Page 6 of Under Such Circumstances (Desperately Seeking Elizabeth #1)

WHEN ELIZABETH HAD suddenly found herself dangling over a gully, holding onto a rope above her head, something within her had ignited, like a fuse being lit, and it had burned all the way into the center of her, lighting her up, and she had pulled herself up, back onto the bridge.

And now, that lit-up feeling, it was still in control of her.

It had somehow convinced her to climb down into this gully with Mr. Wickham, and it had convinced her that she could pull him out of it!

She was not truly thinking right now. She was only acting.

Later, she would look back on all of it and sort of wonder what in the world she had been thinking, but the truth was, there was no thought. No time for it, really, as the lit-up feeling burned its way through her limbs. The thing to do was to get them all to safety. Now.

Once that was achieved, perhaps then, she could take the time to think.

So, this was why she found herself, even now, hauling Mr. Wickham up the bank of the gully by his armpits.

“No, no, Miss Bennet,” he was sputtering, “you can’t possibly have the strength for this.”

“But it seems I do,” she said, as she dragged him.

“Leave off! I demand it,” he said to her, very stern.

Something about the deepness of his voice seemed to cut into her.

She was rarely ordered about by men, she had to admit.

Her father was not one for it, but when her father had—as a young girl—deemed it necessary to give a direct command in a deep and masculine voice, she had always obeyed.

And this seemed to instinctively affect her the same way, as if she were but a small girl.

She let go of him, sitting down hard on her backside on the bank. She let out a breath.

He looked at her. “All right, there we are.” He gave her a smile, and he looked genuinely happy, actually, as if all were right as rain, when they were in a terrible predicament. “I think my leg might not be as bad as I had first thought.”

He stood up.

She looked up at him, towering over her, and—

But he interrupted her thought by seizing her hand and tugging her to her feet. “This way, Miss Bennet,” he said. “This side of the gully is less steep than this side.”

She didn’t think that was true, and anyway, this side, it meant they would not have to cross that infernal bridge again, which was obviously not safe, not in the least.

But he was pulling her along, and she had to pay attention to where she was putting her feet, and that was all she concentrated on for some time, climbing all the way up out of the gully.

Soon enough, they were out of it. They stood on the edge, looking down at the ruined picnic basket. Leftover chicken was scattered all over the floor of the gully. She squared her shoulders and started for the bridge.

“One moment,” he said, tugging on her hand, which he was still holding.

She looked down at their clasped hands and something went through her. Oh, yes, Mr. Wickham, the amiable and handsome Mr. Wickham, who was not engaged to anybody, who she was now alone with. She looked up at him, into his blue eyes. Her breath left her lungs all in a whoosh.

He smiled at her. “Hello.”

She let out a little laugh. “Hello,” she replied, still gazing into his eyes.

He pulled her closer, and she let him. He moved his arm to around her waist and he urged her body against his.

She let out a noise, possibly of protest, possibly of surprise.

“You are positively magnificent, are you not? The way you pulled yourself up on that rope and tried to pull me out. You’re a force, Miss Bennet.” He reached up to trace the outline of her cheekbone.

Should he be touching her face like that?

“I’ve never been so affected by a woman in my life,” he said to her, his voice very husky.

She liked this. How could she not? But she was out of sorts, and why had he thought his leg was broken and they shouldn’t be on this side of the bridge and shouldn’t they go and let everyone know they were all right, and—

His mouth was on hers.

She didn’t know what to do.

His fingers left her cheekbone to curve around her jaw, and then to slide around and cup the back of her neck. He held her there, and he kissed her. He used his tongue.

It felt…

Oh, Lord, it felt entirely overwhelming.

Tingling and pleasant and soft. She felt it against her own tongue, which she found herself nudging against his, and she felt it elsewhere—all over, really, in her belly and at her fingertips and right in the deepest center of herself.

Little thrills seemed to unfurl through her as the kiss went on and on, as their tongues moved against each other.

He flattened his hand against the small of her back, holding her tightly against his own body, and he… there was something…

She broke the kiss, letting out a little laugh. She looked down their bodies at the place where he had them molded against each other. Some part of him was pressing into her, some, erm, very hard part.

It must be his…

“Shh,” he breathed, pulling her close. “It’s all right, don’t worry about that, Miss Bennet. You didn’t do that on purpose.”

“Do what?” she said, feeling panic rise in her.

“Make me stiff, of course,” he said. “Here.” He took her hand and guided it between them, made her touch it.

She yanked her hand back. “Sir, please, I—”

“I’ll marry you. You needn’t worry,” he said.

She made a noise in her throat.

“You may be ruined, but no one needs to know that.” He put her hand back on it.

“R-ruined?” she whispered.

“Well, how did you think it worked?” he said, making her move her hand on him.

“Not this easily!” she gasped, trying to get her hand away.

“Now, now. No use resisting it now,” he said, his voice thick with pleasure. “It’s already done now.”

“It can’t be,” she said, but she didn’t try to move her hand. There was more to it than this. She knew it, and he—

Pushed her hand inside his clothing, down the front of his trousers.

She gasped.

He chuckled. “That’s a good girl.”

Now, she was touching it, really touching it, the hot skin of it, and it was very stiff and she felt a ripple of arousal working through her, but it was awful, shameful, and she tried to pull her hand out, but he stopped her.

“It’s all right, I tell you,” he said, kissing her temple wetly, with his tongue. “It’s already done. You’re ruined already. Might as well finish me if you’ve gotten me all worked up, after all.”

Wait, was this her fault? What had she done to make his… male thing all stiff like this? She didn’t think she’d done anything. He was the one who’d kissed her. He was the one who’d made her touch it. He was the one—

“Like this, Elizabeth,” and he was making her rub it up and down, wrapping her hand around it. He grunted. “Ah, yes, very nice. You’ll make a very good wife, won’t you, a very pleasing and obedient wife, mmm. Just like that, if you don’t mind. Exactly like that.”

He moved his hand, leaving her there to keep up the movement, and she didn’t know what to do, so she…

she did. She kept rubbing at him, her hand wrapped all the way around him, and he hummed at her and wetly kissed her temple a few more times, and she wasn’t sure she liked that, his saliva all over her skin, and he was running his hands all over her, too.

He squeezed at her breasts, too hard—it hurt.

She kept at him. She wanted to stop. She didn’t, though. Why was that? Why was she still doing it?

And then, he squeezed her breast very hard, and she squealed, and the thing in his trousers erupted with some hot, thick, sticky liquid, all over her hand.

He moaned.

She shrieked in shock and disgust.

Then he was laughing. “Such a pretty innocent, aren’t you? Had no idea what you were doing to my prick, that you were stroking my spend right out of me, did you?”

She yanked her hand out of his trousers and looked at it. It was covered in liquid that looked suspiciously like snot.

Her whole body was trembling and she felt afraid and quite, quite disgusted. She also thought she might want to cry.

He was still laughing.

She glared at him, nostrils flaring. Something about this…

She stalked over to a nearby tree and began cleaning herself as best she could with a leaf, shaking all over.

“Oh, really, you wound me, Miss Bennet,” he crowed, still laughing, as if this was all some sort of joke.

She looked up at him and in that moment, she hated him. She hated him more than she hated Mr. Collins and far more than she hated Mr. Darcy, and she vowed, right then and there, to never touch Mr. Wickham ever again.

MR. DARCY KNEW of the falls that Mrs. Collins was talking of, though he had not thought of the place in some time. It had taken him a moment to remember it. He only thought of that place in association with Wickham.

He and Wickham had gone out there as boys, over that rickety bridge, and played all manner of games in the woods.

Wickham always wanted to play awful games, Darcy remembered.

Wickham would like to pretend that Darcy was his slave, that he had caught him and forced him to work in the sugarcane fields, things of that nature.

Wickham liked to fashion switches out of branches and use them as whips. He hit hard.

Darcy was glad enough when his mother forbade them from coming out there. He never liked playing those sorts of games with Wickham.

When he would complain to his father, his father would say that Wickham only felt the difference in their stations too intently, that Wickham wanted to play at being the master because he was never the master in life. You might indulge the poor boy, I daresay.

Indulge him when he hits me so hard it leaves welts?

If you can’t subdue another boy yourself, Fitzwilliam, you’ll never be able to take care of yourself. Take the switch from him and hit him harder if you wish him to stop!

So, anyway, his father was never any help.

He supposed he’d been somewhat of a disappointment to his father sometimes. He’d only been young, though, and he didn’t think he was one of those boys for whom roughhousing and punching and wrestling came naturally. He would rather not harm or be harmed, and he thought that was rational, truly.

At any rate, he had no good memories of that place, and he immediately was suspicious.

“Broke his leg, you say?” he said.

“Oh, yes, he fell off the bridge.”

Mr. Darcy snorted. “Oh, just accidentally? He’s been over that bridge a thousand times!”

“What are you saying?” said Mrs. Collins, raising her eyebrows. “You think he fell off the bridge on purpose?”

Obviously, he did, and he must have had some reason for doing it, but I can’t quite think what it might have been yet so I shall sound like an idiot if I claim to believe that. “No, no, that’s foolish, isn’t it? Listen, Mrs. Collins, who were you going to find?”

“My husband and our manservant, Mr. Nichols,” she said. “I think the two of them could get him up out of there, though we might need a horse cart to bear him back if he cannot walk.”

“Hmm.” He nodded. “You go and do exactly that, madam. I shall go on ahead and see if I can’t provide some assistance.” Miss Bennet! He did it to be alone with her. But why?

“Oh, thank you, sir. It isn’t any of your concern, of course, but—”

“Nonsense, it’s entirely my concern. Those falls are on my aunt’s property. I shall make haste there immediately.”

“Thank you, ever so, Mr. Darcy.”

He gave her a salute and rushed off, thinking that it could simply be that Wickham was motivated by the idea of being alone with Elizabeth because he was a man. Elizabeth was lovely; Wickham had eyes.

But it was a lot of trouble, truly, and with a girl like Elizabeth, he’d incur rather a lot of responsibility, and there seemed no reward. It was not as it had been with Darcy’s own sister, where there was a sizable dowry involved.

Still, there was not a moment to lose.

Poor Elizabeth was out there with that rake of a man who’d be ruthless with her, and Lord knows what would happen to her.

He ran.

And he made it there in record time, but there was no sign of them.

There was the picnic basket, spilled and broken down in the gully, but neither Mr. Wickham nor Elizabeth were anywhere in sight.

He started across the bridge. He went very quickly, holding the handhold rope—he remembered when this hadn’t been there and he’d nearly fallen—and he shouldn’t have been surprised when there was a cracking sound beneath him, but he was utterly astonished.

His foot had landed heavily on one of the wooden slats of the rope bridge, and the wood was old and rotted, and it cracked and broke in two.

He fell, straight down, and he landed on his feet before losing his balance and tumbling over. He scrambled back to his feet, no worse for wear, and he looked up to see that the bridge had split in two, both sides hanging down uselessly.

Well, not entirely uselessly, he supposed. He could use that half of the bridge to hold onto as he climbed up over to the other side to seek Elizabeth and Wickham.

It was only after he’d gotten himself up there that he realized his error.

They had probably gone across the bridge and back towards Rosings, and now he had trapped himself over here.

He bent over, panting heavily, resting his hands on his knees, swearing under his breath.

“Mr. Darcy!”

He straightened, and there was Elizabeth, coming out of the woods behind him, here on this side of the gully after all. Wickham came directly after her, glaring at him.

“I really don’t think it’s going to rain, you know, Mr. Wickham,” she called over her shoulder. “I think we can go right across the bridge now, and… oh, dear.” She saw that the bridge had broken.

“I’m telling you, that’s a rain cloud,” said Wickham, pointing up into the sky.

Darcy raised his gaze upwards. There was a dark cloud there, wasn’t there?