Page 82 of Knowing Mr. Darcy

“Oh,” she said. “Only you and me?”

“Oh, well, I am going to engage one of the servants from Rosings as a chaperone, of course,” he said. “But we are to be married, so it is little worry, I think.”

“True, considering the rest of the scandals my family has been involved in over the past two days, that does seem trifling.”

“Indeed,” he said.

“But we must marry him to Lydia?” said Elizabeth. “Him?”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Mr. Darcy. “Richard keeps going on about killing him. With any luck, he’ll do him in on the way back to London and that’ll be the end of Wickham.”

“Mr. Darcy!” she admonished. She thought about it. “That’s a jest, is it not?”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Darcy, nodding rather too rapidly.

WHEN ELIZABETH ARRIVEDat the carriage, there was no sign of a chaperone. The driver loaded her things and Mr. Darcy spoke in an overly bland voice about how the servant who he’d engaged had been called away for a sick relative and how he’d decided it was unnecessary in the end and that they could distract themselves with books if they pleased, during the drive, so it was certain nothing untoward would even occur between them.

Yes, reading in the dark,she thought, because the sun was beginning to sink already, and they would be traveling as twilight overtook the world.

“I am certain that it proposes no true obstacle, Miss Bennet?” he said, looking very serious and grave, in that way of his.

“Oh, no,” she said airily. “No obstacle of any kind.”

“Capital,” he said briskly.

They got into the carriage and settled in on opposite sides and both did immediately open books. Elizabeth stared into hers, not comprehending any of the words on the page.

The carriage began to move and she stared into her book, thinking that she could not read without a candle or a lamp or something of that nature. Elizabeth had traveled in a few post coaches that were equipped with interior oil lamps for the passengers, but this one did not seem to have such a thing. She supposed Mr. Darcy could have brought some kind of portable lamp or lantern.

She waited for him to say something about that, but he only adhered to his book as she eyed him from across the carriage.

His glance flicked up to find her looking at him.

They gazed at each other.

Abruptly, he shut his book and came across the carriage to her side. He sat down next to her.

She looked up at him, her breath coming in uneven intervals.

He licked his lips, his face dipping down closer to hers.

Her eyes fluttered shut.

He kissed her.

She let out a tiny noise in the back of her throat.

He broke the kiss, his face still close to hers. “My apologies, truly. I don’t understand why I can’t seem to stop myself from—”

She captured his lips with her own, kissing him harder than he had kissed her.

In mere seconds, the kissing was furious, both of them clutching at the other as their mouths moved hungrily together.

Before she knew what she had done, she had simply crawled into his lap.

He liked this, urging her against him.

But this had the effect of making her dress ride up. The fashion was not for the skirts of dresses to be entirely voluminous, but to be relatively narrow. There wasn’t really room for her to spread her legs to straddle him—how hadshestraddledhim?—in the dress.