Thank you for your patience. If you are also reading My Greatest Regret, you know I've been posting on that story and have been on vacation. I appreciate very much that in the meantime I've continued to get follows, favorites and reviews of this story. But you've waited so long for an update here, so I hope this satisfies.


15. My Folly

As we rode in the carriage wending our way to my London home, I kissed Elizabeth, my wife with an urgency that only seemed to grow. At first my mind was subsumed beneath a deep quintessence; as if it were unconscious, inside a body pulled under water weighted with heavy stones. But then it began to resurface, warned me that I needed to remember what Marie had taught me about pleasing a woman.

While my tongue continued delving into Elizabeth's mouth, I took my right hand off her face, tracing her neck, collar bone, the soft dip in-between and her firm breastbone covered by soft skin. I let my hand circle the junction of where her breast joined her body, spiraling inward. I imagined the curving path I would take to climb it, were it Oakham Mount or one of the peaks, but avoided the summit, switching my hand to the other. If, at times, the jostling of the carriage caused a franker touch than the gentle, tantalizing touch I had in mind, that did not bother me.

Marie had taught me that desire can be most effectively stoked by stopping short of what is desired most, and I tried to use that knowledge to wake the passion that I was convinced slumbered within my wife. As I continued to kiss Elizabeth's lips, to drink from her mouth, I returned my hand to her first breast, only now daring to brush her nipple with my thumb for a moment before giving her other nipple equal attention for a similar interval.

Oh what joy I felt in knowing I could touch Elizabeth there anytime I wished it! I was not long content with my hand's absence from those summits of the topography of my wife's body; no I was determined to make them pebble, to have a physical confirmation of her desire. I could not imagine that she was fully indifferent to my ministrations for all that she lay still and passive.

I rubbed at one nipple until it stiffed and then the other, until they were twins, as I kissed down Elizabeth's neck. Still she remained silent, neither resisting or encouraging.

My desperation began to grow. Oh how much I needed her, but oh how unwilling I was to seize that which was mine like this! Still, I had hope that even if she might never grow to love me, that I would at least be able to rouse a passion within her. I wanted her to welcome me into her bed, rather than simply endure.

I paused for a moment to consider. Could it be that she was waiting for me to admit my weakness? I declared (in a much too loud and much too anguished tone), "Oh Elizabeth, my Elizabeth, oh how I need you!"

But my declaration was met with silence, so I determined to redouble my efforts. I had always sensed that Elizabeth had a sensual nature; I believed I only had to get her to unleash it.

I lowered my lips to her skin once more, kissing along the neckline of her gown which gently cupped her dugs, as I as squeezed her breast, worked one nipple and then the other two a harder point. Was this not then proof of how her body needed mine? Still, still, not a sound did she make!

I was stubborn, determined. I would make her want me! I traced her belly, flat yet soft, imagined it swelling with my child, first a little bump, growing larger until when naked her dairy would rest upon that large hill of gravid flesh. I imagined holding my unborn child with my hands spanning the front of her womb as I took her from behind, I would slide my hand down and my fingers would reach and then trace the spot of her pleasure as I slid in and out. She would grunt, moan and declare, "Oh yes, my love, right there."

I longed to pull my wife's dress down at the top, or lift it up from the bottom, but knew I should not do either, not without some tangible sign that such would be welcomed. But oh how hard it was to resist as my member throbbed, my recent self-attentions all but forgotten. He remembered the joy to be gained from the wet embrace of a woman's cuny and how I had denied him such for many a year.

I commanded him "down" in my mind, but like a disobedient dog, he reveled in doing the opposite. He brushed against her, a dog nudging his head under a hand, seeking to be pet.

I ignored my cock thereafter, kissing up to the base of Elizabeth's neck before lifting myself up to study her face, seeking a sign. Although silent, in the light that came in from the carriage curtains, I could see she breathed rather quickly for one lying down, that her eyes had darkened, that her cheeks were rosy. She was not, then, as unaffected as she pretended to be.

Still, I needed to know for sure. I pleaded, "Tell me how much you desire me."

Elizabeth said naught.

I shifted myself against Elizabeth, pressing my member against her leg, willing her to acknowledge my longing for her, to take pity on me. I begged again, "Tell me, tell me now, Elizabeth, Elizabeth Darcy," (I emphasized her married name, to remind her that desire was now sanctioned, natural, and proper), "how much you desire me, how much you want to be my wife in all ways."

But instead of hearing the desired words, or even a simple "yes," a nod, something, Elizabeth closed her eyes. I understood then, that despite having gained my husbandly rights, I had not gained her soul. I could not, would not have her this way. Although my chest felt tight, my eyes wet, I swallowed the enormous lump that had formed in my throat, groaned in protest, and removed myself from temptation by lifting myself off her and seating myself in the opposite seat.

There could be but one explanation for her reticence: Elizabeth sought to punish me for my prior lack of candor. Perhaps she truly had preferred my cousin to me. I asked "How angry are you? Why do you hold back from letting me please you?"

My wife opened her eyes, sat up and looked at me as if I were a disgusting bit of horse dung clinging to her shoe. Then in a cold voice, she began her reply, and I think it would have been easier to have faced all of Napoleon's army with no weapon than to listen to the words that then spilled out of her, a flooding river that poured over me.

"Do you really wish to know, Mr. Darcy, or do you want me to pretend so as to please your ego? Do you wish for absolution despite having not a care as to what you have done to me? Should I flatter you, make you believe that suddenly I am in love with you, despite the fact that the modicum of goodwill I felt toward you and all you have done for my family was crushed under the revelation of your most selfish act? Tell me what you would have me do?"

Oh how her eyes flashed and oh how clearly she enunciated each word and how terrible they all were, yet how much I admired her spirit and vigor, even as I was crushed beneath them, though she had barely begun!

"My recollection is that you did not demand my eager participation the first time or two, that in our negotiations it was resolved that we might have some honesty betwixt us, when we are alone. Did you ever mean to honor our understanding, or did you simply agree so that I might consent to tie my life to yours?

"Did you return to Meryton to propose simply because you could not countenance your cousin possibly succeeding where you had failed? Was I simply a pawn in some almost sibling rivalry, a discarded bone that only becomes appealing when another dog seeks to claim it? If Colonel Fitzwilliam expressed no interest in me, would you have ever deigned to ask for my hand? Had you any concern for me and mine before? Arrogant, insufferable man, have you damned us all to abject misery all for the sake of winning?

"And to think, you were planning on taking me in this carriage, as if I were a common trollop rather than your wife. Was this designed to humiliate me, in re-enacting what Mr. Wickham did to Lydia, in their hired conveyance on the road to London? Were you seeking to prove me no better than her? Did you want to make sure I knew how little value I have to you? Would you want your driver, your valet to hear our coupling? Did you want my maiden's blood spilled upon the seat, a sort of souvenir to hold over me? Why have you done all of this to me?"

Oh how much Elizabeth's angry words and insinuations pierced and wounded me, and oh how many self incriminations I had against myself then! I felt an abject desperation, felt certain her speech had been heard by my coachman and my valet, but still knew her to be magnificent and was unwilling even then to let her go. I might die a thousand deaths at her lips, but I could not deny to myself how much I loved her then.


A/N: Well that's where I've got to leave it now. I am eager to hear your reactions. I hope to write the next chapter this weekend.