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Unwilling to part from his touch, Elizabeth reluctantly complied. She felt her knees coaxed apart by his hands.

“Lie back,” he breathed.

Elizabeth reclined back along the tiled floor, finding her head on top of Darcy’s waistcoat and shirt. They smelled wonderfully musky. Then Darcy thrust his head between her thighs and the giddy feeling she had experienced upon his fondling escalated into something even more intoxicating. Her breathing became ragged. She found herself moaning and panting. Her insides seemed to have turned into a wobbling jelly.

“Oh!” she exclaimed as a delicious sensation lanced through her core.

Feeling Darcy lay his wet head on her thigh, she pushed her hand into his cropped locks up to the webs of her fingers, alternately pulling and caressing his hair. When he rolled his head to nestle closer to her, she became dimly aware that he was still moving his arm but touching himself instead of her. Then he groaned and cried out. They lay panting together for some time as she weakly patted his dripping locks, squeezing water from the tips.

“Oh!” Lizzy cried, recovering herself. “Oh! Was that it? Did we consummate the marriage?”

“No,” gasped Darcy, kissing her thigh and laughing. “But it was pretty amazing anyway!”

Pulling himself along her body he kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”

Chapter 52: Missing Jane

Pillowed on Elizabeth’s thigh, an immense sense of satisfaction coursed through Darcy. More than the mere physical sensations of the afterglow of their lovemaking, he felt whole vistas open up before him. Blind he might be, but everything else he had feared lost in his life he knew to be restored to him and so much more. He felt dazzlingly alive in a way he could only remember experiencing in his youth. The air seemed fresher, his heart lighter. It was as though he had spent the last ten years of his life as a sleepwalker, only partially aware of his surroundings. In retrospect he realised that a light blanket of gloom had descended upon him after his father’s death as new responsibilities settled on his shoulders without the comfort of a guiding hand.

As Elizabeth caressed his ear Darcy laughed again, overjoyed at the huge leap he had made in the last forty-eight hours. A few sessions in the pool had given him faith in his doctor’s opinion that the more general exercise would continue his rehabilitation. Now he could lift his legs slightly, perhaps enough to have another attempt at the library stairs exercise Dr Gordon had recommended. Wanting merely to share his new optimism with Elizabeth on her return, he had taken her to the pool. From there the innocent flirting that lead to her swimming lesson had escalated quickly upon feeling her touch, knowing her to be naked there beside him. Darcy had known he was still not fit enough to consummate their marriage, but he had realised that he could still pleasure his wife. His raw attraction to Elizabeth had propelled him along a path he had only contemplated in his wildest dreams. He now had every confidence that their marriage could indeed soon be consummated. Her ready acceptance of his caresses and amazing response to them left him feeling like he could almost walk on water. They seemed to respond instinctively to each other’s touch.

Elizabeth chuckled as she caressed his wet locks. “Having had charge of the management of Longbourn, I should know better. You must think me hopelessly naive, but it was just so... I did not expect it to be so... overwhelming.”

Reluctantly Darcy pulled himself upright to lean against the wall.

“Shhh,” he said soothingly as he stroked her arm. “Your innocence is charming.”

As his hand travelled along her arm towards her face, Elizabeth scrambled upright before capturing his hand to kiss his palm and guide it to her cheek.

“I hope I did not injure your sensibilities,” Darcy said. “While I intended some intimate time with you, I had not quite anticipated it would escalate like that.”

“Is the door locked?” Elizabeth asked, belatedly thinking of their privacy.

“Well, as this room was formerly the coal cellar, I doubt it. I do not believe it was ever secured.”

“I think we had better arrange to at least put a latch on the inside of the door. I can just imagine poor Clara getting the fright of her life when accidentally stumbling across us in her search for coal,” Elizabeth joked.

“All the servants know the coal has been moved to a smaller room next door.”

“Maybe, but one instinctively returns to old places for things. I guarantee you, she will walk in here half a dozen times searching for coal before her feet naturally wend their way to the new place. God forbid we should surprise her without our clothes.”

Having had the ordering of his own environment for so long, Darcy could not credit such forgetfulness. He pursed his lips in disbelief before drawing Elizabeth to him and rocking her in his arms as he showered kisses on her crown.

Elizabeth submitted to this for a while. It was nice to have Darcy’s arms around her although she felt rather like a doll, dwarfed by his bulk. But driven by the fear they might be discovered naked, Elizabeth soon got up to tidy herself so that Darcy might ring for Finn. Rueful that her chemise was drenched, she drew her stays onto her naked torso, wrung out her hair and patted it dry with the single towel Finn had left for his master before stepping back into her dress. Beginning to shiver as the heat of their lovemaking dissipated, Elizabeth’s teeth chattered as they conversed, causing Darcy to suggest she draw on his tailcoat for warmth. He merely wiped himself down with the damp towel and drew his shirt over his head. When he rang once for Finn, his valet arrived soon after with his banyan.

“Oh,” said Finn, not expecting to find the mistress dishabille. He had thought her to be merely a spectator to Darcy’s exercise. His first thoughts were that she had fallen in. Despite her attempts to tidy herself, Elizabeth’s voluminous hair in disarray gave her the look of a half-drowned cat. “I will call Miss Fairbanks,” he said calmly.

“Thank you, Finn,” replied Elizabeth, rather rueful that she had not yet arranged a specific signal to summon her own maid, who had arrived the day before from Derbyshire.

After the first shock of encountering the mistress in such a state, Finn had time to appreciate Darcy and Elizabeth’s casual manners, which were in no way consistent with the emergency of an unexpected dousing. He drew his own conclusions regarding likely events, busied himself helping the master into his gown and quickly gathered up the discarded clothes.

Fairbanks, who had already discovered from Miss Georgie’s maid that her mistress had gone off to the new plunge pool with the master, had sufficient presence of mind to arrive with one of the mistress’s new silk brocade dressing gowns over her arm. Having assisted the dowager countess’s dresser at Wyvern Hall, Fairbanks was quite familiar with the ways of gentlemen of the Haut Ton from the many occasions the viscount had been rusticated during his university days. Finn had raised his eyebrows when she had related one of these stories to him during their first private meal together in the dining room set aside for the upper servants, telling her disdainfully that the master was nothing like that. Now she gave him a knowing look, clucked over the ruin of her mistress’s elaborate coiffure and demanded one of the huckaback towels Finn had brought from him. Winding this around Elizabeth’s hair like a turban, she gave a sniff understood only by Finn and escorted her mistress off.

After the women departed, Finn was able to call Hobbes to assist the master back upstairs.

In the mistress’s suite, Fairbanks managed to tidy Elizabeth’s wet hair but was unable to plait it for the evening. She strongly suggested that if the mistress wished to use the plunge pool again, she be summoned to plait her hair in preparation.

“Though there is a beautiful copper bath, ma’am, in the room next door, which should suit your purposes admirably.”