A/N: This is a post and run - not as much editing / rereading as I'd like - so, you have my gratitude for accepting the errors in this chapter as graciously as you have for all the other chapters. I love you and all your reviews, likes, follows, etc. so, so, so much! ODC is making progress; do not hate me. If this is too much of an M rating in this chapter, then tell me so, and I will switch the rating.

I live for your reviews. Now I have to go eat dinner.

"You may go in, Mrs. Darcy. He is awake and settled now. Though I warn you, he is not precisely at his most pleasant."

Elizabeth walked into her husband's chambers for the first time in her marriage and not at all concerned her husband was not at his most pleasant. Her concern was whether he was well. Though she had been outwardly composed all day with the doctor and seeing to everyone else residing in the castle, and though it might have seemed her goal was primarily to manage the chaos of the day, she had been terrified when her husband stumbled in the breakfast room barely speaking and uncharacteristically so when he finally could.

She would not have any peace unless she saw for herself his mind was fully returned to him.

Thanking Mr. Johnson, she closed the door behind her and stepped into a place she could claim no previous intimacy with, a place where her husband owned complete privacy and had never invited her.

Elizabeth leaned upon the cold wood to evaluate the patient with her hands resting behind her back. He was lying there in the with the coverlet pulled up to his chin. She stared without pretense at the only part of him visible – his unbandaged and quite damaged head propped against the pillows.

He stared right back in that way which just dared her to say something cleverly piercing; she bit her tongue.

It was well after supper. Between her husband being confined most of the day to his chamber and the doctor, who was indeed a very burly Scot, arriving from Portree to take charge of her husband, Elizabeth had been unable to take more than a passing glance at Fitzwilliam since that morning when he was insensibly saying all manner of things to her.

After a full minute, the man whose singular gaze was now doing its best to send her teetering off the small hill of where her confidence rested now spoke with the seemingly same intent to push her awry using that flat, hard tone of his which certainly spoke to him having regained some sense of self. "How may I help you, Mrs. Darcy?"

She was of two minds; first, she wished to turn right back out the door and leave him to himself if he was going to be just as Mr. Johnson said, or she could do as she came to do – the impossible, and charm him out of his temper while knowing full well he would be a bear about it.

"Well, I do not think you are in any position to help me, sir. However, I have come to help you." She stood there unmoving from where her back arched against the door.

"I do not need any help." He was as brusque in speech as she had ever heard him and wore his best impassive face though she thought it not as effective with such a nasty swollen bruise and stitched gash over his brow.

Pushing off the door and keeping a hand behind her back, she walked as close as she dared. "You look wretched."

Well, this got her a reaction though she cringed as to her lack of grace as her feelings behind her observation tended more toward sympathy than her tone portrayed.

"I thank you most kindly," he said not meaning it all, "but if you thought to come in here to dole out pity or chastise me, then you shall march yourself right back out of here, madam." He pointed to the door behind her for effect.

"But I am your wife; if I am not to pity you, then who shall take that task? I think Mr. Johnson is quite over it, and I hold out no hope for the doctor giving you an ounce of it. As far as chastisement, none of us would dare. But, it seems to me as if you could do with a little commiseration and compassion." Before he could bark again, she held her hand out and smiled. "I have brought you a treat. You shall have to be nice to me though."

That seemed reproof enough, for he relaxed a little into his pillow and looked half-way contrite for his brutish attitude. "As much I appreciate the gesture, I am not hungry."

"'Tis a shame. I have here Mrs. Kirkland's ginger biscuits. I am told you cannot much refuse."

He studied the packet in her hand before deciding. "I suppose not." He sat up a bit more and reached out for her offering. "Thank you, Elizabeth."

"You are very welcome. May I sit?"

Fitzwilliam looked stricken at this. His eyes went wide, and flustered, he began to shove back the coverlet. She quickly leaned closer and placed her hand upon his arm. "Pray do not stand; stay just as you are. I can pull the chair over myself. It is nonsensical to stand on ceremony when you should not be standing at all. Here, open the biscuits."

Elizabeth tried not to be so conspicuous looking around his chamber while selecting the most comfortable chair. She was not sure what she was looking for in evaluating the furnishings and decor, but surely, since he visited this place so infrequently, there was no means this chamber could be a true reflection of him. It was rather stark and too sad, she thought. Other than the overlarge hearth with its blistering warmth, the rest of the room seemed bare of any character. At least her chamber was warm and inviting throughout. The furniture, papers, and upholstery were quite cheery for such an enchantingly dreary place. But, looking around his chamber, she almost felt sorry he must be put-up here in this gloomy room.

Settling on a pristine white chair which looked as if it could easily enough be drug across the be-rugged, stone floor, she pulled it directly to the bedside and sat without an ounce of elegance. "And so, how did you find the doctor?"

"I am sure Mr. Johnson, or the man himself, informed you of his advice."

"I think he relayed orders rather than advice. But that is not what I asked."

"Very well, I found the doctor to be utterly useless. He is a quack, and if he were not such an atrocious fellow, and if my head had not just been threshed, then I should like to tell him so."

Elizabeth could only laugh and dug her palm into the arms of her chair to keep her humor from escaping too loudly as to unsettle him. Catching herself mid-guffaw, she gave him a half-smile. "Yes, I would imagine how that should go for you should you challenge the man. I am glad you kept your peace. I think one swollen eye is enough; no need for another. He is a veritable monster." She laughed again, in a gentle way inviting him to share her humor at teasing him a little.

"I am not amused, Elizabeth."

Her good humor abated some at the pique in his tone. "And, why is that? Is it because the good Scot has informed us all that you are not to remove from your bed for three days unless necessary? You do realize you took a good beating today, do you not? The doctor is certain your brain was rattled and that you were fortunate to return to your wits so easily. Fitzwilliam, have you seen yourself?"

"'Tis a scratch, madam. It is nothing. These things happen."

"These things happen?" She repeated, any amusement entirely vanished under the easy dismissal of his condition. "And, I suppose you would tell me you have received worse? I had no earthly idea pugilism was truly a hobby for you. I must tell you I cannot approve, no, not at all. You have gotten yourself injured, and Mr. Kirkland has bruised ribs thanks to you." The pitch in her voice raised a few steps. "What in heaven's name possessed the two of you to be so reckless? I cannot comprehend it –"

"Elizabeth!"

She leaned forward in her seat feeling justification in her concern. "Well?" Elizabeth had truly not come to scold him, and she had not intended to sound so upset over it just now. No, she had planned to lead him to reason to-morrow, for she felt this behavior really must be addressed. But, now her apprehensions were out in the open between them, she supposed he should answer for himself; he gave her such a fright this morning he could not leave her unanswered.

"I have no wish to hear your reproach, madam. If you do not cease, I shall bodily remove you from that chair and this room."

"Ha! I do not know if I should be so surprised you dare touch me or perhaps not so surprised that you would resort to being the beast you acted this morning toward Mr. Kirkland." Elizabeth stood, pushed back her chair, and stalked toward the door of her own accord.

As she reached her hand to the knob, she froze in her progress. The man had suffered a rattling of the brain the doctor had said, an eye swollen shut and a laceration to the point of needing a sitch, and he had been condemned to quietly lie abed for three days. He was not a man who was capable of staying still in one place without some kind of occupation, even for an hour. Where was the compassion she came to his room with intending to administer?

Closing her eyes and lowering her head where she stood, she uttered loud enough for him to hear, "Forgive me." She meant it for so many reasons – being a fishwife the least of any of them. It was only the night prior as they arrived at this place that she had practically begged him to put their differences aside and to be friends. How could she walk in here and provoke him so? His petulance was already ripe, and she now knew him well enough, she thought, to have known better than to rise to his antagonism.

Hearing him take a deep breath above the crackle of the fire across the room, she flinched.

"No, forgive me, Elizabeth. I am out of sorts. Stay."

"I will understand if you do not truly wish it."

"Please? Stay?"

Slowly she turned and walked back to the chair. Deciding there was no gain without some bravery, she instead sat on the edge of his bed and took the serviette from him which held the biscuits the housekeeper promised would cheer him. "Do you think we are hopeless? Not a day ago, I promised a truce, and yet, I berate you at the first good opportunity. You, an invalid! Want one?" She offered him the sweet.

He took it and held it up to his good eye before taking a bite and chewing silently. "These are quite good. Would you like one?"

Elizabeth bit her lip and shook her head.

"You know, I have known Mrs. Kirkland, and Kirkland, Archie that is, since I was a boy. His father, an Englishman, ran the estate long before my father purchased it. I met the Kirklands in the summer I was eight. I have loved these biscuits just as long."

He took another bite before continuing. "When we left at the end of the summer that first visit to return to Pemberley from this place, my mother told me I should finally have a sibling by that Christmas. I vividly recall telling my mother that we should just bring Archie home, and he could be my sibling instead. She laughed at me and called me silly, and she told me it would be even better to have a new brother or sister than just a friend. Of course, I had other friends close to my own age at Pemberley and even had friends who seemed like brothers at one time. But none were like Archie. I thought he would do well to be my brother – we even swore allegiance to one another at one time. I recall writing to Archie after I returned to Pemberley… as I finally thought I was old enough to have correspondence… and I recall writing to him in one letter that sadly, my mother could not give me a sibling after all. I asked him how this could be since my mother did indeed deliver a child. My parents and all those at Pemberley seemed too sad or distracted to give a young man any proper explanation. And, as a proud youth even then, I could not ask any of my friends or even the servants as there was not only an embargo on the subject but it that boys of a certain age are not allowed to express certain sentiment before others."

He looked at her to see how she took his story so far, and she wished to tell him that it seemed it was not only boys of the male species who were exempt from expressing sentiment. But, she did not. She only nodded for him to go on.

"We went to Sommerdale that Christmastide once my mother was deemed well enough I suppose, and Stephen – he was perhaps twelve or so, did try to explain that some siblings were just born already dead – which was an explanation I surely could not quite comprehend then as I had not understood then what had happened. Anyhow, a month after I wrote to Archie of my disappointment and after having no one to answer my questions or share my sadness, I received a response – I still have it in my boyhood room at Pemberley."

Fitzwilliam paused and continued more quietly. "Archie had written that he had heard, and I quote, some bairn are too extraordinary for this earth and destined for greater things in heaven such as watching from above over their big brothers. Now, to a boy of that age caught betwixt the understanding of reality and of a life where bad things had truly never happened to him, this meant a great deal. I strongly suspect it was Mrs. Kirkland's words that I received that day… and it was her words was I forced to read thrice over again until Georgiana was born… It was that same sentiment he wrote again when finally my mother succumbed after Georgiana was born... I am still grateful to this day for those words just as I am these ginger biscuits."

He paused to take another.

Elizabeth could say nothing and sat there frozen like the trees outside just as he sat there nibbling while unaccountably narrating.

"Archie was that sibling to me that I lost several times over. The love I have for Georgiana is as fierce as any brother's might be, and I treasure her above almost anyone, but by the time she came, and with my mother gone so soon after, and then with my father consumed with finding the bottom of a bottle for more time than was properly excusable, I suppose Georgie was already more ward than sibling. She was a tough lesson in coming of age; I have made many mistakes there. I know I was old before my time, and that is just an unpleasant fact. However, when I would come here as I grew, and when Archie finally joined us at school – as my father eventually insisted he receive a proper education as he did for all the sons who were expected to take their father's positions in the stewardship of the estates – I finally felt as if I had a brother – not a cousin who had his own siblings to manage and shore him up, and not just another friend of whom I loved but was never sure I could entrust with my secrets. No, with Archie, I had someone close to my own age to share those concerns I could share hardly anywhere else. I imagine it is similar with you and Mrs. Bingley. Anyhow, life has taken me all over England and beyond to keep my father's estates profitable. Life has given me some friends, like Bingley who is the truest of friends, for which I am thankful, and I have been given more responsibilities for which I am admittedly sometimes less so. But then there is Archibald Kirkland, Scotish-English land steward and the brother that never was. Archie and I correspond regularly of the estate here and intimately of both our lives, but somethings cannot be put in writing as you well know. We see one other perhaps once per annum since leaving university, if fortunate. I suppose the need to revert to our youthlike habits and youthlike bond got the better of us this morning, and, I do beg your pardon for shocking you with our performance, but I hope you understand. We neither one of us has ever had to account for having a wife, and Archie has no siblings either. Archie's father passed a year before mine, and his mother will scold us but otherwise turn her head if we do not inflict too much damage upon one another or on the furnishings. Like me and on my account, Kirkland is saddled with a great deal of responsibility here. There is just no society to keep us accountable for our bad behavior... well until now that is."

Elizabeth recalled Tabitha's explanation of brothers and thought of her dependence upon Jane over all of those years until their marriages. Even now, having missed her for the past few months, Elizabeth still felt unfathomably close to her eldest sister and knew she would always rely on her no matter the distance.

Fitzwilliam, now looking anywhere but to her, was not so fortunate. He knew more hurt and obligation than she could ever grasp, even now as his partner. The paths their lives had taken were so different before they had unwittingly converging together. His had been longer, winding, and steep. What could she complain of?

She willed herself not to be so forlorn for him for he would construe it as pity. Oh, but she could not help it as she stared over him now very carefully brushing at crumbs on the counterpane. The stress of seeing him so injured earlier in the morning, and now his sad tale of his childhood so unlike hers, charity was her only feeling. Stilling his hand, she covered it with her own. When she could no longer hold her compassion together, she bent and laid her cheek over their clasped fingers. Finally, she whispered words she knew could mean nothing compared to his trials as a simple I am so sorry so far beyond the past could not do much now.

Some minute later, she felt his gentle touch smooth her hair from where it had fallen over her face and the coverlet where she was valiantly holding on to as many of her tears as she could… tears for him and his past hurts… for them and their current hardships.

"Elizabeth, Lizzy, I did not tell you this to trouble you so. There is no reason to be so overcome." His voice was as soft as she had ever heard it.

"How can I not be affected? I only wish you did not have any more troubles to endure, you do not deserve it. I am heartily sorry for it. You deserve some happiness." He deserved someone he could love and be happy with; it was utterly unfair for him. She resolved again to be a good wife and if not that in truth, then a friend.

Sitting up from his pillows, Fitzwilliam pulled himself closer to her. Elizabeth felt her face and shoulders lifted-up off the bed, and soon she was settled back in her chair.

He reached for her hand again being what she considered as impossibly brave and unaffected by his own life. "You, Lizzy, are too compassionate, by half. Come, do not waste your tears. You have done enough of that on my account, I am sure. I will readily own I have had my share of hardships, but Elizabeth, do not mistake that I know I am blessed beyond measure. For most people in England, nay, most people in this life are born without the smallest fraction of the advantages I possess. I only explained my friendship with Kirkland so that you might understand my little bout of savagery this morning was nothing more than a hardy welcome of sorts. A friendly pleasantry, if you will."

"That is not a welcome I should like to receive."

"Well, of course not, just as I would never wish to be welcomed with lamentations, flattery, and pets, and the latest gossip and fashions. I give you leave to strike my person before you welcome me with that womanly foolishness. I can just imagine the cacophony when we are next in company with your sisters as you alight from the carriage as we pull in front of Longbourn; I should go mad." Fitzwilliam shivered with an exaggerated look of disgust on his face which made her smile as she swept at her cheeks.

"Oh, hush; you shall bear up just fine, no matter. You will just hold it all inside except for glowering your disgust which we will all perfectly ignore. But, much better trills and expressions of warmth no matter how ridiculous rather than saying hello after so long by way of an all-out brawl. This fact I cannot so easily neglect. You see, I was very worried this morning, nay, I am still worried."

"Worry, for me?"

"Yes, you. We agreed just the day before to be friends, did we not? How can I not be concerned for you when you were as insensible as I have ever seen you. And, of course, I am concerned for Mr. Kirkland as well."

"I thank you for your anxiety on my behalf, but do not waste your suffering. Archie would not like it either. If you would, please direct your kindness to the pitiable state in which I will be three days hence. I shall have to rot in this bed after being forced to do naught but stare at the ceiling and repulse the itch to saddle a horse while thumbing my nose at that bastard of a Scot. Three days abed for a little knock on the head – bah! 'Tis an embarrassment. I shall not do it. You shall have to tie me to this bed before I remain here that long."

Elizabeth could do nothing but lift her brow as her husband blushed. She grinned as he had succeeded in cheering her after she was so affected by his sad tale of a friendship forged with Mr. Kirkland. The irony was not amiss in her mind that it should have been the other way around. She was also awed at how her husband could claim such a close bond with someone so beneath and dependent upon him. It was very much against her first impressions all those months ago.

She settled into her chair, post-tears and content with an arch smile. "Mr. Johnson did properly warn me of your peevishness, you know. But, instead of tying you to your bed and inflicting some dreaded torture, I shall do much worse. I came here to read to you… with the hope of relieving you of some of your boredom at least."

He squeezed her hand. "Though I cannot imagine torture at your hands being so dreadful, I should like you to read to me very much if it will be the means of you staying right as you are. I have always thought your voice pleasant."

"Thank you, and it is the least I could do. You read to me while on that ghastly ship, and it should not be mentioned those other things you did for me which a handsomely-paid maid would find no pleasure in."

"I am not so squeamish or as fastidious as you think me, and it was my fault for putting us on that boat when I had no idea if you had even been aboard a gangplank."

"Oh desist, you are quite fastidious too, and you cannot take responsibility for me having to earn my sea legs as Mr. Johnson has called it. You know, I think I have discovered what I think a fault in you – you take too much upon yourself when it comes to it. I could give you countless examples, but I will defer another argument for another time. So, please lie abed, and let someone tend you for once."

Dropping his hand, Elizabeth stood. "No complaints, please. Have a drink of water while I fetch a book; the doctor said you must take fluids and keep an appetite. Now, tell me, what should you like me to read?"

Mr. Johnson had told her his books had not been shelved yet and remained in the trunk by the wardrobe. She walked in that direction across the room smirking over her shoulder. "Shall it be a history? Some non-fiction tome on increasing yields? Modern poetry?" She paused a moment feeling heat come to her cheeks as she bent down to the trunk thinking their history with poetry was too much to consider seeing as they were in his bedchamber. "Greek tragedy? Though, I do not know if I can handle that much drama after today. You know, I never understood all the adultery, incestuous relationships, and all the obnoxious murdering of one's family anyhow…" Elizabeth shuddered, "… Other than Homer for just the excitement, I could never justify any real interest beyond the academic for reading the more onerous classics. My father insisted of course, so I dutifully read them though I am sure you can imagine me as a girl of fourteen asking my father why a man should marry his mother…"

Opening the trunk, she saw it full of books and sat with a thump on the rug. My goodness, he was a voracious reader, a great deal more than even she. Seeing a title in French and not really reading it, she picked it up in her hand to examine the tome more closely as she spoke. "Anyhow, you may also safely assume I shall positively not read you any of your account ledgers though I know what affinity you have for them over all else – "

Elizabeth was cut off in shock and hauled up by her shoulders just as the very decorative and very shocking illustration imprinted upon her mind right after opening the French title in her hands to a random page. The sound of the book clattering to the ground was heard right after the high-pitched chirp which surely had not come from her mouth.

Oh, but it had.

They both stood very still with his hands gripping her like tight, bound irons. She not only knew she was as red as a radish from her toes to her ears, she felt so aflame she thought her stockings might just burn off her legs. His hands upon her person did nothing to sooth.

Her mind was in a tumult.

Why has he a book like that? Surely it is not like that?

Elizabeth had certainly never been banned from anything in her father's library – no she had just claimed to have read Oedipus Rex with her father at the tender age of fourteen, but for all the world, never ever in any realm would her father possess something like this book in his library.

Swallowing hard and otherwise standing rigid, she said, "You are not to be from bed. You are concussed, badly." No longer able to look straight ahead after hearing her voice sound so strangled, she made the mistake of looking down only to see the book had laid open to something even more shocking. "Oh, God." Elizabeth's head shot up to the ceiling where she could only hope Fitzwilliam's was likewise.

His hands still gripped her. "It is not what you imagine."

If she were truly not stunned beyond all credulity, she might have laughed at him. How else could one interpret this very scene? All she could manage was a stingy nod of her head to agree with his inanity, yet the movement of her head up and down was quite constrained as she refused to remove her eyes from the plaster above her head for fear what might next offend her eyes.

"Truly, Elizabeth, it was given to me as a bawdy gift. A joke. I should have consigned it to the fire. I am mortified I did not."

Well, mortified or not, she had never learned to hold her tongue. "And, so you have never read this, then? Or even looked? You could swear to it?"

She heard his intake of breath, and his fingers curl into her flesh as he tried to compose himself nary inches behind her. "I suppose curiosity has gotten the better of me in a moment of weakness."

"Yes," she considered his admission trying to sound logical and worldly in this nonsensical, dispairing state of affairs which was now progressing like some grotesque and crude comedy in her husband's bedchamber; in a very detached, theoretical tone, she conceded, "Yes, I dare suppose you give quite a reasonable enough justification in admitting to it."

This time he did not compose himself. "Christ, I am a man of eight and twenty who has never lain with a woman. Is that not some excuse to look and wonder? Surely a lesser sin."

Elizabeth heard the rising pitch of his voice and felt tremors in his fingertips through the sleeve of her dress, yet she could not shake her shock. Boldly, she prodded at the book with her toe while keeping her gaze high. "And, this… that is what you will expect from me someday if you should ever finally decide that you should like to…" The thought she could not finish aloud, she tried to express with a fluttering wave of her hands.

His breath seized in her hair as she felt his movement from behind – no doubt he looked down to that which she referred and then jerked himself upright while still grasping her in his clutch and at hardly enough distance away. He struggled to speak, and then he answered her with a resounding, "No, not that."

Well, she had never taken him for a liar before, because until now, he never sounded like one.

Perhaps Fitzwilliam rather meant he would decide he should never want her in that way, in that similar way he had passionately kissed and held her those precious few times in some scandalous rage before they were married – when she was still a maiden in Hertfordshire (as opposed to a maiden in Scotland), may he would never again want her in that same way she had sensed him wanting her during those precious few times during their young marriage when she could sense his will of good sense almost falling short of overcoming his passions.

He loosened his grip and eventually dropped his hands from her though she could not bring herself to turn around to face him yet. He spoke to the back of her head, "I cannot imagine we are yet approaching enough of an understanding nor reasonable enough to explaining our expectations in even the most general of terms for whatever the future holds in that respect. I would not disrespect you so with those kinds of expectations, and alas, we cannot even be in the same confines for even a quarter an hour most days without some dispute. Anyhow, as a gentleman, I should never, never expect that considering our marriage is not based upon… that..."

To his rambling, she could not help but add her own if only to avoid pointing out that indeed, their marriage was based on that fatal and greatest attraction of all the sinners. Her father had caught them in the act of expressing themselves as they should not have been though it was nothing like that which was now open at her feet.

But, at a time like this, all she could do was add her own nonsense to his. "Yes, surely, we should learn to overcome our failures and disputes before… well… before… that is if you think one day you should like to…" Oh, Lord in heaven, hold your tongue, Elizabeth! "Well… our insistent quarreling could never… well, never… bode well for… for that. Or rather … but maybe some more civil version of that… I cannot imagine… that you would ever imagine that… with us… you, of course, would not, not like that." Elizabeth ceased and placed her hands over her mouth to prevent from spewing more damning senselessness.

When she thought herself under some kind of regulation, she carefully lowered her arms and smoothed her skirts. Taking smooth gulps of the heavy air around her to restore some of that which had earlier left her chest, she heard him say somewhere into the back of her head and down the exposed neckline of her gown to where the buttons burned over her chemise, "No, surely, you could not imagine that I would ever imagine that."

It was several more intentional breaths that were not-so easily obtained before Elizabeth decided she would again be the bold one between them. Smiling through a clamped jaw, and fighting to relax her hands which refused to behave, she spun on her heel to face him.

It might have been the most dreadful mistake of her life. For there he stood, staring down at the open book in his not-so-long of a nightshirt, and in all their glory were his bare feet and the hairiest, most well-formed calves she had ever supposed displayed on such a man. Upon his person draped no dressing gown, no breeches. He was swathed in a thin linen shirt which embraced less than modestly certain parts of his broad person, excepting that ungodly amount of leg in which her eyes refused to cease feasting upon repeatedly.

I shall not swoon. I shall not.

He still looked down to the floor, unnoticing of her gawking, seemingly unaware of himself, and with his eyes hopefully not, but very much so fixed upon that wretched book splayed open as it was between them. No, surely not, surely, he is not looking upon that now.

"Fitzwilliam?" His name was regrettably whispered.

No, this was the most dreadful mistake of her life to have now called his attention from what he was staring upon as his eyes now blinked and then fixed to hers.

He was utterly silent, his expression dark and soft, his hair falling much too roguishly over his cut, swollen brow. His chest rising and falling much too rapidly.

She was going to die.

He was going to devour her in some very unseemly way.

An invisible clamp began to squeeze her stomach low and deep, and she felt the risk of him so near to her person.

Stepping back from the tension which now was between them and unable to disengage herself from him like she was stuck in a corner she could not escape, all she could think of was how this morning he had called her his Lizzy, a saucy minx he had said – surely that meant something good, and he had wanted to tell her a secret in his stupid state. Why, oh why, had she stopped him?

Shaking her head at her foolishness in silencing him this morning – for she desperately wanted to know what he truly thought of her - she braced herself for him to draw near as he now surely looked to do just that and something a great deal more. Perhaps he did want from her something in the base way she admitted she wanted from him just as much.

What did it matter? Despite the lack of any formal conciliation with this man, she loved him, and she had lusted over him a great deal from near the beginning even if she did not understand her feelings then. She had already admitted all of this to herself so many times over. She felt it every day, and every day both of those truths of love and lust expanded and mingled into a delicious and frustrating longing for him to want her in any way he might wish it if it meant relief.

He had snuck into her hopes, crouching concealed in her heart from even the first. Her love could be enough for them both. If he wanted that – nay this from her, then, as shocking as it all was to wish to feel his closeness if not his love – a love which seemed not in his power to give as she would have otherwise liked, then she would not say nay.

The congratulations she felt to herself for the almost marauding look in his one good eye confirmed for her enough that this, his seeming intent, was exactly what she wished; the flush cursing down her own body which yearned for his hands to extinguish the blisters she felt indeed sanctioned her compliance.

Elizabeth Darcy was perfectly persuaded she would be entirely agreeable to whatever he would take from her right at this moment which might appease the aching affection she long wished to prove.

If she could only communicate to him all of this in words before the deed, all would be the better, but she dare not.

Biting her lips before she cast up words she could not take back, she reminded herself of the last time anything of the truth of her feelings came out in the air between them: the man went away and did not speak to her for two days, and then upon his return, he argued with her before barely saying anything for nigh on another se'nnight.

Eyes wide as he just stared holding himself just hardly in check as he made small, sly movements, she shook her head in resolution to be silent and not allow any past injury to hinder his panther-like progress, she determined she would not ruin things this time by saying some silly archaic saying of strung-together words of folly. The rose would smell as sweet in silence, surely.

Determined, she braced herself willingly and dare she acknowledge, desperately reaching for the wardrobe behind her.

Perhaps recognizing her bravery to fall into his advance, he stopped cold in his ravening tracks, looked away, and carefully stepped back clearing his throat.

No!

"Oh, God, I am so sorry Elizabeth. I do not know why... not like this. I vowed... I shall not..." He turned away from her further and walked slowly to his bed stopping short from sitting or lying down. "Please, have a good night, madam. I shall retire. I am not right or well just now. Take a candle if you need it. I am sorry."

She watched as his hands went to his head and pulled on the ends of his hair. He stood there looking away from her now all awkwardness.

This is it then? She had the evidence of his desires, based in lust at the least, right at her feet, and if she was not mistaken, clothed in linen before her.

Her anger was rising in her dissapointment.

She may have not been prepared for what that preposterous book portrayed, but Elizabeth was prepared to give whatever he should like to take from her just then. She was not wholly uneducated, and she knew she had never before seen something so carnivorous in his eyes, she thought she was sure anyhow.

But, perhaps not. She had no idea of men and their ways. Never in five-thousand years would she have guessed her husband could have owned such a bound volume of iniquity nor have the restraint of a saint.

Had there been a woman ever been so frustrated? Likely not!

Did his rational self like her so little? She could not understand. An irrepressible passion is what trapped them into this mess of a marriage, and she knew she had just witnessed his capacity for it. Was he truly so determined as to continue to hate her out of principal because she had wronged him so badly on their wedding night? He had once claimed that his good opinion once lost, was lost forever. Was he such a man of his word he felt he had to uphold his vow to her when he told her the day after their wedding - once she returned to him - that the idea of sharing her bed brought him no pleasure? Would he be stubborn to the declaration that they might have a marriage in name only? No, she could not believe him that unyielding to deny themselves some measure of happiness.

Well, if he meant to be an obstinate ox, she could be equally yoked with him in this manner– was that not the epitome of a holy union ordained by God - to be equal in stature as to wear the harness equally? No doubt their harness was not an ordained one in which they were equal in piety but rather equal to be bound together in a punishment born of perversity.

Picking up the offensive book, she snapped it shut and read the spine. "L'Escole des Filles. Well, we have already discussed that my French is not as good as yours and that I read it to myself much better than read it aloud. But, I am of a mind that no female shall distinguish herself accomplished without practice. Shall I begin at the beginning? A fine place to begin such an educational work, you think? It is fortunate to have such illustrations when there are words I have no translation for as I am positive I lack a flair of vocabulary in my native tongue. I do promise to try my best; entertain you, I am certain I shall."

"Are you entirely serious right now?" Whatever mire of mental self-flagellation he had fallen into moments ago for almost pouncing on her like a large cat, he had removed himself from it. Now he stalked back to her with a look which spoke of bewilderment and told her he certainly thought her fit for some sort of institution if she were going to read aloud on the subject of that.

She smiled wickedly, for wicked and bitter she felt in her strong displeasure.

He almost ripped the book from her hands as he threw it back into the trunk. "Are you enjoying my humiliation?"

That was almost heinously offensive. Elizabeth felt she had the right to feel the more humiliated between the two of them in the face of his continual rejection, so yet she persisted. "Your humiliation? What have you to be humiliated about, sir? I grant you this is by no means so comfortable a subject for two such as ourselves – being perhaps the most naïve, most virginal married people in all of England – no, in all of Scotland – which is by far more the more ridiculous of places betwixt the two to live in an unconsummated marriage based on a compromising situation – of our own making by and by – which seems quite silly and innocent now considering your precious book! However, sir, grant that I am liberal-minded enough to excuse your reading material with an easy effort in accepting the most reasonable excuse made for you of what human nature demands in the way of the innate compulsion to produce offspring by whatever mysterious force and means which is kept secret from a maiden's eyes though clearly not a gentleman's. Lord, someone gave that to you as a gift? I shall have to do much better in the future. Now, stop being a cyclops-ed ninny! I pray you! I do not care about your stupid book nor if you look at it fifty times in a day! It decidedly does not affect me whatsoever, even when that subject is thrust between us plainly!"

She paused, her incredulity rising beyond even the pitch of her voice. She wanted to march back to the truck of books, pick up the sinful thing, and pitch it at his head she felt such dissatisfaction. "You, sir? You, offended? Unbelievable! I only came to read you a book – " Elizabeth stopped, considered her frustration as wholly run away from her, and then recalled herself. "Nay, leave it – I came to read you a book, and I shall do just that. Select a title or I will cast my very poor, surely improper French upon you whether you feel humiliated or not, and back to your bed, Fitzwilliam. You have an injury to your head. I would hate to have to find the doctor – you know Mr. Johnson practically dragged him here behind his mare for the sole fact that he knows you would listen to no one else. We have put that Scot in a chamber for the night, and I imagine he will be none too pleased with either of us should he learn you are out of your bed and having a fine dispute with your wife, but I shall not hesitate to call him from his chamber if I think he will be of use to us."

Perhaps she had gone too far for he stood there as stupidly as she had ever seen him. It did not help that she felt a little like a scolding nurse, mortified with disappointed hopes and a stomach full of unquenched flutterings, and it certainly did not help that he truly was a one-eyed man in a ruffle-less nightshirt with absolutely, indisputably too much terrestrial appendage on display.

Lord, she was almost breathless, but she managed to eke out, "Good heavens, go to bed, and I promise to select a perfectly proper book."

Still, he only stared, dumbfounded.

Gently, she walked over to him and grabbed him by the arm to lead him to the bed. "My apologies for calling you a cyclops. It is most unfair as it is far too soon for your injury to be an object of humor for you as it is for me, I am sure. But, sir," here she pushed him down to sit on the bed, "I insist you lie down."

Well, she would not draw his legs up and tuck him under the coverlet like she used to do with her younger sisters while they were still in the nursery. That would be doing it much too brown for her precarious sensibilities which were indeed, no longer rational.

Leaving him to situate himself, she went back to the trunk full of what might be unexpected, scary reading material, and she refused to look in the direction of what would always be known to her as the book of that and instead took a chance on other items of interest.

There was found a treatise by Hume which was geographically apropos considering they were in Scotland but rejected for its too-close relevancy to her ridiculous comment on human nature; she also considered the same book of poetry by William Blake they discussed at Netherfield, but it was rejected on account of getting her into this whole blasted mess in the first place; then there was A Modest Proposal which was certainly a sound selection but too short if she was to read to her most stubborn and strange husband for a whole three days strung together of convalescence, so she put it aside for herself later when the act of sacrificing infants for food could hold her in humor as she would most need it alone in her rooms to relive the most embarrassing evening of her life; there was a binding of Shakespeare which was equivocally deemed much too prosaic for her task; and, finally, there was –

"Elizabeth! Stop. Stop reasoning through my books and choose something, anything – not French if you please!"

Noticing the stack of books that she had begun sorting involuntarily without thought, she could only laugh at herself for her natural tendencies when thoroughly vexed. Looking again into the trunk resolved to choose the next book she put her hands upon, she was all too happy to pull out Lady of the Lake. She held it up in triumph.

He commented, "Geographically apropos and entirely safe for the likes of us."

Elizabeth walked toward the invalid with a raised eyebrow. She still felt flushed, but her courage held her fast to her purpose, and her husband was now modestly covered anyhow. "Do you my read thoughts now, Mr. Darcy?"

"Would that I could, Mrs. Darcy. I would give you half of Pemberley for them."

"Ah, but you have given me half of Pemberley, if by a vow, not law."

"My own words? Not sporting of you, wife. Do you know you speak a good deal to yourself without so much as realizing it? You were just doing so now."

"Well, you should just ignore my nonsense then. I should not think it that hard; you have done it often enough."

"I would never; you also hum to yourself, tap your feet as you read in verse, and mutter under your breath when you just cannot hold whatever it is you are thinking inside that mind of yours. Trust me, it is not easily ignored."

"I promise I shall endeavor to stop."

"Why? I am practically accustomed to it as any good husband ought to be by now. Though, I object with all fervor that Shakespeare could be called prosaic under any conditions."

As she fought the urge to castigate herself for muttering her thoughts unknowingly aloud in his presence, she caught him smiling at her indulgently and with an air of calmness.

At least one of them seemed to have success in forgetting the last quarter-hour just happened.

"Shakespeare, prosaic – was a wordplay, but I suppose I am only clever to myself as I am not the one with a dull head... and a single functioning eyelid." That was quite unfair though he took it in stride even as she gave him a smug look. "However, my good and well husband, I think I could make a sound argument on the prosaic nature of Shakespeare that even you and your dull head might easily oppose if it is a debate you would prefer over my reading."

"Have we not just demonstrated and agreed this evening that we would find a great deal more gratification with each other if we could learn not to dispute and defend, argue and provoke?" The look of heat in his eyes made her wish to scream or do something really bold, but she could never no matter how she wished it as she had never initiated any kind of intimacy between them - it had always been him. So, she met his look with one of her own and did her absolute best not to give him the satisfaction of seeing any more of her flustering blushes, and silently – but reluctantly – congratulated him taking back the upper hand. Before she could say another word, his mien settled into something more open and neutral. "Last night you declared a truce, and though we have had a minor setback, I am determined to take you up on your offer of friendship."

Well, how could she not agree with her own good sense? She told herself yesterday she would settle for even that, and so she would.

With some not-so-small amount of flourish, she opened Walter Scott's words, began to read, and might have occasionally substituted the character James Fitz-James's name as James Fitzwilliam if only to nettle her eager, cyclops-ed listener.

When he would smirk and feign offense and pull at the sleeve of her dress to beg that she "do be serious, Mrs. Darcy", Elizabeth found some happiness. And, she began to finally understand, though she may quite yet be enough an object of whatever secret passions he pursued alone, he secretly enjoyed being the object of her teasing, so much so that he kissed her hand in thanks for her splendid reading when the clock chimed twelve times. And, before she left him for the night, and just as she had with her sisters for all those years, she did eventually tuck the coverlet around him. Then, with a warmth she could not help but express, she bent down to kiss his beaten brow goodnight.