Because you guys are amazing and very helpful and encouraging, I decided to turn my oneshot into a twoshot, and may even continue it. This being said, I'd like to quickly note that I'm kind of experimenting with writing Mr. Darcy, as the book itself is written pretty much from the viewpoint of Elizabeth. So bear with me. :)
Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, after some time of rather undignified tossing and turning, abruptly opened his eyes to the unfortunate conclusion that no sleep was to be found this night. His gaze blurred, the thick darkness of the room bearing down around him. Darcy sat up slowly, swinging his feet onto the floor and moving to stand by the single window. The night's sweet, clear scent calmed him.
But it did not calm the low, near indiscernible humming that had breathed beneath his skin since catching Elizabeth Bennett as she slipped only hours before.
Her hand, so small and warm, on his wrist...
He had only meant, of course, to steady her. To present a courteous elbow, a support. He had not meant to touch her, not like... like... He had not meant to feel her skin against his.
Darcy closed his eyes, ducking his head with a tightening of the mouth. His hands fell to the windowsill, body tensing. This was not the behavior of a gentleman. Control yourself, man.
Her face, alight with a small, teasing smile. Not beautiful. Not beautiful.
Darcy inhaled sharply, hands clenching from their splayed places on the wood of the sill.
"She has some power," he breathed, eyes opening to seek out the impartial moon, then falling to the wide cuffs of his white nightshirt. "Some witchery."
She was not beautiful, and he knew this to be true. Her face was plain, her figure ordinary. Her hair was not shining gold, nor lustrous black, nor even deep mahogany, but a commonplace shade of brown. She was not beautiful, and he could not banish her features from his thoughts.
At that moment, Darcy felt something frighteningly close to despair.
He raised his hand, the one she had touched, and stared at it. The long fingers, the strong wrist, the fine hairs... all of it had been tainted. Darcy's mouth, so unused to such an outburst, twisted sharply. Viciously, Darcy turned away from the window and flung the hand to his side. He strode to his bed, turned back, stood torn. Then, the movement quick and almost wild, Darcy sat down hard and let his head fall to his palms.
Do not think of her.
Do not.
It was not affection that forced her image, so taunting, into his head. Nor was it simple lust, something Darcy scorned. It was, instead, something he could not quite bring himself to define. A sort of unbalancing, a quickening of the pulse, a dizzying slope that he could feel himself slipping inexorably towards.
Darcy lifted his head, lying back, gazing upwards. He drew a breath, feeling the rapid pounding of his heart.
Elizabeth – for he could not bring himself to call her Miss Bennett, not now – fostered no such obsession, he was sure. Her eyes, when they did, fell on him with curiosity, perhaps, if not hostility. Not with the unfamiliar, unmanning vulnerability that Darcy himself could neither explain nor fully control.
By God, Darcy, you have no right to think these things.
His mouth twisted once more, but it was with a different kind of pain. Darcy felt a strange hollow sharpness in his belly as he lay in his silence, his stillness, his fractured control.
He breathed, a slowness there now, the wildness giving way to a calm that, in its way, was very nearly worse.
She was not beautiful, Elizabeth Bennett.
And whatever chains she had tricked him into, Darcy was determined he would break them.