His eyes narrowed dangerously, and for the first time in their short marriage, Elizabeth thought that perhaps she might have gone a little too far. As he raised his arm, she jumped back, covering her head as if to protect herself from an imminent blow. He was only attempting to wipe his buttons.
“How dare you!” Now he had gone past mere anger into an unknown realm of fury. He turned into a stranger before her very eyes. “How dare you insinuate that I would strike a woman! You really don’t know me at all, do you? You never really did.”
He turned on his heel and stormed from the room, slamming the door behind him. It banged open again and then closed with a thud. Elizabeth could hear his heavy footsteps going down the stairs and heard him wrench open the foyer door, storming out into the night. She struggled to resist the impulse to run to the window to call him back, so she sat down at her dressing table very quietly, holding onto the edge of the seat cushion. Her heart was pounding furiously.
Her blood ran cold. Although not normally one to give in to tears, they ran freely down her cheeks now.
It had been a brief hour before this unpleasant encounter with her husband that Lizzy had received the note along with the return of her long-lost locket. Up until then, it had been an idyllic day with all the concern over Fitzwilliam’s whereabouts behind them and then the joy of his happy news. She had actually even forgotten about the locket.
Darcy had made his annual appearance at the Boxing Day breakfast for the staff, passing out their Christmas bonuses—hefty bonuses to compensate for his increasingly irrational behavior. Then the couple exchanged their own special gifts in private and spent the afternoon quietly and happily alone, laughing and talking together.
She was confused at first but overjoyed that the precious item, the only thing she had ever received from her mother, was returned.
“
Lizzy sat very still, her mind so paralyzed that it was unable to wrap itself around this tidbit of news. Darcy was at her house? No. Fitzwilliam Darcy? Her Fitzwilliam Darcy? When could he have visited? She and Darcy had been in each other’s pockets for months now. The only time he was away from her was when he assisted her father in returning home, and when he went away to assist Charles at Netherfield…
Elizabeth was still clutching one bit of the shredded letter when Darcy entered her dressing room, arrogantly proclaiming that since there remained no footmen at home to carry her downstairs, he would, like his mud hut– dwelling forbearers, provide primitivelike sustenance for his woman—peach tarts, plover’s eggs with mint jelly, fresh fruit, cheese, and toast tips. All that she needed to tell him was how.
He stopped when he saw her furious stare. “Lizzy, whatever is wrong? You look like you’ve fought a ghost!”
It was a terrible argument. Tensions that had been repressed but building were exploding everywhere with horrible accusations and threats, most of which, thankfully, were shrieked in words that were unintelligible. When he finally stormed out, she sat at her dressing table, staring at a gaping hole where there had once been a door handle and lock. Now, like her marriage, the lock and handle lay in shattered pieces upon the floor. She was numb. She clutched her poor little locket to her heart and felt physically ill. She never thought for a moment that he would become so angry that he would actually kick in her door.
It was a half hour after Darcy’s dramatic exit that those horrible pains returned with a vengeance, the pain her doctor had been dismissing out of hand for the past week, worse now by far. There was also a queer pressure on her bottom, distracting her from her wallowing in abject misery. Moaning, she wiped away tears with a knuckle and quickly sat down, loudly blowing her nose with her delicate Belgian lace handkerchief. It never occurred to her to call for the doctor or even to have mentioned those earlier discomforts to her husband.
At that moment, the only room in her thoughts were for Darcy and Caroline Bingley. Could they have deceived her for so long? If so, how long had the two of them been communicating with each other? Laughing at her? Caroline was beautiful, the little weasel, as well as an extremely skilled flirt and always desperately grasping for a husband, any husband.
Eventually, though, even a cast-off blob of a wife needed food, and so she clumsily stood, bracing herself against her dressing table then waddled the few steps to her now-cold afternoon tea tray. The pressure on her bottom intensified, followed by an odd sensation of water running down her legs. She was aghast at seeing the liquid stain begin to spread on her beloved Turkish carpet. “Oh no!” she cried in distress. “Why must everything happen to me?” She was furious. She stomped her tiny bare foot in her rage and did what all devoted wives do—she blamed her husband. “Well, thank you very much, Mr. Darcy! This is just typical, isn’t it? This rug is one of a kind and very expensive, William, brand new, not even four months old!”
That was the exact moment the enormity of what was happening finally struck her… and just seconds before the first real labor pain hit. She gripped her belly and felt her knees begin to vibrate.
“Uh-oh.”
