Darcy & Elizabeth (26 page)

She lingered in the half-concealment of her fan and a profusion of copper tendrils for oh-so-brief a time before deigning to peer over it in Wickham's direction. Her eyes, half-closed in continued notification of his insignificance to her, batted softly before she raised them to meet his increasingly interested contemplation. Then, she held out one hand and two of her admirers leapt forward to assist her to her feet. It was only when she had lowered her fan to take dainty hold of a diaphanous cerise skirt to stand that her countenance was fully revealed to him. With a three-quarter turn of her aspect, she lowered her chin (a pose so unaffected that it could only have been perfected by many hours of practice in front of her looking-glass). Through a mass of unreasonably dark lashes, her eyes twinkled like penny sparklers and a coy smile toyed with the corner of her crimson lips.

Wickham stepped back stupefied. It was as if Venus had arisen from the foam. Oddly, the first thing that came to his mind was not admiration of her beauty, but that he would have to reassess his recent disdain of his cohorts' sensibilities.

“
Ma demoiselle
,” said Wickham with a slicing sweep of his arm across his extended knee.

He had used the archaic French “my damsel” quite on impulse. It was a risky ploy and he awaited the rendering of its success with bated breath. It was not to be a long wait. For upon the heels of hearing him, with her chin still lowered, Césarine coyly swept her eyes the length of his figure and stopt when they gained his countenance. Her gaze was penetrating, but slightly amused. Wickham still knew not whether she thought him intriguing or simply a buffoon. He held his genuflection until she fully disclosed her opinion. She withheld it an excruciatingly long time and his weight-bearing left leg began to tremble (not from the strain of anticipating her response, but the extreme abuse of Wickham's sycophantically charged position). His knee set to spasming so profoundly that Wickham began to fear less that he might be spurned by the bewitching creature before him and more than he might literally fall on his face when she did. Finally releasing him (it is highly improbable that she was unaware of Wickham's distress), Césarine acknowledged Wickham's presence.

“Bonjour,
mon Général
.”

His gambit was a compleat and utter triumph!

With little attempt to disguise his glee, Wickham scrambled to his feet. He then delicately kissed her perfunctorily extended knuckles. He was ever so pleased with himself to have had the audacity to wear the gold sash bearing numerous British military medals that he had found in that same little shop in the Latin Quarter where he purchased the entirety of his uniform
vêtements
. But more important, he then employed his own little flirtatious tilt of the head—one
he
had perfected through long hours before his looking-glass. If he had been a female, he would have batted his eyelashes and pressed his lips into a sulk, but as he was not he simply puffed his chest, drew in his stomach, and presented his profile.

Although Wickham was neither bored nor any sillier than the average dissolute man, Césarine's charms had still worked their magic on his voluptuous nature with heedless abandon. He had forsaken his plan to lure Mademoiselle Lambert into
le boudoir
without a second's thought. He was knee-deep in a quagmire of quite another sort. A brief liaison was out of the question now that he had seen Elysium. He truly believed his breast had just been pricked by Cupid's little arrow of amour.

To be thunderstruck as he had was an exceedingly odd sensation. He kept stealing glances at her, wondering what it was about her that had overtaken him with such fury. Not since Elizabeth Bennet had he been so taken with a woman's air. That was but a small infatuation. His continuing and irrational craving for her, however, he had always attributed to her having been “the one that got away.” Césarine was nothing like Elizabeth. She was
much
better. Césarine was all parts that little country virgin was not—sophisticated, sybaritic, decadent, and the most desired woman in Paris.

As Wickham was new to all-consuming passion, even his burgeoning erection did not persuade him that it was not his heart that was inflamed. He knew but one thing—he must have her.

If he met with success, would Darcy not be pea green with envy?

Love Sings for Jane

It was a bold move on Bingley's part. But he knew nothing less than a bold move would do to repair the gaping wound that he had made of his marriage. Moreover, if he was to salvage any speck of the tender love he and Jane had shared, he must make his move with all due haste. If left to fester, it might become irreparable. Therefore, he waited little more than what passed for a suitable period of penitence before he mustered the courage to go to her.

The night he selected for this matrimonial reparation was like any other—save for his own disconcertion and a portentously full moon. His toilette in preparation for this endeavour was elaborate. Once his shave was compleat, he patted his hair, licked his fingertips to smooth down his occasionally errant sideburns. Nichols stood by him and brushed his hand repeatedly across the shoulders of Bingley's nightshirt. When he delicately picked a minute piece of lint from the sleeve, Bingley nervously waved him away. Bingley was far too fraught with anxiety to wait for Nichols's meticulous inspection of his person. Nichols moved away, deferentially ducking his head. He bore an expression of concern that reflected Bingley's. Of this, Bingley was quite unaware. He only knew that just beyond the heavy door separating their respective beds, Jane slept quite unawares. Still, he took the precaution of peering into the keyhole in reassurance that all was as he anticipated.

In the moonlight sweeping across her counterpane, he could make out the outline of Jane's form.

Patting his hair once again, he took a deep breath and then managed a hesitant knock upon the door.

Although he did rap, it was in actuality little more than a scratch. This light touch served the dual purpose of obeying decorum without actually awakening her—this because he designed not to offer her an opportunity to thwart him either by an outright rebuff or feigning sleep. He opened the door forthwith and stepped into the room. (He would have liked to think that he entered with great manly condescension, but in fact it was more of a sidle.) Not wanting to cause her a fright, as he neared the bed he whispered her name once more. Still, she did not stir. He could observe the counter-pane continue to rise and fall with the deep respirations of her sleep.

With more conviction, he called, “Jane, dearest.”

She sat bolt upright, but her eyes were still half-open.

“Pray, who is ill?” she asked worriedly, thinking of no other reason than an ailing child to be disturbed after she had retired. Those instructions were implicit with nurse.

“No one, save me,” said Bingley.

He made for her bed with more haste than the mere chilliness of the floor might have influenced and, once arrived, slid beneath the covers with the same remarkable dispatch. By that time, Jane was not only compleatly awake, she was in high alert (as much at the introduction of his cold feet as the intrusion itself). The shallow indention even her slight frame made in the soft batting of the mattress was excuse enough for his forward motion to propel him directly into her embrace—had she held out her arms to him. But she had not.

She had, however, understood then that no one was ill. But that did little to alleviate her apprehension. From her expression of heightened alarm, she not only did not move to embrace him, she looked upon her husband's form with compleat incredulity—almost as if some sort of nocturnal creature had made its way into her bed.

“It is only my heart…”

“I shall get my salts…” said she, but she made no move for them.

Had it been any other who spoke those words, Bingley would have believed himself the victim of sarcasm. As it was dear, sweet Jane who said it, he knew better. Rather, she brought her hand from beneath the bed-clothes as if to press the backs of her fingers to his fevered brow, but he caught them and pressed them tenderly against his lips.

Then he said quite fervently, “I need only your forgiveness.”

In a comforting tone (if one were perfectly frank, it could be described as the precise accent she used with their children) she said, “Have I not sworn my forgiveness?”

“You forgave my weakness. I fear you have not forgiven me—for I cannot forgive myself.”

With this last, he gave a small hiccupping sigh. But Jane found all untruths unpalatable, even those necessary to salve the wounds of those most dear to her heart. Hence, she could not in all good conscience declare her husband unequivocally absolved of his monumental betrayal of his wedding vows.

“I see,” said she.

That was not untrue, for she did see. She saw quite a lot. As his hand loosed hers, he found it new, if tentative, employment in drawing her nearer. She understood then that he had come to her in want of resuming their intermittent and somewhat indifferent love life. She not only saw that, she also felt it. Indeed, their bodies now perfectly aligned, she felt a stiffening that was not just his resolve. Thereupon an expression of obligatory acceptance overspread her countenance—one the dark mercifully did not allow him to behold. Hence, he was spared seeing upon her aspect what some might have mistaken for a grimace. That he did not see it did not suppose he did not know it was there. He understood well that Jane knew her duty to her husband and that she was fully prepared to accept any and all attentions he paid her without complaint. She lay quiet, her hands folded across her bosom in wifely subjugation for him to do with her as he wished.

She had forgiven him, and time was at hand for her to prove it both to God above and husband beside her.

As bold as Bingley's entry into her bedchamber had been, the redesigned path he was about to embark upon held even more risk, this he knew. However, in his enthusiasm to return to her bed as well as her good graces, Bingley had found himself very nearly lapsing into his previous habit of heaving himself upon her recumbent form and having his way with her female parts. And she, as was her habit, laid quite still. Her only rearrangement of her person was to move her hands shoulder high and palms up in an attitude not unlike one might find oneself in if beset upon by highwaymen. Their amorous encounters had always taken place thusly. Jane had always found this discreet placement of her hands reassuring since that most unsettling night when she had inadvertently grasped her husband's member. The resultant fright to them both was not easily forgot. Since that occasion, she had also always kept her eyes tightly shut during physical congress, certain she did not want to behold this appendage or accidentally gaze upon any indecorous activity it wrought. She did so not like being caught unawares.

In truth, it had been reassuring to Jane that their lovemaking never altered. When Charles slipped between the bed sheets, she knew the preparatory foreplay would consist of a kiss upon each cheek and twice upon her lips. This entire frolic would inevitably culminate with a tweak to her left breast. That signalled the commencement of what she knew must be an arduous husbandly duty. (She knew it was quite arduous for him because of all his grunting and sweating.) Indeed, his mission previously had been to get the job done in all due haste lest any tarriance was imposed upon his good wife's privacy unduly. And in respect for this privacy, four children had been conceived without once drawing his wife's night-dress above those component parts absolutely necessary to accomplish this feat. His measures had always been great on the side of efficiency and light in the area of any pleasure other than his own. For that, he was ashamed almost as keenly as for his adultery.

This conclusion was not reached with particular ease.

Initially, his remorse had a Calvinist bent under which he understood to believe that anything pleasurable was suspect. The black waistcoat he took to wearing, however, was soon abandoned. For although Bingley was naïve, he was not stupid. Contrition was well and good, but self-reproach alone was not the only answer to his marital woes. Yielding to temptation in the arms of another woman (one in the habit of enjoying liaisons that were not only passionate, but very nearly raucous), had rendered him soiled of virtue perhaps, but also considerably enlightened about the delight that mutual gratification could bestow. He was eventually able to escape the shackles of guilt long enough to imagine a more passionate congress with his wife.

Indeed, he had worried that notion relentlessly, desperately wanting to share such pleasures with the one he loved best, but fearing he would injure his demure wife's sensibility irreparably. In his deep and lengthy deliberation, he recalled certain sultry looks that he had observed pass between the Darcys. His new enlightenment suggested to him that their marriage bed was far more lusty than his own. He had always known that Darcy was a man of experience. It was not a great leap for his ruminations to wonder if Jane and her sister spoke of such matters—then as quickly as that, he dismissed the possibility. He reasoned that even he and Darcy did not discuss such intimate matters; certainly ladies were no less circumspect. With no other avenue of enlightenment to pursue, he eventually concluded it better to risk Jane's sensibility than her heart. He would not rest knowing that he had not pleasured his wife with the diligence he had another.

Hence, he had come to Jane with only one ambition and that was to reward her for every moment of gratification that she had allowed him. Although it did not commence with particular finesse—for he chose to allow his hand to traverse her person via marching index and middle fingers, causing Jane to stifle a nervous giggle. As he expected, she was initially hesitant to allow him to make free with her person. Yet sometimes playfully, sometimes seductively, he persevered. Indeed, with his gentle diligence (and fingers joined by the palm of his hand in fetching undulations), she allowed her night-dress to make its way upward. Indeed, so far was it raised that it was discarded altogether. Blessedly, the room was dark, hence the crimson of her countenance was known only to herself. She lay motionless, but a susurration escaped from her lips quite unlike any other he could recall.

“Charles, pray, is this…” she began a question that she knew not how to form.

“Hush, my sweet,” he reassured her, “all is well. Allow me to stroke you,” he implored.

To him she agreed that his stroking was most comforting. But in point of fact, it was not. She found that it was most…invigorating. So invigorating was it, her recently complacent hands located and took hold of various makeshift knurls upon his body—in fortune, for the manoeuvre upon which they embarked required a firm handhold on something (or anything). The progression of their venture was quite familiar, but her response was not. From the deepest reaches of her throat wafted a moan heretofore unheard in their bedchamber. In that instant two illuminations unfolded. Jane understood without reservation the romantic rapture that Lizzy had tried to explain to her lo those many years ago, and Charles recognised what had been missing from both his marriage and his extramarital encounter. With Jane, it had been passion, from his illicit paramour, it had been love. He then recognised the confluence of both in the woman who was his wife.

Passion overdue was merely passion delayed. No, Bingley would not stray again. Jane would see to it he had not the strength.