Page 39 of Expectations (Obstinate, Headstrong Girl #7)

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

A READ LETTER DAY

E lizabeth would have been lying if she had claimed not to enjoy the theatre, the musicales, and Vauxhall Gardens, escorted upon the arm of her handsome, attentive husband.

She also enjoyed shopping for new dresses with her aunt, taking the children on excursions, and entertaining her family; they had hosted the Gardiners for dinner twice, Lord Matlock three times, and Lydia and her husband once when they came to London on a buying trip for their shops.

London was a source of endless amusements, and certainly not everyone was of the ilk of Mr Bingley’s sisters.

A few new acquaintances had called, and she had returned those calls and found the beginnings of new friendships.

But her favourite times were afternoons like this one, in Darcy’s large study—she with her writing desk upon her lap, he at his desk with his letters and papers.

He would speak of his business interests, or read and write his letters; she would read a book, or, like today, read and answer hers.

He appeared so polished, so composed; it thrilled her to know just how easily he could shed that cool poise and become the passionate man she so desperately loved.

She smiled down at her letter from Mary.

“My cousin, Viscount Ridley, has written,” Darcy said.

“Oh? How do he and Sarah fare? How is young Richard?” Elizabeth had begun her own correspondence with his cousin’s unconventional wife, and found another promising friendship therein.

“All are very well, and looking forward to seeing us, and Georgiana with her husband, at Easter. Also, here is news. He says his father will be coming too.”

“Why that is wonderful! I had understood they were not on speaking terms.”

He looked at his wife with a raised brow.

“They were not, a few weeks ago…when the earl began receiving multiple visits from you and the children, and before he began feeling well enough to leave his home regularly to join us at ours. My cousin says that he wrote to Sarah, begging her forgiveness for his past words and blaming it all on the malaise he has suffered since his eldest son’s death.

Of course, his wife is of a very forgiving nature and answered my uncle immediately, and insisted the viscount include a few remorseful words as well.

You would have nothing to do with this particularly surprising turn of events, would you? ”

“I believe the children have been a great incentive for him to learn to know his own grandson,” Elizabeth said blandly, turning back to her own letter.

“I am only glad he is feeling so much improved. Mrs Collins is in the family way again. She is very happy, and hoping for a girl this time. Miss de Bourgh visited the parsonage last week with a length of muslin and gifts for the boys. She seems to be very friendly with Mary, and certainly the Collinses all esteem her greatly.”

Her husband shook his head at her change of subject, but went along with it willingly enough. “Did Mrs Collins ever write to you of her rapport with Lady Catherine, when she was alive?”

“I know very little about Lady Catherine’s relationship with Miss de Bourgh,” she hedged, but Darcy only grinned.

“Come now, no dodging the question. We are speaking of your sister. Was Mrs Collins not overly fond of my aunt?”

“Your aunt was very…inquisitive, shall we say.”

“Lady Catherine was of a prying and meddlesome disposition. I saw, however, that she respected Mrs Collins’s ability to keep a home and manage her servants, so perhaps she did not interfere quite so often as she might have, had your sister been less competent.

I am certain it was too much, regardless. ”

Elizabeth gave up her attempt at tactful evasion.

“Mary had all she could do to hold her tongue, most of the time. She did not like Lady Catherine’s effect upon her husband’s nature—he always felt an oppressive need to be pleasing towards her, demonstrated in the most obsequious of ways, which she felt Lady Catherine too much enjoyed and encouraged.

It is a good thing Mary genuinely loves her husband.

I do not believe those first years were easy ones. ”

“Your sister was very good to my aunt in her last months, despite all that. I saw how both Anne and she relied upon her during that final illness.”

“Mary has a charitable heart. She loves nothing better than visiting and lending comfort to someone who is ailing. Life at the parsonage perfectly suits her.”

Darcy rose from his desk and seated himself upon the settee beside her, draping one arm about her. “And you, Mrs Darcy? Does life in town perfectly suit you?”

She rested her head upon his shoulder. “Anywhere that you are suits me perfectly well.”

He kissed the top of her head. “The same is true for me,” he said seriously.

“But I find myself longing for Pemberley. Would you be opposed to removing to the country earlier than we planned? The weather is not yet ideal—and the place is devilish hard to heat, and there is likely snow on the ground, but I wish to show it to you and the children.”

“I would like it above all things,” she assured him.

He turned her to kiss him fully this time, and she revelled in it, in the passion he held for her, so thinly concealed and easily ignited.

She told him, with her answering response, that she felt the same.

It was much later that a not-quite-so polished and composed Darcy left her to begin making arrangements for their departure.

She sat, her small lap-sized writing desk abandoned on the floor beside the settee, in a little pool of sunlight, trying to compose herself after such a sweet and passionate interlude, such as Lydia could never have described.

“How am I so blessed?” she wondered aloud. There had been so many bleak years in the past; it did not seem possible that in believing she was lowering her expectations of love and marriage, she had actually exceeded them beyond her wildest dreams.

Well, she could not remain here all the day in addled bliss; there was much to do if they were to move their household to Pemberley.

She must send her congratulations to Mary first, however, and after picking up her writing desk, she removed a pen from its drawer and only then noticed the absence of letter-paper.

Rising, she went to her husband’s large mahogany desk to retrieve some.

Elizabeth was not anything close to ‘prying or meddlesome’, as Darcy had named his aunt.

She would not nose about in his private papers…

but this one had her name upon it. It was a letter, written in Darcy’s steady, masculine script, and beginning with the words ‘Dearest Elizabeth’.

It was dated shortly before their wedding.

She would have required a good deal more restraint than she possessed to stop reading there.

Dearest Elizabeth,

It is too much like some sort of fairy-realm enchantment, to believe that I will be married to you within a few short days…

that you will be my wife! That I will gaze across my dining table or drawing rooms and see your dear face, first thing in the morning, and last thing in the evening.

That at any moment I wish to see it again, I need merely walk to wherever you are, that it will be my husbandly right to see you, to care for you, to dress you in the beautiful gowns you were born to wear, to know that the food you eat and the clothing you don is a result of my own effort and privilege.

Perhaps that is all that I shall ever be able to do—watch you from afar, although we share a home.

I am preparing myself, or attempting to, at least. It is difficult to consider, although I have given my word and you may trust it.

It is only that I have wanted you for so very long—years.

It ought to be humiliating that I have conceded defeat, that I have decided that the crumbs of your attention are worth anything and everything, that I might never know my affections returned in anything close to the measure they have been given.

Yet, I can only rejoice instead at the very idea of calling you ‘Mrs Darcy’, of showing the world my pleasure in your decision to trust me with your care.

It is something, is it not, when I have had nothing of you for too many years? It feels so to me.

Yet, if there was one other thing I could dare, if there was a privilege in the world you would grant me, it would be to share your bed or better still, for you to share mine.

Even if I had no other right to share your body as well—and I acknowledge the sore temptation it would be—to be able to lie beside you for just one night, perhaps close enough to feel your sweet breaths emerge, to lie there within sight and touch in the dark of night and breathe that same air into my own lungs, to be enwrapped in that exquisite torture…

it seems a better fate, to me, to share it once than a thousand nights with any other.

I am yours, as I have ever been.

FD

The door to the study opened, to reveal her beloved standing at its entrance. She glanced down at his letter. From his expression, she knew he understood which one.

“I did not mean to pry,” she said softly. “I only wanted letter-paper.”

He shut the door quietly and came up behind her. Plucking the letter from her hand, he glanced at its contents before setting it upon his desk, and turning her to face him. He placed his hands upon either side of her face.

“I only keep them to remind me of what I have, to never take for granted the gift of our marriage,” he said, his voice low and earnest.

“Them?” She looked up at him. “There are others?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, a sly smile lightening his expression. “Some a good deal more…er, passionate than this one.”

She wrapped her arms about his neck. “What would you say if I told you that I would walk through fire to be someplace utterly private with you, right now.”

He drew her up against him. “I would say, ‘That can be arranged’.”

“I love you,” she said, smiling back, putting her face up to receive his kiss—but he froze.

“You do?”

Her smile faded as realisation hit. “In everything I have spoken, in every part of my affections, have I failed to say to you these most important of all words?”

“I cannot quite recollect,” he said, his face sober. “Perhaps you should repeat them, so I can be certain.”

“I love you,” she said, her voice matching his in seriousness.

“I love our life together, I love that you are the last person I see when lying beside you at night and the first person I wake to in the morning. I love how you love the children we are raising now, and the babies I hope we one day have together. But whether we do or we do not, I love how you love me every day of my life. I cherish every moment we have been given, and the God I worship must have designed a way for our love to last eternally, that no death could possibly separate us.”

His kiss descended, and she felt it overflowing with his love, full of the long, desolate years he had been alone in it, and likewise the joy of knowing now she shared it fully.

Hand in hand, they slipped away from daily cares and diurnal duties, into the chamber they now shared.

There, again, they showed each other, in a language without words, just how to open two hearts and join them as one.