It was not fair for him to be angry at Elizabeth and hermother. They had offered a trade. Elizabeth for his wealth. He had chosen to take that offer.
Elizabeth had gained a position far greater than she could have hoped, all the pin money he’d signed over, and the hope of having her wealthy husband advance the interests of the rest of her family.
He had gained her and her body.
Darcy had waited solong.
He had never taken a woman to his bed. Partly because he always wanted his father’s approval, partly because he was disgusted by Wickham, and partly because he was a man who took religion and what was right seriously. Darcy believed most of his friends and acquaintances did, and he did judge them for that, but not harshly.
Just as it would be for Elizabeth, tonight would be his first time joining in this way.
He heard one more quiet whisper in his wife’s dressing room, then the soft sound of the maid’s footsteps, and the far door being closed.
Silence.
He wanted to go to her, to end this delay.
But he had said he would wait for her. However long she needed to settle her nerves this night, it was only right that he gave that time to his bride.
Just because she had been a woman capable of enticing him to kiss her, that did not mean that she was not nervous, and did not wish to have time to prepare herself for the marriage bed. Some part of him did not believe that she could honestly want him — not her or any woman. They only wanted his position, and the right to brag to their friends that they were Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Elizabeth could not be different in that way.
But she had chosen to make herself his wife. She hadchosen to share the nuptial bed with him.
This was now his right.
After an eternity, the candles flickering the whole time, he heard steps come up to the door, and then a soft, hesitant knock.
Chapter Two
The marriage bed, conjugal relations,knowinga man, was…
Fitzwilliam Darcy, her unwanted husband, was half asleep. His head rested on her chest. A weight that was heavy, but somehow pleasant and comforting. He slowly, absently rubbed his hand up and down her bare arm.
Elizabeth’s face felt hotter with embarrassment than it had ever done before.
Her heart had rushed like an out of control carriage when she knocked on his door to indicate that she was ready for their inevitable joining to happen. She’d hardly known what to expect — the details, of course, she had known. She had seen animals mate, and it was impossible to forget the images from a hidden book of her father’s that she’d once discovered. And her mother had delivered detailed advice in person the previous night, and her aunt Mrs. Gardiner had delivered equally detailed advice upon the wedding night, with a highly different tone, via letter two days prior.
But what would itactuallybe like?
A mix of pleasure, pain, and an incredible strangeness.
A wanton part of her mind wanted to convince Mr. Darcy to do it again. To take every liberty with her now that they had married.
He shook himself, kissed her neck, and then kissed her lips softly. “What are you thinking?” he whispered.
Elizabeth flushed but did not tell him that she was imagining him pressing his hand tightly against her naked breast.
He had come into the room, filled with his own emotion,and he had kissed her with aggressive need, he had removed her dressing robe without so much as a “May I”, and then her silk nightgown, and then he had taken her.
After a while he sighed, no longer expecting a response from her.
Damned arrogant man. She did not wish to have her desire for him to dothatagain. And she would not tell him.
He had just taken what he wanted, what he thought was his right as the master of Pemberley, without paying any attention to the feelings of anyone else.
He’d taken her lips that night at Netherfield in a pause as they argued about Mr. Wickham.
