Mr. Darcy's Bite

their governess escorted her four charges upstairs, and Lizzy and her aunt shared their shopping experiences with Mr. Gardiner, who was polite, but clearly uninterested in their excursion. To engage her husband’s attention, Mrs. Gardiner told him of Lord Fitzwilliam’s visit, and he laughed so hard that he nearly popped a button on his waistcoat. After wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes, he managed to sputter, “Do I have anything to worry about, Mrs. Gardiner? Should I work at home to keep the wolf at bay?”

That comment reminded Lizzy of Mr. Darcy’s letter, and she excused herself. But before closing the door behind her, she could hear Uncle Gardiner saying to his wife, “All I can say, my dear, is that Lord Fitzwilliam has damn fine taste in women, and he has definitely put an idea in my head. Shall we retire early tonight?” Lizzy could hear her aunt giggling.

Once in bed, Lizzy stared at the letter. Surely, it must be better than the one he had written to her on his journey home from Scotland, and after another moment’s hesitation, she broke the seal.

Dearest Elizabeth,

Be not alarmed, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those words which were so repugnant to you when last I wrote. I write without any intention of paining you.

And Lizzy hugged the letter to her chest and thought how clever he was to open his missive by mocking that first awful letter he had written to her when she was at Hunsford Lodge.

Being unsure if I would have the time to write to you once I was in Kent, I penned this letter while in town, and so it will contain no news, only my love.

I have never written a love letter (and you can attest to that fact). So what do I say after I confess that my love for you is so strong that no wind could bend it nor rock could break it? I imagine that most gentlemen would make reference to that wonderful moment when he first saw his lady love. But I cannot do that because I was abominably rude to you at the assembly, and the first time I saw you smile was when you were laughing at me for being such a boorish man. I must also omit references to Lucas Lodge, the ball at Netherfield (where you were the prettiest girl in the room), and, most definitely, Hunsford Lodge.

So I must move past our unfortunate beginning to the day I saw you at Pemberley. You were sitting on a bench without a bonnet. (Didn’t your mother warn you about getting freckles from being out in the sun without a bonnet or parasol?) Your face was turned toward the sun, and because your eyes were closed, I was able to gaze upon your freckled countenance for several minutes. When you opened your eyes to find me staring at you, I thought that you might run away, but you did not, and in that moment you sealed your fate because I knew exactly what you were feeling, and it wasn’t anger, animosity, or dislike; it was something quite different.

Lizzy treasured the memory of her visit to Pemberley. She had been sitting in the garden, and with the sun warm upon her face, she had been thinking about the Hunsford letter. In it, Mr. Darcy had admitted that he had interfered in Jane and Charles’s relationship, but not for the reasons she had suspected. And if he had failed to properly judge the depth of her sister’s affection for Mr. Bingley, she had been completely blind to Wickham’s true character. If Mr. Darcy’s behavior had been less than exemplary, there was certainly enough criticism to go around, as she had these preconceived notions about him, every one of which had proved to be wrong.

But on such a beautiful day, thinking unhappy thoughts was unpardonable, and so she had set them aside. While waiting for her aunt and uncle to come down the garden path, she had been thinking of what it would be like to be embraced and kissed by the handsome owner of this beautiful estate, when she sensed that someone was nearby. Upon opening her eyes, she found Mr. Darcy standing not more than twenty feet from her, holding his jacket and with his shirt opened, and she had been both embarrassed and…

“Oh my God! That’s what he meant by, ‘I knew exactly what you were feeling, and it wasn’t anger, animosity, or dislike; it was something quite different,’” She remembered the sensation that had spread throughout her body when she had seen his exposed chest and the heat she had felt that had nothing to do with the sun. And he knew it! She quickly scanned the letter to find her place. Were there other revelations to be found in its pages?

And because I knew what you were thinking, I felt comfortable in engaging you in conversation, and for the first time since I left Kent, I had hope. There was, of course, a major hurdle to be overcome, and after I saw your face when I revealed all, I again despaired. But on that first night of nightfall, when you came out onto the terrace, I saw a ray of light in a bleak landscape. And you know the rest.

Do I need to tell you how much I want you? How I suffer each night because I sleep alone? When I told you in the study that I wanted to taste and touch every inch of you, I was not speaking figuratively…

Lizzy felt her temperature rise, and she used the letter to fan herself and wondered what her wedding night would be like? On more than one occasion, Lizzy had overheard her mother’s conversations with Aunt Philips and the other hens from Meryton speaking of their own wedding nights. Although they were laughing when they shared their “pointed” comments and their “probing” questions, they still spoke of the discomfort and embarrassment they had experienced that first time.

Would she be embarrassed? She did not think so. William had talked about how Nature provides for its creatures. If stripped of the overlay of shame and guilt placed on making love by society, it could be a pleasurable experience for both men and women. But would it hurt? That was a different matter altogether. When he had lain on top of her in the study at Pemberley, his manhood seemed to be a third of the length of a broomstick, but again, he had explained that Nature prepared a woman to receive a man if the woman was receptive. Lizzy decided to stop thinking about it. She would know soon enough and continued reading.

At night, as I lie awake, I think of the words from Shakespeare’s forty-third sonnet:

All days are nights to see, till I see thee.

And night’s bright days when dreams do show thee me.

My darling, you have become the reason for my existence. Without you, there is no Fitzwilliam Darcy.

Yours always, Will

Lizzy let out a sigh, quite pleased with the contents of the letter, and as she tucked it under her pillow, she thought how few nights there were left when he would sleep alone.

Chapter 28

While Madame Delaine was measuring every inch of her person, Lizzy was imagining a shop where you could buy a ready-made dress. A tuck or two, a shortening of the hem, and a bit of added lace, and she would be done, but she dare not speak her thoughts aloud, as Madame had already mentioned her contempt for the inferior work of some of the other dressmakers, at least that was Lizzy’s translation of her heavily accented English.

Buying the shoes, boots, gloves, shawls, and chemises was a lot more fun, and she particularly enjoyed visiting the milliner’s shop, where she donned turbans with tassels and hats with ostrich plumes sprouting everywhere. But with Mr. Darcy’s satirical eye, she could just imagine his comments about such exotic head coverings. He had already voiced his opinion on the overly wide brims of her poke bonnets, saying that she wore them not to keep the sun off of her face but to keep his lips off of her mouth. How wrong he was about that.

Two days later, Aunt Gardiner and Lizzy returned to Madame Delaine’s boutique for Lizzy’s first fitting, and when she saw the emerging form of her dress within the fabric, she was very pleased, and so she suffered in