A Compromised Compromise

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On the night of the Netherfield Ball, late in the evening, after the supper party had seen Mrs. Bennet thoroughly embarrass herself, Mr. Darcy took into his head that he needed to explain everything, or at least enough, about Mr. Wickham’s proclivities to warn Elizabeth, in case she was on the course to fall into an infatuation with Wickham. Darcy’s emotion towards Elizabeth was such that he did not believe the scoundrel could seduce her, but he did not wish to see her heart broken, and the more he thought about Wickham, the more he wished to explain and defend himself to Elizabeth, even though it was below him to do so.
For the purpose of having privacy to allow Mr. Darcy to defend with private particulars his interactions with Wickham, the two of them sought private council in the library, with just a few candles flickering on the indiawood table for light. In this dim light it became almost impossible to see the grinning, toothless maw of the bear.
“Now explain. How can you possibly justify your horrid treatment of Mr. Wickham?”
Fitzwilliam Darcy stared with apparent coldness, but in fact from a deep well of passion, at Elizabeth Bennet, as the candle light flickered tantalizingly and seductively on her delicate face. The violins of the ball whispered sweet melodies through the closed door.
He should not tell the details about Georgiana, even though he trusted Elizabeth.
She had been strangely angry at him during their dance — Darcy was reasonably certain she became angry mainly because she realized he would not allow his passionate interest in her to override his capable judgement and good reason and cause him to make an offer to her. But if his real intention was to have nothing further to do with her, why in the name of his good name whose tarnish he risked with this conference was he closeted alone with her during a ball?
However, Darcy reassured himself, he was not jealous of Mr. Wickham. Obviously Elizabeth could not care anything for Mr. Wickham, and that her violent defence of the slithering scoundrel sprung from her unquenchable desire for Darcy (and his wealth), and her knowledge that she would never gain her end.
She suffered, no doubt, from the same panging pain that pierced his own chest, but the weaker spirit of a woman could not handle such feelings with equanimity and a calm cold countenance.
Darcy realized as Elizabeth stared at him, her look changing from anger to something else, that he had not spoken in reply.
The candlelights seductively flickered in the deep mysterious mirrors of her eyes.
“He seduces women.” Darcy’s voice was low, involuntarily seductive. Darcy tried to roughen his voice. He needed to avoid any such hint of feeling or desire towards the unsuitable, yet perfectly desirable maiden. “For marriage he wishes a fortune. He can have no serious interest in you.”
Darcy grimaced internally, as Elizabeth’s eyes flashed angrily.
He knew enough of the vanity of women to know that telling them that any man was not the thrall of their love was certain to raise their ire. He had once attempted to explain the lack of interest on the part of a third party to Caroline Bingley, when she had been sufficiently repelled by his unresponsiveness to her flirtations to dangle her bonnet towards the heir of an earldom.
Miss Bingley had been quite displeased with him when he suggested that the Viscount had no interest in her. Unfortunately she then determined that Darcy’s caution to her was a sign of his jealousy, and thus his interest in her, and he’d not been able to get her to stop simpering after his approval since.
No! He did not want to give Elizabeth false hopes. He should have found a different route to condemn Wickham than one which would inevitably lead Elizabeth to believe that he, Darcy, had designs upon her.
“Proof.” Elizabeth clenched her jaw, the muscles spasming with anger. “Proof. When you make such accusations against a man enormously below you, proof is expected.”
“I have seen him at university, and when we were at Eton and in the village around Pemberley when we were young men. He is obsessed with women, and he has had surprising success…” Darcy trailed off. As a boy he had been jealous of Wickham’s ease with women. “From the instant he awoke to an awareness that a man could desire a woman,” Darcy continued in a firm voice, “his sole pursuit has been the seduction of female virtues, and the destruction of female honor. And money. And opportunities to gamble. He also drinks a great deal. And he wasted his opportunity to study law.”
“Proof. Something beyond your word.”
“I am not in the habit of having my honorable word questioned. You have seen me and spoken with me, and my character is without question. What good have you seen of Wickham?”
“His manner!” Elizabeth then became still and quiet and spoke in a sharp voice that almost scared Darcy. “I have spoken with him, and judged him as friendly, and kind, and open. You have nothing but arrogance, and ungentlemanliness, and harsh words. And you wonder why I trust him more?”
“You trust Wickham?” Darcy sneered and snorted. Obviously she just said that to place a thorn in his socks to dig at the delicate skin.
“Why should I not? Your father trusted him.”
Darcy winced, remembering how he’d asked the servants to tell nothing to Papa as he lay dying about Wickham’s seduction of a servant girl in a neighboring estate. It would have done his father no good to know, and Darcy wanted to spare his father the knowledge of his favorite’s indiscretion and callousness — Wickham refused to even speak with the girl after she named him. Perhaps he should have then taken the actions that would have led to Wickham being removed from the will and his life earlier.
Besides, in honor, Papa had promised Wickham enough that they owed Wickham some chance at education. Darcy was glad Wickham had wasted his chance.
“Ha!” Elizabeth cried. “You know your father was a better man than you.”
“My father was a better man than us all. But my sadness is at the knowledge of how disappointed he would be in Wickham if he knew. I hid from him, in his final months, my knowledge of Wickham’s true behavior. Of the women he had seduced, and of the—”
“What proof do you have?”
Darcy sneered. “You are entirely decided against me. It is not my place to bow and scrape and prove to you the truth, when you do not wish to listen. You have been warned. You may set my character against his, and decide what to trust.”
“Enough.” Elizabeth angrily hissed, “I shall leave now, and have nothing further to do with you.”
Her eyes told a different tale.
She didn’t want to leave. They glared at each other, panting heavily.
Her eyes slowly widened. Somehow their faces were drifting towards each other.
Elizabeth bit her lip and stiffened her back and turning round, she angrily, yet blushingly, walked forward towards the door.
No. He couldn’t let her leave, not while she was this angry at him. And not when she might still be Wickham’s besotted thrall.
Elizabeth angrily trod away, stepping, without paying attention to it, past the ridiculous bear rug on the floor.
Whoooooops.
Darcy saw, like in slow motion, her pretty silver satin slipper catch on the bear’s jaw. She fell forward, flailing her arms out and holding her hands in front to catch her.
Without thought Darcy shot forward. He grabbed her with his wide hands around the waist and caught her in his arms before she thudded on the ground.
Her body. In his arms.
Her sweet, warm, fragrant, panting body.
In his arms.
His fingers inches away from her breasts, the bare skin of her open back against his ungloved palm.
Their faces inches apart as he pulled her to stand without letting go of her.
Their eyes stared into each other.
They moved at the same moment, their lips pressed against each other, in a powerful kiss neither controlled. With desperate passion he pulled her tight against him, he gripped her bum and pressed her hips against his, he felt her soft length against his harder body. They kissed and kissed. A distant part of his mind knew that this was wrong, and that he did not wish to fulfill the promise to her that his body wished to make.
She whimpered as his tongue slid briefly along her sweet upper lip.
Darcy’s brain was too full of her taste to do what he must — thrust her away, and tell her to never speak to him again, as he could not control himself in her presence.
They continued to kiss, wetly and hungrily, with more passion than he had ever felt before. His tongue licked along her lips and touched her tongue.
The door to library quietly opened, and there were long seconds of continued passionate kissing before Darcy registered that they were no longer alone.
And before he and Elizabeth could fully leap apart, Mrs. Bennet’s shrill voice cried out, “Lizzy and Mr. Darcy kissing! Oh!”