“I know.” She pulled back enough to meet his eyes, though it cost her something to create even that small distance. “I know what comes next.”
“Do you want?”
“Yes.” The word emerged without hesitation. “Yes, Fitzwilliam. I want. You.”
He closed his eyes briefly, and she watched him struggle, perhaps calming his ardor for her comfort. When he opened them again, they were dark with desire but shadowed with a tension she had never felt from him.
“I love you,” he said. “I need you to know that. Whatever else—I love you.”
“I know.” She touched his face, tracing the line of his jaw. “I know you do.”
She loved him, too. The words pressed against her lips—three of them, simple and terrifying—but her throat would not release them. She was too overwhelmed, too aware of what was about to happen, too consumed by anticipation and nervousness and a hunger she had not known she possessed. She would tell him later, when she truly became his wife.
Her heart was unsteady, and her limbs even more so as she rose from the settee. “I should go prepare. For bed?”
The look he gave her was odd as he lowered his eyes. His hand lingered on her arm, a slight tremor, but his jaw tightened.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Go. And Elizabeth, I want you. I always have. Even if?—”
He did not finish the sentence. Elizabeth waited, one hand on the door frame. “What is it, Fitzwilliam?”
But whatever shadow crossed his features did not find its voice; it seemed to haunt him, and so she nodded, pausing at the connecting door.
“I will leave it unlocked, and I will be waiting.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE SONNET’S FATE
Clarice had arrangedher finest nightgown: white lawn, lace-trimmed, finer than anything she had owned at Longbourn. Elizabeth dressed with fingers that would not obey her, unpinned her hair, and let it tumble about her shoulders, then splashed water on her face to cool the heat that lingered from her husband’s not-so-chaste kisses.
Then she sat on the edge of her bed, watching the connecting door, and waited.
The brass handle caught the candlelight, gleaming with promise. Unlocked, as she had vowed. Invitation and question, both concealed in that unassuming mechanism. He would come, of course—he was only observing the proper interval while she readied herself. Ought she to unbutton her nightgown? Or was she expected to await him, demure beneath the counterpane? Should she dim the candles? Elizabeth could not say; her mother had proved singularly unhelpful on such matters.
Keep quiet and do not speak. God knows my nerves and how I strive to hold my breath. Lizzy, mind your tongue and your posture.All dispensed in a flurry as she dressed for her hasty wedding. Jane, meanwhile, had been the picture of composure—silent, serene, betraying not a flicker of feeling. Elizabethcould almost see her sister lying motionless, as she had so often in their shared bed, undisturbed by Elizabeth’s nightly restlessness, her feet forever seeking new meadows to cross and stones to skip. Jane scarcely seemed to breathe. Was this what men preferred?
And then, a new anxiety formed. Had she been too forward? Hurling herself at Darcy while he read Shakespeare? She had kissed him first—pressed her lips to his without so much as a by-your-leave, and made that small, traitorous sound against his mouth that revealed far too much. Perhaps her boldness had unsettled him. Perhaps a gentleman preferred his wife to be altogether more… contained.
The minutes ticked by, her heart grew tense, the doubt coiling tighter.
Elizabeth rose from her chair, unable to bear the stillness any longer, and paced the length of her chamber. The connecting door stood in shadow, unlocked, unmoving. She had offered herself as plainly as a woman could without stripping bare and climbing into his bed, and he had not come.
Court you properly, he had said.Give you time to be certain.
But she was certain. She had told him so. And his eyes had been dark with wanting, his hands urgent on her waist, his kiss anything but reluctant. Whatever held him back was not a lack of desire.
She should be patient and give him time, as he had asked. She should trust that whatever barriers remained between them, they were his to dismantle in his own way and his own season.
But the waiting was hard, and the not-knowing, more so. The fear that she had somehow failed—that her boldness had confirmed suspicions she did not know he held—was hardest of all.
The candle had burned down to a stub before she heard a soft knock at the door. Not the connecting door, but the one to the corridor.
“Enter.” Her voice was little more than a whisper.
Clarice appeared, bearing a tray with a steaming cup. Her face was carefully neutral, revealing nothing of whatever observations she had made about her mistress’s attire, the guttering candle, and the lateness of the hour.
“Chamomile, madam. For sleep.”
