Page 28 of Pride, Prejudice & Wicked Pleasure

"She seems a very pleasant young woman,” Bingley remarked.

"Oh! Dear, yes, but you must own she is very plain. Lady Lucas herself has often said so, and envied me Jane's beauty. I do not like to boast of my own child, but to be sure, Jane—one does not often see anybody better looking. It is what everybody says. I do not trust my own partiality. When she was only fifteen, there was a man at my brother Gardiner's in town so much in love with her that my sister-in-law was sure he would make her an offer before we came away. But, however, he did not. Perhaps he thought her too young. However, he wrote some verses on her, and very pretty they were."

"And so ended his affection," said Miss Elizabeth with impatience. "There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!"

"I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love," said Darcy, finding himself a little eager for her attention.

"Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away."

Mrs. Bennet began repeating her thanks to Mr. Bingley for his kindness to her daughter with an apology for troubling him also with Miss Elizbaeth. Mr. Bingley was unaffectedly civil in his answer, and forced his younger sister to be civil also, and say what the occasion required. She performed her part indeed without much graciousness, but Mrs. Bennet appeared satisfied, and soon afterwards ordered her carriage. Upon this signal, the youngest of her daughters put herself forward. The two girls had been whispering to each other during the whole visit, and the result of it seemed, that the youngest should tax Mr. Bingley with having promised on his first coming into the country to give a ball at Netherfield.

Lydia was a stout, well-grown girl of fifteen, with a fine complexion and good-humoured countenance. She seemed a favourite with her mother and possessed a sort of natural self-consequence and assurance. She was very equal, therefore, to address Mr. Bingley on the subject of the ball, and abruptly reminded him of his promise, adding, that it would be the most shameful thing in the world if he did not keep it. His answer to this sudden attack delighted their mother.

"I am perfectly ready, I assure you, to keep my engagement; and when your sister is recovered, you shall, if you please, name the very day of the ball. But you would not wish to be dancing when she is ill."

Lydia declared herself satisfied. "Oh, yes! It would be much better to wait till Jane was well, and by that time most likely Captain Carter would be at Meryton again. And when you have given your ball, I shall insist on their giving one also. I shall tell Colonel Forster it will be quite a shame if he does not."

Mrs. Bennet and her daughters then departed, and Miss Elizabeth returned instantly to her sister. Bingley’s sisters set immediately to remarking upon the departed Bennets, and Darcy had to agree with them. Caroline, however, could not prevail upon him to join in their censure of Miss Elizabeth, in spite of all Caroline’s witticisms on fine eyes.

*****

Darcy had awoken before the morning light, and as his thoughts turned first to Miss Elizabeth, he found it difficult to return to a state of slumber while she slept but a corridor away. Yester evening in the drawing-room, his arm had chanced to brush hers as they passed each other in the space between the bookshelf and the sofa.

“Your pardon,” he had grunted, immediately wishing that his tone had been less brusque.

She had appeared rattled for only a second before resuming her examination of the books upon the shelves. He had gone to sit at the other side of the room to cool the warmth that now simmered within him. He had wondered what it would be like to caress her arm with the back of his hand, had wondered how she would feel in his embrace and how she might react if he were to kiss her neck. And then he had wondered, how might she receive his attentions in bed?

These were not productive thoughts.

Darcy turned onto his side and adjusted the pillows beneath him. His mind could not resist the salacious meditations.

As she was a virgin, she would be apprehensive her first time. But he would make her feel safe, and when she was comforted, he would show her what raptures her body was capable of. He would forever be thankful to Abby for this confidence and proficiency. While he would never claim to be a superior lover, he had come far in his knowledge of carnal matters and the art of pleasuring a woman.

But would Miss Elizabeth be the sort of woman who would venture into the darker, wicked side of pleasure?

He remembered how astonished he had been when Abby had first introduced him to these elements.

“I could not,” he had protested, horrified, after she had shown him a painting of a naked woman straddling a wooden pony, her arms bound behind her, and a sketch of a woman dangling in rope from the ceiling while a man upon the ground wielded a flogger.

“But this is precisely why Her Grace referred you to me,” Abby had replied.

He had fallen in love with her friend, the widow of a Duke. Desperate to win Her Grace's affections, he had agreed to what Abby had been willing to teach him.

“When engaged in these sorts of play,” Abby had explained, “there is one who takes the dominant role while the other assumes the submissive role. We will discuss circumstances involving more than two later.”

How his mind had reeled at all that Abby had described! The concepts and actions involved were devilish and wrong, and because of that, they were titillating.

“To comprehend the responsibility of the one in the dominant role, you must first appreciate the submissive role,” Abby had said, “and the pain you propose to inflict upon her.”

Thus, he had bared his buttocks to Abby and allowed her to wallop his backside with a wooden paddle. She had teased him to hardness before landing the paddle against his derriere, and the arousal had allowed him to withstand the pain with greater ease. Still, he had resisted the notion that pain and pleasure could work in concert together till his third time with Abby, when, to his surprise, he looked to the paddling with anticipation. The greater the pain, the harder he spent.

Such memories had hardened his cock, but relieving himself by hand could not compare to the interaction with a fellow being, from the thrill of making a beautiful woman spend. Getting out of bed, Darcy decided to begin the day early and relish the quiet before the others awoke.

The remainder of the day passed much as the day before had done. Bingley’s sisters had spent some hours of the morning with the invalid, who continued, though slowly, to mend. In the evening Miss Elizabeth joined their party in the drawing-room and took up some needlework. The loo-table, however, did not appear. Darcy chose to write to Georgiana. Caroline, seated near him, rained commendations upon his handwriting, the evenness of his lines, and the length of his letter, all of which he received with unconcern.

"How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter!" Caroline said.

He made no answer.