as the cold liquid closed around her and struck out for the end of the lake. Gradually the movement began to warm her. She looked for Darcy and saw his head rising above the surface. She began to close the gap between them. As she drew closer she saw that his hair was wet, lying dark and sleek against his head, with rivulets of water running down his neck, over two small scars and onto his shoulders. She felt suddenly nervous, but it was too late to turn back. He had seen her. A look of surprise and delight crossed his face and then his eyes, at first joyful, darkened as his face flooded with desire. He closed the gap between them in a few strokes, his eyes roaming over her face and hair, and then down to her throat which rose, naked, above the water.
‘You are so beautiful,’ he murmured as he bent his head towards her. ‘You are intoxicating, ravishing, exquisite.’
She felt herself growing weak with need, drowning in the overwhelming force of his desire. Her skin yearned for him and her body leaned towards him. She felt as though they were not two separate beings but halves of the same whole, which had been long sundered and longed to be joined. He put his hands on her shoulders and her body grew heavy and languorous. He bent his head to kiss her and she felt his breath whisper over her neck like warm silk. She turned her head to expose her throat as her senses were consumed by him, mesmerised by his breathing and the hypnotic beating of his heart.
And then, like a sleepwalker awakened, she heard the wheels of a carriage as it pulled to a halt by the side of the lake. She heard the opening and closing of a carriage door and then a voice which was at once familiar and unfamiliar. Darcy lifted his head and Elizabeth, turning slowly, saw the figure of Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Beside her, pale and bloodless, was her daughter, Anne.
Elizabeth thought she must be dreaming. The swim in the lake, Darcy’s touch, her heavy languor, together with the strange and unsettling appearance of Lady Catherine and her daughter, all had the quality of something unreal. Lady Catherine seemed to be insubstantial and ghostly in the strong sunlight.
But as Elizabeth’s senses began to return to normal, she realised that it was not a dream, that she was awake, and that everything was happening.
Darcy pulled her behind him and she was glad of his protection because there was something menacing about Lady Catherine. At Rosings she had been dictatorial, at Longbourn she had been ridiculous, but here she was frightening.
She was dressed all in black. Her long black cloak hung heavily around her and a black veil hung from her black bonnet, covering her face. She was leaning on a black parasol, which she used like a walking stick.
‘How did she find us?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘We made no secret of our journey or our destination,’ said Darcy. ‘If she was in Paris, she had only to ask my relatives where I was and they would tell her.’
Lady Catherine took a menacing step forward.
‘So, you have done it. Against all advice, you have married this—person. I never thought to see the day when you would do something so stupid, you of all people, Fitzwilliam,’ said Lady Catherine.
‘You knew I was going to marry her,’ said Darcy inimically.
‘I knew you intended to marry her, but I thought you would come to your senses in time. I told you that she would be rejected by the family, or worse—you have been to Paris, you know that I am right. But you went ahead and married her anyway.’
‘I have a right to my own life,’ he said.
‘You have no rights! Marriage is a family matter. It is for those who are older and wiser than you to make the decision. It is not for you to indulge a whim.’
‘It is too late to complain now,’ said Darcy in a warning voice. ‘We are married; it is done.’
‘Aye, you are married,’ said Lady Catherine malignantly. ‘You did it behind my back, when I was out of the country. I should not have left, and I would not have done so if I had thought you would go through with this scandalous act.’
‘You should not have come here. Darcy and I are happy,’ said Elizabeth. ‘You tried once before to separate us and you failed. You