It was several moments before he raised himself onto an elbow to gaze down in the moonlight at her, a look of stunned appreciation on his face. “Good God, woman,” he whispered. “You’ll have me burst into flames one of these days.” He smoothed some hair from her face and kissed her nose then laughed softly. “I don’t know why I am bothering to whisper, I’m certain shutters are being slammed all over Mayfair from the racket we just made.”
Her fingers caressed his face, fingers tracing each line, each crevice, while she skimmed her hand across the scar on his jaw and she smiled briefly at the memory of their lovemaking.
“Amanda, stop,” he said gently, capturing her hand. “You’re touching me like I’m going to disappear. I am not, you know.” He tried to laugh it off and kissed her forehead, beginning to remove himself from her. “I wish you would have faith in me, trust that all will be well. I won’t let anything happen to you or the boy.”
“Don’t leave me yet,” she pleaded. It would be hard for him in the shadows to see the panic in her eyes or know how fiercely it rose in her chest. This could be our last night together, my darling, for many years to come. She forced her voice to sound cheery. “It feels much better to make love properly, I mean in the dark like this, doesn’t it? Making love in the afternoon light felt rather badly behaved. I was always embarrassed to know that you could see me when I called out your name.”
He enveloped her again with his body and arms and whispered into her ear, “I believe shrieked would be more accurate.” She cuffed him affectionately on his shoulder, and they both laughed softly.
They remained in each other’s arms, talking in whispers, laughing and touching intimately. It was a while before he slowly began to feel the stirring again and once more began to kiss her mouth, her eyes, her throat… feeling the madness in them both returning.
Darcy still could not sleep and restlessly paced, his gaze falling across the broken door handle to Lizzy’s dressing room. Whenever he passed, he felt a tremendous stab of guilt strike at his stomach. Tragedy had ventured so easily into his home and had nearly taken all that was dear to him. His thoughts punished him, endlessly replaying the fight they had had and how this evening could have turned out so differently if not for Amanda.
His eye caught torn pieces of paper surrounding the dressing-table chair. Reaching down, he picked them up and patiently assembled them upon the table, finally reading Caroline’s note to Elizabeth, finally understanding what had happened.
“So this is what started the whole thing,” he sighed raggedly. “A nasty bit of revenge from a rejected woman.” He sat down heavily on the chair and reread the letter again.
I have to accept my own part in this. I kept the truth from Lizzy when I might have avoided this whole trouble by only being honest with her. I certainly was no gentleman; she was right about that. His disappointment with himself was tremendous, even greater than his anger at Caroline, but he would not lose his control again. Never. Least of all over that vain and silly trollop.
“William?” Lizzy raised her head upon hearing him enter their bedroom.
“Why are you awake? You are supposed to be resting.”
“I heard you sighing in there and grew concerned.”
“How are you feeling?” He took her hand in his and kissed her forehead.
“As if I’d been hit by a runaway carriage. Is everything all right? Good, then I need to see my son again.”
“He is beautiful, Lizzy.” Darcy picked the child up from the large cradle and brought him to her. “Have I mentioned that before?”
As she smiled, he lay down beside her, the baby nestled between them in her arms. “I am so sorry, Lizzy, for this whole evening,” he finally said. “What a mess I created with my temper. I will never forgive myself.”
“Oh, of course you will, at least you should, and probably sooner than I will consider appropriate.” She patted his arm lovingly. “Remove your boots, please, dear.”
She is feeling better. He laughed to himself as he pulled them off.
“William, you must stop whipping yourself. We will have many more fights before we are finally too old and infirmed even to recognize each other. When that time comes, we shall, hopefully, be polite acquaintances.”
He snuggled back into bed beside her. “I am normally such a sane, dignified gentleman of the world. Why is it that around you I completely lose my wits?”
“Your wits are merely the first of many sacrifices to come.”
The quiet warmth of the room and the strong bonds of love and family kept them quiet and content for a long while. Then, suddenly unwilling to delay a moment longer, he hugged her tight and said a silent prayer before delivering his long-overdue confession. “I found the letter from Caroline,” he whispered. “I never realized before how evil and cruel she could be. I must confess to you, Elizabeth, that I did see her at Netherfield, but only because she had tricked me into going there. She forged a message to me from Charles, saying he needed help with a problem. I thought it concerned Jane and didn’t want to stress you if it was something I could handle alone.” He scrubbed his face roughly. “So much for my consideration. Anyway, I left immediately upon learning of her deceit.”
Stunned for a moment, she said nothing. “But you could have told me, William. I would have understood.” She then remembered her sporadic pregnancy ravings and sighed. “… Or not. Well, perhaps it was best that you said nothing. But that trip was months ago. Why send the note now, when we are so vulnerable? Could she have deliberately timed the letter’s arrival?”
He could not speak for a long while. “If I thought that, I don’t know what I would do to her, can’t even let myself think. But I tell you we won’t ever again see or hear from her. I will have to tell Bingley the whole story, and you will need to confide in your sister Jane so that we can arrange our visits with them without coming into contact with Caroline. Is that all right with you, Elizabeth?”
She nodded. “I would never lose Jane through this. I think they will both understand. I hope so, at any rate.”
“Now, go to sleep. I’ll put the angel back into his cradle.”
Chapter 9
All around him, as far as he could see, Fitzwilliam saw babies, cooing babies crawling where there should have been the mutilated dead bodies of grown men. This was unacceptable. It was going to take him all night to collect these children and bring them somewhere that would be safe, and then who would feed them? He turned to his sergeant major, sorry to observe that the entire side of the poor man’s head was still blown away. He tried to help the soldier reattach the jawbone of his shattered face then pointed to the babies crawling between them, around them. The man nodded in silent understanding, and they both began to walk to the glacis surrounding the burning fortress.
Fitzwilliam was standing once again at the siege of Badajoz, and the constant pounding of the cannonade in his dreams gradually altered itself into ordinary knocking on their bedroom door, easily dismissed at first, but soon the unrelenting persistence grew closer and louder, and Richard awoke.
Amanda’s eyes, however, had blinked wide open immediately with the certain knowledge of what was happening. “Don’t say a word,” she whispered into his ear. “Ignore her. Please.” They heard someone call his name. It was the morning of their third day at Pemberley House, their departure delayed for many reasons—contentment at being together finally, complacency over their success at escaping, minor difficulties in obtaining just the right coach, passage to the Continent becoming intermittent, ruled by the weather. Besides, no one had bothered them. The sense of urgency had diminished.