The First Part: Possible Premature Connubial Connection
Prologue:
It’s not really a prologue. More of a preface, actually, and it’s almost exactly the same as the preface before the first volume, talking about how Austen’s story ended at the wedding bells. It’s still stupid, but Berdoll jumps in and gets us back to what we want to hear about:
As our story recommences, all should be bliss within the Darcy household. At long last, Lizzy has birthed an heir and Darcy is again by her side. Motherhood, however, has not only rendered her busy and distracted, childbirth itself has left her temporarily “indisposed”. Although Darcy’s heart aches for what his Lizzy has endured, it is not the throbbing of his heart that is most troubling to his serenity – it is the palpable pain in his loins (page 2).
See, this is what I like about Darcy. He’s a douchebag, so it’s easy to hate him. His wife has gone through an extremely difficult childbirth – she’s lucky to still be alive, in fact – and instead of being worried about her, he’s more concerned about when he’s next going to get his dick wet. And seriously, dude, if it’s starting to actually hurt, maybe try masturbation?
I’m going to add that at the end of the last book we had jumped forward to Darcy and Elizabeth having sex for the first time since she popped out the twins, so I’m guessing this book starts before then and Berdoll continues her annoying habit of jumping backward and forwards in time.
Chapter One – New Pleasures Proved
Short chapter. It can be boiled down to this:
Elizabeth wonders what happened between Darcy and Juliette Clisson. Meanwhile, Darcy wants to fuck Elizabeth. This continues for about six months.
Hoo boy, this is going to be an interesting book.
Chapter Two – Mr. Darcy’s Dilemma
Darcy’s at a social engagement. He’s starting to slip back into his Pride. Berdoll gives a vague example of this coming from his time at war. I’m not sure how the two are connected – Darcy goes off to war, rescues his sister, comes home, and now is very proud and looking down at people and refusing to dance with people at social engagements.
Berdoll spends several long paragraphs describing how Mr. Darcy stands – his boots, his legs, his straight back – and eventually gets to what she wants to talk about, which is Darcy’s package. Not joking.
Moreover, his fashionable moleskin breeches bore an unambiguous bulge which did not originate (unlike those of many fashionable young bloods) from a carefully wadded shirt-tale (page 6).
Now, readers from the first book know that Darcy is hung like a horse (not that we would expect anything less), so I really have no idea why Berdoll is lingering on these details, as it doesn’t have anything to do with this scene.
Darcy is still recovering from a near-miss from a blunderbuss, and is still slightly deaf, so at these social engagements he can’t really hear anything. Fortunately, this doesn’t really matter much, because Darcy was never the type to talk at parties anyway, besides a single word when he absolutely had to. This also helps people from noticing that Darcy hasn’t been in a very good mood since he got back from the war – which is mostly due to his aching loins.
Chapter Three – Intrusion into the Master’s Bed-Chamber
Great chapter title.
Elizabeth and Darcy have always shared a bed. And when the twins came along, they started sharing the bed as well. Darcy is more or less okay with that.
At first, Darcy feels awkward being in the same room with Elizabeth and her maid and the wet-nurse when Elizabeth is nursing, but he gets over it and stands observing with the perfect posture so lovingly described in the last chapter.
After a brief two-page interlude describing where the cradle came from, the subject gets back to Darcy. Elizabeth mentions that he looks annoyed, Darcy says that he’s fine. Then he looks at the twins and inquires as to how long they will remain misshapen, as they both look rather like recently uprooted vegetables. This irritates Elizabeth, but she gets over it. Then Darcy pulls out a chair and continues to watch her nurse the kid. Elizabeth notices there’s something slightly off about him. So she kicks everyone out of the room, and they lay next to each other on the bed and…snuggle.
They lay there for a bit, and eventually Elizabeth mentions that she’s still indisposed and will be for awhile. Darcy reassures her that he hasn’t even thought about sex, which would be funny if Elizabeth took that the wrong way, but she doesn’t.
Chapter Four – The Master of Pemberley Is Displeased
The reason why Darcy is annoyed, of course, is because of Col. Fitzwilliam and his sister Georgiana, who are engaged to be married, mostly because Georgiana currently has a bun in the oven. Darcy, being the good brother that he is, might have gone so far as to challenge Fitzwilliam to a duel to regain his sister’s honor, if Elizabeth hadn’t intervened, calmed him down, and pointed out that since Fitzwilliam was an invalid, most of the fault was Georgiana’s.
Later, he finds out that Elizabeth’s father died while he was away, so he goes in and talks to her about it. She cries and he holds her.
Then, he goes to visit Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and lets her know that if she ever bothers his wife again, he’s going to put her into the Lyme Institute for the Indigent Insane.
All of this would probably be pretty entertaining, if it wasn’t thoroughly covered in the last book.
Chapter Five – Seduction of the Willing
Elizabeth and Darcy are out in a copse of trees on Pemberley’s grounds. It’s about a month since the twins were born, Elizabeth feels great (and horny), and so she invited Darcy out for a ride and now they’re lying beneath a tree in the sunlight relaxing. They’ve been to this spot frequently before, engaging in conjugal felicity. In fact, the twins might have even been conceived on this very spot. Although, considering that Darcy and Elizabeth have sex virtually every single night (and usually more than once) I would say that’s unlikely.
Darcy has been extremely appropriate since he’s returned. He kisses her, and there’s some snuggling, but that’s about it. He’s giving her time to heal and get back to her usually extremely horny self, which is very considerate of him. However, Elizabeth is finding it more and more difficult to restrain herself from jumping his bones, and finally she put together this particular riding excursion to get laid.
So they fuck. It’s short but awesome. And they bask happily. After awhile Darcy turns towards her, ready for round two, and then stops. Because she’s bleeding. Elizabeth says that it’s nothing and starts dressing, and then there’s a much larger gush of blood. So Darcy scoops her up and mounts his horse and they head back to Pemberley in a very manly and dashing way. When they arrive Darcy sends for a surgeon. The surgeon asks if Elizabeth has been up to anything unusual recently. Darcy says that she went horseback riding. The surgeon says that she probably shouldn’t ride any horses for awhile, but Elizabeth knows that the surgeon knows enough about her to suspect she was riding a lot more than a horse. She promises to more careful in the future.
The surgeon left forthwith. Indeed, he left with such haste, it was unclear whether it was owing to Mr. Darcy’s dour countenance or his own embarrassment over having to allude to Mr. and Mrs. Darcy’s possible premature connubial connection (page 25).
Possible premature connubial connection? I’ll have to remember that one.
Darcy begs her to take better care of herself, and she agrees.