Mr. Darcy and Mrs. Fitzwilliam: a Pride and Prejudice variation by Valerie Lennox

Author:Valerie Lennox [Lennox, Valerie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Punk Rawk Books
Published: 2021-10-22T04:00:00+00:00

PART FOUR

12

DARCY DID NOT share a bed with Elizabeth that night, though he did kiss her again after dinner, when they were sitting together around the fire sipping wine. He wanted her again. He would always want her. However, he determined that he must attempt to stay strong and that having her over and over again would likely blind his judgment toward the entire enterprise.

They had planned to stay here with each other for a long weekend, and he had thought they would be spending the time plotting out how and when they would be married, perhaps planning what their married life together might be.

That they were not doing this wounded him, and he could not deny that it did.

Elizabeth was also wounded. He could see that she was disappointed when he did not bed her again, but that night she said nothing about it.

It was the following afternoon, sometime after luncheon, that they discussed it, and he tried to explain himself to her.

“If I am with you again, I will grow even further attached to you,” he said.

“And you don’t wish to be attached to me?” She shook her head at him. “But what do you think would happen if we got married? You confuse me greatly, sir.”

So, he was ‘sir,’ was he? Why had she resorted to formality? Perhaps it was best if there was a bit of distance between them, however. “No, of course I wish to be attached to you, but if we are married, it is safe, do you understand that?”

“I don’t at all. It is not safe. There is nothing safe about marriage.”

“There is,” he said. “I am assured of having you forever. If we are married, we are tied together in the eyes of the law. You have made a binding commitment to me, and I to you.”

“Precisely what I want to avoid,” she said.

He paused, thinking that through. He supposed that she must have felt trapped in her marriage to Richard, with his drinking and his jealousy, and this might offer some trepidation to her.

“Attend to me, Fitz, because I think I realize something,” she said. “We are both afraid of the same thing. You think that our feelings might fade and that I might jilt you, breaking your heart. You think that marrying me will assure that my feelings don’t change, but there is no assurance of that.”

He blinked. Perhaps she was right. He sighed heavily.

“I am also afraid that our feelings will change,” she said. “Either yours or mine. But don’t you see? If this happens, the better thing to be would be for us to be free to move on with our lives afterwards. For what it’s worth, I don’t think it would happen. I think we would be happy together, and I think it might be a very long-lasting happiness.”

“But then, if you think so, why not marry me?’

“Because marriage poisons things. It makes our union about other things besides our love. It brings finance and estates and children and all manner of responsibilities into it.

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