Free Pride and Prejudice (Clandestine Classics) by Jane Austen, Amy Armstrong Page B

a lively Scotch air, and soon afterwards Mr Darcy, drawing near Elizabeth, said to her, “Do not you feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel?”
    She smiled, but made no answer. He repeated the question, with some surprise at her silence. On the understanding that Mr Darcy did indeed find her reprehensible, Elizabeth decided she would not give him the satisfaction of his ridicule. Her pride would not allow it.
    “Oh!” said she, “I heard you before, but I could not immediately determine what to say in reply. You wanted me, I know, to say ‘Yes,’ that you might have the pleasure of despising my taste. But I always delight in overthrowing those kind of schemes, and cheating a person of their premeditated contempt. I have, therefore, made up my mind to tell you, that I do not want to dance a reel at all—and now despise me if you dare.”
    “Indeed I do not dare.”
    Elizabeth, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his gallantry, but there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her manner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody. His surprising reply confused Elizabeth further about the gentleman’s manner. Darcy, however, had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really believed, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger. He longed to give in to his desire to pull her into his arms again—to take what he wanted, her connections be damned. He desperately wished he could satiate the aching need within to be buried as deep inside her as her body would allow. And he wanted to do it over and over again until neither was able to stand from the exertion of their shared rapture. But he was a slave to society’s rules and tenets. His conduct had to remain befitting a gentleman of his station and certainly in the presence of such a lady. He had already overstepped the mark by kissing her. He tried to rein in his treacherous thoughts and remain stoic. He could not have her as he craved. And Miss Elizabeth Bennet, it seemed, did not feel the same attraction as he, for she appeared to barely tolerate him. Although he thought he had observed the same longing burning in her eyes when their gazes had locked and felt the way her body had become pliable in his arms. The kiss had been far from what he would expect from a person who found him unappealing. Could it be possible that she desired him too?
    Miss Bingley saw, or suspected enough to be jealous, and her great anxiety for the recovery of her dear friend Jane received some assistance from her desire of getting rid of Elizabeth.
    She often tried to provoke Darcy into disliking her guest, by talking of their supposed marriage, and planning his happiness in such an alliance.
    “I hope,” said she, as they were walking together in the shrubbery the next day, “you will give your mother-in-law a few hints, when this desirable event takes place, as to the advantage of holding her tongue, and if you can compass it, do cure the younger girls of running after officers. And, if I may mention so delicate a subject, endeavour to check that little something, bordering on conceit and impertinence, which your lady possesses.”
    Mr Darcy refused to rise to her taunts. “Have you anything else to propose for my domestic felicity?”
    “Oh, yes. Do let the portraits of your uncle and aunt Phillips be placed in the gallery at Pemberley. Put them next to your great-uncle the judge. They are in the same profession, you know, only in different lines. As for your Elizabeth’s picture, you must not have it taken, for what painter could do justice to those beautiful eyes?”
    Images of those beautiful eyes clouded with desire while he ploughed into her body and drove her to the pinnacle of ecstasy rushed into his mind’s eye. He shook his head to clear it. “It would not be easy, indeed, to catch their expression, but their colour and shape, and the