Concerto by Cora Aston

Author:Cora Aston [Aston, Cora]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A Longbourn Lady
Published: 2019-07-20T04:00:00+00:00

She was beautiful.

The room was full of fashionable ladies, many of them highly accomplished. Beauties hailed by society. Elizabeth drew his eye every time. If he stared at her long enough, she might look his way and—there. The faintest flicker in her inscrutable facade. A crack in armor that echoed his own. No one else would understand it for what it was, but he knew.

She drifted into the crowd as he made his way across the room, but his sister was keeping track of his movements. Georgiana glanced at him once, then conveniently drew away the ladies currently engaged in conversation. Leaving the field open.

He meant only to claim a dance, but now as she stared up at him, he thought she might be offering him much more.

“Erasure was not quite what I had in mind,” Darcy said. “In fact, the word is far too permanent. Quench, sate. . .those are better choices.”

“When I entered society as Elise Benichou, I made a gamble.” She spoke as if to herself.

Darcy lifted a brow. “And you are prepared for another one?”

She finally placed her hand in his. “I think I must.”

Four words, uttered so softly but with such vehemence. Darcy hesitated. He was not a child nor an innocent. He knew what she was gifting him, in her discreet way. Her play with words, necessitated by the fact that they were standing far too close, and in the middle of some of the loosest tongues in society. Elizabeth might not realise they were being watched, but he knew better.

“Come,” he said. “A turn in the library.”

They skirted the edges of the room, Darcy slipping out before Elizabeth, who had stayed behind to converse with an acquaintance. The delay served to disconnect their movements in the minds of any who might be paying attention. Rather than grimacing with distaste at the thought of being the subject of lurid speculation, Darcy realized the tension in his thighs and abdomen, the beat of blood in his temple mimicked the rising fervor of a hunter prepared to start the long chase of his wily prey.

Eventually she joined him where he lurked in the hallway and they made their way towards the library. In silence.

As they cleared the part of his home where one might expect to run into a guest, his hand settled onto the small of her back and he diverted their path. Past the library, up stairs, toward the suite where no woman had ever stepped foot, not even his sister.

The suite where he had sat, shoulders slumped, many a night. There were emotions a man could not show his family, despair he could not reveal without causing the gentler hearts of female relatives distress. Times he had questioned the purpose of his existence—Georgiana could run Pemberley as well as he, and their household staff guarded their duty ferociously.

“Darcy,” she said in her low, husky voice as he placed a hand on his door.

He paused, turning to her. She met his eyes briefly, then looked away.

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