Mr. Darcy Proves His Love, page 1
Mr. Darcy Proves His Love
A Steamy Pride and Prejudice Variation
Maria Dashwood
Pemberley Playground Press
Contents
About This Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
About the Author
About This Book
A stolen fiancé. A daring rescue. Is Mr. Darcy’s passion enough to prove his love?
When Elizabeth is abducted days before their wedding, Mr. Darcy must depend on an enemy to rescue his bride. But saving her life is only the beginning. Will Mr. Darcy’s passion be enough to prove his love to the one who matters most, Miss Elizabeth Bennet?
Lose yourself for an intimate evening with Mr. Darcy Proves His Love, a standalone steamy Pride and Prejudice Variation of 15,000 words. Satisfying ending, guaranteed.
Chapter 1
Though Elizabeth delighted in the chance to spend time with her future husband, a carriage ride with her mother and Kitty was not the ideal means to do it. Thankfully, the clip-clop of the horse's hooves and the gentle rocking of Mr. Darcy’s well sprung carriage had lulled Mrs. Bennet and Kitty to sleep, giving Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth a rare moment to speak candidly.
Mr. Darcy explained, “After we are married, we will first stay in London at my townhouse, and then to Pemberley.”
Elizabeth smiled. “After we are married...”
They sat close together, and the heat of his body mingling with his scent, sandalwood, leather, and musk, stoked her desire. She wanted to touch him, but with her sister and mother in the carriage, she dared only brush a gloved hand over his chest.
“At Pemberley, a single door will separate our rooms, but my townhouse has only one master bedroom. Is it to your liking we share quarters, or shall I have the servants prepare you the nearest guest room?”
Guest room! Elizabeth tamped down her irritation. Mr. Darcy could not mean for her to be a guest in their own home? Could he? His expression showed the sentiment of a gentleman wishing to offer every comfort. But she was not such a country flower as to shy away from the heat of her husband’s embrace.
Elizabeth smiled, and she lowered her tone, meeting his eyes in a way that made his pupils widen. Good. “I would require the guest room,” she began slowly, “Only if our marriage is one of convenience. Is it?” She teased him with her deadly serious question.
“Con–convenience?” he stammered.
“If it is mere convenience, I will need weeks to prepare myself with the Book of Common Prayer. As my marriage would be a duty and not a pleasure.”
“It will be a pleasure,” Mr. Darcy blurted.
“Lovely.” Elizabeth giggled. “I would rather a pleasure.” She ran her tongue between her lips. “Many pleasures.”
There was a pause, then he let out a sigh of relief at her jest. “Teasing a man the day before his wedding is dangerous, especially when I so look forward to ravishing your person.”
“Ravishing….? Do you keep sheep?”
“Sheep?” Mr. Darcy coughed.
Elizabeth could grow to love that slight furrow between his brows when she confused him. “I should prefer my mattress tick stuffed with flock. For comfort. For sleeping.” Elizabeth smiled as she touched his chest again, this time playing with a button on his shirt. He rewarded her efforts with a sharp intake of breath.
“I can assure you, my lady, that if a mattress tick is not up to your standards, I will have it immediately replaced.” Mr. Darcy tugged at her gloved hand, pulling it first down, where he kissed her on her pulse point, then off, where he kissed her on the top of her naked middle finger.
Elizabeth sighed. Being married to this man was going to be such a joy, and definitely a passionate, loving relationship. How she had thought he was stuffy, aloof, and full of himself? Such prejudices seemed a distant mistake. Impossible. He was so warm, their conversations full of affection.
The carriage hit a stone and rattled along, and Mrs. Bennet briefly opened her eyes. “Elizabeth?” she sighed.
“Yes, Mama?” Elizabeth replied, pulling away from Mr. Darcy to a respectable distance.
“These roads,” Mrs. Bennet murmured. “They plague my nerves.” She rambled along for another half-minute or so before drifting into slumber again. When she began to snore, Elizabeth returned her attentions to her fiancé.
Mr. Darcy said, “The ride from the Hershels and the visit seems to have worn out your mother.”
“Yes. Socializing and gossiping can be tiring,” Elizabeth whispered, an impish grin crossing her face.
“It is quite stressful, catching up with everyone else’s business. A wonder your mother stayed awake as long as she did,” Mr. Darcy replied, his lip quirking.
“And Kitty made attempt to flirt with every available gentleman.” Elizabeth shook her head. “I do hope without Lydia we can shake Kitty of this habit of flirtation.”
“Perhaps she can spend time with my sister Georgiana?”
“So long as your sister is the example followed and not the reverse,” Elizabeth said with a sigh. “My family...” She shrugged.
“They are yours, my love, and thus I will love them. Since we will spend the rest of our lives together, I am content to have silly in-laws in my circle, whatever their eccentricities.”
Elizabeth swallowed. “You are a kind man.”
“I love you with all my heart. You have changed me, hopefully for the better.” They moved closer together again. “May I kiss you, Miss Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth felt her heart quicken, and her stomach tightened at the prospect. She was going to spend the rest of her life kissing him, and each time, she knew, would bring a similar response. “Yes, please.”
Mr. Darcy leaned in, gently running his finger down her jawline, feeling the warm of her neck and kissed, first softly, then with more passion—his lips against hers.
He wanted her. Elizabeth could feel his need in the kiss, and tomorrow night, she would be his. She would soon begin living the life she had always imagined, a life with a man who loved her wholeheartedly and with abandon. They would spend their days laughing and talking and their nights in each other’s arms.
What more could she ask for in becoming Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy?
The horses squealed as the carriage jerked, swinging wildly to a bumping stop.
Mrs. Bennet and Kitty screamed.
In the silence after, Elizabeth struggled to catch her breath.
“What on earth is going on?” Mrs. Bennet demanded.
“Mother?” Kitty’s voice was muffled, as Mrs. Bennet had shoved her into the side of the carriage.
A man opened the carriage door and leaned inside. A cold rush of air followed. The winter sun shone brightly behind him, rendering his form shadow.
“Mr. Rendell?” Kitty asked.
The man grunted.
“That’s not—”
The man grabbed Elizabeth’s arm, pulling her away from her mother, sister, and Mr. Darcy. She was aware that this man’s breath stank, that his beard, which her face slammed into, was rough and smelled of too much ale and whiskey. He was strong, first pulling then carrying her away from the carriage.
She beat against him, panic setting in. “What are you doing? Unhand me, unhand me, sir!” Her breath plumbed white in the cold, bright air.
Behind her, Mr. Darcy shouted the same as he chased after them while Mrs. Bennet screamed, “Brigands! Mr. Darcy, do not abandon us!”
Elizabeth punched and kicked her hardest at the man clutching her, but she only hurt herself. She didn’t care; she had to get away from this man, get back to her family and Mr. Darcy. It was her sole purpose now, and the farther he carried, her the harder she fought.
“Ow!” she heard the man grunt, his grip loosening. She swung again, connecting with what she thought was his eye. He groaned but still held tight, even as she dug fingernails into his cheek.
Elizabeth wanted to scratch his eyes out. How dare he take advantage of her like this! She swung again.
This time, she was sure she hit him in the eye. He screamed in pain and slapped her across the face, which only made her more incensed.
“How dare you!” Elizabeth screamed. “Fitzwilliam, help!”
“You do not need much help; you are doing just fine all by yerself,” the brigand grumbled. “Wild woman, you are. What were you, raised by wolves?”
Elizabeth swung again as he gathered her hands together. She tried to bite his arm, but he wrenched it away before she could chomp down.
“Blast and damnation!” he screamed at her.
Then she began to kick again, injuring his shins as best she could. He was dragging her now, for she had wiggled out of his grasp. “Ye better be worth the money. Gold and silver, I’ll ask for ye.”
Elizabeth continued to kick, now winded but still determined.
He dragged to his horse by her hair, an agony, and threw her face down across his saddle. He leaped up behind.
Elizabeth screamed, kicking and punching at the horse’s body, but she was held tightly in place and could not escape.
“Help!” she screamed. “Fitzwilliam, help me!”
Chapter 2
Two against one. Not bad odds, if Darcy could just get Mrs. Bennet to stop screaming and grabbing at his coattails.
The two brigands were at angles on each side of him, and in the gloom, it was hard to see if they carried rifles or bows. Darcy had already hit one of the two, bloodying his nose and busting his lip. They circled him like wildcats—wary, but ready to strike at any moment.
“We are all going to die,” Mrs. Bennet screamed from inside the carriage.
“Mother!” Kitty admonished. “Quiet! Mr. Darcy cannot fight them and fight you at the same time.”
“Thank you,” Darcy muttered.
Kitty, at least, was brave and spoke her mind. Her forthrightness reminded him of Elizabeth, which made him like her all the more. No faintness of heart with that one.
The uninjured brigand took a lunge at him, as he watched the third one pull Elizabeth over his horse and start galloping away. Not fifteen minutes earlier, he and Elizabeth had been discussing after wedding plans; now, a brigand was riding off with her.
No.
In a flurry of jabs and punches motivated by that possibility, he dispatched the uninjured outlaw, who first fell to his knees, then flopped on his face, unconscious.
The second brigand, seeing the turn of events, took his chances in the woods. Throwing the knife he was holding at Darcy to slow him down, he turned and dashed away.
Darcy snatched the knife and ran him down, grabbing his jacket and hauling him up so they were face to face. The man was shorter than Darcy, a thin, scrawny figure who had seen many days without food. His feet dangled as Darcy hauled him in closer.
“Where did he take my fiancé?” Darcy screamed, his gaze dark fire. “If you don’t tell me where, I will kill you where you stand.” He put the knife in the man’s face to emphasize his point.
“I can show you.” The man’s voice had taken on a high-pitched tone. “Please don’t kill me. I will show you.”
Darcy dragged him back to the carriage. Mrs. Bennet and Kitty were helping the driver to his feet, dusting him off and looking at the nasty knot on his forehead.
“I am sorry, Sir. They were on me before I realized it. I could not stop them.”
“It is fine, Mr. Rendell,” Darcy said. “This cretin will take me to retrieve what is mine.” He shook the brigand. “What I need you to do is take Mrs. Bennet and Miss Bennet on to Netherfield. I need you to send for Colonel Fitzwilliam and ask him to follow me to this brigand’s lair just in case I need help to rescue my fiancé, Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
Darcy turned his attention to the ladies. “May I borrow your scarf, Miss Kitty.” Kitty quickly handed it over.
“But that is one of your best scarves,” Mrs. Bennet complained.
“Wait,” Jessup intervened. “There is rope in the back of the carriage, used for the horses. Kitty retrieved her scarf, and Darcy bound the brigand’s hands with rope instead.
“You don’t know Lazarus,” the brigand whispered, struggling against his bindings. “Lazarus is a scaly cove of the meanest sort. If he finds out I led you to him, he will kill me. So, it is either you kill me now, or he kills me later.”
“So be it,” Darcy said. “Kitty, hand me one of those rifles, and then you and Mrs. Bennet, go to the carriage and—”
“You cannot kill him!” Kitty protested, staring down wide-eyed at the struggling bandit. “It would be a sin.”
“Perhaps his corpse will convince his associate I am serious.” Darcy used all of the coldness employed in London’s finest company to show a disdain he prayed the bandit understood and feared. Darcy doubted he would have the strength of will to murder a captured man in cold blood, but he could not let the bandit know that. “Death is death, as this man says.”
“Wait!” the bandit cried.
“Yes?” Darcy said.
“I can take show you where he is, but then, please let me go. For me wife and children!”
“You will be turned over to the constable, both of you.”
“I only did this because Lazarus promised me food and a cow for me trouble. My family is mucked out. We have nothing, and my wife’s pregnant with our third babe. She lost the last one. Please, sir, have mercy!”
Darcy doubted one in three words the bandit had offered were true, but persuasion came by both the carrot and the stick. He said, “If we find my fiancée and she is unharmed, I will ask the magistrate for leniency in your case. Your wife will not be a widow, which is more regard than you and your associates have offered me and mine.”
“Yes! Let me up, and I will take you!”
“What is your name?” Darcy asked.
“Philip,” the man said, offering no surname.
“I cannot believe you are listening to him,” Mrs. Bennet put in. “He is a robber, a thief, and he was part of the plot to abduct Elizabeth.”
“Mother, please be quiet.”
“Desperate people do desperate things,” Mr. Darcy said. “I want my fiancée back, and I will accept your help on the terms we have set.”
“Yes, sir! I speak the truth. My wife is Anne, and our daughter Penelope. She is six. The other babes passed. One in the womb, the other of fever. I have no reason to lie to you. I am already dead if this doesn’t work. And Lazarus will kill my family, too.”
“Then we have reason to work together.”
Philip indicated the rope around his wrists.
Darcy shook his head in the negative. “Trust is earned. First, you show me to my fiancé.”
Chapter 3
The ride was a mix of terror, rage and pain that left Elizabeth shaking and limp by the time her captor dumped her unceremoniously in a pile of hay in the center of an abandoned barn. He threw a tattered blanket at her. Elizabeth shivered from cold and fear.
“Pretty wench like yerself will fetch a fine price, though p’haps we did the gentleman a favor.” Her captor, a large, bearded man with chapped hands and callous fingers, pointed at a tear in the shoulder of his homespun shirt and laughed. “She bites!”
Two others, their forms hulking in the gloom, joined in the laughter.
Elizabeth struggled to her knees in the hay. The barn was decrepit, dirty, and cold. Elizabeth feared what vermin hid, red-eyed in the dark.
And would Mr. Darcy pay for her safe return? She had already cost him both money and pride, paying Mr. Wickham to take Lydia’s hand in marriage. Now, he would be forced to pay for her outright. How much? Could he afford it? Would he wish to?
Elizabeth believed he would. She had to, lest she succumb to the terror that hung in the darkness pressing in from all sides.
The barn smelled of old hay and manure. They led her to a pole with a rope around her ankle. She kicked out at him as he worked, but he quickly tied it in place.
“Be nice, or I will take my hand to ye. I am not as nice as the boss.”
Ugly was the only word that came to mind when she looked at him: grubby patch covering a missing eye, scraggly, yellow teeth, and a chin like a misshapen potato. A man with any vanity would have tried to grow a beard, but he was clean-shaven. Also, he had not seen a bathtub in quite some time. She tried to take shallow breaths so she would not retch from the smells wafting about him.
“You need me to be in good shape,” she said.
“That is the boss’s plan. I think if you are a little smashed up, it will not matter much. So, do not test me.”
Elizabeth sank to a seated position, feeling the rope on her ankle. The man left her in the barn, confident that she could not escape. No sooner did the barn door close than she started trying to get her foot out of the rope, pulling, pushing, and tugging at it to loosen it up.
There had to be a way to slip the knot off. She pulled off her shoe and her stockings, then pushed on it. It was almost loose enough to go over her ankle, but not quite.
She sighed, defeated, but refused to cry. Anger and determination had warmed her so far, but now, the chill air seeped into her, making her teeth chatter.
Would she freeze here? Catch her death, not from brutality, but illness?
