It was not until near suppertime that Elizabeth noticed that Darcy was not contributing to the conversation. At first she thought the party had grown too large for his taste, but as she continued to observe him, she began to suspect he was actively displeased. Perhaps the invitation Mrs. Bennet had extended in all civility made him unhappy; she could well understand that he might prefer to limit his cousin’s exposure to the Bennet household. She could feel the tension radiating from him, and could think of no other cause. With concern, she redoubled her efforts at amiability toward Colonel Fitzwilliam, hoping to alleviate Darcy’s anxiety over what his cousin might think, but his grim looks continued unabated, and the responses he made were as brief as civility would permit.
When Darcy finally deemed it late enough for him to return to Netherfield without risk of disturbing the newlyweds, he asked Elizabeth to walk him out. Noting he still had a forbidding set to his mouth, she put a hand on his arm as soon as they were beyond the lights of the house. To her surprise, he gathered her tightly into his arms without any of his usual preliminaries and kissed her with fierce demand. Elizabeth was at first taken aback by his approach, but the intensity of his ardor soon stirred an equal need in her, and she matched his desperate possessiveness as she sought her own satisfaction from his lips. His grip on her bespoke a more violent and uncontrolled passion than was common for him, but, instead of frightening her, it seemed to tap into a well of desire she had never known existed, and a hunger which could not be quenched. Intoxicated by his urgent kisses, she pressed herself against him as if she could never get close enough. Finally he broke off as abruptly as he had begun, and she clung to his shoulders, feeling dizzy from her response to his forceful passion.
“Oh, Elizabeth,” he whispered, leaning his forehead against hers. “You have no idea how much I need you. Forgive me for being so rough; I know I should not…”
Barely able to speak, she put her hand to his cheek. “There is nothing to forgive, my love.” In the darkness she could barely make out his face. “I assume you are less than happy that Colonel Fitzwilliam is staying here, but I will try to make sure my family does not embarrass itself too much before him; it should not be hard with both the Gardiners and Georgiana here.”
Darcy gave a short laugh. “For once it makes no difference to me at all if your family behaves completely disgracefully.”
She looked at him closely. “Then what is troubling you? And do not tell me it is nothing, since I will not believe you if you do.”
“Elizabeth…” he paused, “sometimes there are things that are better not discussed.”
“That may be true, but, as it happens, I seem to have a gift for jumping to the wrong conclusions when I am forced to guess at whatever it is that we are choosing not to discuss.”
He was silent for a moment. “I cannot argue the point. If you wish, I will tell you, but please understand that I know that what I am about to say is completely without justification, and you have every right to be angry that I am even thinking it.” He took a deep breath. “I… disliked seeing you laughing with my cousin; in fact I disliked it a great deal.”
She stared at him, shocked. “Do you mean to suggest…?”
“I mean to suggest nothing except that I would happily toss him out on his ear to keep him away from you. As I said, I know full well that it is completely baseless, at least so far as you are concerned.”
She considered this startling information for a few moments. “I am unsure what to say. There has never been anything between us in the past, and certainly there could not be now.”
“Nothing on your part, perhaps—apart from having liked him better than you did me—but I cannot say the same for him,” said Darcy darkly. “He was very taken with you at Rosings, and felt it necessary to tell me about it at length and repeatedly, an experience which I can assure you I did not enjoy. So when I see you happy in each other’s company now… well, you can imagine, certainly.” He might have added that, during the painful time after Rosings, one of his preferred methods of self-torture was to mull on the likelihood that Elizabeth would have happily accepted his cousin had he been the one to propose. The mere thought was enough to make him desperate to seek relief in Elizabeth’s arms, and he embraced her fiercely, burying his face in her neck.
“I see,” said Elizabeth, distracted by the exquisite sensations he was creating with his urgent caresses, but making a valiant attempt to continue the conversation. “Well, I cannot deny that there was a time I liked him better than you, but—” Her words were stopped as he captured her mouth, exploring it with a forceful and intoxicating thoroughness which threatened to deprive her of the possibility of rational speech. “…But as we both know, that was based on a misapprehension, and it is quite some time that I have loved you far more than I ever liked him.” Having managed to say her piece, she finally allowed herself the guilty pleasure of surrendering once more to the passionate demands of his lips.
“He gave some thought to asking you to marry him, before deciding it was too imprudent financially,” Darcy said, his hands beginning an insistent exploration of the curves of her body which threatened to overwhelm Elizabeth with fiery sensations.
“Well, under the circumstances, I am glad he did not; it would make things quite uncomfortable now, I would imagine,” she said, struggling to stop her voice from shaking.
“Would you have refused him, then?” Darcy’s voice was tense.
She hoped desperately that he was unable to tell just how thoroughly he had devastated her defenses with his passionate advances, and how much she wished he would not stop. “I truly cannot say what I would have done; I had only known him for three weeks, after all. I can only say that had I accepted him, I would have missed something far deeper.”
He gripped her tightly. “Is that true? It is vain of me, I know, to want to be more important to you than any other man could have been.”
“Have you never considered, my love, that I have always had a strong response to you? Even when I disliked you, I did so with a passion. Had I never met you, in all likelihood I could have found a man whom I could have learned to love, but I cannot believe it would have been with such depth, so… without reserve.” She was amazed that she could speak so openly to him of her feelings, especially when her vulnerability to him was so great.
“Thank you,” he responded, his voice muffled by her hair. “I know I should not need to hear such reassurance, but I do.”
“Well, if you think I never have similar moments of anxiety about your regard, you are mistaken,” she said softly.
He looked at her in astonishment. “You do? Why, in heaven’s name, would you have the slightest doubt?”
She laughed and wound her arms around his neck. “Because I love you. Because I need you. Because I am all too human.” She kissed him lingeringly, earning his full cooperation in the endeavor as he gathered her close, the touch of his lips becoming gentle and seductive.
“Because tomorrow cannot come soon enough,” he added. He ran a finger across her lips, still somewhat swollen from his earlier ardor. “I have to warn you that no one seeing you tonight is going to be in doubt about what we have been doing out here.” He trailed tantalizing kisses across her face.
“Do you think any of them will be surprised?”
“Well, if our guilt is to be obvious, I suppose that I might as well indulge myself a bit further,” he replied, recapturing her lips. Giving in to an urge which had long tempted him, he ran his fingers deep into her hair, heedless of disrupting its careful styling. The intimacy of his touch caused her to arch herself against him, and he responded immediately by deepening the kiss, sending shivers of delight through her.