Page 41 of Love Drunk for Mr Darcy

Tonight, for several seconds, she heard nothing at all. Then came the faint clink of glass against wood from somewhere beyond. Darcy was there, just feet from where she stood. Elizabeth wrapped her fingers around the handle and pushed the door open.

Darcy was seated near the fire with one arm resting along the back of the chair and a glass of brandy upon the table beside him. His coat had been discarded and his cravat removed, though he was otherwise still dressed for dinner. At the sound of the door, he turned.

"Elizabeth?" He came to his feet so quickly that the chair shifted backwards against the rug. "Are you well?"

"No, Darcy, I am not well." She stepped properly into the room and closed the door behind her. "I am not even very well, in fact."

His brows drew together, clearly unsure what to make of that. "I do not understand."

"No, I rather think you do not." Elizabeth folded her arms. Now that she had begun, a week's worth of frustration seemed to bubble to the surface. "You abandoned our guests this evening without so much as a by-your-leave. You did not return to the drawing room, you did not explain where you were going and you did not even condescend to say goodnight to your wife."

Darcy looked genuinely taken aback. "I did not think you would mind."

"Well, I did."

His expression altered. "I beg your pardon. I was not attempting to be rude. I only thought..." He stopped and glanced towards the fire.

Elizabeth waited. "You thought what?"

"That you would prefer to remain with Jane and Anne."

"Why?"

Darcy looked back at her, plainly bewildered by the question. "Because you wished for friendship. I have been attempting to give you space."

"Space?" Elizabeth stared at him. "Darcy, if you give me any more space I shall require a telescope to find you."

His mouth opened, then closed again.

She might have laughed had she not been so thoroughly vexed. "For more than a week you have behaved towards me with such flawless courtesy that I sometimes wonder whether you remember we are married at all."

"I thought that was what you wanted."

Elizabeth's anger faltered. "So did I, when I asked for it. I thought friendship would make everything easier."

Some of the defensiveness left his face as he watched her.

"It has not," she admitted. "I do not know what I want half the time. That is rather the problem."

She sank into the chair beside his, and Darcy returned gingerly to his own seat, though his attention never left her.

"I asked for friendship because everything had happened so quickly. One moment I was refusing your proposal, the next I was waking in a wine cellar with your coat wrapped about me and not long after that I was your wife." She gave a small, helpless shake of her head. "I needed something that felt simple. Friendship seemed simple." Elizabeth looked at him again. "Only it is not."

Darcy was leaning towards her now, his eyes wide.

She drew in a breath. "I have spent every evening listening to you through that door. Wondering... hoping..." Her face burned. "It is so cowardly of me that I can hardly bear to admit it."

Darcy moved before she had finished speaking. One moment he was seated and the next he was on his knees before her, close enough that she could feel the heat of him through her skirts. His hands hovered for a second then settled over hers, the feeling of it so warm and solid that she could have cried. "Elizabeth," he said, and there was so much feeling in the single word that she could not look away.

"I have been waiting for you to come through that door every night," she whispered. "I did not know whether you had begun to feel differently. To regret… you seemed so composed, so unmoved, when your presence causes me to feel like I am on fire."

"Regret?" he echoed.

Elizabeth winced at the word. "You have kept your distance so carefully that I did begin to wonder."

"Elizabeth." His thumb traced a delicate pattern over the back of her hand. "I have spent every day of the past week trying not to frighten you with how little I regret it." Darcy gave a short, humourless laugh and dragged one hand through his hair. "Do you imagine I leave you every evening because I wish to? I go back to my rooms because if I remain with you much longer I begin to think about kissing you. Or touching you. Or doing a great many things which would not fall comfortably beneath the heading of friendship."

Heat rushed into Elizabeth's face.