Mr Darcy waited until the others had gone upstairs. Then he turned to Elizabeth, offering his arm once more.
He escorted her not to her old governess’s room, but to the mistress’s chambers, the beautiful suite adjoining his own, which had stood empty for so many years. The door was open, soft lamplight spilling into the corridor. Fresh flowers adorned the mantel, and the large bed had been turned down with crisp white linens.
At the threshold he paused, lifting her hand to his lips and pressing a lingering kiss to her knuckles.
“I shall return in half an hour.” His voice came low and full of promise. His dark eyes held hers, warm with love and barely restrained desire. “Will that be enough, my wife?”
Elizabeth’s breath caught at the word. She nodded, unable to speak past the sudden tightness in her throat, and watched him walk away down the corridor.
She stepped into the mistress’s chambers alone, anticipation singing in her veins.
Twenty-Five
Darcy stood in the corridor outside the mistress’s chambers, the door the only thing separating him from his wife.
His wife.
The words still felt new, sacred, too large for his chest. Two weeks of stolen kisses, heated glances, and the memory of her on his desk had done nothing to prepare him for this night. He had given her half an hour, thirty minutes of solitude to prepare, to breathe, to let the day settle around her. He had used the time: he had bathed, changed into a fresh shirt and breeches, dismissed his valet with a curt thanks, and paced the length of his own chamber with no clear thought in his head beyond the passing of each minute.
He had caught his own reflection in the glass after bathing. His hair was still damp, his mouth unguarded, his eyes bright with a brightness he did not recognise until he named it: happiness. The word had struck him strangely. He had long since stopped expecting it.
He raised his hand and knocked—two measured raps that sounded far steadier than he felt.
“Come in.”
Her voice carried through the door with the weight of a summons he had been waiting for since Hunsford. Darcy turned the handle and stepped inside.
The mistress’s chambers glowed with candlelight. A low fire murmured in the grate. Fresh flowers scented the air—roses from the garden, cut that afternoon by a maid he must remember to thank. The great four-poster bed had been turned down, the white linens crisp, the canopy drawn back on three sides to open the space.
And there, at the window, was Elizabeth.
She turned at the sound of the door.
She was in a simple white nightgown, high-necked and long-sleeved, the fabric so fine it caught the light in a soft glow and suggested, rather than declared, the body beneath. Her dark hair fell loose over one shoulder in the curls he had memorised from a thousand stolen glances. Her feet were bare on the Axminster rug.
She drew a small breath and squared her shoulders.
Darcy closed the door behind him with a click that sounded, in the hushed room, very loud. He crossed the carpet slowly, holding her gaze. He would not rush her. He had sworn a dozen silent vows over the past two weeks that this first night would belong to her as much as to him, and the form of his own desire would not be permitted to override the pace she set.
He stopped an arm’s length away.
Close enough to see the rapid rise and fall of her chest and the faint flush climbing from her throat to her cheeks. Close enough to catch the clean, familiar scent of her—lavender soap and a warmth beneath it, a scent he hadcarried in his memory since she had first passed him in a Darcy House corridor months ago, and altered the quality of his own air.
“Elizabeth.” His voice came out low and rough. “My wife.”
A small smile curved her lips. “My husband.”
The word was a vow renewed, and he felt the last steady place in his chest give way.
He reached out and lifted her hand, the one bearing his mother’s sapphire and the plain band he had placed beside them at the altar. He raised her knuckles to his mouth and pressed a kiss there.
“You are trembling,” he noted.
“So are you.”
Her fingers curled around his, and yes, his own hand was unsteady.
The restraint he had practised for months, through every midnight visit, every heated touch that had stopped short of consummation, every deliberate withdrawal, all felt paper-thin now. But this was their wedding night. She was his wife, and he would not rush her.