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He reached for her, gently taking her hand and raising it as if to kiss her knuckles, but she pushed him away. “I am not a blushing maiden you are courting with these hand kisses.”
“You do not wish such a romantic gesture?” His thumb rubbed circles over her palm, melting her resolve. But she held on to her composure, and he dropped her hand.
“You have been cold,” she said, crossing her arms. “Since Charlotte came. You bow, call me Mrs. Darcy, and excuse yourself after dinner as though you cannot bear to stay in the room. The man who danced with me—who picked primroses, held my hand, and told me my company was the only thing he missed—that man disappeared. And I did not know if I had imagined him.”
Darcy’s eyes widened, moistened, and he blinked, as if she had wounded him. “You misunderstand me, Elizabeth. I am conscious of Miss Lucas’s observation. She watches everything, and I find myself… uncertain how to conduct myself under such scrutiny. With you, when we are alone, I begin to know how to be. With an audience, I retreat to old habits.”
“But why do you act as if I were an inconvenience?”
“Miss Lucas is your oldest friend, and she has opinions. I would not have her return to Hertfordshire and believe I played the role of a devoted husband, devoted to you only because of your fortune. You saw her response when you revealed the four thousand pounds. She looked at me as if my changed behavior toward you were a performance. She has no doubt noted the estate’s disrepair and heard of your renovations. I am afraid that what I feel for you, if displayed before a witness, would appear to be the sort of affection a man enacts to convince the world his marriage is a love match rather than an arrangement imposed by a dead man’s will.”
“Is this a love match?” Elizabeth held her breath as if her entire future hung on his reply.
“It is.” He sat up fully, his back against the headboard. “Come, sit with me.”
She climbed into his bed, tucked her legs beneath her, and his nearness warmed her entire side, though they weren’t touching. Her heart thundered far too hard for her thoughts, and she could only blink at his admission that it was a love match, at least for him; then she knew he was not lying.
“You said once that you did not consider it a burden to marry me. It was more than honor, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Much more. I wanted you to be happy with me, content, and maybe… we could grow to…”
“Be lovers?” she finished for him, because he had been dancing around this since the day he had walked her back to Longbourn, her valise opening up and her chemise caught over his head. “You showed me, and I failed to acknowledge it. You played checkers with me, plied me with sugared almonds and shrimp, even raided your neighbor’s hothouse for roses and settled on the primroses. And then while we waltzed, I had thought you would kiss me, and I went to my room and could not sleep for wondering why you had not—”
“Because I would not kiss you until you had arrived at this moment on your own.” His voice was low, hoarse, and his gaze was on her eyes, heavy-lidded, and he swallowed, waiting.
“I believe I am here, Fitzwilliam.” She reached him, resting her hand on his chest. “I wanted you to kiss me that night. And every night since. I do not know what that makes me, and I do not care, but if you would like me to leave, I will go. I wanted you to know before I—before I lost the courage to—”
“Elizabeth.”
“Yes?”
“I am going to ask you a question, and you are entirely free to refuse.”
“That is your preamble for waltzes. If you are about to ask me to dance in your nightshirt, I should warn you that the floor is extremely cold.”
He laughed, low and warm—the sound broke a barrier she had been holding.
“I suppose you may ask anything of me.”
“May I kiss you?” He wrapped his arms around her and drew her close—closer than the waltz and caressed her cheek, tilting her chin to meet him, still waiting.
And so she moved in and pressed her lips to his, her kiss as clear as any declaration, questioning and brushing at first, shy, because she had never kissed a man—but this was Fitzwilliam, her husband, her heart—and his lips, tasting his strength and his hands spreading a need from the center of her body like the heat from a fire she had not known was burning. A fire banked by the terrible and beautiful patience of a man who had waited for her to come to him.
She was here; he was here, his hands in her hair, hers gripping the front of his nightshirt, and neither of them let go. And then, he drew back, his forehead resting against hers, breathing ragged, and his thumb traced the line of her jaw with a tenderness that made her chest feel too small for what was happening inside it.
“Do you wish to go?” he asked.
“I wish to stay, husband…” She didn’t finish because he had captured her mouth again and then she was on her back, exploring the topography of her husband’s body with her hands, the texture of his hair between her fingers, and the exquisite sounds he made when she pressed her lips to various points behind his ear, down the column of his neck.
It was a slow, consuming unraveling—a meeting not of frantic haste, but of two lovers overflowing the depths of their defenses. Every touch was a discovery, quiet and reverent in the dim, shadowed hush of the great bed—the steady rhythm of his heart, the drumbeat of devotion that matched her own, and the movements that brought completion, his warm breath misting against her skin and her sighs dissolving in the soft hush of surrender.
Love, she thought as sleep crept up on her. Oh. There you are. I have been looking for you everywhere.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE LIGHT OF DAY
Elizabeth had looked forward to Hannah’s knock since her first morning at Pemberley, but not while wrapped in her husband’s bed, wearing nothing but her shift. She was pressed so close to him that at first, she could not distinguish the rapping sound from his heart.
