Page 5 of Penned by Mr Darcy (…By Mr Darcy #3)

Darcy

H e had drunk too much.

His head was spinning as he made his excuses and departed the small room where the men had retreated for brandy.

He had had two glasses before the room had started to spin.

His mouth felt as though it were coated with wool, his head much the same way.

He had eaten little, and drunk the wine provided with dinner far too freely.

He could not help it. Being so close to her had made him foolish, the wine some misguided attempt to make him forget his own awkwardness.

Now, as they walked to her room in silence, he wondered what an earth had possessed him to offer to escort her. An unmarried man and woman roaming the upstairs corridors could easily be misconstrued.

Some devilish part of him whispered, so what?

It was a side of himself that he had suppressed so deeply that he hardly recognised it.

Desire . He wanted her in the ways a man wanted a woman, as though he had a right to want her at all.

He kept his eyes fixed ahead of him, trying to ignore the intoxicating scent that clung to her that filled the air around them.

She continued to speak, but he scarcely heard her, so focused on his task of trying to ignore her presence entirely.

When they finally reached the door of her room, he came to a halt. Elizabeth looked up at him expectantly. It was then that he realised that ignoring someone when they were speaking to you had consequences – and one of those consequences was having no idea at all what was just said.

“I’m sorry?”

“I said thank you for your company,” she said, her eyes narrowing as she looked up at him. “Are you quite well, sir? I would not like you to catch what ails Jane. I fear Miss Bingley would never forgive me.”

“Quite well, yes. Goodnight, Miss Bennet.”

He did not wait for her reply, walking away from her and towards his own quarters.

His fingers itched with the need to write, to get these damned thoughts out of his head.

The library would be quiet, he hoped, and if the house believed he had gone to bed then he would not be disturbed there.

He called by his bedchamber first, snatching his diary up from its hiding place.

He went to the library; the fire had already begun to die, but he cared little.

He lit the lamp on the desk, placing his diary down.

The ink and quill still lay where he had set them down earlier, the dark splotches that scattered across the wood dry now.

They would mark the desk forever, seeping down into the wood, another mark of his shame.

He traced one with the pad of his finger, staring down until his vision blurred.

He wanted her. He wanted her terribly .

It had not even been a day of her stay at Netherfield, and already she had reduced him to a trembling wreck.

He began to write, barely even thinking as the words poured out of him. He wrote of his darkest desires, his sinful lust, everything he dare not speak aloud. It was all he could do to contain himself as he let the truth spill upon the page.

I have thought of her often these past weeks, those eyes, bright and inquisitive, burned into my memory.

I do not know what spell she has cast over me– I have never known such sensations and desires.

It is folly, I think, to feel such an intensity of emotion for a woman I scarcely know.

I doubt we have passed fifty words between us, yet she occupies a place in my mind as though it were her right.

Marriage would be impossible, of course; though a gentleman’s daughter, her connections are reprehensible.

The little I have seen of her immediate family is appalling.

I see no sense in forming an attachment to her whilst maintaining her honour, and thus I must conclude that these feelings I have for her are impossible.

And yet…

When I close my eyes, I see her. Not in some chaste abstraction, but vividly.

As though she stands before me, her hair loosened from its fastenings, dark curls tumbling freely about her shoulders as no man has ever seen her before.

I imagine the line of her throat, the delicate pulse at its base, and my hands—God help me—my hands against her skin, tracing the curve from shoulder to waist as though she were mine to touch.

She is not mine. She will never be mine. And yet, my body and my mind betray me.

I think of her lips—how quick they are with wit and humour, how rarely they tremble, plush and generous though they be. I imagine them parting beneath mine, not in speech, but in surrender. I would taste the words before she could speak them. I would steal her silence for myself.

And her eyes—those infernal eyes, too full of fire and intellect—they undo me. I see them even now, looking up at me in the dark, her cheeks flushed not from fever but from need, her voice hushed as she says my name not in scorn but in plea.

I want to hear her whisper it.

I want her to scream it.

I wonder how she would react beneath my touch. Would she melt into it slowly, or resist until her restraint cracked and her passion surged to meet mine? I crave all of her. Her defiance, her heat. Her surrender.

But even now, in writing this, I feel the shame of it pressing upon me. To reduce an unknowing young lady to this role in my basest fantasies without her consent to think of her thus… it is an affront to who she is and her position in the world.

And yet I cannot stop.

What curse have I fallen under, that I should think of her this way?

That I should hold such strong feelings for a woman who is quite open in her contempt towards me – and, in all honesty, this is a contempt I have occasionally shared.

There is no possible way that two people, so mismatched in both humour and circumstance, could ever make a happy pair.

Oh, but if I could try…If I could know her sweet embrace, the feel of her lips against mine, the tender curves of her body with no obstruction…

I must put an end to this. Tomorrow I shall not speak to her. I will avoid her gaze. I will fortify myself against this madness. My body and mind will be made of steel, unreceptive and strong against this misguided longing.

But tonight…

Tonight, I will think of her. In dreams, at least, there is no need for honour..

He leaned back, his breath heavy and cock hard in his breeches. He looked down at the terrible, shameful words. He tore the page from his diary at once, though he had written over two pages so the first, more innocent part of his entry remained. He stared down at it, ready to rip it in half.

He could not bear to.

It was not enough; he wanted to burn it, commit the words and the thoughts to ashes. He walked on unsteady legs over to the fire and dropped the page into the fireplace, turning away at once and walking out of the room.

Once inside his own chamber, dismissing his waiting valet at once, he sat down on the bed, still fully clothed. The room, which was lightly spinning around him, felt too hot, too small. He wanted to be at home, at Pemberley, far away from Elizabeth Bennet.

He wished he had never met her. He would have been quite content never knowing this unpleasant sensation. Was it love, the way his heart quickened when she entered a room?

It could not be love, for love was not as base or as vulgar as the thoughts he was consumed with.

At this moment, it was surely the drink that was clouding his judgement.

He rarely drank so much, and he could not blame Miss Elizabeth.

It was his own discomfort that led him to this path, where he could scarcely see straight and his stomach roiled.

What a state he had got himself into; never again.

If he had to remove himself from her presence, then he would.

He would not be defeated by Elizabeth Bennet.