“I don’t like him,” said Mr. Darcy. “I suppose I wouldn’t like him in any case, but he seems rather a wretched blackguard, Lizzy.”
She nodded. “Yes.” Her voice wasn’t strong.
Mr. Darcy lay down next to her, growing serious. “I should not have done this to you at all, should I? Tell me what happened, then?”
“I don’t wish to speak of it,” she said firmly. “You said you did not need to know.”
He let out a noisy breath, gazing up at the ceiling.
She rolled into him, putting her face into his chest. “Don’t go,” she begged him. “Stay. If you want to do it to me now, I don’t mind, as long as you’ll stay.”
He wrapped his arms around her, but there was something in the way he held her, a stiffness that let her know she’d said the wrong thing.
She felt desperately near tears suddenly. She did not know why. Truly, the pleasure he’d just wrung from her, it was like nothing she’d ever felt, and she ought to feel jubilant, but everything seemed so fraught and she felt such shame and he had called it hercunny, and he thought she was little more than his personal strumpet now, and she didn’tcare, she did not care a whit as long as he wouldholdher.
Now, she was crying. She was trying to do it quietly, so that he wouldn’t notice, but he was stroking her hair, and she was pressed into him, all along the length of his body, so of course,she could feel him, could feel that part of him, throbbing and hard right against the fleshy part of her leg, and she told herself to stop crying, because he wouldn’t find that very fetching.
He held her tighter. “Lizzy, oh, Lizzy, what am I doing to you? How could I be so selfish?”
“You’re not,” she whispered fiercely. “Not even a little selfish. You put your mouth on methere.”
He laughed a sad laugh. “Oh, that was selfish. I rather enjoyed that. No, I should not be taking things from you. What has happened to you? Why have I not asked this before? Why have I simply assumed that you had arrived here for me, for my pleasure? Why am I so very horrible?”
“You’re not horrible,” she said. “There have been a number of horrible things that have happened to me in the past several months, and this, I can tell you, has not been horrible.”
He sighed, laughing the sad laugh again. He kissed her forehead. “I want to take care of you.”
“All right,” she said, with a sigh.
“You do not have to service me in any way, Lizzy. I should not have assumed you’d be amenable. This was wrong.” But he did not let go of her and she was glad of it.
“Stay,” she breathed.
“Just until you fall asleep,” he murmured into her hair.
“Yes, it would not do for Caroline to find us thus,” she said, and she found herself yawning again.
He stroked her hair. “Well, I suppose she’ll eventually have to know,” he said.
“No,” she moaned. “No, she’ll spread it everywhere. She’ll tell everyone. She’ll—”
“Hush, Lizzy,” he said. “Time enough to speak of this later. Sleep.” He stroked her hair rhythmically.
She sighed, sagging into him. He was so very large and so very warm. She liked everything about having him here, wrapped round her.
She slept.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE WOKE ALONE. This was expected. He had said that he would only stay until she fell asleep. But she felt her isolation like pain, and the first thing she did was roll over in her bed and let out a pained sob into her pillow.
She let herself cry for a bit, and then she began to chide herself, inwardly.
She must pull herself together. She must not lie here and feel sorry for herself any longer. She must see to the fire, after all. Things needed doing here in her room where she was isolated.
When she got out of bed, she remembered she had brought food back from the kitchens at Pemberley, and this cheered her. She set about building up the fire, and then she wrapped herself in a quilt and sat by the fire and ate more parsley potatoes, thinking to herself that potatoes themselves were proof that there was a loving God, after all. Surely, potatoes were the most wondrous things in all the earth.
There was a knock at her door, and she stood up, confused. Who could that be?
