whip.
Wondering if this was some sort of trick, Darcy said, “In April, when Miss Bennet was visiting her friend Mrs. Collins, and I was visiting my aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.”
Mr. Bennet looked suddenly tired. “Lizzy has never seen fit to mention seeing you there.”
“You did not know, then?” Darcy said in surprise. “So you have not heard about…” He trailed off, realizing that Elizabeth must not have wanted her father to know about their interactions in Kent. “Or about Wickham, either?” He had rarely felt so completely inarticulate.
“Sit down, Mr. Darcy. This is clearly going to take some time. Perhaps you can tell me now about all the things I have not heard,” said Mr. Bennet icily.
“Perhaps we should ask Miss Bennet to join us to give her point of view.”
“Perhaps not. Now, you were about to tell me about Kent, I believe.”
Feeling like a schoolboy called onto the carpet, Darcy summarized the events of April in a clipped voice, omitting only the venom of their disagreement the night he proposed, and briefly reviewed his history with Mr. Wickham. “When I returned to Netherfield last month, Miss Bennet, no longer being under a misapprehension regarding my feelings towards her, was kind enough to allow me to begin to court her anew.”
“Odd, I had thought it traditional to ask the permission of the father of the young lady involved, Mr. Darcy, but perhaps I was mistaken.”
Darcy had not been Master of Pemberley for five years to accept this sort of insult lightly, even from the father of his beloved. “Perhaps you misunderstand my position, Mr. Bennet. In the interest of future understanding, let me make myself clear: given a choice between protecting your daughter and pleasing you, I will always choose your daughter.”
“Do you believe that she needs protection from me, then?” Mr. Bennet said silkily.
Darcy fixed a steady stare on him, a tactic that worked well on recalcitrant tenants. “That is not what I said, as you are well aware, sir. But if it satisfies you to be angry with me because your daughter has chosen for her own reasons to keep certain facts from you, please feel free to do so. It does not disturb me.”
The corners of Mr. Bennet’s mouth twitched. “I am glad to hear it. If you plan to marry Lizzy, it will be to your benefit to be imperturbable.”
“I
“Treat her well, Mr. Darcy, and we will have no problems.”
“Sir, you need have no concerns in that regard.” Darcy stood and bowed formally. “I believe she is waiting for me, so I shall take my leave.”
Mr. Bennet waved his hand in dismissal, thinking that Lizzy might not have done so badly for herself after all.
Elizabeth had assumed that the interview with her father was a formality, given his words to her earlier, but was beginning to worry as time went on. When at last Darcy rejoined her, she said, “I had begun to wonder if you had forgotten me.”
“Hardly, my sweet. But your father had a number of questions. I am sorry to say that he does not seem to look favorably upon me,” he said, sitting next to her. “I made an important discovery, though, which is that if my flaw is to tell everyone else what to do, yours is to tell them nothing at all. I had not realized that you had left your father completely in the dark about everything that has happened between us.”
“It… has been very confusing; for some time I have hardly known what to say, and I am afraid that when I spoke with him earlier today I was rather… distressed,” she admitted.
“He did not seem to think me a welcome suitor,” said Darcy, looking at her thoughtfully. He had always assumed that Elizabeth’s tendency to keep her thoughts private reflected a certain lack of confidence in him, and having made the startling discovery that she had not even told her beloved father of his interest in her was causing him to rethink this conclusion. Could it be that she was so reticent about her personal affairs even with those to whom she was closest? She was certainly skilled at turning aside serious discussion with witty repartee in such a way that one hardly noticed her failure to respond. He wondered how much she told Jane of her private affairs.
Of course, Georgiana would probably make the same accusation of slyness about him, and he recalled what it had taken for him to confess his situation to Colonel Fitzwilliam in London. But he had never, once he determined that his interest in her to be a lasting one, tried to keep his feelings secret from Elizabeth. Although she had not understood his interest in the past, it was not because he failed to try to express it in his own way. He did not want to keep her at a distance, as he had so many other people, and more than anything he wanted her to feel that she could share anything with him. Perhaps he would have to take the lead in this regard until she felt more able to trust him with her feelings.
“I will tell him that is not the case,” Elizabeth said softly. “I would not want him to think you unwelcome.” She held out her hand to him. “Shall we go to my family?”
Taking her hand, he pulled her gently toward him, and she slipped into his arms as if she had been made expressly for that purpose. “Perhaps first you could show me that I am not unwelcome,” he said with a slight smile.
Elizabeth, experiencing that pleasurable sensation of coming home that the familiarity of a lover’s embrace can bring, raised her lips to his without a second thought. As their mouths met, she surrendered to the blissful sensations that only he could arouse in her. Experiencing the heady delight of accepting the pleasure he could give her without the feelings of guilt that had haunted her in the past, she moaned softly as he deepened the kiss and she felt the full force of her passion answering his.
When he lifted his head just enough to be able to gaze into her eyes, she said, “Do you feel welcome yet, sir?”
“I feel so welcome that I may never let you go,” he responded fervently, proceeding to feather kisses along the side of her face and down her neck, deeply gratified by his ability to give her pleasure. That his Elizabeth could be so amazingly and delightfully responsive to him gave him a satisfaction he could not deny, and he reveled in his sensation of ecstatic pleasure as he felt her surrendering control to him. Deeply aroused, he kissed her with a thoroughness that left her breathless and longing for more. Beyond the ability to restrain himself, and somehow knowing that she would not find the will to object, he slid the edge of her gown just off her shoulder. Pressing passionate kisses along the newly exposed flesh, he heard her gasps of pleasure and felt her arching against him with a thrill that only aroused him further.
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind when he heard footsteps outside. He released her abruptly and straightened her gown, but there was nothing he could do about the half-drugged look of passion in her eyes, and he suspected that his appearance was at least as obvious.
Mr. Bennet appeared in the doorway, a look of amusement on his face. “There you are, Lizzy. I believe we have an announcement to make, if the two of you can spare a moment for the rest of us.”
“Yes, we were just saying that we should join the others,” Elizabeth managed to say.
Mr. Bennet, whose first approach to the room had been quiet enough to remain unnoticed under the circumstances, raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Any dismay he might have felt about the behavior he had witnessed was outweighed by his relief in realizing that his Lizzy was clearly not as opposed to this match as he had feared. “Shall we, then?”
The bustle of departing travellers filled Longbourn early the following morning as trunks were loaded and reloaded, the Gardiner children taking the opportunity again and again to bid their parents farewell, and Mrs. Bennet instructing Elizabeth repeatedly how she should behave while at Pemberley in order to continue to please Mr. Darcy. Elizabeth herself was bemusedly recalling how, just a few weeks before, she had been eagerly anticipating this journey as an escape from Darcy’s attentions, whereas now the idea of missing him was of much greater concern. A feeling of delight filled her as she spotted the object of her thoughts himself riding toward her. She had not expected to see him; they had said their farewells the previous night.
He dismounted and came straight to her, his warm gaze upon her. As he kissed her hand, she was conscious of having a special smile for him as well. “Good morning, my love,” he said quietly, for her hearing
