Page 73 of Mr. Darcy’s Fiery Passion

"I only mention it. I shall miss you abominably, Lizzy." He kept his eyes ahead. "Go on."

Then Darcy was looking at her, and the rest of the church went away.

She heard the old words. She heard Jane's soft voice, and Bingley's, which shook. Then it was her turn, and Darcy's.

He had taken off his gloves. When the moment came, he took her left hand in his bare right one. She felt the healed skin of his palm, a little smooth, a little ridged.

He put the ring on her finger, and his voice was perfectly steady. "With this ring I thee wed. With my body I thee worship."

Elizabeth's face went hot to the roots of her hair. She kept her eyes on the ring. Beside her, very faintly, she heard her new husband draw a breath that was almost a laugh.

In the vestry they signed the register. Darcy took the pen and wrote his name in a firm, black hand. Six weeks ago he could not have held it. Elizabeth watched him with her throat tight.

The breakfast was loud and long. Longbourn's new drawing room held forty people, and Mrs. Bennet had invited fifty. There was ham and chocolate and hot rolls, and a great iced bride cake. Mrs. Bennet wept a twelfth time, over the cake. Sir William made a speech. Mr. Gardiner made a shorter and better one. Upstairs, the little Gardiners were eating cake in the nursery and could be heard through the ceiling. Lydia stood in the window with two officers. Mary sat down at the pianoforte and played a hymn at them.

Mr. Bennet came to find Elizabeth at the end. He had his spectacles on and a book under his arm. It was the first volume of the Milton. "I have been reading it," he said. "It is a great deal better than Tillotson." He looked at Darcy, who stood at her shoulder. "If any young men come for Mary or Kitty, send them in. I am quite at leisure."

At noon Jane and Bingley drove home to Netherfield. Jane looked back out of the carriage window all the way down the lane.

At half past twelve Elizabeth and her husband set off for London.

It was twenty-four miles to Grosvenor Square. The roads were hard with frost, and the horses were fresh. They would change at Barnet, a little more than halfway.

For a long while they hardly spoke.

He held her hand on the seat between them, bare in his. Now and then he turned it over and looked at the ring. "You are very quiet, Mrs. Darcy," he said.

"I am being dignified. I have a great deal to live up to."

"Is it very difficult?"

"Terribly." She looked at him sideways. "You said a thing in church that I have been trying not to think of for ten miles."

"It is in the prayer book. I did not write it."

"You did not have to say it so plainly."

"It was the only plain thing in the whole service." He lifted her hand and kissed the inside of her bare wrist. "I meant every word."

Elizabeth looked at his mouth on her wrist. She reached past him and pulled down the blind on his side. She leaned across him and pulled down the other.

"Elizabeth. There is a postboy."

"He is on the near horse, and it is very cold, and he is looking at the road." She took off her bonnet and set it on the opposite seat. "We are married, Fitzwilliam. I signed the register myself."

He laughed, and she kissed him in the middle of it.

The carriage swayed and jolted on the frozen road. The light came gray and dim round the edges of the blinds. He gathered her onto his lap without any trouble at all. She found she liked that very much.

He kissed her slowly at first, and then not slowly. His hands went inside her pelisse. They found her waist, and her ribs, and her breasts through the pale blue silk. His thumbs moved, and she gasped against his mouth.

"The dressmaker will never forgive you," she said.

"I shall pay her double." He kissed her throat above the edge of her tucker. His hand went down and found the hem of her gown. It came up slowly over her knee and her stocking and her garter. Then it was on her bare thigh, warm against the cold.

In a carriage, she thought. On the Great North Road. In broad daylight. She could not find it in her to mind.

His fingers found her center. She was already slick for him, and he made a low sound in his throat when he felt it. He stroked her slowly, in no hurry at all. She clutched his coat and pressed her face into his neck. The wheels rumbled on beneath them. She stopped hearing them.