Mr. & Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Two Shall Become One

her cheek. “My love, Elizabeth, I am so sorry!”

Lizzy was staring at him, a puzzled frown on her face. She did not reply for several minutes then, “I heard a probably in there. What precisely happened and what information did the physician impart?”

Darcy inhaled deeply and closed his eyes, “Your blood had soaked through your skirts and onto my shirt.”

“Sorry about that.”

He opened his eyes in surprise at her teasing tone, further amazed to see her smiling slightly. He shook his head faintly, “My clothing was ruined already, so it is insignificant. Elizabeth, are you alright?”

“Pray continue, William.”

He frowned, “Very well. The physician asked me if we suspected you might be with child, to which I replied it was possible. I informed him that your monthly cycle was late and you were… edgy. He told me that can be a sign.” Lizzy nodded and flushed, hanging her head in shamed remembrance. “He said the bleeding may be indicative of a miscarriage, but he could not be certain.”

“Why not?”

“The hemorrhaging was not as extensive as usually seen and ceased quickly, although he ruminated that the early stage of your condition could affect that. Of course, you may not have been pregnant at all. He also expected the bleeding to continue but it did not.” He halted, sighed greatly, and ran his hand over his face. “I do not know, Elizabeth. I confess to avoiding the topic. It is too painful.”

Lizzy cupped his face with her hands and kissed him tenderly. “My sweet love,” she whispered, meeting his eyes and smiling, “let me reveal to you what I know. Aside from this bleeding which I do not remember and by the physician’s own admission was questionable, I am now approximately six weeks late, and I am never late. There is the craziness of my attitude, for which I profoundly apologize. Madeline shared with me that she suffered the same moodiness with her pregnancies. I am sure your uncle would commiserate.”

She laughed softly and kissed him again, lingeringly. “Every morning I wake and am queasy. It may be residual of the head trauma, yet why do I feel ill only in the morning and before I even move? Lastly,” she grasped one of his hands and planted it squarely on her breast, “what do you feel?”

Darcy had raptly absorbed her words, his quick intellect and education on the subject nimbly locking the pieces of the puzzle together with heightened excitement. His intimacy with her precious body instantaneously recognized the answer to her query. “You are fuller!”

“Yes, and they are tender, so gently, please,” she teased, threading her arms around his neck and shifting so that she was on his lap. “Fitzwilliam, I am not positive. Perhaps the physician will be able to verify. I desperately desire for our baby to be safe inside me, and I think it is. However, none of this can be resolved at one in the morning. Therefore, I propose less discussion and pleasant,” light kiss, “arousing,” nibbling, “satisfying activities. Oh, William! I have missed you so! At the risk of sounding horribly selfish, all I want now is you. I cannot survive another night without your arms around me. I love you and I need you.”

She kissed him ardently, pouring all her yearning and passion into the task, and he responded accordingly. With an aching groan he pushed her back onto the bed, cautiously and carefully showing her how intensively he loved, required, and hungered for her. Cold rationality was sluggish in surfacing.

With a throaty cry reminiscent of true pain, he untangled himself from her, clasping her face in tremulous hands, closing his eyes for a moment, and inhaling deeply. “God in Heaven, help me! My sweet Lizzy, my love, you surely know how fervid my passion for you. It is eating me alive, I need you so! I cannot, please, I beg you… If I hurt you in any way, if I hurt our child, Elizabeth, I… I could not live with that! Please, I promise we will talk to the doctor tomorrow, obtain answers. Tell me you understand, beloved?”

“Shhh… Fitzwilliam, I understand, I do.” She wiped his tears, her own pooling in her eyes as her lips trembled. In a small pleading voice, “Please do not make me sleep over there alone. I… I… I want you to hold me! Will you please hold me, William? I promise to behave.”

He laughed softly and pulled her into his embrace, nestling her head on his shoulder as he drew the blankets over them. “I will never let you go, Lizzy, never. If ever again you move to my mother’s bedchamber, I will batter down the door!”

The physician’s appointment was for the afternoon. After breakfast Darcy carried Lizzy to her parlor where she rested and was entertained by Georgiana, Lady Matlock, and Col. Fitzwilliam. She wrote several letters to her family and friends in the neighborhood. She had experienced some thirty minutes of nausea that morning, alleviated by the tea and toast Marguerite had begun bringing her each morning. Darcy had smiled brightly at her discomfort, which normally might have annoyed her, but she understood his emotions and was so blissful herself that she merely smiled in return, if a bit wanly.

He insisted she nap after lunch, a command that no one bothered to counter even though it was abundantly clear she was not the least fatigued. Lady Matlock returned home that afternoon, leaving Georgiana and Richard to amuse themselves, a task they would end up doing until the morrow.

The physician arrived and was momentarily dumbstruck, and Darcy embarrassed, as he had barely entered the room when Lizzy bluntly demanded he examine her feminine regions and tell her husband their marital relations must resume. Darcy nearly choked and hurriedly exited the room, but the doctor recovered quickly. After a thorough investigation of all areas, feminine and otherwise, he called for Darcy. The news was all positive.

Aside from her amnesia, which may never resolve, her head was declared healed. The ankle required another week or so of cautious activity but in a few more days, she could, with assistance, begin tentatively using it. Her feminine regions showed no sign of injury, the bleeding never having resumed. As for pregnancy, it remained too early to assert definitively, although he concurred with the symptoms as those indicative of the state. His gentle palpations had revealed a possibly enlarged womb, but, again, too soon for explicitness. Nonetheless, his cautious diagnosis was that Elizabeth was likely with child.

The affectionate and blatantly amorous glances shared by Darcy and his wife at the news brought an empathetic smile to the doctor’s face, and he hastily gathered his instruments. Darcy grinned stunningly at his wife as he escorted the doctor out, mouthing I love you as the door shut. He did manage to overcome his natural reticence and mortification for several pointed questions of his own before the physician bid adieu. He then literally ascended the stairs two and three at a time in his eagerness to return to his wife.

Darcy found his wife sitting placidly on their bed after quickly summoning Marguerite to assist changing her into a filmy rose-colored nightgown and brushing her hair. Darcy entered briskly, having shed his coat and waistcoat haphazardly in the sitting room. His eyes locked with Lizzy’s the second he crossed the threshold, his pace slowing as his smile broadened, lighting his face with an incandescent jubilance. He sat next to her, merely gazing.

“What took you so long?” she asked with a teasing smile.

He laughed softly, reaching one hand to brush the hair away from her right temple. “I needed to ask the physician a few questions for my own enlightenment and the foyer is a great distance. Even my legs can only take the steps so fast.”

She cocked her head to the side and grinned while running one hand up his thigh. “Questions? In the lengthy interval you have forgotten how it is done, beloved?”

He chuckled but deigned not to answer. Instead he leaned toward her, brushing his lips tenderly along the scar at her temple and then to her ear, her jawline, and eventually her mouth as she shuddered and sighed with contentment. “Beautiful wife,” he murmured, “I love you, and I adore you, my Lizzy.”

They caressed each other dreamily, their yearning intense, yet the thrill in the simple act of touching and kissing mesmerized them for a spell. He moved away eventually only to remove boots and shirt before gathering her tightly into his arms and stretching onto their bed.

Lizzy moaned happily and squeezed him with all her strength. “Fitzwilliam, you are the best man in the world! I love you with all my soul.”

Darcy was gentle and tender as promised. Lizzy was consumed with her need for him, but he languidly touched and caressed her satiny skin, his only haste in divesting her of the lovely but obstructive gown. Despite the physician’s assurances, he privately worried and had no intention of allowing his pent-up passions to overrule his caution. The end result was a lovemaking session of stupendous proportions as their mutual desire and yearning built slowly and was controlled.

They lay on their sides face to face, each exploring the other’s body almost as if for the first time. Darcy kissed each fading bruise and healing laceration and worked his way to her slightly swollen and colorful ankle,