Page 27 of Mr. Darcy’s Fiery Passion

His mouth left hers and went to her jaw, then her throat. She tipped her head back against the books. The wide neck of her nightgown had slid off one shoulder.

He followed it down. His mouth moved over her collarbone and lower, to the soft swell above the lawn, hot and open. Her breasts ached against his shirt. Her anger went to flame under his mouth, and she held his head there. A sound came out of her that she had never heard before.

"M... Miss Elizabeth." His voice was ragged at her ear. "Tell me to stop."

She did not tell him to stop. She pulled his mouth back to hers.

Wanton, said a small cold voice at the back of her mind. He will not even tell you the truth, and you are climbing him in the dark.

She tore her mouth away.

He went still at once. He lifted his head. His forearms stayed braced on either side of her. They were both breathing hard. His hair was wild, and his shirt was pulled half out of his breeches, and she had done that.

She unwound her arms from his neck. She put her hand flat on his chest and pushed. He stepped back at once. She caught the shelf behind her to stay upright. With the other hand she dragged her nightgown back onto her shoulder.

Mr. Darcy did not reach for her. He could not have, and he did not try.

"That," said Elizabeth, "should not have happened."

8

"The arm has been disturbed, sir." Parrish held the forearm bandage up to the window.

The inner turns were stained through, brown with oil and a little red.

"I caught something," said Darcy.

"Indeed, sir." Parrish turned the linen over. "Something heavy, I should think."

Darcy knew that tone. Parrish had used it on him at twelve, over a torn coat and a story about a fence.

It was a little after seven on the twenty-first. Darcy had not slept. He had sat in the library until the fire went out. Then he had sat in his room until the window turned gray. He had not wanted to lie down. When he lay down, he could feel her.

She had hopped out of the library without his arm. He had watched her go. She had kept one hand on the shelves, then the doorframe, then the wall of the passage. She had not looked back. He had stood by the bookcase and let her go, because she had asked him to.

That should not have happened.

She was right. He had known it while it was happening. He had known it with her arms around his neck and her mouth under his. He had known it and not stopped. He had asked her to tell him to stop. It was cowardice. He had wanted the stopping to be hers.

Parrish unwound the last of the linen. The burn beneath had opened a little at one edge, where her weight had pressed against it. Darcy looked at it and felt nothing but a dull satisfaction. It was the least of what he deserved.

"Mr. Jones will scold," said Parrish.

"Then let him."

Parrish dressed the arm. He did it well. He had done it well for nine years, one way and another. His hands were quick and dry, and entirely without feeling. Darcy watched them and thought of other hands.

He made himself stop.

Parrish shaved him. He worked in silence for a while, the razor steady along Darcy's cheek. "Mr. Bingley's man tells me you declined his services while I was away, sir," he said.

"I did."

"All of them."

"Yes."

"And yet your hair was washed." Parrish wiped the blade. "Mr. Jones had forbidden water, I understood."