Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley in Derbyshire looked at his wife and sighed. Her beauty had long since faded – not that age had any part in that. In fact, Darcy was very convinced that if you asked any man in the county if his wife was a beauty they would have fallen over themselves singing her praises even now as she was full with child. For him, however, his wife was a reminder of everything he couldn't have, a constant reminder of the thing he desired more than any other in the world, the thing that was just at his fingertips, the thing he couldn't have. But more than all of that, she was a reminder of his greatest mistake.

When Fitzwilliam Darcy had married Felicity James, his rationale had been solid enough. His sister needed a woman in her life who could show her the grace and elegance of proper society. She needed a role model and a friend. Felicity had always been so wonderful to Georgie. They had been close and she was someone Georgie had confided in. Of course now they barely spoke and Georgie was close to tears every time Felicity was in the same room. Georgie didn't play piano anymore and while no one would tell him the story, it had happened when he had left the pair of them on their own for a week and he just knew it was Felicity's fault.

His second reason was that Pemberley was in need of a mistress. Mrs. Reynolds had run it well enough and looking back, he should have seen that his beloved housekeeper ran his home better than any wife could have. Sorry. Ex-housekeeper. Felicity had been too particular, had changed so much and when she recommended throwing out his mother's favorite chair Mrs. Reynolds had had enough. She quit, leaving him with only his wife to manage the house. Felicity had been so kind as to gift Mrs. Reynolds the chair upon her departure and he was certain that the lady in question took great comfort with the familiar furnishing of her beloved mistress rather than "resent the piece which got her fired" as he had later heard his wife gloat over the affair with her personal maid. Darcy had gotten physically sick at that and had to get away from the woman for a short while. He had taken up his friend Bingley's offer to come stay with him at his new estate, a place he was leasing in Hertfordshire.

That was where he met her. In the end, it was everything Miss Elizabeth Bennet was that showed in stark contrast all that Felicity Darcy, nèe James was most certainly not.

Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley in Derbyshire was an honorable man. His peers, upon growing bored with their wives, took up their needs with women they could compensate for their time but even as he grew to hate his wife, Darcy knew he could never be that man. He would never buy love and he would never dishonor his wife in such a way. He had loved her once, after all. Or so he had thought. Until Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley in Derbyshire fell in love.

She was a country miss. Her family was appalling. He was married. He had a duty to his wife and more so, a duty to his sister to keep the honor of her last name so pure and wholesome that she could marry where she chose. (So that she would not be as miserable as he was, he told himself sometimes when he had imbibed a few drinks and was being particularly honest with himself.) He had gone away, but not before, in one of those alcohol fueled honest moments, he had begged Bingley to marry the girl that would make him happy, not the one that would bring him greater wealth and connections. Hours after this heart filled monologue, Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley in Derbyshire had fled into the night. He had returned home a week later, quiet, miserable, and never to take to his wife's bed again. What did it matter? She had given him a son (Victor, because apparently his centuries long family tradition of naming firstborn sons their mother's maiden name was laughable to her.) and was expecting again. She was in confinement around Easter which meant she would not be able to take their annual trip to Rosings Park but encouraged her husband to go anyway. For the first time he could remember, Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley in Derbyshire, was excited to go to his Aunt Catherine's.

That excitement turned to an even mixture of ecstasy and anguish the moment he heard her announced. Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourne in Hertfordshire. Looking into her eyes as she played piano, her fingers moving nimbly over the keys, he found himself telling her that his sister used to play but had been discouraged by someone close to her and had henceforth lost her passion for it. He didn't tell anyone that. When asked by those who knew Georgie and her passion for music well, he simply noted that she preferred painting and had decided to spend her time perfecting her skills in that arena. Miss Elizabeth had smiled up at him and said, "If it is sincerely her passion she will return. I find it is impossible to truly leave behind something one loves so completely. And when she finds her way back, her doting brother must encourage her as much as he can to counteract any discouraging remarks." She had turned back to her keys then but was not finished speaking. "My fingers do not move over these keys as skillfully as others but I enjoy the music as well as the making of it. Perhaps she need not worry so about her performance as her enjoyment." Fitzwilliam Darcy felt his heart throb as she spoke. The country miss, caring more about his sister's – a girl she had never met – enjoyment of her art than in the accomplishments of a young lady that Felicity had harangued Georgie about when she lapsed on her practicing of one of the skills Felicity found wanting in her.

Days later he had run into her on her morning walk. (No one could blame him of doing so on purpose could they?) They had chatted amiably and he found himself extoling all of Pemberley's beauties to her. This led to the realization that he wished to show her Pemberley for himself. He wished to lead her through the gardens, show her the hidden pathways, and he desperately wished to know what she would think of the few rooms left with his mother's furnishings. As their morning walks became an unspoken agreement between the two he found himself wondering what would have happened had he been unmarried upon venturing to Hertfordshire. Would he have been able to convince such a charming gem to marry him? Would he have been able to get her to fall in love with him? She had been one of the first people in Hertfordshire to befriend him. He knew he came off as cold and standoffish. (He was just shy!) His wife always did the talking in town, though he knew that in a country group like this, she wouldn't do much more than gossip endlessly with that annoying Caroline Bingley. (Elton. Caroline Elton, he had to remind himself. She had married soon after Bingley's engagement. He supposed she didn't want to let her brother's marriage to a country miss ruin her chances and had landed on a man quickly – with Felicity's support of course. Elton had been his acquaintance before the chap had ever met Caroline.) The point was, that Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley knew how others perceived him. And yet she gave him a chance. (He thinks very much that it had something to do with his sneaking off during the ball to read a book she later admitted was one of her favorites. She had caught him hiding in the shadows with Milton's Paradise Lost when she had stepped outside for some air. She had been about to say something when she caught site of the book at which point she looked up at him with wonder. Before either could speak, the sounds of approaching footsteps rang out and instead of giving him up, she had simply smiled mischievously and headed off the bothersome Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst before they too could stumble upon him. From then on they engaged in intelligent conversation with each meeting and found that they shared many of the same interests. It wasn't long until Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley in Derbyshire, married man, was in love with Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourne in Hertfordshire, young, vibrant maiden with a thousand prospects before her. It wasn't long after that, he convinced his young friend to follow his heart just before fleeing from his own. A week later, his wife told him she was expecting and he put his fist through a wall, miserably wishing that a different young lady had just told him she was carrying his child. And we all know it isn't long afterwards that the hero and heroine of this story (and many others) find themselves walking together each morning through Rosings Park, talking, laughing and falling desperately and madly in love with the other.

This, dear reader, is where the story truly begins. Sit back, relax, and hold onto your feels as Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley in Derbyshire and Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourne in Hertfordshire tell us their tale.


I had to go back. I had stretched this trip on longer than I should have. Fitzwilliam was barely speaking to me and my child was due in less than a week. Like it or not, I had to go to my wife. Not home. That place hadn't been home for me for a very long time. In fact, I found myself quite without a place to call home, these days. The lanes and trails in Rosings Park, perhaps? After all, they were filled with her, and what could be more 'home' than that? Her hand rested lightly on my arm as I escorted her around the duck pond for the fourth time now. Did she realize we'd been going in circles? Or was she as pleasantly distracted by the conversation and company as I?

"Miss Elizabeth," I began, nervous for her reaction. "I'm afraid I must alert you of my imminent departure." Her gate slowed and her brow was furrowed. But what did that mean?! Damn. I was horrible at reading her emotions. I never understood…I just wanted to understand her. To know everything about her. To read her and know her as well as my parents knew and understood one another with no more than a glance at the other's expression.

"How imminent?" she asked after a moment of contemplation.

"Tomorrow morning."

"So soon!" She exclaimed without thought. After a moment, she composed herself. "Indeed, Mr. Darcy. That is a rather sudden change. May I ask what has prompted it? Nothing is wrong, I hope."

"Not at all. In fact I was meant to leave weeks ago." A month. I was meant to leave 5 and a half weeks ago. "I extended my stay at the behest of my aunt who wished my help with estate matters." Not really. I stayed to spend more time with you. I stayed for you.

"You are an attentive nephew. Mr. Collins is often extolling your praises, sir." A glint of humor flashed through her eyes and she smiled. "In fact I am quite surprised you haven't been able to hear him all the way up at Rosings." I smiled.

"Was that what that tedious buzzing noise was this morning?" I exclaimed, playing along. "And all this time I thought there was a bee following me about."

"A tedious bee, indeed." She teased, smiling. God but I loved her smile. "So your aunt's work for you is finished, then? Her worker bee is now flying away from his queen?" More than you know.

"I must depart. It cannot be put off any longer. My cousin is impatient to depart and I am cutting it quite close to the ending of my wife's confinement. I don't suppose she would be terribly happy with me were I to miss our child's birth." The words came out bitterly but not so much as I felt them. Felicity's child. Were it Eliza- Miss Elizabeth's child I wouldn't have left her side for the whole of her pregnancy. If Elizabeth were mine I would not ever leave her side. We walked in silence for a few more steps before she stopped suddenly and turned her head away from me.

"Miss Elizabeth, what is it?" I asked, instantly worried. When she turned back I froze. Tears were dripping down her cheek.

"Forgive me, Mr. Darcy. I don't know what's come over me." Instantly I passed her my handkerchief and she took it, dabbing at her tears.

"Tell me of your troubles Elizabeth." I breathed, hardly believing I had spoken my thoughts aloud. She looked up at me.

"I am a very foolish girl." She said simply. "I have acted in a foolish manner and I am embarrassed so I cry. Forgive me, Mr. Darcy."

"You are many things, Elizabeth. But foolish could never be one of them."

"Very foolish." She insisted. "Improper, too. If your aunt knew she would be scandalized and I would be thrown out of Kent." She tried to joke, forcing a smile.

"And so you would return to Hertfordshire in shame then?" I said, trying to pick up on the tone of her teasing now and failing slightly. I didn't know what she was getting at. I couldn't understand why she would cry.

"No." She insisted, forging ahead at a brisk pace and carrying her head high. "No they know me far too well there. They would see what a foolish, improper little girl I'd been and they would laugh at me. No. I shall simply have to quit the country entirely. Perhaps a journey to Spain or Portugal would do well. I could learn Portuguese. What would you think of my speaking Portuguese, Mr. Darcy?"

"I should think you would do the language a great service." I answered honestly. "Of course if you were to learn Portuguese I should have to bring you to Derbyshire at once to teach it to me and my household so that we could still write letters to you after you have quit the King's English altogether." She looked at her feet as we walked and I pretended not to hear as she sniffled.

"To your home, sir?" She asked, quietly. "So that I could teach you, and your sister, and your wife?" Was it my imagination or did her voice break ever so slightly when she had mentioned my wife.

"Very likely my wife would have no wish to learn the language." I replied truthfully once more.

"A proper lady then. She shall speak French and all the other modern languages and all the while you shall all be thoroughly amused by my speaking only Latin and Portuguese." She was crying again.

"Elizabeth," I began. How on earth could she not call herself a proper lady? How could she place someone as vapid and horrendously inferior to her as my wife in such a place of honor in comparison to herself? For surely that was what was meant in her brief dialog.

"No, Mr. Darcy. You are correct. What a picture we would make. Though I suppose that your sister would be horribly miserable being subjected to these lingual wars we would wage, one tongue against another and I would be a terrible imposition upon your family in that way. So you see. It is best I tell you nothing of my foolishness so that it can never get back to Lady Catherine and I am free to visit my dear friend Charlotte whenever the fancy strikes me." A smile was once again forced onto her face, shining through her tears. I gripped her arm and pulled her back.

"Elizabeth. Tell me. What is it?" She blinked a few times, clearing the tears away and looked up at me, misery emanating from her.

"I've gone and fallen in love." My heart clenched. No. This day was sure to come. The day she fell for some fop who didn't deserve her and I had to watch as she was married to him and had his children. I would die. In that moment I knew that if I had to watch this happen I would die. "What could be more foolish than that? And what's more he doesn't love me back. How could he? He is smart and educated and from the highest echelon of the Ton. He is charming, and handsome and admirably tall which all men should strive to be if possible. He is everything. And a man like that wouldn't hazard more than a glance at me." It was Fitzwilliam. She was in love with my cousin and she felt he, the son (Second son! He wasn't even to inherit the title!) of an Earl wouldn't look her way. As though she didn't deserve better than he. As though she didn't deserve everything. "As I said. I am an incredibly foolish girl." She turned and began to walk away. "And even if by some chance he considered me worthy he could not for I've been so very foolish and improper as to fall in love with a married man." I froze. "There, Mr. Darcy. I knew I would shock you. Though as you are about to leave Kent I do ask that you don't kick me out as well. I should rather like to stay until the end of the week at least before I return. Mama will be in the midst of planning Jane's wedding and I don't think I want to be too close while she's-" My lips cut her off before she could finish the sentence.

Bliss. That was all I could describe this moment as. Her lips were soft against mine and moments after she realized what was happening she was kissing me back. (!) Her lips were moving against mine and her small, lithe body was pressed up against my chest, warm and soft. My arms slipped around her back and I held her close, pressing into her. Her hands reached up and held my neck, pulling me to her, her fingers playing gently with my hair. It was me. She loved me. Suddenly she was no longer pulling me to her but shoving me back. I stumbled away, my lips red and swollen from hers, my heart breaking as she stepped away from me.

"What are you doing?" She hissed. "You're married! You have a wife! She's about to give birth to your child!"

"I love you." I told her. "I've loved you for a very long time and I've been cursing God above for allowing me to marry Felicity before I ever had the chance to meet you. It was a marriage of convenience. I needed a mistress for my home, my sister needed a companion, a friend, someone to show her how to be a lady. I had just let go of her companion Mrs. Younge who had been stealing Georgiana's trinkets and selling them for extra cash. I thought a wife would solve my problems. I never knew…I never realized that I could feel like this. Had I known what love was I would have waited for eternity to find you Elizabeth. I love you. I…" I closed my eyes. "I love you. But I wouldn't for a moment wish to ruin your chances at happiness by ruining you with a discovered kiss." I stepped back, tears welling in my own eyes. Why God? How was this fair? To send such utter perfection to me, to send my true soul mate to me and to force me to keep her at arm's length. "You are my best friend, Elizabeth." I said truthfully. "I would never do anything to hurt you."

"I have long since considered you my best friend, Mr. Darcy." She began. "But lately…" She trailed off. "It is as I said. I am in love with a man I can never have. What am I to do, Mr. Darcy?"

"Fitzwilliam." I begged.

"What?"

"Please, call me Fitzwilliam. I need to hear you say my name, just once. Please."

"Fitzwilliam." She sighed. I closed my eyes. God but if that wasn't the greatest sound in the universe: The woman I loved sighing my name out having told me moments before that she loved me too. God was a cruel deity to bring me so close to heaven only to make me stand outside the gates, watching what could have been play out in my mind a thousand times. "What are we to do? We are meant to be together I am certain of it and yet it is impossible."

"Elizabeth,"

"Lizzy." She insisted. "If I am to call you Fitzwilliam I must hear you call me Lizzy."

"Lizzy." I smiled. "My Lizzy." She closed her eyes, crying and smiling all at once. I reached out my hand to brush away a stray tear and brought the offending water droplet to my lips, tasting it. She looked at me in wonder and I at her.

I couldn't say who moved first but the next moment brought her into my arms once more, her lips on mind, her hands gripping my hair tightly. I pulled her to my chest and kissed her passionately. I slid out my tongue to caress the bottom of her lip and she stilled slightly, opening her lips for me as though she was experimenting with this new sensation. When I slid my tongue along the edge of hers she moaned into my mouth and opened her lips further, experimenting with her own tongue on mine. I shivered. Never before had something felt so good, so right. She was the one I was meant to be with, I was sure of it. I moved my lips off hers (taking great pride in the protesting whimper she made at the loss) and relocated them to her neck. I sucked, licked, nipped at her soft skin, burring my face in the crook. I could smell her hair, something almost floral about it, and taste her skin and it was beginning to be too much for me. It had been a long time and certain anatomical parts were…ahem…excited…at this sensory overload. I could feel myself getting harder and harder and I knew that in a moment I would have to pull back so as not to scare her or ruin this moment by cheapening it. I loved her. She deserved my love. I couldn't ruin my beloved. I would have to take care of matters on my own later. A rustling noise from the bushes behind me startled us and we both sprang apart, instantly fixing our appearances, half formed explanations of falling down the nearby hill rising to my lips before a small rabbit hopped into the clearing. We both looked at each other and laughed. Slowly she returned to my side, taking my hand in hers, our fingers interwoven.

"We can't do that again." She said, her tone conveying her grief at the sentiment. I nodded.

"I'll not be the ruination of you." She looked up at me sadly.

"Don't you know? You've already ruined me for all other men. How could they live up to you?" I closed my eyes and kissed her forehead.

"As have you for me, my darling Lizzy."

"Go." She said suddenly. "Go back to your wife. If we drag this out it will only be harder and harder to leave. Go back to her, raise your son." She sighed. "Forget about me, Fitzwilliam." She stepped back and disappeared, crying into the foliage. "Forget about me."

I sighed. "Never."


Author's Note: What do you think so far? This is the first time writing fanfiction that I've actually plotted out this far ahead...I'm not sure if that means I will be updating more frequently or if my story will have fewer plot holes or what but I actually have a plan! Yay! This chapter is rated T however that is going to change either with the next chapter or the one after that so be sure to change your filter settings if you are searching for this...or better yet...just follow it! Then you'll know if there's an update! (see what I did there...hehehe) This is going to get pretty smutty so if you aren't here for that...sorry. Try a different fic! I hope that you all enjoy reading this and I would love to hear what you think! If you have advice, suggestions, critique, whatever, please review or PM me. I am open to commentary of any kind - positive or negative - because I truly am trying to improve my writing and criticism helps with that! Hope to hear from all of you!