Page 74 of Mr. Darcy’s Fiery Passion

She was very near. She was so near that she had forgotten Barnet entirely.

The carriage slowed. The wheels went from frozen road to cobbles with a great clatter. A man's voice shouted for fresh horses, very close outside.

Darcy snatched his hand back.

Elizabeth tumbled off his lap onto the seat. She shoved her skirts down. He straightened his coat. She snatched up her bonnet and found it on crooked.

Someone rapped on the glass. Darcy put up the blind a few inches.

A red-faced ostler grinned in at them. "Change of horses, sir! Will the lady take anything? There's hot negus in the tap."

"No," said Darcy. His voice was not quite steady. "Thank you."

"Very good, sir." The ostler looked at Elizabeth's bonnet. His grin widened. He went away to the horses.

Darcy pulled the blind down again. Neither of them said a word. Then Elizabeth caught his eye, and she laughed until she had to hold her side.

They went on through the dusk with fresh horses. By four the light was going. The postboy stopped at the top of Highgate Hill to light the carriage lamps.

"You stopped," said Elizabeth.

"Barnet stopped. I had nothing to do with it."

"You might go on now."

He looked at her for a long moment in the lamplight. "If I go on now, I shall not stop at all. And I mean to have you in a bed, with a fire, and no ostlers."

"That is very unfair of you," said Elizabeth.

"Yes."

She laid her hand on his thigh, in a perfectly wifely way. After a mile she moved it higher. She found the hard ridge of him through his breeches, and she left her hand there, quite still. She felt him burn through the cloth.

He shut his eyes. He did not move her hand. "That," he said, through his teeth, "is also very unfair."

"Yes," said Elizabeth.

She kept it there all the way down into London.

It was quite dark when they came into Grosvenor Square. The lamps were lit all round the railings of the garden. The house stood tall and quiet on the north side. Elizabeth pushed her hair up under her bonnet with both hands. Two pins were lost somewhere in the carriage.

The door opened before the carriage had stopped. Parrish stood in the light with a branch of candles.

Darcy got down first. Then he turned, and did not hold out his hand.

He lifted her out of the carriage instead. He carried her across the pavement and up the five shallow steps. One arm was under her knees, and one round her back. His hands were sure and steady under her.

Elizabeth opened her mouth.

She knew the words. She had said them in the lane in November, and on the terrace, and in the passage at Netherfield. I am heavier than I look. They were on her tongue from long habit.

She closed her mouth again. She put her arm round his neck and laid her cheek against his coat. She said nothing at all.

He carried her over the threshold. He stopped and looked down at her. "Precisely what you ought," he said, very low.

She laughed into his coat, and looked up, and saw the hall.

It was full of people. The servants stood in two lines on the black and white floor, in their best. Every candle in Grosvenor Square seemed to be lit. A stout, gray-haired woman in black silk stood at the head of one line. A tall, solemn man stood at the head of the other. Parrish stood a little apart, with his branch of candles.