Darcy & Desire

Chapter 1

Prologue - As Semele Before Jove

“Florry?” asked Elizabeth — but her maid had left the room, tittering stealthily.

And so he was alone with his wife as she lay in the tub — the most beautiful woman in the world, in all her unveiled glory. “No, my love,” he whispered into her damp ear. “It is I.” He was delighted when she squeaked and gratified when she jumped.

And then, being Lizzy Bennet, she turned to him, eyes narrowed, a slight pinkening and eruption of the chest the only lingering signs that he had surprised her. “Well, good.” From the depths of the tub she pulled a sodden sponge and held it, streaming, out to him, her breasts — also streaming — lifting out of the water in such a way that leaving seemed suddenly impossible — as did staying. She tilted her head. “You may wash my back.”

They had already shared passion that morning in their bed, and yet he found that he could not respond to such an invitation with anything less than his whole body, mind, and soul.

He closed his eyes, the sponge dripping in his hand.

Fitzwilliam Darcy knew that modesty was an attribute that few would link to his person. Yet even now, ecstatically married for nearly a month, a powerful natural reticence obliged him to avoid his own desire to gaze upon his lady wife’s unclothed form, and the only name that he could possibly give that reticence was modesty.

She, typically, termed it silliness. “Open your eyes, husband. You’re giving me a bath, not playing at Blind-Man’s Bluff. I have not had my back well scrubbed since I left Longbourn. Florry is not here. And Jane is no longer available to do the job properly, so it is down to you.”

“If you insist, my dear,” Darcy said, squinting. “Lizzy, you must not laugh at me.”

“Indeed, I must!” laughed Lizzy. “Your own sister has made me promise to do so no fewer than three times a day; she says that it is an efficacious tonic for your unnatural gravity. Am I so awful to look upon?”

He took a breath and answered, “You are the most beautiful sight I have ever beheld; your naked beauty threatens to destroy me, and so I close my eyes.”

Lizzy blushed and smiled. “Take the sponge. Flatter me again, and you may wash the front as well.”

# #

Once he had further extolled her beauty — no flattery had passed his lips, since none was necessary — she had indeed allowed him to wash her front, a task to which he had committed himself most assiduously. He had so given himself to the labor, in fact, that he now found himself, clad only in a thoroughly be-sodden shirt, seated upon the edge of the large tub, his naked wife beaming catlike up at him from between his thighs. He brushed the essence of his passion from her cheek and chin. “I must go,” he sighed.

“Can you leave me so?” she pouted, pressing her chest against the insides of his legs.

“Oh, Lizzy, I must.”

“Cruel, cruel, heartless man! To swear love to me, and then to abandon me?” She trailed her fingers across his chest.

He took her hands and kissed those fingers. “It shall not be long.”

“It shall be an age. I shall grow old and die. When next you see me, I shall be a shriveled old woman with hair stark grey.” Though he knew that she was making sport, her eyes were overflowing, and it made his heart contract.

“It is but two weeks. You shall scarce notice that I am gone. Kitty and Georgiana shall keep you company.” He kissed the inside of her wrist. “And I wish nothing more than to see you, grey-haired and handsome, and still the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“Oh, Darcy, do not leave me.”

“I must, my love. Starkey is waiting with the carriage. And I must go to Harrison and get him to find me new clothes.”

“Are you the servant or the master?”

“I am a man who would not waste their labor or their time. And the sooner I am gone, the sooner I return.”

She buried her face against his stomach, and wept.

Darcy sighed, and, though he might not have admitted it, he wept a bit himself, his tears dribbling into his wife’s hair as he kissed the top of her head. “We shall write, my love. We shall write.”