By Force of Instinct (41 page)

Darcy shrugged, then turned to elizabeth. “I am afraid we will be stopping for the night here,” he said apologetically. He was surprised when she gave him a mischievous smile along with her assent.

He stepped out of the carriage, and elizabeth heard him say, “no, take care of the horses first, our belongings can wait.” He handed her out and hurried her through the rain to the shelter of the inn.

It was a typical small country inn, elizabeth saw, and went with gratitude to warm herself by the fire while Darcy spoke briefly with the proprie-tor, making arrangements to have a hot supper brought to them in their room. The man’s wife showed them up a narrow staircase and opened a door, indicating their room.

Darcy thanked her, ushered elizabeth in and closed the door behind him. The room was small but clean enough, with the beginnings of a fire warming it—they must have lit it as soon as they realized they had paying guests. elizabeth had taken off her bonnet, and was inspecting the environs; she stirred the fire and closed the curtains. Darcy leaned back against the door, enjoying watching her domesticity. she looked up at him with a bewitching smile as she removed her wet pelisse.

“This is not quite what I hoped to offer you for our wedding night,” he said ruefully. He could not help thinking how any other woman of his acquaintance would have responded at being forced to spend her wedding night under these circumstances and thanked heaven for the one who was actually with him. He hoped it was not too much of a disappointment to her and vowed to himself that he would make it up to her somehow.

she came over to him with a mischievous smile and kissed him lightly.

“It has a door that locks, a bed, a fire, and you—what more could I need?”

He pulled her to him and joined his hands behind her back. “you are a woman in a thousand, Mrs. Darcy,” he said, bending his head to kiss her deeply.

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They were interrupted by a knock on the door. When Darcy stepped aside and opened it, a servant came in and deposited their valises beside the bed, clearly in awe of such wealthy guests. When he left, elizabeth said,

“I suspect that he will be telling this story to his family for weeks!” she opened her valise and began setting out her necessities. As she laid out her comb and brush—the silver ones he had given her with her new initials engraved on them—he settled back again to watch her.

It was a profound intimacy in a way to be seeing this part of her life—the bedroom of a lady had always been forbidden to him. now it was his to see whenever he wished, though naturally at Pemberley such work as elizabeth was now doing would be done by her maid. she shook out and hung her clothes on the post, and then turned to him and crossed her arms in front of her. “And what have I done, sir, to earn such a stare?” she asked with amusement. “Am I doing work unsuitable for the mistress of Pemberley? It is fortunate for you indeed that tonight you have a wife who knows how to fend for herself.”

He shook his head. “I am enjoying watching you, my heart,” he said.

she raised an eyebrow. “not only can I fend for myself but also provide a source of amusement—I am glad to know that I am so useful!” With another lively smile, she turned back to smoothing wrinkles from the dress.

“I am sorry you should be having to do any work at all tonight,” he said.

“This night should be special.”

she gave him a sharp glance. “Did we not just discuss this, my love?” she said gently. “It
is
special, because you are my husband now, and I will be with you all night long and awaken next to you in the morning. Do you truly believe that the surroundings make such a difference to me?”

“you have the right to expect something more than this for your wedding night.”

she put her hands on her hips. With an amused look, she said, “you have not been listening to me, sir! I did not marry you for Pemberley, or Blenheim, or Brook street—I married you because I love you and want to be with you always, and that is precisely what I have now, and so I am perfectly satisfied!”

He looked dubious, so she reinforced her words by kissing him tenderly.

It was still difficult for him to grasp that elizabeth saw more merit in him as a person than as master of Pemberley, and he hoped he could live up to 250

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her belief in him. Without all the trappings of his position, he felt less sure of who he was, but his one certainty was that elizabeth was necessary to him.

she had brought such pleasure into his life, but the joy of her company until now had always been intermittent and intense; he knew only how to bask in her presence with the knowledge that it would soon be taken away, leaving him flat and lonely, and a seemingly eternal period until he could see her again. now there was no one to take her away, no demands of family or society to be met before his needs, and he scarcely knew how to manage it. How was he to feel now that he knew she would be with him always, a constant presence bringing joy into his life? He could not imagine it.

He had never known a time when he could rely so on another, trusting in their love and affection, and the thought was almost frightening. He was accustomed to being left alone; the moment he started to think about elizabeth being with him from now till death did them part, his mind sprang to all the ways they could be untimely parted, be it by illness, accident, or being brought to bed—not to mention his fears of the cooling of her regard, that somehow her opinion of him would change once she saw him on an everyday basis, or that she might simply lose interest in him. The anxiety of the ill weather for driving came back to him—what if his horses had not been so sure-footed, or his coachman so careful? elizabeth could have been injured, or even killed. It was as if he had to remind himself of the inevitability of pain, just to be certain that he remain vigilant and not expect so much happiness as to be eventually disappointed by its loss.

elizabeth looked up at him again, and seeing the sober expression on his face, went to take his hand in hers. “What is troubling you, my love?” she asked. “Are you still disappointed to be here?”

He shook his head. “no, it is only idle thoughts. I was thinking how hard it is to believe that you will not somehow disappear, and tormenting myself with possibilities.”

she tilted her head back to look up at him. “shall I have to teach you how to be happy, my dearest?” she said in a teasing manner, but with earnestness underlying it.

He pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair. “yes, I think you will,” he replied, his voice muffled. “I can find far too many worries.”

she was silent for a moment and then said, “Life does not deal in certain-251

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ties, it is true. I am leaving behind my family, travelling to a place I have never seen where I will spend my life, taking on a role in which I question my ability to succeed. you are my only constant.”

“you shall never have reason to regret it,” he said. “I will do everything in my power to make you happy.”

“But my happiness is not within your power; it is something that can only come from me, and it can only come from accepting the joys I have,”

she said slowly, trying to put voice to thoughts which had been much with her of late. “Accepting them, and hoping for their continuance, but with the knowledge that there are no certainties but today’s, and who knows what tomorrow will bring.” she looked up at him, tenderly touching his cheek. With just a hint of amusement in her voice, she continued, “My happiness comes from my own love for you and my faith in you, not from anything you give to me or do for me or promise me. And my love and faith will not be shaken.”

He was silent for some time, and elizabeth had begun to worry that she had embarrassed herself with her amateur philosophizing when he finally spoke. “you are very wise, my Lizzy; it is nothing but my own fear speaking, my own fear in believing that I could be happy—as if the mere belief would set the stage for disappointment.”

“Whereas I say that you
should
believe in it—have you not grown happier, rather than less, in our love over time?”

He smiled—a sudden, startling brightening of his countenance. “yes, my heart; because the more deeply I know you, the more I find to love in you.”

“It is the same for me,” she said. seeing there was still uncertainty in his face, she said, “I have trusted you more than I have ever trusted anyone, and you show me every day that I was right to do so. I am glad to have put my happiness in your hands, in my love for you, because I know that I can depend upon you.”

He heard her words, and knew their accuracy for him, that it was not a lack of intimacy or affection which held him back, but his own fear of depending upon her and accepting the happiness she offered. yet how he craved that happiness!

Acting on instinct, elizabeth took on a business-like air. “Here, my love; take off that wet coat and give it to me, and those boots must come off 252

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as well.” With a look of slight confusion, he did her bidding. she hung his topcoat on the post, and returned for his waistcoat. Her practical air made it seem that seduction was unlikely to be in her mind at the moment, though the thought occurred to Darcy as she was efficiently unbuttoning his waistcoat. That removal accomplished, she tugged on his hand, bringing him to the bed, where she sat and held out her arms for him to join her.

still rather mystified by her manner, he sat obediently, but no sooner had he done so than she encouraged him to lie back in the bed.

“elizabeth …” he said in bafflement.

“Hush, my love,” she said, lying by his side and taking him into her arms.

“you need to be held, and that is what I am here for.”

embarrassed by her solicitousness, he said, “you need not worry; I am quite well.”

“I never said otherwise,” she replied, her lips grazing his cheeks. “But you can be quite well and still need to be held—or do you never need to be held?”

A very small bite in her voice at her last words was enough to make him pause and give her words due consideration; he could tell this was important to her. It was not a subject he particularly cared to think about—he could think of better uses for a bed with elizabeth in it—but he finally replied with as much of the truth as he could muster. “It has been many years since there was anyone to hold me; I have not given it any thought.”

“Well, there is now,” she said in her practical manner, “and I intend to do it, so you may as well accustom yourself to it.”

He raised himself on one elbow to look down at her. “Are you telling me what to do?” he asked mildly.

she met his eyes challengingly, a smile lurking at the corner of her lips.

“yes, I am. Were you planning to do something about it, Fitzwilliam?”

Her use of his given name, with all its childhood associations, reached deep inside him. He kissed her lightly. “no, I was only asking,” he said. He lay back in her arms and rested his head upon her breast, hearing the steady beat of her heart. she was right, he thought; it had been far too long since anyone had simply held him for his comfort, or even dared imply that he might need comfort.

A sense of peace gradually stole over him, and with it a realization that elizabeth was not going to vanish; that she was real and alive and warm in 253

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his arms, and that she intended to stay there. He wrapped his arms around her, feeling a deep happiness within and a sense of having come home at last, here in an unknown inn in the middle of nowhere. Her left hand rested on his chest, the ring he had placed on it that morning catching the light of the fire. They needed no more words then, just the silent stillness of the night and the warmth of the other’s embrace.

254

Epilogue

elizabeth leaned back against the familiar strength of her husband’s body, content to be in his presence and among such natural beauty as she had heretofore only imagined. He kissed her hair absently, his arm slipping around her almost reflexively, resting on the newly rounded curve of her abdomen. she turned her head to look at him.

“you look very far away, my love,” she said affectionately. “If this scene is not enough to hold your interest, then I do not know what will!”

He looked down at her with a quick smile. “There is nowhere I would rather be, my heart,” he said. “I was thinking, in fact, of a time when we were both in Kent, and you told me that your aunt and uncle were to take you to the Lakes, and how jealous I was, because I wanted to be the one to bring you here—not that it seemed even a possibility at the time, of course.”

“And now you have. I hope it is as satisfactory as you imagined.”

“eminently,” he said, kissing her tenderly.

“Was that during the walk we took with Georgiana?”

“I prefer to think of it as the day I first kissed you,” he said playfully.

elizabeth smiled in amusement. “yes, that was certainly a memorable event.”

“Memorable? The memory of it tortured me for months!” he teased. At her sudden serious look, he added, “Do not start blaming yourself for my misery, my love; it was no one’s fault but my own. I would not have been 255

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without that memory, no matter how much it pained me—and even then it had its consolations; it told me that you were not perfectly indifferent to me, and, probably equally important to me at the time, it told me that you were not in love with George Wickham.”

“What?” exclaimed elizabeth. “In love with Wickham? I should say not.

I am not sure that you deserve to be forgiven for having such a thought.”

He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Well, I did not know, then—there had been one day after I gave you that appalling letter when I came across you in tears in the grove. you did not know I was there, and I retreated immediately, but in my self-centeredness I assumed it must have been because I had disillusioned you about Wickham. It was a good thing that he was far away—I think I might have throttled him at that point had the opportunity presented itself.”