DARCY COULD NOT TAKE his eyes from Elizabeth. She was looking at him as if she were starving and he were a delicious chocolate dessert. He imagined he was looking at her the same way.
He wanted to kiss her, to devour her, to draw her soft curves against his body and hold her there. And he had no one to blame but himself for the distance he was forced to keep from her.
If he had courted her properly when they first met, they might be married by now. He might have the right to sweep her into his arms and carry her to his bed.
What if he had asked her to dance that first night, as Bingley had prompted him to? Would he have discovered then how irresistible she was? Instead of fleeing Netherfield in November, would he have offered his hand?
Reliving those regrets served no point. She had gi
