As Darcy perambulated up the stairs, they swayed unsteadily beneath him and he was grateful to have the railing to cling to. By the time he stumbled into his room and collapsed upon the bed, perspiration had broken out upon his forehead, causing him to fear he was becoming ill. That would be a mortification. It was abominable enough to admit to a little inebriation, but to be so conspicuously subjugated by intoxicants was indefensible. It was never acceptable to be out of one’s wits. Especially amongst strangers. In another country. In war.

He eschewed the dressing room, for he had a matter upon which to attend (this is what he told himself, but actually he feared he might stumble and did not want even an anonymous servant to observe him in such a condition). Therefore, tossing off his jacket and wrenching free of his collar, he sat at the escritoire and fumbled for some parchment in a drawer, yet of the mind if he behaved soberly it would demand it of his body. But as he unsuccessfully endeavoured to focus upon the paper to write, he realised his lucidity was far too compromised to produce a coherent letter and he decided to abandon it until morning.

Picking up Elizabeth’s picture, he attempted to focus upon that. When he failed at that as well, he ceded defeat. However unwise, he poured another glass of wine and lay back against the pillows, promising it was just for a minute. To let his head clear. That minute and several more did not improve his mind. His head swam. When the headiness of the drink rendered him into sleep, the glass he held dropped from his fingers and the wine spilled across his stomach and ran down his side, soaking the bedclothes. The wetness did not awaken him from his desultory dreams. Or what he thought were dreams. In some percipient limbo, he was uncertain what was conscious thought and which were actual dreams; they became confused in the tumult of his mind. He slept, awoke, thereupon slept again.

It was not surprising he thought (or dreamed) of Juliette, for he fancied he could yet smell the fragrance from her skin. Although she had crossed his mind, he had not truly thought of her since he fell in love with Elizabeth. He should have, for as much as he would like not to recollect it, she once played a particularly provocative role in his life.

It had not been an affair of the heart. There may have been some fondness, but he never once forgot his own station or hers. She was a lover but not a mistress, for exclusivity would be required. It was, was he to admit it to himself, a friendship. One in which a great deal of flesh was exchanged.

He suspected that she would have seen him without compensation. It was he who insisted upon it. For without compensation, an attachment might have occurred. He enjoyed her time, but he did not want the attachment. He wanted to be able to do what he had done when he fell in love with Elizabeth. He walked away. No promises were broken, no attachment was there to linger on.

Thenceforward of the morning he had confessed his past connexion with Juliette to Elizabeth, he was ridded of the necessity of guilt over it. That burden was given to Elizabeth to carry. It was she who must find reason and understanding, not he. In fortune he knew, for had Elizabeth been with another before she met him, to think of it might provoke him to run mad. Unreasonable. Unconscionable. But true.

With that understanding, the magnitude of the blunder he had just committed overtook him like a sudden cloudburst. He had just bid a former lover of his to carry a letter to Elizabeth. It had seemed so reasonable at the time. But how might he feel if a former lover of Elizabeth’s brought him a letter from her? The thought, though muddled, incited him to consider violence. He shook his head, trying to find reason and did. Juliette would post the letter from London. She would not take it to Elizabeth. He had not blundered.

When he thought back upon their conversation, it was lost upon him that Juliette’s remarks about little Celeste Roux were an indirect means to broach the chasm of time and station betwixt them. Her bit of coquetry had been an unconditional success. For it bade him think back upon their lusty (and lengthy) assignations. It would have taken him many years and many lovers to learn half what he had upon Juliette’s pillow. By reason of that, her aperçu of Roux’s daughter’s maidenhood he dared not argue, for he thought her opinion upon such a matter inviolate. And if he accepted that truism, he would have to suppose her correct that the girl was intent upon him to be the one to deflower her.

Celeste’s attention had been an annoyance, but he considered he could have unintentionally encouraged her. In her resemblance to Elizabeth, he may have looked upon her more often than he should have. Indeed, Celeste had that look of excited invitation one might fancy from the uninitiated. Women of experience invited much more deliberately, an understanding he knew quite well. Perchance she was a virgin, but he knew merely professing such did not necessarily mean it thus. In his youth, he had held women who had claimed he was their first, and he was certain he was not. For that had been an absolute rule. He refused to violate chastity, no matter how industriously it was begged.

Not George Wickham. Before that final breech with Wickham, the steps to thence had been laid stone by stone. A large one was placed when Wickham regaled him relentlessly with the notion that plucking a virgin was bliss nonpareil. Had he looked at it objectively, he would but think it almost absurd that he so adamantly refused to lay with a virgin and Wickham sought nothing else. Most probably, the nefarious Wickham found the innocent the most easily seduced (or else disliked exposing his performance to criticism).

But whether it was borne in protest of Wickham’s method or an independent decision, he would simply not take a woman if he suspicioned she was unknown to men. And, in the dicey business of deducing virginity (some women mocked worldliness, others purity) he thought it a tribute to his discretion that he never actually came into introduction to an intact maiden-flower until Elizabeth.

Until Elizabeth.

Elizabeth. Her name invoked was a mournful susurration in his mind. All this thought of virginity, of course, made him think of her. He had discouraged himself from that indulgence, for with it he fell prey to melancholy, which was, in his mind, far too akin to self-pity. However, as much as he endeavoured not to think of her, an hour did not pass that he did not. Even in light of how frequently she was upon his mind, rarely did he relive their first union, as it tormented him yet.

But he thought of that night and of her virginity then.

This entry into the past was granted because of a single touching detail. Of course, he did not think of it as touching at the time. He had been mortified.

When they had compleated their wedding supper, they had each departed to their respective dressing rooms. To his chagrin, he had actually found his mien ruffled (fumbling with his cuffs until Goodwin reminded him that was his man’s duty). He sat in determined recumbence in his bath, vowing to stay there until he could reclaim his nerves. It would be most untoward to appear eager. As he sat in the tub, Goodwin picked up a silver bowl and inquired what he wanted done with the rose petals.

They had compleatly escaped his mind. An unprecedented attack of sentimentality had led him to believe their wedding bed must be anointed with pink rose petals. He had not yet rationalised why he was sent akilter over Elizabeth in such an immoderate manner, and vowed, once he had regained control of his disconcertion, that he would quit behaving like an infatuated elk. But thereupon Goodwin intended to call a maid to have the petals scattered, and Darcy did not much like the idea of a maid scattering them. If they were to be dispersed, they would be with his hand. He climbed dripping from the tub, and drew on his shirt and trousers intending to steal into their boudoir with dispatch, lay the petals, and return to his bath unnoticed.

However.

His feet bare, hair dripping, clothes clinging to his damp body, he was up to his elbows in rose petals as he scattered them across her pillow when Elizabeth opened her door. It was not how he had wanted to greet her upon their wedding night. He hastily divested himself of the bowl and began a mad rectification of his costume, slowed by the disobliging tail of his shirt. Embarrassed as he was at the sight he presented, it took him a moment fully to look at her.

She had stopped, possibly startled, at the door. The light from her dressing chamber illuminated her gown, which did the kindness of revealing to him the beguiling outline of her bare figure. Her hair was loose upon her shoulders and he did not know if she realised that she had raised one eyebrow. Moreover, he did not know if she understood that raised eyebrow excited him to lust far beyond his previous adumbration of that desire.

It also sent him to her with such dispatch that he did not realise he had crossed the room until he picked her up. It was unprecedented for him to carry a woman to the bed. (Had he not taken Elizabeth thusly then, he felt certain he would have leapt upon her right there, on the floor.) Indeed, every aspect of her being conspired to usurp his reason.

For the filminess of her gown was little barrier to her body, but little was too much. As he drew it from her, it did not occur to him to fear for her modesty, for he was drowning in the sensation of his fingertips against her skin. Had she not enticed him from thence, he was uncertain he would have survived at all. But it was a most firm hold she took upon his slippery, wet hair, and she returned his kiss as deeply as he gave it.

Stricken with concupiscence, he felt himself turgid with desire. Knowing that, he nevertheless had moved betwixt her legs unguardedly. And although he wanted, with all his being, to kiss her tenderly and enter her slowly, he had not. When he found the moist cache of her womanhood, he lost all will. Her very tightness excited him to thrust into her again and again. She had never given of herself and he could not show her the gentleness he wanted, nor could he respond to her muffled cry of pain. She was a virgin and he was a beast. No better than Wickham.

His eyes shut tightly against the memory. Had his unmitigated passion been driven by her virginity or his desire for Elizabeth alone? Hers was the only virginity he had ever experienced, hence, he had no answer. Perchance he feared the answer. Would Celeste’s virginity drive him to the farthest reaches of passion as had Elizabeth’s? He allowed himself to imagine Celeste’s comely young body beneath him. He thought about it briefly, turned it over in his mind, and felt nothing. However beautiful her countenance, however tight and new her womanhood, he had no desire for her. His desire was for the woman, not her feminus pudendum.

It was remedy to his soul to realise his loss of reason that night owed to his love for Elizabeth, not merely lust. Hence, he granted himself the luxury of clemency. If virginity fuelled his appetence that night, it was only because it was Elizabeth’s. However overcome he had been, it had been born of love. The heat of the moment may have overwhelmed him, but at least he was not the swine that Wickham was.

Creeping off into intoxicated sleep, he could not stop himself from thinking of Elizabeth and felt aroused. He ached to hold her again. He had felt nothing but anger and anxiety for months, it was odd to feel arousal. He thought it most probably the drink.

In the darkened room, he was awakened from his sodden sleep. Her body was soft and full atop him. He reached out for her. How had Elizabeth found him? How had she come here? Her gown was soft, her body supple. Rolling her beneath him, his hands found the bottom of her gown and slid upwards. His only thought was how much he wanted to find the reassurance of her embrace. Already of a mind, the merest touch of her hand persuaded his blood to full cry. ’Twas but a dream he knew full well, but he could not bear it to end.

“Lizzy, oh, Lizzy.”