Page 39 of Yearning

“The temptation is too great,” he said, still smiling. His gaze flicked back to her belly.

She licked her lips and then one of her hands went there. She smoothed her hand over the swell of herself, first the top and then the bottom, and her skirts and coat tucked in around her, sort of showing her belly off to him, and she was not sure why she was doing that.

“I’m ever so pleased for you,” he breathed. “You are a vision, you know. You are radiant.”

Now, she could feel heat rushing to her face. She let her hand drop to her side. “It was a surprise, but it was welcome.”

“Your husband never is here on these walks?”

“He did not accompany me to visit here. He has things to see to. I am meant to go home next week.”

“Next week?” He was sad to hear it.

“I should have come to you sooner.”

“No,” he said. “No, you are living your life, which is what I wanted for you, and you are ever so beautiful and ever so alive, and I am just happy to have had the chance to have seen it, to have seen my Elizabeth with child.” He lifted his hand and let it hover there, and she seized his wrist and placed it against her belly. His smile went wider than she thought she might have ever seen him smile and he hummed out a sound of sheer contentment.

“She is not moving right now,” Elizabeth said, and her voice was hushed, probably because they were talking. “Or he. We do not know, of course. When I walk, she is always still, and when I lie down, that is when she dances around.”

“You wish it to be a girl?”

“My husband wishes that. He has only boys. I shall be happy either way, of course.”

His stump came up and rested there, and he had her belly bracketed, in both of his arms. “It’s sort of miraculous, is it not? The sheer thought of it. You are growing a whole person in there, Lizzy.”

She giggled. She felt loose and happy and sort of finished in a way that she had not been since the moment she was positive she was with child. This was what she had been waiting for, his approval, his awe, his reaction. She was supposed to have been doing all of this with him, after all.

She reached down and she touched his face.

He tilted his gaze up at her, surprised.

“I hoped you would not be jealous.”

“I am,” he breathed. “Ever so jealous. What I wouldn’t give to be the one who…” But he was still smiling. He was still touching her, the heat of his one palm radiating through her skin, caressing the babe inside her.

She curved her fingers under his jaw. “But you are pleased, even so?”

“I am used to feeling it, the envy. I am envious of everyone else, and it’s constant. One can focus on that or one can accept it and let it be there and move forward. There’s no point in the envy, of course. I cannot have what others have. So, I do try to find delight in what I can have.”

She held his gaze. “He thought…” Should she share this with him? “My husband doubted that he was truly the father of the babe, you know. He thought, because I must have conceived at the Givons’s house, that the night I went out to talk to you…”

“You set him straight, though?”

She nodded.

His hand moved on her belly.

“But in some ways, it feels as if you…”

“What?” His voice was soft.

“I know not. Perhaps you would not like to hear this.” Her voice was soft, too.

“I would like to hear anything you wished to tell me,” he said. “If you are frightened of making me jealous, Lizzy… do not worry. I can bear it.” His smile widened.

Her fingers strayed from his jaw to toy with the ends of his hair. “It is as if you had something to do with the making of the babe, because my husband was so threatened by you, he was doubly interested in me.”

Mr. Darcy let out a surprised laugh. “I made him jealous.”