One day in the Longbourn drawing room, Elizabeth and Darcy sat chaperoned by Mrs. Bennet. Mama rocked back and forth in her chair next to the fire with all her attention upon the blue and white threads of her embroidery.

Elizabeth was in a mischievous mood, and she asked her soon husband, “What philosophers have you taken advice from upon the nature of marriage — I have been searching of late in the most learned and ancient sources for wisdom, and I have learned to better despise the ancients.”

“That surprises me not. You would despise the ancients, simply because everyone else gives them such high praise.”

“That makes me sound terribly predictable — which I hope I have not been. I am possessed of excellent reasons to be offended. They are quite worse than you ever were.”

“Ought I be jealous of Plato and Plutarch? Will they steal your heart away from me through an excess of gentlemanly offense?”

Elizabeth giggled and patted his hand. “I am attached to you.”

“What did the ancients say which offended you so? I can only rest easy once I know the particulars.”

“Plutarch is my favorite, I confess. For sheer…effrontery he exceeds all. He wrote, in an essay to advise young brides and grooms, that should you engage in a ‘peccadillo’ with a maidservant, I ought to feel respected, as respect for me leads you to share your wantonness and licentiousness with other women.”

Darcy drew his lips into a sour expression.

“Mr. Darcy, this is to be a marriage of equals.” As Mrs. Bennet was studiously not paying the slightest intention to them, Elizabeth dared to place her hand upon Darcy’s thigh and squeeze it. “When you engage in drunk, wanton, and licentious behavior, I am entirely prepared to be wanton and licentious with you.”

Elizabeth delightedly enjoyed the way Darcy coughed and blushed.

“Ought we,” Darcy replied when he recovered, “add this to the settlement documents?”

An image popped into Elizabeth’s mind: Her dressed in a light billowy dress explaining to their barrister, dressed in a dark, heavy wool coat, how Darcy must absolutely include her in all his licentious activities.

“I can see from your smile,” Darcy said, “that we ought.”

“If only I could rewrite the Church of England services, I would have you to swear it as part of the marriage vows.”

“Along with my promise to always listen to you, and to give you reign to make the final decision in any matter which principally affects you?”

“Every occasion and situation specified! In sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, etcetera, not exhaustive.”

“I believe that ‘till death do us part’ is intended to cover your etcetera.”

“Had I written the marriage service, it would include: And these vows shall be understood to hold all conceivable situations, including those not specified elsewhere.”

“The darkest misfortune of England is that the book of common prayer was written by theologians with a bent for poetry, rather than lawyers lacking one.”

Elizabeth pinched Darcy’s side. He imperturbably continued to smile. “Fitzwilliam, but should we someday feel we are only possessed of a sufficiency, and that we both are in indifferent health? Then the vows would no longer hold, as written by the church.”

“I,” Darcy replied in a gallant manner, “would continue to hold you close to me as my wife in such a case, motivated solely by the deep affection I hold for you.”

“And, I,” Elizabeth replied, “would still honor and love you, but would entirely cease to obey. I quite would prefer if men also were required to obey in the marriage vows, and then we might order conflicting things, and order the orders to be revoked, and fall into an unending regress.”

“Aha! And we return to philosophy.” Darcy dared a kiss upon Elizabeth’s cheek, in spite of her unattending mother. “Might I answer your question about how I have been counseled by philosophy upon marriage?”

“You might,” Elizabeth replied primly, sitting up stiffer.

“You, Lizzy, are not the only one of us who has been thinking upon this subject of late. How to avoid dangerous errors, and how to ensure that we remain happy and that our bond remains intact through the storms, vicissitudes, and quarrels which shall erupt betwixt us.”

She grinned at him. “You as well? We think alike!”

“Plutarch’s advice comes from the great gentlemanly mistake that you rebel against, that a gentleman knows better than his wife what will constitute her happiness — amongst my peers I know some who hold to Plutarch’s philosophy without irony. You have lived enough to know that solely because a man swears vows before God that does not mean he ceases to seek pleasures elsewhere — many such men consider they do no disrespect to their wife by such. She is the one they ‘love’, and have married, and her children shall inherit.”

“I will not take the part of my sex to be horribly offended by such persons. It is not a form of marriage I would enjoy, but for a woman whose principal goal was to gain a respectable establishment, so long as he does not compromise that she receives the respect she demanded.”

“Hmmm.” Darcy smirked adorably at her. “I understand what you mean to say — I can compromise the name of the Darcy family ever so much as I want, so long as you are my partner in offending the shades of Pemberley.”

“I expect these shades to raise mighty rebellion against the pollution we bring.”

They looked at each other with close kissing eyes.

“My dearest,” Darcy replied, “simply because the best interest of the beloved motivates a man, that is insufficient. A man will twist what he sees according to his beliefs and prejudices. I cannot be trusted with your happiness or Georgiana’s and barely even my own. You know more about yourself and your own happiness than I ever could.”

“Quite a different tune to which you dance now.”

“When the music changes, only the worst dullard continues to step to the old rhythm.”

Elizabeth laughed. “You are a fine dancer.” She sat up and raised a finger. “Another person can often see us more clearly than we can ourselves. A single overheard conversation might grant more knowledge of the self than the greatest exertion to examine one’s own soul. Perhaps a wise person would allow someone who can see better than they themselves to choose in such a case for them.”

Darcy rolled his eyes. “You delight in being contrary.”

“You adore me for such.”

“The solution to your conundrum is what you preached to me. We must have the liberty between us to converse upon any subject. But the person principally involved makes their own decision after due consideration of their mate’s opinions. The danger of the opposite is greater.”

“Conversation prior to decision? That is a plan to reduce the deleterious effects of passion upon the reason which I wholly approve of.”

Mrs. Bennet stood, the multicolored threads from her embroidery dangling down. “You make love in such a roundabout manner. Both of you. Not nearly loverlike enough for my taste. Passion. Lord! I showed more passion as a girl,” she added, in a sly voice, with a wink at the two of them. “I must look in on the cook. An important matter I just recalled, and which cannot wait, and which will keep me away for at least half of an hour.”

Mrs. Bennet left the drawing room, securely shutting the door behind her.

The two looked at each other, bright shining eyes flickering between each other’s eyes and lips. In a moment Elizabeth was on Darcy’s lap, passionately kissing him. They clearly had her mother’s support for these liberties, though Elizabeth had no intention allowing matters to progress so far as her parents had before their marriage. Darcy’s hand gripped her hips, holding her body against him, and she played her fingers over his neck, his cheeks, and stroked them through his thick hair. He moaned in appreciation.

“I had thought,” Elizabeth murmured into Darcy’s vest once they slowed their impassioned kisses, “that I was a lax chaperone before Jane and Bingley married. I would quite happily look the other direction.”

Darcy squeezed her head against his chest. He smelled warm and tasty.

“I am delighted I need never worry about being principally responsible for your welfare. You are my equal in sense and my superior in wisdom.”

Elizabeth kissed Darcy for such a speech.

“Only a little my superior in wisdom,” he added once her lips pulled away. He grinned. “You have an ample reserve of foolishness as well.”

“Horrible to say!”

“It is a good thing, if you would always be the wise one, you would grow frustrated with my fallibility in time, and I would not enjoy always being the foolish one. This way we both have ample opportunities to tease the other.”

“That reasoning is much to my own liking.”

Darcy inclined his head to hers, and they pressed their lips together again.

Darcy said, “I was too arrogant — I did not even consider that Georgiana might choose for herself soon as she reached her majority.”

Elizabeth pushed Darcy’s shoulder. “Arrogant nitwit,” she said fondly.

“I am your arrogant nitwit.”

“Mine.”

They kissed softly.

Darcy squeezed an arm around Elizabeth and pulled her close. “Maybe Peake is right that I should focus on investments in businesses and paper instead of additional land—”

“That was what was on your mind as we kissed?” Elizabeth giggled, as Darcy protested. “Has he been seeking to convince you to also invest in Gardiner and Peake? Naughty boy.”

Darcy shook his head laughingly. “Quite the opposite in fact. He thinks I ought to make investments in companies that have nothing to do with him, and in government paper. He argues that there is less risk involved when your wealth is spread among a wider set of sources of income. Land prices and rents can rise shockingly and then fall with suddenness, but so long as the government can be trusted, income from Consols will remain.”

“You plan for us to have perpetual bonds?”

“A pun! From you!”

Elizabeth blushed.

“I shall enjoy consolations of married life.”

“Noooo.” Elizabeth pushed away from him, and still grinning widely, sat on the opposite side of their plump stuffed sofa.

Darcy waggled his eyebrows. “In our happiness and connection I put much stock. Mark it.”

“Fie! Fie! That reminds me. You are not an adherent, I hope, to St. Augustine’s philosophy?”

“I do not believe so. I read something of him… the Confessions, I—”

Elizabeth interrupted him giggling. “He wrote a book titled The Excellence of Marriage. In a marriage minded mindset I picked it from the bookstore shelf and brought it home — I had not yet given up my study of ancient wisdom.”

“You do not intend to follow St. Augustine’s advice either?”

“Abstinence,” Elizabeth said, her voice taking on a lilt, “from all sexual union is better even than marital intercourse performed for the sake of procreating. However, marital intercourse solely to satisfy lust is a venial sin, but pardonable. And it has value as a fence against temptation to fornication—”

“The marriage service says that as well,” Darcy added, as Elizabeth took a breath. “You simply enjoy being able to say ‘sexual union,’ without being more than markedly crude as you quote an ancient saint.”

Elizabeth giggled. “As an unmarried old maid, I lived in the most superior manner. You should be shamed, Mr. Darcy, tempting a celibate such as myself into the lustfulness I feel towards you.”

“I should?” Darcy replied dazedly. He smiled seductively. “I told you I am dangerous, rakish and naughty. It was shameful to seduce you wickedly into Holy Matrimony. And, while I look forward to children, marital intercourse solely to satisfy — how did you put it? My lusts. I would convince you into such.”

“Ooooh. Your lusts.” Elizabeth shivered and grinned happily. “This is what female learning does — it brings us to discuss our lust, one for the other.”

The two kissed, passionately. Mrs. Bennet was a convenient chaperone.

The two separated, pressing their hot bodies against each other, breathing heavily.

“My beloved Elizabeth, you have convinced me to value female learning.”

Alas, before she could kiss him for saying so, the at least a half hour Mrs. Bennet had promised ended, and with great rattling of the door knob, and muttering to herself outside, and other forms of warning them of her presence, Mrs. Bennet entered the room.

Grinning at each other, Elizabeth and Darcy began to discuss learned topics once more, in the dullest manner they could manage, with the intention of giving Mrs. Bennet an entirely incorrect notion of what the past half hour had involved.

However, Darcy’s cravat had been thoroughly disordered in a manner quite distinctive, and which Elizabeth trusted the eye of Mama to understand the meaning of.