I had a letter from my aunt Lady Catherine, who went on for some time about how I had betrayed my mother’s memory, that her dearest wish had been for me to be united with Anne. I read the entire letter, but I did not respond. I decided it was better for my aunt to have a bit of time to calm herself. Any response I made would only cause her to feel she must shame me again.
Richard’s parents, however, seemed practically indifferent. They made a few inquiries about who she was connected to and when they discovered she was connected to no one, they asked no more questions.
As for her indiscretion with Mr. Wickham, news of that had not reached London or any other part of society because no one knew who she was, and the information wasn’t pertinent. In the area in and around Meryton, most of the gossip seemed to have changed to speaking of the fact that she was marrying me, and to discussing whether or not this would mean that she would not inherit from Lady Susannah.
Because of Lady Susannah, and because of my new bride’s brother, we would need to be settled in the area. Perhaps Ishould make arrangements with my aunt and uncle to stay in the house in Redbourn or perhaps not.
If we were to spend a great deal of time near her brother, we would obviously need to have more permanent lodgings nearby. I would need to make some inquiries about what could be found for us.
My plan was to marry her in the country, then to bring her to London for several weeks so that I might introduce her to my sister and my family. No one would be in London for much longer anyway. It was late May, and everyone would be off for the country for the summer.
We would spend our first summer together near to her family and to Lady Susannah, who had come to rely on my wife’s presence and company. This way she could still visit her often. She would also be close to her brother.
If all went well, we might attempt to plan a trip with Bingley and Bennet in the late summer or the fall, since everyone was so keen on our having travels together.
These were the plans for the future, and I felt quite secure in them, looking forward to my life with her.
I returned to the country a week before our wedding was to take place, and I visited her daily. We took walks under the blossoming trees in the warmth of the spring afternoons, and I held her hand and she blushed sometimes, often, when she looked up at me.
But one day, she was blushing quite a bit, very shy, when she asked if I was planning on kissing her.
I took a deep breath and felt my body go into that floating feeling that it went to with her, especially when I thought of things of that nature. I felt shy, too, bumbling, idiotic.
Had I ever kissed a woman?
The plain answer was no. I was not the sort of man who was going to go around kissing the young daughters of gentlemenwilly nilly. A kiss meant something, I thought, and it was not to be bestowed without thought. If I kissed a woman of a certain social circle, I wanted to feel as if I was rather sure of her, and I had never felt that way with a woman before, not until Miss Bennet.
There were other sorts of women, of course, but I didn’t truly hold with that kind of behavior. It seemed to me that everyone knew such things were wrong. There was no question of it. It was condemned in scripture, condemned from the pulpit, condemned by the strictures of good behavior, and yet, men like my cousin paid it all no mind, doing all manner of things with strumpets and opera singers and other women like that.
I was not going to do that.
“I should quite like to kiss you,” I said, my voice having taken on a strangled quality. We were walking in the fields around Longbourn, close to where I had proposed to her. I stopped moving, and she was holding my hand, so she stopped moving too and looked up at me, expectant.
I took her other in mine, clutching both of them and peered down on her.
Her chest rose and fell. Her breath hitched.
I squeezed both of her hands. “And this would please you, then, Miss Bennet? A kiss would please you?”
She smiled at me, her sunbeam smile. Her voice was hushed, “Oh, yes, Mr. Darcy, it would.”
“I live to please you,” I said, and I put my mouth on hers.
She tasted like springtime. She was like light and warmth and pink flowers. She was soft and wondrous and small. I gathered her into my arms and held her close as I deepened the kiss.
I had thought… I don’t know… the tongue business sounded sort of strange and awful but it wasnot. Stroking my tongue against hers made me feel dizzy and half drunk on her.
When we broke apart, her lips were reddened from my attentions, and something rose in me at the sight of it, the sight having left some mark on her body, some sign of my claim on her. It was very good.
She lay her head on my shoulder and sighed. “Oh, so that’s what it’s meant to be like.”
I went stiff. Of course I must have known, but I had not thought of it. “He kissed you.”
She placed her hand against my chest. “It was awful. He was awful. He plastered me into the side of the carriage and shoved his tongue in my mouth and his breath was foul and I…” She huddled into me. “I wanted this to wipe that away, you see?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, of course.”
My first kiss, but not hers.
