“You are a woman who has been badly used,” said Mr. Darcy. “I cannot say I have not used you badly myself.”
“Not badly,” she said. “No, all of your attentions have been quite good.”
“The truth is, of course,” he said, “they have not. You only have nothing to compare it to. The truth is that I have much to make up for, and I should set about remedying that now.”
She found she was not sure what to say to that.
“For one thing, we have never been entirely unclothed together,” he said. “And our first time, I was too exhausted to even give you pleasure.”
“No, our first time, you didn’t take any pleasure for yourself,” she countered.
He considered. “Well, perhaps we are even, but you are owed a much better performance from me.”
“All right,” she said, deciding to simply accept that. “Well, if I am owed it, I suppose I must collect.”
He laughed. “Yes, and when do you wish that? I currently have nothing on my schedule, you know.”
She laughed, too. “So eager, Fitz, I see.”
“Oh, rather always, since the moment I looked at you for the first time. But truly, I have accomplished much today. I went to the church, and they will announce our marriage for the first time this Sunday.”
“Well, that is very good, then.”
“So,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Shall we retire to your chamber?”
“You know,” she said, getting up from where she was seated, “for all that you go on about how you are not so base as all that, that it is not simply something carnal, you seem rather preoccupied with that aspect of it, I must say.”
“I know, I know. It’s not to my credit. If it displeases you, I can tame myself. If you are bothered by it, say the word.”
She looked at him, and she said nothing at all.
His smile seemed to overtake his entire face.
She moved around the couch and started for the door.
“Simply leaving me?”
“We’re retiring to the bedchamber, I thought,” she said archly.
And he caught up to her in moments, wrapping an arm around her from behind, stopping her movement, kissing her neck.
“Mr. Darcy,” she mock-scolded, her voice a whisper. “Patience.”
He chuckled into her neck.
“Unhand me,” she murmured, feigning imperiousness.
But he did let go of her.
Except as they walked together to her bedchamber, he reached down to link their fingers.
And once they were behind closed doors, they were kissing.
She found she had nothing to complain about this turn of events. She liked being in his arms, she liked the prolonged kisses, where one bled into the next and she was not sure where one ended and the other began. She liked the way she felt an echo of their joining in the joining of their mouths, how she felt at one with him and how thrills of goodness worked their way through her body.
He kept shedding bits of his clothing here and there.
At one point he took of his jacket.
