not stop.”
And he did not. A new world seemed to open between them, shaped by touch and feeling alone. He was astonished by the depth of it, by the force of his own response. All that had come before felt insubstantial beside this. More than anything, he was struck by her answering warmth, and by the desire not only to feel, but to give.
“Tell me, please, what has happened,” she said at last, as he rose to stir the fire. “But be quick—Papa...is in the library.”
He nodded, he had seen them arriving and admired her decision not to be alone at a meeting she knew nothing about.
When he returned, he drew her into his arms once more, though now they sat quietly, watching the fire. The room had grown dark. At one moment, his valet knocked at the door to light the candles, but Darcy dismissed him. Elizabeth wondered how the time had passed so swiftly.
“I shall speak to Mr Bennet...or take you home and explain everything before your parents,” he said.
“No,” she said before she remembered how much she suffered because of her habit of speaking before reflecting. Her parents had to know the whole story, and this time they would do things as he decided. “I am happy but also worried about our love.”
He took her face gently in his hands. The firelight cast shifting shadows across them, but their eyes held fast to one another.
“Do not be afraid, Elizabeth. Now that I know you love me, my only wish is to be happy with you. There will be no opposition to our marriage.”
“You are married, Fitzwilliam Darcy, for God’s sake, you are!”
“Yes, and it would not be easy to... undo what I did,” he said, hesitating to say divorce. Fearing the effect it could have on her. “Only…we must wait. And your parents must know that what I feel for you will not change.”
He smiled at her blush, and she rested her head against him as he continued, more composed.
“Anne had a plan—a very careful one. If I learned anything from my brief marriage, it is this: one must first have a plan, and only then act.”
It was, in truth, what Elizabeth herself had once resolved, the great change that she made in her life.
“I shall tell everything to your parents, and we will ask their advice.”
“How long would a divorce take?” she asked softly, proving to him she was not scared of the possibility of him getting out of a marriage.
“Perhaps one year…perhaps two.”
He felt her sigh.
It was difficult to imagine that what had passed between them could be contained within such a span of waiting.
“Has she truly gone?” Elizabeth asked, her voice low against him.
“Yes. She meant to leave from the moment I proposed.”
Elizabeth tried to recall the quiet figure at Rosings, but could not. Instead, she remembered the lady she admired in Jane’s house. That Anne was capable of such a plan.
Then she laughed—that warm, lively sound he loved.
“Mr Darcy, I must say your love lead to the most extraordinary consequences, and you are not very skilled in proposing, no matter what you do.”
“You shall answer for that, Elizabeth Bennet,” he said, bending towards her again.
“Stop—please—” she said, half laughing, half overwhelmed.
“Then I must also show you how to endure my kisses and caresses and stop asking me to stop,” he returned.
“I shall learn…everything,” she said, with a hesitation that carried more promise than threat.
