“You know very well who Montesquieu is, Mrs. Darcy. However, the concept of enlightenment engendered via a French romance should not be unwelcomed by you.” He maintained his pose of haughtiness, but with shining eyes staring raptly at the pages.
Lizzy reached up to play along the edges of Darcy's cravat and lowered her voice. “Read to me in French, Fitzwilliam. That will be highly welcomed by me.”
Darcy glanced at his wife, color rising to his cheeks. Clearing his throat, he began to audibly recite the text. Lizzy bit her lip, tugging on the dangling fabric of his neckcloth, truly affected by his resonant articulation. Darcy's reverberant voice thrilled Lizzy in any language, but there was a particular inflection he adopted when quoting literature that was especially lush and mesmerizing. She loved to tease him about his flair for drama, but the truth was that Darcy could have easily been successful as an actor, if he managed to overcome the whole being the center of attention facet! She had attended numerous plays in her life, especially most recently while in London, and knew that voice modulation and command coupled with theatrics was far more important than one's physical appearance onstage—not that her husband did not fulfill that feature adequately as well.
She listened, pulse racing, and wished fervently that they were not currently in a traveling carriage with open windows. Spellbound, she did not realize his cravat was undone until he faltered briefly when her fingers brushed over the hollow in his throat. He resumed, eyes riveted to the page with deliberate intensity, even when she rose and replaced her fingertips with her lips. Lizzy felt the vibrations created as he spoke, kissing tenderly over his neck and upper chest as buttons came undone.
Darcy's one hand held the book in a white-knuckled grip, the other about her waist, voice growing fainter with each word uttered until failing completely. “Continue, sir,” she whispered into his ear, Darcy attempting to comply with limited success.
A smattering of French phrases later, one short paragraph finished haltingly and with poor enunciation, and Darcy renounced the endeavor. Instead, he tossed the book randomly, clasping her hair firmly to pull her away from his neck and leaning with a groan to assail her mouth. Once, while returning from London to Pemberley, they had made love in the carriage, initiated by Lizzy, but wholly welcomed by her adoring spouse. It was a strange experience with the carriage swaying and the awareness of persons hovering above them, but denying their desire for each other when it arose was never a feat either could adequately achieve. The bliss attained was well worth the slight discomfort in the location, and since making love outside their bedchamber happened rather frequently, both Darcys had learned ways to curtail their vocalizations of pleasure and muffle their culminating screams of happiness. Luckily the Darcy carriages were all constructed stoutly and well insulated, noises from both the outside and vice versa not transmitting unduly.
This solitary event flashed with alacrity through Darcy's mind, and fully intending on a repeat engagement, he bodily lifted his wife onto the opposite seat, turning rapidly to close the windows and lower the shades. This accomplished with due haste, he returned to his grinning wife.
“Do not utter a word, Elizabeth,” he ordered in a terse whisper, Lizzy shaking her head with a smile. Darcy took the time to lavish kisses over his wife's beautiful neck and bosom, Lizzy's head thrown back in delight, while carefully and speedily removing all encumbering fabrics. Within minutes they were one, joined so perfectly, the rhythm of the rocking carriage aiding. They clung together, kissing and caressing, absorbing the joy and rampant electricity flowing through their bodies and felt in the other with even clothing not a barrier.
“Beloved, talk to me in French. I love your voice in French,” Lizzy murmured breathlessly.
Darcy obeyed, hoarsely and sporadically interjecting an endearment in whispered flawless French. Lizzy shivered, mouth pressed tightly into his shoulder and hands through his hair. The sensations rose, heights gradually spiraling to astounding levels, both attuned to the reality that a peak of blinding rapture was nearing. Darcy released a sustained groan into Lizzy's neck when suddenly a sharp series of raps blasted through the carriage from above.
They both instantly froze. Darcy's face was twisted in an agony of interrupted desire, ragged breaths suddenly astonishingly loud in their ears.
“Yes, Mr. Anders,” Darcy's voice boomed, startlingly normal and steady, given the circumstances.
“Sir, we are a mile or so from the seaboard,” Mr. Anders informed, voice faintly heard from above.
“Thank you, Mr. Anders.” Darcy responded in a clipped tone, a weak moan escaping. Lizzy was stifling a giggle, body shaking in mirth. “You are naughty, Mrs. Darcy! Pure evil, I daresay,” he whispered tightly.
She met his glazed eyes with an impish smile, rapidly lost in a crushing kiss. Darcy shoved massively and in seconds they were replete, gasping and panting in each other's arms. With only minutes to tidy themselves, they laughingly and joyously assisted each other, lastly Lizzy retying Darcy's cravat, a skill she was now very proficient at.
“There,” she declared, “as perfect as Samuel would do.”
Darcy was beaming, smile broad as he leaned to kiss her ruddy lips. “Thank you, my heart, for everything. I love you.”
She smoothed his rumpled hair, her own face radiant with love and satisfaction. “My pleasure, dearest. Anytime.”
He laughed, reaching around her body to open the windows. The gust of fresh sea air was notable and their timing ideal. The carriage completed a wide arc over the sloping dune, stopping moments later onto a flat expanse beside the road. Lizzy gasped, hand rising to her mouth in sheer awe. Darcy glowed with pleasure at his wife's expression, opening the door and hopping out before Tillson, the footman accompanying them on this journey, had alit from his perch.
“Come, Elizabeth,” he said, offering a hand to his wife, who took it rather absently, her gaze engrossed with the scenery.
They stood on a forty-foot cliff of combined sand and rock with clumps of gorse, lichen, kidney vetch, and heather about their feet. The varied colors and textures displayed by the array of vegetation were dazzling enough, but Lizzy would note this later. Her eyes were captured by the sea.
It was a clear afternoon, the evening fog yet at bay, with a sky of vivid cloudless blue. The dark blue-grey water sparkled and reflected the brilliant sunlight as a million flashing candles, endless to the horizon as the water rippled and roiled. Foam-crested waves of all sizes crashed, the sound loud upon their ears. Some waves reached the shore, tides pushing and pulling steadily over the white sands. The beach stretched for miles, dotted with clusters of dried seaweed and debris. To their left beyond the gently ascending and descending dunes, the cliff rose steeply with a sheer escarpment of chalk sandstone, massive boulders fallen amongst the naturally rock floor. Waves fed the stone, mosses growing in a thick blanket and the scurry of tiny crabs and clutching shellfish visible from their roost above.
Seagulls flew in screeching flocks over the water and beach, darting with incredible speed and accuracy to catch the unwary fish. Groups of nightjar and kittiwake rambled over the sands, bobbing and conversing as they too pecked into the rock clefts and sand for dinner. No humans were present although the faintly visible cluster of buildings off to the right indicated the nearness of Cromer and civilization in the lower valley.
“William, it is everything I imagined multiplied a hundredfold! No painting does the reality justice. I never accounted for the noise! It is like thunder.” She trailed off, unable to articulate.
Darcy watched her with delight. As with sharing the beauty of Pemberley or any of the other sights they had seen together, his joy was boundless in experiencing it with her. She was aglow with happiness and awe, struck as Darcy always was by the impressive majesty of the roaring surf and vast expanse of ocean. Turning her incandescent countenance to him, his knees instantly weakening at her breathless beauty, she leaned toward him and clasped his forearms enthusiastically.
“Can we walk on the sand, William, please? I want to feel the water.”
Darcy smiled indulgently. Glancing around, he noted that the road they parked beside veered left through the heath and sparse trees, beginning a gradual decline toward Cromer. The cliff elevation decreased until eventually disappearing into the sand at sea level some two miles before the town. Approximately twenty feet away from where they stood, he could see a rough trail twisting between the reeds and rocks down to the beach. It appeared safe enough, so he directed Lizzy to the trailhead, pausing to examine further. Lizzy, in her excitement, hesitated not a second, treading onto the sand path with surefootedness. Darcy grasped her elbow, pulling her back with a stern glare.
