A ways back, I began to write a sexy correspondence between two of my favorite literary lovers, Pride & Prejudice’s Mr Darcy and his new wife Lizzy. I put them aside, not sure where they were going — aside from just being a fun exercise in Jane Austen Fan Fiction (JAFF).

Then, a few months ago, Lizzy poked me, informing me that she had some things to say. And so I’ve been writing more letters — full of their amorous musings, to be sure, but with some fun plot twists and a few guest appearances by fictional and historical Regency-era figures.

I plan to publish the novel-length collection of their letters under the title Desire & Darcy: A Pride & Prejudice Variation in the next month or two — but I thought I’d share another tidbit with you for St Valentine’s.

Here are the two previous letters:

August 16 , 18__

Pemberley, Derbyshire

My dearest Darcy,

Well, then, when shall I hear just how you dream? My curiosity presses so determined a campaign against my patience that my propriety has completely fled the field. Oh, Darcy, do tell me these dreams. I long to hear them. And if you begin to tell me yours, perhaps I shall do my wifely duty and tell you mine own.

I shall give the gamekeeper (is his name truly Grouse?) permission to shoot Lady Croom on sight. I shall ask him to aim for her lovely head, however, since her gown was too pretty to be spoiled. After their visit yesterday, Kitty engaged Georgiana in nearly an half an hour’s speculation on whether the lace at the lady’s sleeves were Chantilly, while Georgiana managed to get Kitty to talk for a good fifteen minutes about the progress of the war and the propriety of purchasing goods from an enemy nation. I believe my project in encouraging my sister’s seriousness and your sister’s silliness is, so far, to be rated a success.

Darcy, I am so sorry that she robbed you of an experience that I can assure you was well worth the wait. I have known boys of Georgiana’s age — though none as beautiful and virtuous as I am assured you were when Lady C stole your virginity. I can with certainty affirm two things about them: of the first, that they are barely in control of their feet or their tongues, let alone their actions; and of the second, that a grown woman who finds fucking such puppies appealing (I was about to say “dallying with such boys,” but knew you would be disappointed at my stooping to euphemism) is a woman of very peculiar desires indeed, her infidelity notwithstanding. That she chose to fuck young George Wickham is a further damning piece of evidence toward this argument.

Other than daydreams of killing her with a birding gun, I have found my thoughts since your letter arrived this morning have circled around you, sweet, pretty, and serious as I am sure you were, and how I wish that I had been the one to initiate you into the mystery we now share. And yet if I were to encounter the boy Fitzwilliam (son and heir) as I am now, my love and desire would be protective and maternal rather than wifely, while if we had met at the time I should have been a scabby-kneed little hellion, more interested in playing Tom-o’-Straw with you than games of the sort we have enjoyed together so recently.

Oh, and now that I write that, Darcy, I feel the pang of wanting to play those games with you again wash through me like the rain that is even now pouring across the grounds at Pemberley. Oh, Darcy, my dearest Darcy, I woke this morning in our bed, alone. Alone! And my body felt that solitude, felt your absence, even more deeply than it did when you left me, bereft, yesterday. For this this morning I had only the dream and the memory of your presence beside and within me, while yesterday I had the very real, very physical reminder of our passion — of our fucking —to still the ache, this morning I had only the dream of the memory, or perhaps the memory of the dream, since I woke with the immediate sense of your pressing within me. Alas, that it was but dream of you, of your body and your presence. And yet, for these next days and nights, it is what I shall have to warm and comfort me.

I do, however, also warm myself with that dream — and with the very concrete possibility that there is in fact a part of you growing within me. Oh, that dream, that thought makes me warm, Darcy, and in more ways than one. I find that that — conceiving of conceiving, if you will — strikes me (even me!) quite dumb, and not altogether in a bad way, but as you say, in a way that makes me hope, perhaps, that I have not fully realized the concept (of conception), and that, perhaps, we may take a great deal more time “trying to conceive,” since, like you, I find the attempt itself “so astonishing an adventure.”

And I am glad, my dearest Darcy, that you feel as I do. Because if it were only I, I know that I should be utterly lost: your slave, to do with as you please. As I am, in any case, since I wish you to do as you please with me, and do so often. And do so again soon, though I know it cannot be.

I find that I must stop myself from beginning every other sentence, “I miss you” or “I desire you” or, if I am to be as forthright as you seem to think me, “I want you to fuck me.” I beg your pardon, my love, since it seems that, for all her pride, your wife is nothing more than a love-sick girl. Oh, when I think of how dismissive I have been of my sisters and their infatuations! Yet here I am — as speechless as Jane, as silly as Kitty, and as unbridled in my desires as Lydia. Oh, were Mary only here to comfort me with her chaste discipline! She could read some of cousin Collins’s sermons, which I have no doubt would cool my fever considerably. Yet I have no wish to have that fever cooled. I know the physic that will break it, and the man who bears it rides away from me, rather than riding me, and he leaves me green and moist and ready for his return. I am sure that is not a pretty image for you to contemplate. Ah, me — for, like you, the only embrace I have to satisfy the desire that you have engendered in me is mine own.

It is kind of you to term me “a model of chastity” — yet I promise you, my lord and husband, my thoughts this morning have been anything but chaste.

Your letter arrived not long after I first stirred, but before I had left my bed. Young Florry brought it in, all a-twitter, since the post-boy had delivered it to Mrs Reynolds with the very particular instructions that it be delivered into my hand (and my hand only) at the earliest convenience. I believe our correspondence has already given the servants some cause to gossip, and yet I cannot find it in myself to be ashamed. I am pleased that they know how I love you, and proud that they should know that you love me. As Florry burst in, however, I had only just finished embracing myself in your memory, a brief satisfaction that only left me the more hungry. I was glad, then, that she did not open the drapes before she had deposited the infamous letter beside me on the bed, for I had time both to compose myself — and to close my gown. I may be proud that they know your affect upon me, yet I would not have them see it!

I had to ask Florry to leave me to my private to read your letter — I had to ask her three times.

I do not think I am yet used to having people whose labor it is to take care of me. I have seen to that work almost entirely on my own since Lydia’s birth — with some help from Jane, of course — and so I have not yet become used to delegating that duty to another. I like Florry a great deal. She is sweet and funny, and reminds me a bit of Charlotte as a young girl, and so I know that I shall come to adore her as a maid and companion.

Yet it goes, perhaps, without saying that it was not for her care or companionship that I wished when she burst in to our chamber and the big, half-empty bed we have made such good use of over the past weeks.

It was, then, a delight — once I had shooed her out the door — to open your letter and read your dear, sweet, modest, and less than perfectly correct words! Oh, my dearest, naughtiest Darcy, I am pleased and proud once more, to have inspired you — you! — to write with something like the passion that I have enjoyed with you in that self-same bed. I consider it once of my greatest accomplishments, though not one I would share with the world.

And my heart aches that you feel such regret for an act that I neither blame nor condemn you for. You are as I would wish you to be. You are perfect, and — our American cousins notwithstanding — I do not believe that it is possible to make anything “more perfect.” Your experiences — all of them, including those with Lady Croom and Wickham and your aunt and even our sister-in-law Caroline — all of them have made you the man whom I have grown to love with all of my giddy, frivolous, un-chaste heart. Do not regret anything that has brought us to this place, I beg of you, Darcy, for I would not change you one iota for all the world.

Well, I have dallied here in our room for most of the morning, writing this, my second letter to you. And at the least I have this time had to tear up only two pieces of paper (which I should burn, now that I think on it, because I would not have Florry or anyone else read my girlish ramblings — anyone else but you, of course!) What a slugabed Mrs Reynolds must think me. I shall blot my pages once again, while the skies seem to have cleared somewhat, and see if love’s swift wings can carry my words to you and yours to me just as swiftly, for without you I am nothing.

Wistfully, madly, longingly yours,

ELIZABETH ANNE BENNET DARCY

PS It continues to fill me with joy and wonder to be able to write that name. And you calling yourself a “Bennet by God’s good Grace” makes my full measure of delight overflow completely. — EABD

PPS I walked into the parlour, seeking Mrs Reynolds to post this letter, and found our sisters, both looking very serious. Georgiana was playing on the pianoforte — something very playful and oriental-sounding — while Kitty was reading in French. My sister Katherine has few accomplishments aside from gossip and a fine eye for lace, however alone of all of us, she managed to acquire from our father a skill at foreign tongues. Or at least one foreign tongue. And I am certain that her interest had more to do with some of the less decorous titles in Father’s library. In any case, as I walked into the room, Kitty stopped reading and folded the book upon her lap — face down — with such studied innocence as I have seen her use all too often. Georgiana, on the other hand, blushed very prettily, but continued to play with nary a note missed. I fear that my project with our sisters may not be going as well as I had hoped. — EABD

PPPS I quite like it when your full measure of delight overflows completely. (I love it all the more so when it overflows inside of me.) — EABD

PPPPS Consternation. Lady Croom has written again. It was too much to hope either that she would simply send a letter of thanks for having invited herself to our home yesterday, or would trespass again and allow us to shoot her once and for all. No. She has invited me, Georgiana, and Kitty to Sidley Park this evening, in order to meet the poet Mr Shelley, who is apparently an acquaintance of Mr Hodge the tutor, and who will read some of his poems. I cannot suppose that it would be considered good manners to bring a pistol to a poetry reading, though perhaps gunplay might improve my opinion of Mr Shelley’s poetry. Consternation. I am beset. I am to be in company again, and not the company for which I long. — EABD

PPPPPS WHEN ARE YOU TO COME HOME? HAS IT NOT ALREADY BEEN PAST A MONTH? — EABD