Darcy and Fitzwilliam: A Tale of a Gentleman and an Officer

“You don’t understand.” She spoke barely above a whisper. “Colonel Fitzwilliam, you and I have no future beyond the moment. I am attracted to you—very attracted, and I am happy to know you have found me interesting. However, you belong to a world I do not understand nor even like. It is a world in which I have already failed miserably.” She looked up into eyes that seemed to hold only warmth and love.

“I cannot imagine why you would fail in it, and I refuse to accept that there is no future, only here and now. Give me your reasons, young woman, so that I may bash them away.”

“Well, it’s all very obvious, there are so many differences. For one thing, you are an earl’s son, a British officer, and I am an American citizen, the daughter of a teacher of medicine, a physician.” Her eyes wrinkled with self-deprecating humor. “When you become upset, you retire to your country estates. When I become upset, I make applesauce.”

He studied her hands, so cool and delicate encased within his large, scarred ones, and they were indeed hands that worked at many tasks, clean and neat but not manicured or fussed over. Bringing them to his lips, he kissed them both. “Is applesauce to be our only impediment, then?” His lips brushed lightly across her forehead, her cheek, her neck. She really did smell wonderful.

Her mind was suddenly very muddled. “No, of course not. That would be childish.” She sighed and wondered what that wonderful scent was on his neck. It was very exciting, very masculine. “Well, ahem, my heavens, let’s see; there’s also apple pie and apple butter and apple…” She knew she was making no sense, and her voice trailed off with the heady feel of his warm breath on her closed eyelids.

“Yes, go on. You were speaking about apples, I believe. What other affront am I to battle with regards to apples?”

“Tarts,” she rasped. He raised his eyebrows, and his eyes crinkled in amusement. She shook her head in momentary confusion. “Apple tarts, that is. Yes, that’s it, apple tarts.”

“Ah. Thank you for clarifying that. Well, you may be correct. However, I am only a second son, so my life has long been my own to decide, with my so-called exalted heritage of a level that I can do pretty much whatever I want and still be fawned over outrageously by the peerage.” He pressed her fingertips to his heart.

“And, while perhaps you are right and we only have right now, not tomorrow or next week, I cannot help but think that there is more to us than mere physical attraction.” All the gentle teasing gone from his eyes, he stared seriously at her. “You have lit up something within me, Amanda, an area that has been dark all my life, an area that I refuse to have go dark again. It is as if I had never lived before.”

And suddenly she knew for a fact that nothing would ever be the same; everything he was saying was true. She was feeling the exact emotions as he, also alive for the first time in her life. His feelings mirrored her own so nearly that she shivered, began to entertain a thin ray of hope. It was frightening, allowing herself a moment to stand on the threshold of something wonderful, holding hands with the man, the only man, who had ever made her heart race and her knees weaken. Amanda pressed her back against the wall and stared mutely up at him and then down at their two hands still tightly interlocked.

The music, the laughter, the three hundred voices had faded into silence. Fitzwilliam tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear then rested his forearm on the wall next to her head, his smiling lips mere inches away from hers. She opened her mouth to speak, only to close it again while her eyes drifted from his rumpled hair to his shining eyes and down again to his mouth.

She had waited for this moment her whole life. This is my beloved.

Resting his hand over her heart, he felt it pounding as hard as his. Her eyes brimmed with joyful tears as both her hands came up to press his more firmly against her breast. The moment had an unreal feel to it, as if two souls destined to journey together throughout eternity had finally been reunited.

They had finally both come home.

***

They blended together smoothly, then, their embrace encircling and their mouths slanting each to the other. His arms slipped around her waist and her shoulders, and his hand plunged into her hair. She was eager and pliant and passionate.

How long did they stand there as their kiss deepened, their hands growing more and more bold with passion? Five minutes or five hours—neither of them could later say. They were lost in that kiss, a cessation of time and space wherein she felt she could not hold him close enough, nor did he feel that he could kiss her deeply enough. But they kept trying, nonetheless. With his body, he pressed hers hard against the balcony wall, their tongues caressing. “This is madness,” she gasped.

“Insanity,” he agreed.