Rain beat down over the eaves of Pemberley estate as, heart racing, Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy stole into the second-floor library. It should not have felt like stealing. Elizabeth was the mistress of Pemberley now, and she had the right to go wherever she liked on the grounds of her own home, yet with her husband away, she felt at once like a guest and an impostor.
Except here.
Elizabeth breathed in the smell of leather-bound volumes and aged paper, and a sense of rightness passed over her.
Dozens of bookshelves along every wall, each crammed to capacity with leather-bound volumes. A desk stood on the far side of the room, a blue velvet rug in front of it. Though the curtains were thrown wide to expose the large glass windows, the storm’s grey light cast everything in shadow.
Not wishing to bother a servant, she strode to the mantle for a spill to light the nearby candles, passing the fingertip of flame from wick to wick until the room took on a more cheerful aspect.
Now, for something to read.
Elizabeth walked between the shelves, running fingertips over the spines. Each book felt like a friend, either known, or more often in this vast place, as yet unmet.
Then, on a shelf within arm’s reach of the large desk, the light of Elizabeth’s candle flame passed over something decidedly odd.
Five antiquated volumes on the subject of animal husbandry, four of the spines stiff and dulled with the appearance of disuse, the fifth cracked and grooved.
Elizabeth lowered her candle to the shelf beneath the books, noting a scuff beneath the fifth volume as though someone had pulled it free and replaced often.
While Elizabeth’s husband was a dedicated to his duties as master of Pemberley, he had shown no special passion for the day-to-day minutiae of running his estate, preferring, like most of his class, including Elizabeth’s father, to leave the details to his steward, with whom he corresponded with frequently and periodically met.
And why would Fitzwilliam frequently consult a volume nearly eighty years old? And only Volume IV, but no others of the set!
Curiosity piqued, Elizabeth carefully set the candle down, pulled the volume free, and carried it to the desk. The leather-bound cover lay closed on an upward slant with something wedged into the pages.
Elizabeth’s heart sped again, her breath shallow with anticipation.
She slid her fingers along the pages, feeling for the gap, and finding it, opened the book.
A drawing?
In ink and watercolor, the subject was set against a backdrop of red roses, a woman bound in a sweep of soft, white rope. It seemed she looked out at Elizabeth, a sly, inviting smile on her pale face, her dark eyes sparkling.
The woman stood, hands behind her back, breasts bound, nipples erect, the thatch of dark brown between her legs exposed.
Well!
Elizabeth’s face flamed even as her gaze feasted on the image. Arousal pulsed as she imagined the soft slide of rope over her own shoulders, the tightening of it around her wrists as her bare feet pressed into the downy carpet of her husband’s bedchamber.
The second image was much the same, only this time the rope was red. The bound woman looked up, her lips full and lush, her dark nipples a sharp contrast to her smooth skin.
Elizabeth sat. Her lower lips felt thick, wet, wanting. She shifted in the chair, and the movement of her skirts over her skin felt like a caress.
Carefully, she flipped to the next postcard.
The third caused Elizabeth to bite her lip. The woman’s breasts were still bound, and now she sat on a large, leather chair, wrists and ankles secured, her legs open wide, showing the dark whorls of her folds and the pink pearl of her pleasure.
Elizabeth slipped a hand beneath her skirt ran her fingers over the slick seam of her womanhood, feeling the soft tissue’s heaviness, aching for a brush of fingertips against it.
Aching to be bound and at her husband’s mercy.
Her nipples tightened, brushing against the fabric of her bodice. The constriction of her stays only contributed to the fantasy as she dipped her finger deeper into her core. Acute arousal pulsed inside Elizabeth. She stroked her finger over her lower lips, parting the petals to reveal the smooth, pearl of arousal buried within.
“Fitzwilliam,” Elizabeth murmured, her eyes falling shut.
Her naked, him still clothed, cravat stiff and proper as his manhood swelled, he would kneel, running his palms over her exposed thighs. Tickle kisses along the sensitive skin, tracing a maddening path to her womanhood as she squirmed and begged for—
A gust of wind rattled the window glass. One hand up her skirts, the other on the cover of the open book, Elizabeth swept her gaze over the rest of the room.
She was a wanton, pleasuring herself to renderings unspeakably vulgar yet compelling. Beautiful.
What if a servant had seen? Read her illicit thoughts from her expression?
Elizabeth pulled her hand from her slick, aching womanhood, sweeping damp fingers over her thigh in an attempt to clean them. The scent of her arousal filled her nose as she freed her hand from beneath the heavy weight of her skirts.
With one last, yearning glance at the bound woman, Elizabeth closed the book.
Then she heard footsteps.
Heavy, booted footsteps.
Elizabeth turned, her mouth dry.
Her husband’s voice. “Lizzy,” Fitzwilliam chuckled. “Of course, I would find you here.”
Elizabeth’s face flamed. A bright, violent ache of lust throbbed through her. She whirled around, folding her hands in front of her, twisting her fingers together.
“Fitzwilliam,” she whispered, taking a step from the shelf.
“Lizzy, are you well? You look flushed.” Her husband strode towards her, his eyes wide with concern. “You were not out walking in that rain, were you? You will catch chill.”
“No!” Elizabeth wanted to tell him about the hidden artwork and how her body had reacted, but what if she was mistaken? What if they were not his? Or worse, they were his, but they did not illustrate something more than an idle fantasy for him.
He might think her perverse to want these things. She was his wife and not—
Elizabeth wrapped her arms around his waist, slipping her palms beneath his [shirt] to the warm skin beneath as she lifted her chin. “I missed you,” she said.
Fitzwilliam pressed a hand to her back as he pulled her close, the ridge of his manhood hard against her belly, as he lowered his lips to hers.
Her husband’s mouth was soft, his kiss gentle, probing. Elizabeth opened her mouth, taking his tongue within. She moaned as he moved against her, her arousal palpable. So close, so close.
She imagined herself again bound and stretched, her legs spread wide, exposed to her husband’s gaze.
“What have you been reading?” he asked, a hint of something dark and mischievous in his tone.
“No—nothing,” Elizabeth stuttered, her hips grinding against him.
Fitzwilliam pulled back, his hand sliding up to cup her breast.
“Lizzy, you are flushed,” Fitzwilliam said, his gaze sharpening as he searched her face. “And I think you are a terrible liar.”
Elizabeth licked her lips, her cheeks heating. Her husband’s thumb stroked over her nipple, and she bit back a moan, arching into his touch. His gaze never left hers.
“Oh, please, Fitzwilliam, please.” Elizabeth swallowed. “I’ve missed you. Touch me.”
Lust, and fear of her own illicit cravings, had addled her brain. The edges of the thick paper had darkened with age. What if the drawings she had found did not belong to her husband?
Fitzwilliam was exceedingly proper. He had never given any hint to these interests in their marital bed. What if her desire disgusted him?
Elizabeth could not let him see them, innocently spread over the open pages of the volume behind her. She could not tell him about the way she had imagined him binding her, stripping away her clothing.
Not now.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
“Let us retire to our bed,” Elizabeth suggested, seeking his lips and kissing him as she twined arms over his shoulders.
She ached, throbbing with need. Her heart raced with wanting and fear, which only heightened her passion. A part of her, a wanton part, wanted to pull him down, have him lay her over the desk, spread her legs and take his pleasure in her as she writhed, gasped, and moaned atop the offending drawings.
But she was not so far gone to risk it.
The kiss broke. “Are you certain there nothing you wish to tell me, Lizzy?”
Elizabeth felt everything in her tense at his words. As though her mind and body worked without cohesion, she shook her head.
“Then...” Fitzwilliam mapped a path with his palms down her sides to cup the lush flesh of her backside, his member stiff against her belly. He smiled as his lips found hers, but this time the kiss was harsh as he lifted her from the desk.
“Please,” Elizabeth whispered. A hot coil of lust coiled inside, drawing tighter at the pressure of his arms around her.
Holding her tight in his embrace, Fitzwilliam leaned forward, the brush of his breath tickling her shoulder as he blew the candle out.
“As you command, my wife.”