Darcy and Fitzwilliam: A Tale of a Gentleman and an Officer

You could not wait, could you, Fitzwilliam? No, you had to release the beast! What do I say to her now? How can I explain to her what I really had planned for us?

“You think I am an easy woman, don’t you?” She was watching his face, thinking how disillusioned with her he appeared. “I do not see how this will ever work out.” Her resentful reaction had been exactly what he had predicted it would be, but she loved him so much that she had tried to force herself into behavior that was against her principles. Maybe “forced” was too strong a word, especially since she seemed to recall entreating him for that second time . Eeeeh! Everything was ruined. She had shown her true wanton colors, and he was finished with her.

He threw off the covers and boldly stood before her in all his glory, grabbed his smallclothes, and leisurely began to dress. Amanda let out a gasp at his nakedness and turned her back again to him. You see, the disrespect has begun already.

“I am afraid you are right, dearest, this is not for us, and I shall attempt to restrain myself from saying I tried to warn you.” He smiled at her lovely back with all that soft white skin, and at her delicate sensibilities. She really was adorable. An easy woman! Ha! He almost began to laugh out loud at that. He was pulling on his boots within moments. “You know, Amanda, that I love you very much.”

He saw the back of her head nod. “No more than I love you, Richard.” Her voice was barely audible. She wiped at her nose with the back of her hand.

“All right, then. Let’s get you buttoned, and we’ll go out, shall we? I have a surprise for you anyway, dear. I was planning to show you earlier, but you kept removing your clothes, if you remember.”

“Richard!!”

“Yes, I know, you prefer to not discuss it.” He reached into his coat pocket and then handed her the packet of papers he had spent days procuring. She opened them up and began to cry.

***

Within two hours, the special license Richard had acquired from the offices of his dear cousin, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had been presented at the nearest church. Amanda Sayles Penrod and Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam became husband and wife, yet one more relieved bride clinging to her eager bridegroom within the morally ambiguous London social elite.

In her tearful joy and pride, Amanda struggled to suppress those misgivings and suspicions that nagged her, forced to the background fears regarding acceptance by his family, qualms that he would grow to hate the secrecy this deed would force upon them.

She had married in haste again—true, this time to a man she adored, but as before, a man she did not know. It was her grab for happiness, and so she managed to restrain the sense that her problems were just beginning.

Chapter 17

It was several weeks later, two days before Christmas, and Amanda was smoothing out the counterpane on the bed, her hair again pulled severely back into her braided bun, her dreary dress and worn shoes primly announcing her imminent return to the hospital. She was incredibly happy, her initial fears over the secrecy of their marriage now laughable. Her husband was warm, loving, and attentive, protective in the extreme.

Since their marriage, they had been meeting at the inn secretly, stealing precious moments of happiness. Smiling to himself, he watched her as she tended to this rented room as if it was their home, tidying the bed, dusting and straightening furniture. She sat suddenly on the bed, shaking her head and sighing.

“What is going on, Mrs. Fitzwilliam?” He crouched down before her, resting his arms straight out over her shoulders.

She was quiet for a very long while.

“Amanda, my legs are killing me. Please hurry.” Instead of speaking, she bent her head lower, pressing her hands together on her lap. “Tell Papa what is wrong, Amanda.”

She sighed. “We may not have the luxury of any more time together.”

He felt his chest tightening, and his blood began to boil. He found it hard to speak at first. “I’ll find you if you attempt to leave me. I will give you no peace at all.”

She looked up, surprised at his intensity, and then patted the bed. “Come and sit next to me.” When he sat, she took both his hands and held them tightly, her eyes beginning to tear up. She brought his hands slowly up to her lips.

“You haven’t noticed something, I’m afraid, dear,” she said.

“What?”

“We’ve been coming here twice a week for nearly a whole month now or more, and making love like randy little rabbits.”

“Did you think I was unconscious of this?” He smiled and hugged her tight, his pain easing a bit.

“Think about it, Richard. Access that wonderful brain above your waist for a moment. We’ve been meeting together for a whole month, actually, a little more than a month.”

He still looked at her questioningly.

“Richard, all women have a certain time when they cannot engage in this…” she leaned in toward him, whispering as if others were listening, “activity. When they…”

“Oh, for goodness sake, Amanda, I am a grown man. I have lived in both Copenhagen and Paris, so I do have a rudimentary knowledge of the female. What does that…?” He stopped suddenly.

She nodded.

“Oh, dear God, you haven’t bled, have you?”

“Finally”—she smiled, nodding her head—“give this man a cheroot. No, I have not for seven weeks, and you would not know it, but this is the one area in which I am never late.”

He stared at her blankly, and they both exhaled. The future moment they had discussed, the moment God would decide their destiny, had already arrived.

“I wasn’t going to say anything yet. In truth, I should wait until another cycle is missed, but I believe I am. The brutal fact is that my breasts are very swollen and sore, and I vomit each morning like a drunken marine.”

An amazingly strong emotion surged through him. The enormity of the joy and exaltation filling him, alongside the fear, was a complete surprise. His eyes began to swim with tears, unmanly tears if they were before anyone but her. He pulled her tightly into his arms and kissed her passionately.

“I take it that you would be pleased, then, if this is true?”

“Yes,” he answered, trying to compose this rampaging emotion, his voice catching a little. “Forgive me if I find your tale of breast pain and nausea to be absolutely wonderful.” He had rarely thought about being a father before and found himself taken aback at the thrill it had brought him.

Amanda pulled from his embrace. “What about Harry, Richard? We still have the problem of my mother-in- law. This is the scandal for which she’s waited.”

He inhaled sharply, his soldier’s brain snapping into position. The war had finally begun, the enemy engaged. Calm settled over him. “Then we leave,” he said simply. “We will seize him and leave immediately, head for the Continent. Later we can discuss heading to America, possibly. I will find out about passages and timetables and then purchase a coach to drive us to a safe area. I want you settled in a location with the best of doctors well before your confinement. First and foremost is a secure house for you and Harry.”

Amanda patted her stomach. “You make it sound so simple,” she whispered anxiously. “What about your inquiries? Have you had any response from your solicitors about our regaining custody?”

Fitzwilliam shook his head. “But never fear, Amanda. I have hired new investigators and have browbeaten my solicitors. We are very close.”

“Richard, if we run, it will be too late; we cannot come back. You do realize that, don’t you? Are you willing to leave England, leave your family?” Her heart was heavy with the guilt of all that he would be sacrificing for her, all he had already sacrificed—a normal home life, his career, and now his beloved family. It was too much to ask of anyone.

He smoothed the hair from her face. “I have every faith that it will turn out well for us. Better than that,