“I wish to…” She gestured vaguely. “I wish to be the woman who you desire me to be.”
“You are precisely the woman who I desire you to be.”
She leaned against him. “Except that I cannot ride a horse.”
“Do you wish to?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then it is all well.” He tried his best to keep disappointment from his voice.
“That still makes you unhappy,'' she said, and she placed her gloved hand against his cheek.
Darcy sighed and squeezed her hand. “I only… I am saddened, I confess.”
Elizabeth looked rather miserable. “I can make another attempt, and—”
“No, do not. I… feel entirely whole when I am on the back of a horse. I wished to share that with you.”
She gripped his hand. “I wish I could as well.”
“You are wholly and entirely as you ought to be,” Darcy replied, and he softly kissed her despite the presence of the servants.
Somehow this event led Darcy to feel even more tenderness towards Elizabeth — though there wassomedisappointment that could not be wholly banished.
Two days later Elizabeth asked, once Mrs. Bennet had finished her daily speech to him and gone off to do one of her daily tasks, “What plans do we have for travel and grand adventure after the wedding?” Elizabeth smirked at him. “Besides the simply… beingtogether.”
They were seated next to each other, knees touching, on the divan. Darcy’s stomach felt hollow and full of want.
He loved this wanton streak in her. It was in her eyes. It had not been there until they kissed, but once they kissed the first time… she had responded to him like in his dreams, happy, wanting, and affectionate. And with all the passion a man could desire in his future wife.
“Besides being together?” Darcy smirked. “There is a ‘besides’?”
“Well one must be togethersomewhere.” Elizabeth laughed. “Isoursomewhere in London?”
“I want to show you Pemberley — if we set off immediately after the wedding we can be there two weeks before Christmas. It is beautiful. The trees decked in snow, the sunlight glinting off the white in the fields, carols in the village, the decorations all through the estate—” As he spoke her face twisted into an odd expression, like anxiety. “Elizabeth, you need not worry that you are not prepared to be the mistress to such a great estate. The servants and tenants will love you. And I will be there with you.”
Elizabeth grimaced. “I have no worries on that account… My aunt and uncle Gardiner come to Longbourn for Christmas each year. And I only now realize that I shall not be here.”
She sighed.
Darcy though rejoiced a little inside — he would not have enjoyed needing to share Elizabeth with her Cheapside relations, who would no doubt spend the entire time attempting to impress him with the success of their business while at the same time suggesting business propositions that he might be persuaded to invest in.
It was always the same when a solid gentleman married someone whose relations were amongst the middling sort of Cits.
“And your sister,” Elizabeth added, with some enthusiasm, “shall I meet her at the wedding? — I am eager to meet such a delightful creature as you’ve painted her to be.”
“No… at Pemberley. I think I will let her finish the time that had been intended for her in Ramsgate, and then she can come to Pemberley in time for Christmas. This way we will have some time only forourselvesto be together.”
“I like the sound of that plan.” Elizabeth squeezed his hand, and smiled meaningfully.
“Also,” Darcy added, “I have a particular reason for wishing her to not be at the wedding…” He glanced at the members of her family, gathered on the far side of the room so that the courting couple might have a semblance of privacy. In a low voice that would not carry, he said, “You surely cannot think that your younger sisters would be a good influence upon a delicately educated woman. It is a matter of astonishment to me that you can show so much good breeding with your mother’s character, and the lack of a governess. And there is such a great deal of noise at Longbourn — but afterwards, you and Georgiana will love each other.”
“I am sure,” Elizabeth said with a rather annoyed tone of voice.
Darcy took her hand. “Now you need not be annoyed in such a manner. They areyoursisters. You know them better than me.”
“So you expect me to condemn them with you?”
