Page 78 of Yearning

“I am sorry,” he said.

She wrung out her hands. “Well… well, just so.”

He reached up with his good hand and wiped at his eyes. “May I come back in?”

“Obviously,” she said.

But then, she turned on her heel and walked away and left him there without another word.

IT WAS ALL fraught.

She was frightened, frightened he would go. She was frightened of it at every moment, every sign of trouble, and Lily was also frightened. She spent a great deal of time apologizing, and then she began to inflict punishments on herself, which was something the girl had never done before, and it rather badly worried Elizabeth.

“I shall not go outside for the rest of the year,” Lily decided in a very a serious little girl voice. “I think that is only right. Clearly, if I were ready to be outside, I would have behaved better.”

“Has Nanny said this to you?” said Elizabeth.

“No,” said Lily. “No, but I know I was wrong, because I saw Mr. Darcy’s carriage from the window. I know he was going to leave. He did not want to stay, and it was because of me.”

“It was not because of you, it was because he is a blackguard,” Elizabeth said in a hard voice. “Anyway, he is not going anywhere. I am going to marry him, and then he will not be allowed to go anywhere.”

“Truly?” said Lily, with a little smile.

“You would like that, if he stayed?”

“He has the deepest voice,” said Lily, “which means he’s the best at being the voice of the papa doll in the dollhouse. So, he does have some uses. But I should remember he cannot run fast. I can do that, you know. Anyway, I am not going back outside. I shall play indoors at least until after Christmas.”

Mr. Darcy was subdued. He apologized to Lily and she apologized to him, and it seemed neither had heard the other. He was quieter, gazing off into the distance more often.

But when he heard Lily exclaiming that she would not go outside again for months on end, he spoke up. “Lily, you were a bit naughty, you know that.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Perhaps there should be a punishment, but staying inside for months is too much.” He looked to Elizabeth. “Likely your mother can think of something more appropriate. It is she who should decide.”

Elizabeth truly thought the fright of the ordeal had likely been punishment enough. But perhaps it would make Lily feel better if she thought she had paid some price for it all. “I think you must stay inside for only today,” she said.

“Only today?” said Lily.

“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “And then you will mind others and not get far ahead when you are out walking in the future, do you understand?”

“Yes, of course,” said Lily. “I shall be better in the future, ever so much better.”

Elizabeth looked at Mr. Darcy, and she wondered if it was the same with him. Did he need to feel as if he’d paid a price for what he’d done? For he did not seem to forgive himself, and perhaps the problem was that she did not quite forgive him either.

No, she simply did not trust him. How could she trust him not to leave her again?

Things between them intimately took a bit of a turn.

For the first time, she could not get him stiff, no matter what she did, and he said it was sometimes like that, and that he did not mind, and that it still felt very nice, and that he could even have a climax that way, without an erection. But then he would not allow her to get him there, pushing her off and saying that she must be tired or bored or that he was quite satisfied. And if he would not reach for his own satisfaction, it became difficult for her to push for her own.

And a week passed, and then another.

Eventually, he came to her, head down, unable to meet her gaze, which was the way with him sometimes, and it smote her, for she did not wish it this way between them.

“I know you are not quite to half-mourning,” he said. “But I wonder if we should move forward with the marriage. I wonder if it would be reassuring if you knew I could not leave you.” Then he looked up at her. “Perhaps you are not yet sure, though, if you wish me to stay—”

“I wish you to stay!” she cried. “Never say that again. Never threaten it again.”