Her hands were clenched into fists and countenance a mask of monumental rage. She leaned toward him as he stood petrified with mouth hanging open and face pale, utterly shocked and mortified. Add a torrential downpour and it would be Kent all over again.

“Well!” she demanded, stepping even closer and lifting on her toes until only inches from his stunned eyes. “Answer me!”

Darcy was speechless, the pain lancing through his heart unbearable. “No, Elizabeth, I”—he swallowed—“I love you! Please… I have never wanted anything in all my life as I want you. You… are my life… you must know that? Surely…”

Elizabeth interrupted him, voice controlled somewhat, “Fitzwilliam, I do not believe any of the questions I asked are true of you. However, this is what I do believe: You are afraid of letting go of your emotions. You are wrapped in an inflexible cocoon of discipline and righteousness and are terrified that if you loosen one single cord you will unravel completely. You love me and desire me, yet resist showing me how much because you fear I will be disgusted or disappointed to discover you are not the towering paragon of virtue and excellence you deem yourself.”

She paused for a deep breath, suddenly drained of all energy and anger, cut to the quick by the tears shimmering on Darcy's cheeks and consumed with a fresh rush of irrepressible love.

Placing both hands about his face, sobs catching in her throat, she whispered, “My God, William! Do you not yet comprehend how deeply I love you? You can be free with me and I will always love you. I trust you with my life, my virtue, my body, and my heart! You have nothing to fear from me and I fear nothing from you. All I fear is distance between us.” She began planting kisses all over his face, his arms now tightly around her waist. “I beg you, my love, do not push me away!”

“Elizabeth,” he groaned, responding blissfully to her kiss, relief palpable as a tangible barrier in his soul surrendered. The power of their love crashed over him anew, and for the first time, it wholly dawned on him what it meant to love her and to be loved in return. The veracious definition of Two Shall Become One, as she had embroidered on the bookmark for his birthday, was suddenly clear.

The following weeks of their betrothal were a liberating experience for him. Their solitary moments together were brief and stolen but imbued with a heightened communion without the guilt of before. Darcy was always a gentleman, never crossing any permanent lines of propriety, but no longer so rigid or afraid to express his attraction to her. Oddly, the license to exhibit their passion for each other in regulated ways made it easier to control themselves overall. Additionally, the bridled but playful physical indulgences taken enhanced their communication and strengthened their commitment. By the time they were officially declared husband and wife, they were so intertwined and attuned that taking the final step of consummation was effortless and rapturous.

Now, Lizzy sat at Darcy's desk in the combined library and study of Darcy House, lost in pleasant memories as she dazedly peered out the tall window facing the garden, an enormous lilac bush gently swaying in the breeze.

“There you are.” Lizzy glanced up at her husband as he entered the room, a ready smile on both their faces. “No one knew where you were hiding. Are you well, dearest?” He stooped for a brief kiss but she grasped his face in her hands, halting him for a consuming exchange.

“I am fantastic, my heart, and even more so now that you are home.”

“That is quite the delightful greeting. May I assume, therefore, that you missed me terribly?” He lifted a brow, and she laughed softly.

“I pine for you if you are gone from my presence for more than a minute. All day is tortuous. Now hush and kiss me again, husband.”

Some ten heavenly minutes later: “Why were you sitting here in the twilight staring out the window?”

She snuggled closer to him, laying her head on his shoulder. They sat on the sofa, having transferred there for comfortable cuddling and kissing. “I spent the afternoon familiarizing myself with the house and ended here. I believe Mrs. Smyth has decided I am mad.”

“Why do you say that?”

Lizzy laughed. “She caught me opening cupboards in one of the guest bedchambers and offered to help me find whatever I had ‘lost.’ I tried to explain that I was simply acquainting myself with the rooms, but she persisted in questioning me. I finally gave up and left, but every time I turned around that tall footman—Hobbes is it?—was lurking, pretending to not be watching me. So I retreated here.”

Darcy was frowning. “This is unacceptable behavior. They have no right to question you or follow you. I will speak to Mrs. Smyth and Mr. Travers straightaway.”

“No, William, please. If it becomes an annoyance, I shall deal with it. For now I think they simply do not know what to make of me: ushered in fainting and green, sleeping all hours of the day, hardly showing my face for two days, and then finally appearing only to peak through cupboards! Gracious, even I am beginning to believe I am mad!” She laughed, but he was still frowning.

Lizzy rubbed a finger over the small creases between his brows, smiling impishly. “I know how to cheer you up, Mr. Darcy. Before you arrived I was reminiscing of how you so brazenly took advantage of my innocence in this very study.”

Darcy guffawed and coughed. “Really! Perhaps you are going mad, Mrs. Darcy, or becoming feeble minded with advanced age at two and twenty…”

“I am still twenty-one!”

“Not for much longer, and senility may be the root cause of your hideously skewed memory of the events you speak of.”

“I daresay, is that very wall not the one you pinned me against while taking shocking liberties along my décolletage?”

“I seem to recall an astonishingly strong armed fiancée forcefully ejecting me from my chair and nearly ripping the lapels off my jacket when she dragged me bodily to the indicated wall, kissing me all the while.”

“Hrmph.” She pursed her lips and pretended a pout. “Strong armed I may be, and thank you for the backhanded compliment, but you are a stalwart fellow and could have contested had you wished to do so.”

“Well, there you have it, my dear. I did not wish to escape, and furthermore, my duty as your future and current husband is to please you in any way I can, so I was caught in the proverbial rock and hard place. I chose the path of least resistance.”

He was grinning broadly and Lizzy chuckled. She sat up suddenly, hiking her skirts just enough to free her legs and straddled his lap. “Correct me if my scattered wits are failing me yet again, but did we not end up in this exact pose?”

Darcy smoothed the hair back from her face and kissed gently. “Yes, and I shall confess that ending here was my doing, although it was a result of my knees nearly buckling from the breathless exhilaration of your lips on mine and the creamy lusciousness of your neck. However, I did comport myself as a true gentleman once we were in this compromising position.” He kissed her again then smiled smugly. “Therefore, it appears to me that we have reenacted the event and have ascertained that the entire episode was your fault from the outset, and I judge there was no innocence taken advantage of!”

“Very well, I will concede defeat, this time around.” She began playing with the knots of his cravat. “Speaking of senility and advanced age,” she said as she smirked and fluttered her lashes earning two raised brows, “it probably has yet to occur to you, but we are married now and gentlemanly restriction are a non-issue, so…?”

“I will show you advanced age!” And with a growl he pulled her tight to his chest, kissing as only married couples are freely allowed to do, and euphorically tossing all gentlemanly restriction out the window.

Chapter Six 

Dining with the Bingleys

The Bingleys, with Mary and Kitty Bennet in tow, arrived from Netherfield in time for luncheon the next day. Darcy was absent, attending to business and birthday concerns, leaving Elizabeth and Georgiana to greet them and host the meal. The rooms assigned to Kitty and Mary were next to Georgiana, and the girls vacated the table immediately after dining to settle in, giggle, and gossip as young girls do, and make plans for the sojourn in Town. Charles and Jane stayed briefly, leaving for the Bingley townhouse to rest and regroup before dinner.

The Bingley townhouse was four streets south of Darcy House, on Hill Street. Although located in the Mayfair District and near Grosvenor Square, the house itself abutted Berkley Square, despite Caroline Bingley's preferred assertions that they lived at Grosvenor Square. Bingley's great-grandfather had purchased the house when acquiring his fortune, moving his wife and baby daughter from Cheapside. Half the size of Darcy House, it nonetheless was plush and beautiful, constructed of red bricks with large windows and an ornately landscaped garden with a small pond nearly equal to the Darcy's garden in size.

As with Lizzy, Jane had viewed her future home during her engagement. Thankfully, the Hursts and Caroline had been vacationing at Bath for that week, so the soon-to-be Mrs. Bingley had been free to become acquainted with the manor and make tentative plans for changes. Charles had previously tolerated his younger sister, within reason, decorating as she wished, with the consequence being rooms overstuffed with furniture, gaudy wall coverings, and a plethora of overly ornate knickknacks. Jane was blessed with the gift of innately excellent taste and instinctively recognized where the alterations needed to be. A battle was fated to ensue between she and Caroline, who would require months of steady and frequently heated reminding by Charles before she finally accepted that she was no longer the Mistress. Jane would display a surprisingly stern backbone belied by her naturally serene and unassuming character. In the end, she would revamp the house as she wished, creating an atmosphere of welcome splendor so perfected that the Bingleys would discover themselves residing there for months out of each year.