Page 69 of Mr. Darcy’s Fiery Passion

He laughed. It was the real laugh, the one from the hearthrug. She had not heard it in a fortnight. "Come out of the wind," he said. "There is the oak."

The hollow oak stood a little way below the stile, where the lane bent toward Netherfield. It was very old and very broad, and the hedge ran into it on either side. He had stopped there the night of the lane, with her in his arms. He had not put her down.

He picked up the crutch and offered her his arm. She took it and leaned on it without a single thought of whether she ought.

Behind the oak the air was still. The north wind could not reach them there. The bark was gray and deeply ridged, and the ground beneath was dry with old leaves. Darcy set the crutch against the trunk and put his back to the tree. He opened his greatcoat and drew her inside it, against his body. He closed it round them both.

It was warm in there. It smelled of wool and his shaving soap.

"Is that better?" he said into her hair.

"Much." She untied her bonnet with cold fingers and pushed it back. "Fitzwilliam. Mr. Bingley's library had eleven books. I have often wondered about yours."

"Mine has rather more."

"Will you read to me in it?"

"Every night."

"At two in the morning?"

"Whenever you like." He kissed her temple. "I can hold the book myself now."

"Then I shall have nothing to do with my hands," said Elizabeth.

She let him see the thought arrive in her face. Then she slid her hands inside his coat, beneath his waistcoat, and spread them flat on his shirt.

He sucked in a breath. "Your hands are frozen."

"Then warm them."

He did. He took her hands one at a time and held them against his chest until they stung. He let them go. His own hands went to the buttons of her pelisse.

He undid them one by one. She watched his fingers on the buttons, quick and sure. She thought of three weeks of linen and elbows and wrists.

He has his hands back. And he is using them on me.

The thought went through her entire body and set it aflame.

His hands slipped inside the pelisse and found her waist. They moved up over her ribs, slowly, learning her through the wool of her gown. At the top they cupped her breasts. His thumbs moved.

Her breath went out of her in a white cloud. "You have been thinking of this," she said unsteadily.

"For a month. In some detail."

"In London?"

"Mostly in London." His thumb moved again, and she bit her lip. "I bought a great many books in London. I do not remember one of them."

A cart might come. A farmer's boy might come along the hedge after a strayed ewe. Her mother would die of it, and Meryton would talk of nothing else until Easter.

Nobody walks this lane in December but you, she told herself. Nobody ever has. She stopped listening for carts.

He bent his head and kissed her throat, above the collar of her gown. His hands left her breasts. They went down her sides, over her hips, and gathered her skirts in slow handfuls. She felt the cold air on her stockings. The warm wool of the greatcoat closed round her legs again.

He stopped with his hand on her bare thigh, just above the garter. "Elizabeth. May I?"

"You have hands now," she said against his mouth. "Use them."