This is my second chapter for today. Thank you for all your comments. I've been busy writing on the plane and trusting I could upload it once we landed (I was able to). Yes, in the last chapter there was a fair amount of repetition from Chapter 7, save getting it from Darcy's POV, but now we are on to all new material. Enjoy.


16. Providing my Defense

Elizabeth's words hung in the air like a fallen leaf or a fluffy seed pod cast about by the wind, which often seems liable to touch the ground before another strong gust carries it high again. My prick withered from her assault and my brain cleared. I knew I had to answer well, that what I said now was more important than any exam at Cambridge. Its impact would last the rest of my life, and her life, too, and beyond that, would extend to the future lives of our children. Our future hung in the balance.

I desired felicity; she deserved the unvarnished truth. I was not sure what I should do, but first I had to master myself and took what seemed to be several minutes (but may have been far shorter or longer than that), to begin making my reply. But even so, during my first few sentences my voice cracked like a boy's can, when he is not yet a man.

"Elizabeth, if anything I have cared too much instead of not enough. I feared when perhaps I should have trusted, acted precipitously to gain what I desired most. I have been selfish when I normally put others' needs before my own. I have sacrificed my sister at the altar of my love."

Elizabeth shook her head when I said "love," declared "Mr. Darcy, did you not agree not to lie to me? I do not believe you can love me, for did you not declare that you did not, only two days ago? And if this be love, it is a dark and cold thing, a horror, a curse; I cannot want such selfishness directed at me. Do not attempt to justify abandoning Miss Darcy to your relatives to me; I could not, would not abandon my sisters, my mother, even Lydia and her fatherless son, save that you gave me no choice, and I had to put their comfort above my own.

"Do you not understand that you forced me to sell myself to you and though you have bound me with a ring on my finger, it may as well have been a ring around my neck as the enslaved Africans suffer when bound to a slaver ship. While, eventually, the slave might have such a ring removed after he is auctioned away, this is only because that unfortunate man now lives an ocean from the continent of his home. He will work to serve another, his short life forfeit to harvesting sugar cane, cotton and the like, his compliance enforced by lashings that rip and scar his flesh, leave a web of lines."

Elizabeth's words were like a whip, lashing me. I did not like being compared to a slave trader or master, and her to a slave, not a bit. But a little sliver of my mind was impressed with her knowledge, for the gentler sex were not to know the realities of those who worked crops in the islands and the former colonies. I wished to defend myself, but it was clear that she was far from done.

"You have taken away all my choices, and you want me to rejoice in this? I shall never love you, it is impossible to love one's captor, one's master. Anyone who claims love in such a situation simply seeks advantages, believed feigning such affection will lead to an easier life. When a female slave is made to serve her master's physical appetites, even as she submits and says words she has learned to praise him, she prays that he shall favor her by not selling her son away, spare her hot days in the field, not force her to service his foreman and son besides.

"My captivity may have the trappings of respectability, but it is a trap, nevertheless. While I shall not chew off my paw as a bear might to get free, do not expect me to thank you for being bound thus, to return love for your evil. I shall not embarrass you, shall play the role of the dutiful wife, give you the respect before others due you because of our marriage, give over my body to your possession, bear your children, but my love is not for sale. Oh, if I might have known that marriage to your cousin were but an option, that I might have been happy."

I responded, "Do not question my love. It is true. I have raged and fought against it this past year, thought it conquered, mastered, bound, put in a coffin and buried deep in the ground. But it would not stay there. The coffin has burst forth like a flower bulb shoot pushes up through the dirt in the spring. I lied to myself, lied to you, although I thought it the truth, believed all that remained was attraction and desire. But I can deny it no more.

"I have no wish to be a slaver, hold you in captivity. I wish to give you everything, for you to have all the luxuries you deserve, to have silk gowns, jewels, hundreds of walking paths, the finest piano, dishes by the dozens, beeswax candles enough to make your parlor seem as day, every book you could ever desire, the grandest carriage for yourself. I wish to treat you as a queen, give you everything."

Elizabeth shook her head, "These are not things I desire. What use have I for gown and jewels? I only want to keep my family."

I nodded, "I may have been too hasty in my strictures, but it must be carefully done. No larger tarnish do I wish to attach to you or your family. What we do now can even impact the acceptance to be given to our children and grandchildren. While the company of Miss Bennet, Miss Mary and Miss Catherine might not cause too much harm . . . I am afraid we can never receive your youngest sister. Lady Catherine has been freely bandying what befell her about, and will likely do worse once she learns we have married.

"While, it is true that Richard might have come and asked to marry you, he could have done little for your family and your marriage itself might have cost him his expectation. Too, while he professed a fondness, perhaps even a love for you, I am convinced he was more in love with the idea of rescuing you from penury than with you yourself.

"While in general, Richard is an amiable, pleasant fellow, you have only seen him at his best and not his worst. I fear he might have come to resent you. Living simply was never his desire, and I have seen him strike his horse hard when displeased, bruise his knuckles on a wall when angry. While his temper is not such that I would warn a woman off of marrying him, and he generally remains under good regulation, the pressures of a diminished life, the strain of your family's sunk reputation might cause resentments and frustrations. In a word, marriage to him might not lead to happiness for you.

"Too, I fear his understanding of the world is not equal to your own. He cares little for knowledge for its own sake, is of a rather practical bent. Yes, he reads books about military strategy, about horse flesh, but for how such knowledge can be applied. He does not enjoy a sonnet, likes music for distraction's sake, does not appreciate the beauty of nature. The horrors of war necesitate he rely on strong drink most nights to get to sleep. He is not a bad fellow, no more than Sir William Lucas or Bingley is a bad fellow, but I fear he would bore you after a time.

"Yes, Richard's declaration that he would pursue you spurred me on, but I had long anticipated, considered, desired, wished to seek you out. Truly, I thought there was time to let the scandal lessen, that things were not so dire.

"The largest obstacle in my way was my sister; I put her happiness before my own. I considered taking John's advice to take you as a mistress, not because that was my desire, but because the higher circles could have accepted that much more easily (should it become known), than my marrying you. It would have spared my sister much. But when I talked to Georgiana about you, she (good and kind young woman that she is) . . . she saw what I could not, that I loved you. She, herself, decided to remain with the earl and countess, to distance herself from me even though it would cost us both dearly.

"Yes, I wanted to secure you before Richard might, but only because I believed such would be better for all of us, that I could provide for you and your family better than he could, that any disappointment he might suffer would be short-lived. For his inclination toward you could be washed away by attempting to write you a single sonnet.

"As for me, I have filled a whole journal with verse about you, have acted the lovesick fool even as I denied it to myself. Among odes to your beauty and spirit, have been dirges, sorrowful ballads and even some lambasts directed toward Wickham, your parents and Colonel Forster. Through odes I have cursed the follies of youth, Wickham's capricious and opportunistic nature. I think no one could have thought about you more. For a year I have mourned the death of what I thought could never be, first because of you rejecting me, and then due to your sister's downfall."

Elizabeth gave a single nod, a nod that did not seem to be agreement so much as permission for me to continue.

"As for my desires, I will not apologize for wishing and wanting to become one flesh with you. It is only natural that a man should desire his wife, the woman that he loves. I will admit to getting rather carried away just now, had never even considered that you would think I was treating you like to how Wickham treated your sister. I have never thought of you as a trollup. You are more precious than rubies.

"I can accept that given how our marriage came about, that any desire you might feel for me will not be equal to my own, but," and at this point I lowered myself off the backwards facing seat onto my knees in the much too narrow aisle, and held her near hand in my own, placed a single kiss upon her knuckles, "dearest, darling Elizabeth, I do wish to serve you, to please you. Please, tonight, let me please you. I shall seek no pleasure but your own, save should you grant me permission."

Elizabeth's brow crinkled in what I thought might be consternation, but she did not snatch her hand from my own and even seemed to squeeze it lightly. It was not a "yes," but neither was it a "no." I wished to kiss that crinkle away, remove the pins and flowers from her hair, touch her curls. I longed to see all of her, in her glory, to worship at her womanhood with my tongue, my hands. I told myself Perhaps I may do all of that tonight. I believed, even as my long-suffering member sprang forth again at this thought, that I might have a chance to turn everything around.


A/N: How will Elizabeth react? Is Darcy being overly optimistic here? Did he really understand her? Tell me now, before I write the next chapter.