“No, it’s all right,” she said. “I understand it now, you see. I understand you, and I understand this, and it is all absolutely fine.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I married her three weeks later.
I did not tell anyone. I did not even finish those letters to my family members. There was an announcement in the local papers near Meryton, but nothing in London, and I would have married her sooner, but I had to wait for the banns to be read.
She could not walk up the aisle, so she was carried up by her father and by Bingley, and then she sat down to say her vows, and I stood and looked down at her, and it was over rather quickly.
The wedding breakfast took place at her parents’ home, and I had us in a carriage by the mid-afternoon, and I took her straight to my house in London.
I left her in her room, saying we’d have supper brought up separately. After all, we had surprised the servants, who had no notion I was coming home, and who were shocked when I introduced her as my bride, my bride who could not put much weight on her ankle and who would need extra care and attention, who I had simply brought here unannounced. I would not have told them to whip up a formal dinner. It would have been insult to injury. “I shall see you in the morning,” I said, gazing at her, “Mrs. Darcy.”
Because I had said to her that we would wait on anything of that nature, anything carnal, and I was a man of my word.
“The morning?” she responded. “Oh, come now, Mr. Darcy, you have your improper wife, and there is only one reason for a scandalously short engagement, and you did say you wanted me.”
My mouth was dry. I sputtered, there in her doorway, looking at her.
“So, why the morning?”
“You—I had told you—I would not wish to trespass against—” I sucked in a sharp breath, toying with my cravat.
“Is this not the entire reason you have married me?”
“No,” I said.
She laughed at me. There was a bitterness to it, and I heard it, but I did not know quite what to make of it.
“We shall wait,” I said.
“We shall not,” she said. “You will come back and consummate this marriage. I shall not have you getting out of it. If you have had me, I shall be your obligation. Is that not right?”
“I am not going to abandon you, Mrs. Darcy,” I said.
“You wish to come back, though.” Her bright eyes sparkled. “You want me.”
God help me.
I went back.
I had her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A servant entered the sitting room where I had Elizabeth on my lap, feeding her bites of a scone, dipped in honey. It was a week later. I had grown accustomed to touching her nearly constantly.
“Lady Matlock has come to call,” said the servant.
I stood up, bringing Elizabeth with me, depositing her on her feet. I choked, trepidation going through me. My aunt, Lady Matlock, was the wife of my mother’s brother, the Earl of Matlock. I had not told her I was getting married. She was not going to be pleased. Not only because I had not shared news of my nuptials, but because of who it was I had married.
Honestly, I had been thinking about packing us back off to the country. I had thought that we might simply find somewhere to rent in the area near to Netherfield, so that I could have the company of Bingley again.
The only reason I had brought her to London at all was so that we could have privacy, really.
Well, that couldn’t have been it, not if I had truly intended not to visit her bed. But that was all a distant idea at this point, since there had been a lot of that. Bedding, that is.
“Tell her I am not at home,” I said to the servant.
