Elizabeth woke early in the morning the day after the ball — far too early to wake up after a night where the dancing had continued almost till dawn.

The white paint on her ceiling stared back down at her. She was warm and cozy in bed, covered by several heavy quilts and with the carefully banked embers still glowing in the fireplace. It wasn't even cold today. Stay in bed… stay and never face the bizarre disaster last night had turned her life into.

Elizabeth wriggled back deeper into her bed and closed her eyes, and without intending to let her mind wander there, she relived the kiss. Her stomach shooting up into her throat as she fell. The way Darcy moved so fast, showing that all of his attention had been on her. His tight, warm grip around her hips, keeping her safe and secure. His smooth strong hands swinging her up to stand beside him.

His deep, intense eyes.

The sore sprain in her foot, forgotten. His lips on her lips, nibbling, caressing and pulling at her lips.

She had liked the kiss.

This ridiculous marriage could be worse. She could be being forced to marry a man whose mouth she hated.

All a terrible accident.

The rug's fault. Not her fault. Not Darcy's fault. The rug's fault. There, someone to blame who could not defend themself. Once Jane married Bingley, she would make Mr. Bingley burn the rug. Or if he didn't want to destroy any furniture belonging to the house, she would make Bingley package it up and send it to the owner.

As forced and unwanted marriages went, hers was surprisingly promising. Darcy was a clever man. He said clever things about books. And society. He secretly made fun of Miss Bingley all the time, and Elizabeth did not like her either. And she liked talking to Darcy, however much she had pretended to despise his opinions. And there was a strong passion between them.

Elizabeth grinned, and, without really planning to get out of bed, she sat up, put her legs on the thick rug beneath her bed, stood and went to the wash basin to splash her face with cold water.

Whatever he had said when he first saw her, she was handsome enough to tempt him. And except when she wished to tease him, this would be the last time she would ever consider those first words to fall from his lips that she had heard. He liked her very well indeed — that was what all those dark silent looks which he had been sending her meant, they had been full of passion and admiration.

While Mr. Darcy was the last man in the world whom she would have chosen to marry, and while she would have sharply and angrily refused him if he had offered for her hand, now that the matter was a fait accompli, and now that she could honorably and chastely fantasize about kissing him once more, Elizabeth was not at all sure, on this morning following their interrupted interlude in Netherfield's library, that the situation which was leading to her marriage to Mr. Darcy was a bad matter about which she should mourn.

Elizabeth's hopeful mood lasted in full flower until he came to the drawing room from his closeted appointment with Mr. Bennet.

The two gentlemen announced that Mr. Darcy was to marry Elizabeth — that had been definitely decided on. Mrs. Bennet exclaimed, "The Lord has been very good to us! Oh, my clever, clever daughter."

Mr. Darcy bowed in reply every time Mrs. Bennet referred to him and he listened with ill concealed, at least to Elizabeth, impatience to Mrs. Bennet's effusive explanation of how she had always liked him, always thought the best of him, and never participated in the neighborhood's general dislike of Mr. Darcy.

"Men are so changeable — I knew, I always liked you. Even though the first thing you said — your very first words in Meryton had been that Lizzy was not handsome enough to tempt you." Mrs. Bennet laughed. "Oh! You were very tempted by my cleverest girl. Hertfordshire girls are the finest. Anyone will eventually succumb to our charm. Don't you worry — Lizzy can very well manage a house. You'll see. And you can see that she is very well raised. She'll be an excellent mother for your children. She has my example. She will be a mother just like me. You can see how well-mannered all of her children will be from how my children all behave, with the perfectest propriety and sweetness and good cheer no matter—"

"La!" Lydia shouted, bored by Mrs. Bennet's unending stream of words. "What a joke! Marrying terrible Mr. Darcy! It would have been more fun if Lizzy were to marry Mr. Collins, like he planned, but I suppose you shall do better as a brother. But I am Wickham's friend. I cannot believe Lizzy has forgotten our dear Mr. Wickham so easily as that. I shall not."

With a sniffing sneer, Lydia left the room.

Mr. Darcy coldly watched her go, and Elizabeth's stomach churned. He would despise her family so much that he would leave — except she knew Darcy would not do that. She somehow knew that abandoning her after kissing her in front of witnesses simply was not in his character. She somehow knew that she liked his character very much.

"As I was saying, all of my daughters are very well behaved, and Lizzy shall raise yours to be just as well behaved!"

Zounds! Every word from her mother made Mr. Darcy's face grew colder. Elizabeth did not want to see him so angry. She was not sure why. Only the day previous she had been sure she hated him. Now she wanted to protect him from her mother.

She desperately wanted him to approve of her.

"Mama!" Elizabeth exclaimed to silence her smilingly galloping mother. "Mr. Darcy wishes to speak, can you not see?"

"Oh, of course. I would never be one to speak over a gentleman, or prevent him from having the turn to make his opinions known, especially such a happy gentleman, whom I like so much as—"

"Mama."

Mr. Darcy smiled, a little ironically at Elizabeth. "I would in truth like to have an opportunity to speak to my affianced with privacy."

Elizabeth's stomach leapt with butterflies.

Sharp clean shaven cheekbones. A finely tied cravat. Muscular shoulders which his riding coat clung to. He wanted her alone so he could kiss her again.

That must be his clever design.

She felt her face flush as she looked at him, and her heart raced.

Stop, Lizzy. He is too austere a man to just want a kiss. He wants to talk about practical matters around the engagement. And the like… And then he would kiss her again.

Mrs. Bennet winked at both of them, broadly. "Of course. Of course. Mr. Darcy." She tittered. "I shall leave you two entirely alone. I can trust you both without chaperone." She tittered again. "Lizzy! Such a clever girl."

Elizabeth flushed more completely, the red going down her neck and into her cleavage like the previous night. Her mother was embarrassing her. Again.

And with a shutting door they were alone.

Elizabeth demurely looked down at the floral sprigged pattern of their new rug. Mrs. Bennet declared shortly after they had bought the rug the previous year, while Mr. Bennet complained upon the price, that with this rug, even in the worst part of winter, they would have flowers in the drawing room.

Elizabeth could almost smell the red dyed roses.

Her heart beat fast, and her fingertips tingled.

Mr. Darcy said nothing.

He did not move. Elizabeth waited tensely. She secretly hoped he would stalk across the room and take her into his arms with one large embrace and kiss her intensely, like the previous night.

She would always remember falling into his arms like that.

He did not move.

Elizabeth looked up at Darcy. Part of her mind wanted her to stand stiffly and speak to him in a businesslike manner, showing that she was not presently ruled by the passion that had ruled them both the previous night.

Instead she looked up demurely through her eyelashes and smiled in what she hoped was a seductive manner. She bit her lower lip, like the heroine in a novel she had read recently constantly did.

Darcy groaned and looked away. "Do not look at me like that, madam."

"Like what?" Elizabeth said grinningly, now brave. She came closer to him, so close that she could smell his rich scent again. When he looked at her once more, she bit her lower lip once more. "What did you want us to discourse upon?"

He groaned again.

"Well, Mr. Darcy?" She grinned and leaned her head up towards him.

He shook himself and stepped away. But she could tell from how his eyes lingered on her lips, and occasionally dipped to her other attributes, that it was not an easy choice for him. "We must talk about practical matters. Yes. Practical matters."

"Of course." Elizabeth grinned, and bit her lip once more, enjoying the effect that gesture had on Mr. Darcy's attention. "Practical matters."

"Stop looking at me like that!" She had never seen him so flustered. "You'll not trick me again. You have so arranged that you have a rich husband. Your trap succeeded, but I shall not give you any great sum of pin money. You will receive the minimum suitable to your place as Mrs. Darcy."

Elizabeth gasped and stepped away, her hand flying to her mouth. All thought of seducing the still odious man fled. She had planned for them to be discovered? He had been the one to kiss her! Elizabeth spoke coldly. "I do not know what you are speaking of."

"Do not pretend to be innocent."

The harsh tone of his voice dampened, though it did not quench, the ardent fire that burned in Elizabeth's belly. "You odious man. You ungentlemanlike kisser and insulter of women. You think I trapped you!"

"Yes, Madam. You trapped me. It was no accident that right at the moment when we were kissing your mother opened the door with witnesses."

Elizabeth growled.

"Well?"

"You are being ridiculous. It was a coincidence."

"Just admit the truth. You intended to use my passion for you to trap me into marriage."

"Passion? I had no idea you had the slightest attachment to me before last night. You had once claimed me to be too unhandsome to tempt you."

"You should not listen to the conversations of other people."

"And you should not have sneeringly insulted on a public dance floor the entirety of my neighborhood. And then kissed me."

Elizabeth threw back the accusation.

She panted. Like she had when she angrily argued with Darcy last night. Odious, odious man. He was wrong. So wrong. With such fine thin lips. She wanted to shout at him and kiss him at the same time. Hopefully he was feeling the same thing. The kissing part at least.

He was.

She could now read that dark look in his eyes. And then he seemed to actually hear what she had accused him of at last and he grimaced. "Yes. Last night was not the only failure of my honor and self-control. I ought to have made a better pretence of politeness to the neighborhood. I was wrong to fail in that."

"You shouldn't have thought you were above us at all."

"I am above your neighborhood. You now shall be above them too. I shall expect you also to behave as though you are above them once we marry. You should keep distance from those who are no longer worthy of your attention, and—"

"What? You want me to treat my neighbors, the people I have grown up with, as though they are—"

"As though they are of little consequence in the world. Which they are. You can shower them with condescension, but—"

"Lord! If I wanted to listen to this, I would have married Mr. Collins."

That silenced him. Good. Odious man. She didn't even want to kiss him again anymore.

Yes, yes you do.

Darcy stepped closer to her. So close she could smell his cologne and the spicy scent of his breath. He was big and well proportioned, and she loved… uh admired… uh lustfully beheld his Grecian (whatever that meant, but it sounded decidedly handsome) profile, and his strong chin.

"Elizabeth — we can call each other by our Christian names as we are to marry. I just want…"

His breath caught. Her breath caught.

Their faces were only inches apart, and they felt closer. She could just reach her hand forward and touch his lips. She could just lean her face up, and he could just lower his lips to hers and kiss her.

Please.

"Elizabeth." He took a deep steadying breath, though the arousal in his dark eyes remained. "I just want you to admit to me you know it was wrong to entrap me in this way."

"Zounds! You lumbering, lurching oaf!" Elizabeth tried to push him away with her hands, but she just pushed herself instead of pushing both of them. "I didn't trap you! You — you — you trapped me!"

Darcy raised one eyebrow briefly in skepticism.

"Think. I could not have planned for my mother to enter at the moment when you kissed me."

"You kept a count in your head, waiting for the right moment, so that there would be enough time for us to be thoroughly engrossed in the kiss, but insufficient time for me to remember my position and push you away, and your mother brought the witnesses together, keeping the same count."

"We were in the library for ten minutes! You cannot imagine that my mother could keep a consistent time count for so long."

He raised that single eyebrow again.

"I tripped! You were the brute who kissed me."

"You certainly kissed me in return. Do not pretend you didn't enjoy it."

Elizabeth paused, clenching and unclenching her fists like claws.

Oh, if only she could scream to him about how he was taking advantage of a poor helpless maiden who had no knowledge of congress between men and women, and who certainly had not wanted any such kiss, nor participated willingly in their kiss. And who definitely did not enjoy any part of that kiss.

Alas, her mother had taught her not to lie.

"I can too," Elizabeth said at last, with an air of wounded dignity, "pretend that I did not enjoy it. And I always shall — do not expect me to confess that truth. And I did not seek your kiss."

"Madam, I understand your choosing to entrap me in this way. You saw my attraction—"

She sneered. "Ridiculous!"

Darcy didn't have any attraction for her, and he was just pretending to claim he did, to make his kissing her sound less horrible. Elizabeth really had no notion why the strange man was saying he had been attracted. She would never be able to understand him, not even if she had fifty years to study his character.

Which you will.

No. No. No. Not such unpleasant thoughts. He would probably die after only forty more years.

Elizabeth shuddered, uncomforted by her attempt to comfort herself.

Better to think about pleasant things. Darcy supposedly had a gigantesque house with superb grounds, and she'd have several carriages and a great deal of dresses. That is what she should think on, since she was never to marry for love.

Fah! Love! Who needs it?

At least as many poets decried the feeling, and called it madness, insane, not worth the bother, et cetera, as praised the emotion. She could do very well without any love in her life.

"You saw my attraction," Darcy said again, "and as you did not wish to be made to marry Mr. Collins by your mother— " Elizabeth yet another time snorted and sneered. "You offered her an alternative, by entrapping me."

"I would have refused Mr. Collins — this assumes he meant to ask me — and Papa would have supported me. I am by no means persuaded Mr. Collins would have made the offer… He must recognize how ill suited we are."

Mr. Darcy pressed his fine pale lips together into a thin smile, and he raised just one eyebrow, again. The picture of skepticism.

"How do you do that?" Elizabeth asked as she compulsively raised both of her eyebrows several times. "I want to respond with the same skeptical single eyebrow, but it is not working."

Was that a smile? Mr. Darcy kept the one eyebrow up, firmly, but his lips definitely were smiling.

He could be excessively handsome when he smiled. Even if he did think she had wanted to end up in this situation.

"Come now! Reveal the secret. Unless it was something taught in one of those exclusive male clubs where they made you to all bow in togas before a collection of skulls stolen from a museum of medical curiosities before swearing to never share the secret."

"What?"

"Come now, Mr. Darcy — everyone knows that young aristocrats of your sort—"

"I am untitled."

"Aristocratic youths then, of your sort, join the most absurd dining clubs when in university. And that you rule the world with these cabals that determine the next prime minister, the outcome of the wars, and whether or not good Christianity will be outlawed by the Masons. And how to raise one eyebrow at a time."

"Oh! Those clubs. Yes, well, I did not learn the secret there, so I am under no oath to hide the trick from you. But unfortunately, I do not know how I do it. It was a habit of my father's. I must have simply imitated him as a child, and thus gained the skill. Perhaps if you practice in a mirror…"

Elizabeth threw her hands up. "Useless. I am to get an unexpected and unsought — I did not trap you — husband, with the most remarkable and unusual skill, and I gain no benefit from it."

Mr. Darcy looked at her again, with one skeptical eyebrow raised.

Men. Useless.

That smile playing on the edge of his lips was quite handsome. Maybe she should look on the bright sunny side of matters if she was going to be forced to marry this man. Specifically she should look at that smile.

If she could get him to smile like that all the time… she could very well bear being his wife.

"Come, Mr. Darcy." Elizabeth smiled. "We are to marry. We should make the best of it. I am now convinced there will be some excellent aspects to this."

His smile collapsed. "You mean Pemberley."

"No! I mean your smile and the kiss we—" Elizabeth's face flushed. God she could not believe she just shouted that. And Mama was probably hiding on the other side of the door, with her ear to the keyhole, listening to every word they said.

"It takes more than animal passions to make a good relationship. You lack entirely in connections, and wealth, and morality. I just wish you to admit that you—"

"I did not seek to entrap you."

"You did."

Their faces hovered inches in front of each other once more.

And once more the two of them kissed. Lips desperately pressing together, tongues, and gripping of clothes and bodies.

When they paused for breath, Elizabeth added once more, "Did not."

Darcy kissed her once more in reply.

AN: So I'll be posting regularly until this book is fully available here. It is already published on Amazon, and is publishing to the other major online e-book stores.

So have fun reading, and keep telling me what you all think :)