Page 69 of Yearning

She knew he loved her. She believed that he did. She was not worried over that. But he was particular about propriety, about rightness, and he might not appreciate it if she was the aggressor.

Too worried, she got into bed. She lay and stared at the ceiling and thought about the colonel and thought about the fact she had not bled and about Lily and about the time she had asked Mr. Darcy if he could feel things there and he had said, emphatically, yes, and she got out of bed.

Squaring her shoulders and pulling on something over her bedclothes, she found a candle and went directly to his bedchamber.

She stood outside the door, holding the candle, breathing and breathing, too afraid to knock.

Oh, dear, she was going to simply go back to her own room, was she not? She was such a coward.

No, she was here. She might as well knock.

She lifted her hand.

She cringed.

And then, softly, she rapped on the door.

Nothing.

Then, “Yes?”

“Mr. Darcy,” she whispered.

“Elizabeth?” his voice was louder. “I cannot get up to open the door. It is not locked.”

She turned the knob. It was dark inside, but her candle illuminated him sitting up in his bed, resting against the headboard. She shut the door behind her. He reached over and lit the lamp on his bedside table. He was wearing an undershirt, parted at the top, and she could see a hint of the dark hair on his chest.

“Well,” he said. “Here you are.”

“Should I not be?” Her heart was pounding.

“I am not displeased.” He was smiling.

She stood there, just inside the door, clutching the candle. “You said things to me when we walked.”

“So I did,” he said. “But we are to be married now. We could wait.”

“You think I’m frightfully improper. You think I should go.”

“I do not think any of these things,” he said. He let out a breath, and she could hear that it was shaky. “I am nervous. I have not touched a woman in a very long time. Whatever happens between us, it may not look anything like what has happened for you with other men. You may not be pleased. You may… well, if you do not like it, you do not have to marry me, obviously.”

She rushed across the room. “Is that why you want to wait?”

“It’s beneath me, wanting to trap you, I suppose,” he said softly.

She set the candle down and sat down on the bed next to him. “Well, let us talk about it. Let us be frank with each other.”

He swallowed, looking frightened. “All right.”

She tried to speak, and then it was too much. She could not look in his eyes. She looked over his head instead. “Does it get hard?”

“Yes,” he said. “What there is of it. But it is not… it often takes touch. There has been only one time I have grown stiff from only, um, talk, and it was you. You talking of your wedding night, in fact.”

“Me with another man?”

“I know, perverse, yes, but…? It was the perversity that made it seem all the more arousing somehow. You likely do not understand that—”

“I do,” she said. “Yes, I think that is true for everyone. That is perhaps the nature of it.”