Darcy & Elizabeth by Linda Berdoll Page A

Bennet, his struggle was substantial. For her countenance may have been lovely, but her less than illustrious connections were not easily dismissed by a man whose filial pride, it could be said, was felt a little too keenly.
    The road to a happy engagement had not been without its occasional rut. Indeed, for a man of Darcy’s standing to disregard the inferiority of Miss Bennet’s station and marry her for love and love alone not only flaunted convention, it very nearly kicked it in the knee. Mr. Darcy’s arrogance and Elizabeth’s prejudice against him were gradually overcome. Their regard was very nearly put to ruin before a match could be formed when Elizabeth’s barely sixteen-year-old sister Lydia impetuously ran off to live in unmarried condition with Darcy’s arch-nemesis, George Wickham. A scandalous act such as that would have disgraced the entire Bennet family. Unforgiving society would have condemned her sisters to partake in her ruin.
    The only good that came out of the entire debacle was Elizabeth’s discovery that it had been through Darcy’s auspices that Wickham and Lydia were eventually wed.
    When at last Darcy and Elizabeth’s marriage bed was initiated, it was with equal parts tender desire and unrestrained lust. Thus, it was proven unequivocally that Mr. and Mrs. Darcy’s union would be one of passionate heat, not cold indifference. And as befitting a pair so well matched in ardour but at odds in disposition and temperament, once the marriage was in place, Elizabeth and Darcy set about fulfilling their connubial obligations with considerable zeal.
    Their dedication to begetting certainly could not be faulted, indeed, it was extraordinarily thorough. Yea, no couple could have executed their duty with greater frequency or more passion. Their happy existence, however, was trespassed by procreative failures. Not only was it their plight to battle nature’s impetuosity, but they were confronted with a more pitiless evil as well—their own singular torment for bringing to naught the Darcy ancestral duty. Although neither spoke a word of their own disquiet, guilt festered within the breast of each unreasonably.
    Because she had been impregnated but unable to deliver a baby successfully, Elizabeth had considered herself the culpable party. That his own virility was proven was of no particular comfort to Darcy, for he weathered guilt in equal measure. The very prominence of his own frame imbedded within him the fear that his attributes alone were accountable for the suffering she endured. That fear weighed so heavily on his heart that endowing Elizabeth with such a grave encumbrance as the Darcy family legacy became the lesser evil. Yet it was still a significant one.
    Understandably, it was with a joy bordering on the rapturous that upon his return from abroad Darcy was met with the happy news that he had finally (if unknowingly) saved the family name from oblivion. Granted, it had been somewhat confounding for him not to be privy to this extreme turn of events prior to the newborn infants being thrust before him. But it was exceedingly agreeable in all other regards. Elizabeth had not disclosed to him she was with child before he left for the Continent because she did not want to further burden him. He was conflicted quite enough over taking leave of hearth and home in dangerous pursuit of his errant sister.
    When he had gazed upon his firstborn son and second-born daughter, it was with unadulterated admiration and no small astonishment. His relief had been so sweeping and profound for the health and well-being of all concerned that he had not even thought to inquire of their gender. It was not until someone offered up the small detail that one was a son did the realisation descend upon him that he had, at long last, paid his patriarchal dues in full. (Indeed, as he looked down from one babe to the other, he thought from those dues, he may well have been owed some