Page 49 of Her Affections and Wishes

And thou art

Only she

Then love but one

And only one

And let that one

Be me.

She looked up at him with sentimental eyes. “Fitzwilliam Darcy, who knew you had a romantic, ardent nature?”

“Keep the secret as best you can,” he said, taking it and clasping it around her neck.

“Did you know,” she said slowly, “I had romantic imaginings of you after I read your letter, after I learnt what you did for my family? Before I even saw you at Woodcote.”

Darcy pretended to straighten the token whilst he tried to steady his breathing. “Did you?”

She made a murmur of agreement. “I never thought I would see you again, of course, or that you would notice me if you did. And I never regretted refusing you at Hunsford. But especially after we got to Woodcote, I did wonder…”

A polite man would stay silent, but one violently in love would want to know. “Wonder what?”

Her cheeks turned pink. “Despite all the rest, you did say that you ardently admired and loved me. I wondered what it would be like, what it would feel like, to be with you.”

His mind jumped to all manner of explicit wonderings. “Elizabeth, you will think me a complete rake, but I had delusions of passion about you since you stayed at Netherfield with Jane.”

Rather than give him a disapproving look, she looked at him with all the ardour and sincerity of powerful emotion.

Darcy cupped her face in his hands and tasted her in long, deep kisses that flared the desire that began burning last night in Elizabeth’s room. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and he deepened the kiss, delving in to touch her tongue. She hummed eagerly against his lips, tightening her hold and threading her fingers through his hair. Elizabeth shifted sideways into his lap, and he slid his hands down over the curve of her waist, pulling her closer.

Murmuring his name, her hands strayed over his back, and Darcy wished every article of clothing between them gone. He anchored one arm around her waist and let the other hand travel to her breasts. They were far more restricted than last night, but he kneaded each one and wondered if Elizabeth wanted his mouth on them as desperately as he did.

Suddenly aware of the demands of his body, he pulled away. She dragged in a breath and stared at him. “I am glad you have come around to my way of thinking about how to pass our time.”

Her eager response to his kiss did nothing to help tamp his growing passion. Still, he tried to match her sporting style. “I may as well, since some will assume I kissed you, because they have a prurient mind or love to gossip.”

“Or they sense the attraction between us the same way Julia Metcalfe has.”

He brought Elizabeth’s head to rest on his shoulder and willed his heart to slow down. “She will be jealous of you. A forfeit kiss in a game is nothing like the way I kiss you.”

“Why are we stopping at kissing?”

So much for calming his heart. Or his body. “I can be content with kissing until your name is mine, or even after. However long it takes.”

“What if I am already not content with kissing?”

His body and his mind were now screaming at one another. His mind had to win the argument. “You want to carry this to its ultimate conclusion here?” he said in disbelief. “On this dusty floor, in a space we can scarcely lie down in?”

She sat up and gave a despairing look to their cell of a shaft containing the stairs. “Perhaps not to its ultimate conclusion. But Sir John gave me things to consider that would fall short of that.”

It took him a moment to remember, and he blinked in surprise. “He thought he was talking to a man!” he cried. “He told ‘Bennet’ to practise satisfying a woman before wasting his money to fully engage in the act with a prostitute.”

Elizabeth shifted in his lap to look directly into his eyes. “And who was that young man supposed to practise with? A young woman of equal or lower birth, I remember him saying. Is not a woman to be involved in those acts he suggested? So how is it appropriate for a man and not a woman?”

She was right. He had no rational opposition to her argument. “We have been engaged for only days,” he said more gently. “I hate for you to feel obligated.”

She took his face in her hands. “Do I look obligated? Could you coerce me to act against my inclination? Would you even do such a thing? I doubt you are capable of it.”