“Say it again,” Caroline repeated. “Say it again and you have me.”
“I love you.” In a moment, she was smothering Caroline’s face in quick kisses, each too fast for Caroline to respond to. “By God, how I adore you. I tried not to, for I knew you wanted your Great Endeavour to—”
“To hell with the Great Endeavour!” she cried. “If you love me, nothing matters but that.”
“Oh, darling, my darling,” Georgiana said again, half-sobbing, and the next moment, her arms were around Caroline’s neck, and they were clinging to each other as if adrift, though it was the most tethered Caroline had ever felt in her entire life. “You are an impossible, infernal woman, and there is no one in the world with whom I would rather be.”
“That may be,” Caroline choked out, through sobs of her own, “the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
They fell backwards onto the bed, kissing frantically. By the time the passion had slowed, though not cooled, Georgiana caught Caroline’s hand and guided it under her petticoat, aiming her fingers lower than usual.
Realising what was meant, Caroline hesitated. “Are you sure?”
“I took your maidenhead, did I not?” Georgiana rested her forehead against Caroline’s, looking as terrified and as hopeful as Caroline had ever seen her. “Would you not take mine in return?”
Caroline urged Georgiana to sit up, peeling her petticoat off and laying her back down. If she was going to do this, it could not be a hurried, panicked affair. She needed to feel everything, skin against hot skin, the memory branded forever into her own flesh. She wanted this so badly, she could barely breathe, and yet, she held back. “Do you know what it means,Georgie?” she asked, mirroring what Miss Darcy had asked her right before the first time she’d been inside Caroline. “What it would mean to me?”
“I know what it means,” she whispered. “And I give myself to you, as you have given yourself to me countless times.”
Caroline eased forward, relishing the way Georgiana felt under her, against her, around her. The heat of her, the slick joy of taking what Georgiana gave so willingly, was enough to drive Caroline almost to the edge herself. Miss Darcy’s eyes were screwed shut, her lips parting as she drew in a ragged breath, as if coming up for air after a long dive.
“Look at me,” Caroline panted.
“I am half-afraid to.” Georgiana blindly pressed a clumsy kiss to the curve of Caroline’s shoulder. “Seeing you is one thing. Seeing me is quite another.”
“Be brave for me, Georgie,” she breathed. “Remember Euridice? I will always walk behind you, and I will never let you go.”
Georgiana’s eyes were a fury of wild emotion, savage and tender all at once. Caroline rocked forward slowly, refusing to speed up even when her lover whimpered and begged underneath her, nails scoring down Caroline’s back hard enough to make her gasp. Georgiana breathed her name, the word a kind of prayer she repeated again and again until her final, ecstatic shudder.
“I love you, sweetness,” Caroline said again, dropping kisses into fair curls as they snuggled impossibly closer. “I swear to you that I will be constant and true, and all the other things which a marriage entails.”
“Let us run away together,” Georgiana suggested, grabbing Caroline’s hands and holding them tightly, her dark eyes imploring. “Perhaps to Scotland? I know we cannot be wed in the traditional sense, but we could rent a small place and—”
“Dearest, no.” Caroline shook her head. “I won’t be another George Wickham to you. You have faced yourself and accepted yourself for all that you are and are not. Do not you think it time you faced your brother in the same way? It is long past time you stopped being kind and started being honest with him.”
“Are you serious?” Georgiana squinted up at her. “I suspect you’ve gone quite mad, Miss Bingley.”
“I’m saner than ever, Miss Darcy.” Caroline smiled down. “You know perfectly well that he would never reveal your secret to anyone, not even his wife, if you asked him to keep it to himself. He may be many things, but your brother is a man loyal to a fault.”
“Lord, how I hate it when you are right. Which, incidentally, is not nearly as often as you think.” Miss Darcy buried her face in the crook of Caroline’s neck. “Very well. I shall write to him and ask when he is coming home.”
Caroline stroked Georgiana’s hair, marvelling that she was allowed to touch, to caress. To love and adore, fully and completely, without pretense.“We will face him together if you so desire. Or if you prefer to tell him alone, then I shall be there waiting for you afterwards.”
“What if he does not approve? What will we do?” Miss Darcy shifted uneasily in Caroline’s grasp. “Where shall we live?”
“I do not know,” Caroline admitted. If Mr Darcy did not want them at Pemberley, then Charles and Jane would surely take them in for a while, although their sudden appearance at Netherfield would require some explaining. The idea of Georgiana being banished unceremoniously from her childhoodhome simply for loving Caroline was almost enough to make her want to give the relationship up entirely. No, she would never let Darcy do such a thing to his sister; Caroline would get on her knees and beg first. “Let us cross one bridge before we worry about the next, hmm?”
They exchanged final kisses, and within minutes, Georgiana’s breathing had evened out. Caroline held her long into the night, fearing that her lover might turn to mist if she loosened her grip even slightly.Down into the underworldwe go, she thought ruefully.Too bad the descent was the easy part.
