Elizabeth Bennet sat awaiting her fate, shivering to herself and wondering what might happen next. Her predicament she found herself in had started merely weeks before, when her father had suddenly taken ill and died, and she had been forced to be a little less choosy when determining the course of her future.
Just when she was about to take the position of a governess with a well-respected family in the north in the hopes of being able to supplement her meager earnings and perhaps even add to the dowries of her younger sisters, a man from her past had emerged.
It had been a few years, perhaps more, since she had last seen Mr. Darcy and his proud and noble mien. She had pretended to one and all that she had forgotten him since her refusal of his offer, but indeed she had thought he to be the one who had forgotten her. After her complete and frank assessment of his character, including his actions in separating her sister from Mr. Bingley, he had vanished from the social landscape that she frequented.
Jane, heartbroken still over Mr. Bingley’s total and absolute abandonment, had married a local man, a solicitor who did care for her deeply even if he was more portly than handsome, and had fewer hairs on his head than a babe.
Elizabeth had been certain, when she had stood up for Jane at the ceremony, that she would never, could never, forgive Mr. Darcy for while Jane’s husband, Mr. Chambers, was kind and adored his new bride he was not the love of Jane’s life.
Curious that now, Elizabeth should find herself beholden to Mr. Darcy, when all seemed lost for her family, and the remaining unmarried sisters should be ruined because of the actions of the very youngest, Lydia…
There came a sharp rap on the door of the room in which Elizabeth sat, and her thoughts scattered as her nerves roared up again. Oh, what did she think she was doing? She got to her feet, brushing her hands over the simple gown she’d been asked to wear for this initial meeting… her first meeting with Mr. Darc-no, she corrected herself quickly, Master Darcy. For while she knew him in society from several years ago, now she was to know him in an altogether different manner entirely.
Her heart beat severely in her chest as she murmured a quiet,
“Come in.”
The door opened, and her heart leapt up into her throat.
A wizened gentleman stood there, and for a moment she was confused, her eyes trying to recognized the stooped figure with that of Mr. Darcy… but it had only been three years, surely he could not have aged so much in such a short period of time…
“Mr. Darcy will see you now,” the man spoke, and she realized with a start that the shrunken man was not, in fact, Mr. Darcy, and she was quite silly to have even thought so for a moment. Clearly her nerves were getting the best of her.
“I.. Yes, of course,” she said as she stepped forward. He beckoned to her, before turning and walking out of the room. She followed with no small amount of trepidation.
Oh, curse Lydia for running away with that foot soldier! Curse her for forcing Elizabeth into near-drudgery as a governess, and now the unbelievable role of mistress to Mr. Darcy.
She would have said more internal curses towards her youngest sister, except they had walked from her rooms at the far end of the grand house in London, and come down a set of stairs that deposited them at the landing of an ornate set of doors.
“He awaits,” the old man said, glancing over her appraisingly before bowing his head to her. She scarcely had time to curtsey in return when he left, taking his candle with him and leaving her in the near dark. Mr. Darcy clearly did not want for money, so why he left his hallways under-illuminated was a mystery to Elizabeth as she lifted one trembling, shaking hand to the carved door.
She had barely knocked when she heard the shift of wood, and the groan of hinges. The door swung inwards, and she followed it, entirely certain that her legs would give out at any moment.
The room she found herself were what she assumed to be Mr.-Master Darcy’s personal chambers. They were richly decorated in dark oaks polished to a fine luster, thick hangings of deep red silk-velvet, and curiously, plush woven rugs upon the gleaming floors the likes of which she had never seen. The colors of the rugs were jewel-like, and they seemed to depict fantastical scenes of birds, ripe fruit on the vine, horses and even a depiction or two of what looked like the mystical, imaginary creatures known as dragons.
“Miss Elizabeth,” the voice drew her from her nervous examination of the room’s furnishing to the man whose presence practically screamed for all her attention.
Mr. Darcy. Three years had done nothing to diminish the proud way he held himself, or the fine arch of his eyebrows, nor the deep brown of his eyes. His lips did not smile, even at that moment, and as he regarded her she felt as if she were a small butterfly pinned to card, one of Kitty’s collected curiosities from the Longbourn garden.
Oh, but Longbourn was so very far away…
“Master Darcy,” she said, her voice paper-dry and rough.
“I am pleased you could come on such short notice, and that the terms that the solicitor drew were amenable to you,” he said as he gestured for her to enter more fully into the room. There must have been a servant waiting for her to stop hovering in the doorway, for the clack of wood behind her signaled that her private time with Mr. Darcy had begun, and there was no turning back.
“Yes, the contract was… amenable,” Elizabeth said, clearing her throat.
“You must be parched from your journey today, and your preparations,” he said, and he crossed the room to a side-board that boasted a silver platter, with a slender pitcher and a pair of cut-crystal tumblers. Elizabeth stared at that finery, for the nicest of their belongings had been sold out of Longbourn after Mr. Bennet had fallen ill…
The silver pitcher had beads of condensation running along its sides. Mr. Darcy picked it up and poured her a tumbler of what seemed to be water. He held it out to her, forcing her to walk to him. She took the glass, trying not to blush as his fingers brushed over his.
Given the contents of their agreement, this would be the least and littlest of embarrassments she would endure over the coming weeks.
“Drink, please,” he said, not unkindly, and she took a slow sip of the chilled water. It soothed her throat, and as the cold droplets ran down to her stomach, she did indeed find herself relaxing somewhat. “It gives me great pleasure to entertain you in my house. I did, at one time, hold such dreams of having you here. Although this is a different manner in which I shall have you here, it is not any less… pleasing to me.” He glanced over her as he spoke, and she felt as if she were bare and naked right in front of him then, as she knew she would be shortly, in the coming days.
“You thought of me here, in Darcy House, in London?” she asked, feeling the presence of the London bustle just beyond the great house’s windows and it’s small, walled city garden.
“Oh yes, I did indeed,” Mr. Darcy said as he looked down at her, a quality in his voice somewhat like smoke. “Now that I have you here, however, I wonder what you think of it.”
“What I think of it?” she repeated his words, because she was almost afraid of what she would say if she spoke freely- why did you ask this of me? Why this? Do you wish to debase me? To seek revenge for my refusal of you?
She held her tongue.
“Yes, Miss Elizabeth, or should I call you Miss Bennet now that your eldest sister is married?” he asked with a tilt of his head. “While the niceties and etiquette of good society are not lost on me, I do believe that the rules, as it were, are quite different for us now, at least within the walls of Darcy House and any of my other personally held properties, do you not think? So is it to be Miss Bennet or Miss Elizabeth… or… Elizabeth? Or…” his voice dropped an octave as he slowed in his speech, “Or simply, Pet?”
Her breath stalled in her lungs as he lifted his hand to cup the side of her face, his thumb slipping out across her lower lip. There were drops of water there, and he brushed them away.
“P-pet?” she asked, stammering against the pad of his thumb as it touched her. Oh, she was being touched, and it both alarmed her and did something else that was altogether new at the same time. She had never been touched, not in that manner- not in the manner that was almost salacious, and very indecent.
“Yes,” Mr. Darcy said, his voice as dark as his eyes, “Pet. My pet, my beautiful creature, my Elizabeth. For that is what you agreed to, is it not? To be mine, for a matter of a few weeks, and I would in return, thank you for the gift of your time and attention with the sum of thirty thousand pounds? Enough, I was assured, to set to rights the patched-up marriage of your youngest sister, to bring your widowed mother comfort, to add to dowries of your other two unwed sisters, and to make your own self an attractive prospective wife for any gentleman who cared to look the other way at how you acquired the monies.”
The words, when written on paper, did not nearly sound so harsh as when they dropped from his lips, and Elizabeth was hard pressed not to turn right there and bolt from his room, grab her things and leave Darcy House.
She’d make her way to her Aunt Gardiner’s home, who, with any luck would forgive her the folly of even considering to becoming the mistress of a great and grand gentleman as Mr. Darcy.
But what would happen to her mother, removed from Longbourn due to the entailment after Mr. Bennet’s death? And what of Kitty and Mary, who had no suitors due to Lydia’s carelessness with her choice of intended husband?
They would all go cold, hungry, and bereft of love and comfort.
The very thought chilled Elizabeth so much that she did not slap Mr. Darcy’s hand away but merely nodded instead.
“Yes,” she said, her voice steady for the first time that evening. “It is what I agreed to.”
A rare smile split Mr. Darcy’s face, and he looked so very handsome that she forgot for a moment that he had asked her, a proper young lady, to debauch herself for him in exchanged for the monetary salvation of her family.
“Excellent. While I realize that you did sign the paperwork with the solicitor, it was still beholden upon me to enquire about your agreement in person. I would not have been satisfied to move forward with our arrangement if I was not certain that you had agreed to it with full awareness of the details.” Mr. Darcy stepped back and Elizabeth took another long drag of the cool water, her hand shaking around the cut crystal.
“I appreciate your diligence in regards to these fine particulars,” she said, and could not help but keep the dry sarcasm out of her voice. Mr. Darcy looked at her, his dark eyes flashing, and amused, if dangerous smile played across his lips.
“I see that your personality has not dimmed, Pet, and I am pleased at that,” he said as he stepped once more into the sphere of her presence. She felt him, although he was a foot away from her, as if he were touching her right then. She had to look up at him, tilting her head for his height, and his smile turned ever more dark. “I look forward to seeing your personality shift and twist under my careful guidance,” he murmured, and a shiver ran down her back. “It will be… interesting to see the unmaking, and remaking of Elizabeth Bennet at my hands.”