Darcy took her hand again, “What is?”
She turned to look at him, her eyes wide on his, “I pretend as though I belong, but it is so much beyond anything I have seen before. So—”
“You belong.”
Her eyes clung to his in such a way.
Darcy kissed her softly on the mouth.
Elizabeth let out a soft moan, and her arm snaked around his neck, and she pulled herself higher on her toes and desperately deepened the kiss.
After what seemed like several minutes their mouths separated and Elizabeth smiled at him in such a happy way.
“You truly belong here,” Darcy said.
“You shall need to kiss me often to convince me,” she replied. Then she blushed and looked down.
He kissed her again.
The following time involved a glow of sensation where many of the details could be recalled as clear as a painting in Darcy’s mind more than fifty years later.
Afterwards, they laid together entangled and naked on the bed in Darcy’s room. Elizabeth’s head was on his chest, strands of her hair bothering Darcy’s nose, though he would not dream of pushing it away.
“Why did it take you so long,” Elizabeth murmured as her finger lightly ran around the edge of the scar from the bullet wound.
“I…I did not…I feared I might make you do something you did not wish to. And…”
Elizabeth laughed a little. “My sweet, silly dear. Had I not made it clear enough that I was eager?”
At this consideration, Darcy felt a little a silly himself. But he did not mind ifElizabeththought he was, at least so long as she was happy. “I suspected, but…I do not have any great experience with women. And I…when I saw you here, in my rooms, how well you belong in my house. Then I knew, and I…”
He was silenced with a passionate kiss.
At least an hour after that, Elizabeth giggled and said, “Dear Georgiana, I wonder what she thinks. I am quite sure everyone knows precisely what we are doing.”
That made Darcy flush. “No, they simply think we are resting after the carriage trip.”
“After a stage that did not last much more than three hours?” Elizabeth asked. “But my dear, sweet, silly husband, you may feel free to think that it was merely by chance that everyone happily left us alone.”
Darcy laughed. He really did not mind if Elizabeth called him silly. “Was I particularly obvious when I suggested to Georgiana that she might wish to look at her own rooms?”
“Obvious tome, yes—though after your abominable failure to exercise your husbandly duties for the first weeks of our marriage, I was not at all confident. I think it was only my strong encouragement to leave us alone that made Georgiana suspect.”
“Abominable failure,” Darcy smiled and kissed her again. He wanted to do it again, though they had already been in their suite alone for at least two hours. “I shall have to make a strong effort to improve myself after such failures.”
“I agree wholly,” Elizabeth said.
When they finally did leave the bed to dress, having become hungry, Darcy watched Elizabeth moving across the room, her naked legs and back, the way that she looked when she wrapped one of his oversized dressing robes around herself before she called for the maid to help her dress again, and to fix her hair. The lovely light in her eyes, the way that her bosom appeared, the glowing skin.
Darcy hurried over to her and kissed her again, and he held her in a tight, squeezing hug.
She giggled then, “My dear, we really must attend on everyone. Especially the children—tonight.”
“I love you.”
Her mouth fell open.
“Elizabeth Darcy, I admire and love you.”
