Fifty Shades of Mr Darcy: A Parody (10 page)

‘How do you do, Miss Bennet, Mrs Collins.’

Mr Darcy bowed low, his breeches stretching tight over his taut buttocks. A lock of curly copper hair fell in front of his eyes.
Holy hornbag, he was so hot!

Why do I keep uttering profanities whenever I encounter Fitzwilliam Darcy?
pondered Elizabeth.
It is so out of character for me, for crap’s sake.
Holy crap, I just did it
again!

Mr Darcy took a seat beside Elizabeth. ‘You are well, Miss Bennet? Have you been eating heartily?’

Elizabeth could not resist toying with him, as he had so often toyed with her. ‘I skipped breakfast this morning,’ she declared, and immediately noticed his jaw tighten.

‘Then it is well that I have a baguette in my pocket,’ he countered, reaching into his breeches and pulling out a thick French stick. ‘Would you oblige me with a
nibble?’

Once again, Elizabeth was conscious of a stirring in her nether regions. What was it about this arrogant billionaire that attracted her so?

‘Your baguette looks most enticing, but I rarely eat at this time of day. I cannot be tempted!’

‘A banana, then?’ Mr Darcy suggested, reaching into his other pocket. ‘Or this German sausage?’

Elizabeth felt her blood beginning to heat up her cheeks.

‘It is kind of you, Mr Darcy, to be so desirous of my well-being, but I assure you, nothing shall pass my lips until luncheon.’

Mr Darcy’s eyes flashed in anger. ‘Very well, Miss Bennet,’ he said darkly. ‘I see you are defiant. Be assured, if you were a guest in
my
house and refused my
hospitality, I should see to it that you were chastised.’

For a moment he sounded so like Lady Catherine that Elizabeth was at a loss for words. Then, recovering her composure, she declared, ‘You are too harsh, Mr Darcy. If you were ever a guest
at Longbourn and found my syllabubs, say, or my hare pie were not to your liking, I should endeavour not to hold it against you.’

Mr Darcy leant forward and held her in a penetrating gaze. ‘You and I are very different, Miss Bennet,’ he murmured. ‘You see, I would find your hare pie
quite
delicious
, and would be sure to enjoy it morning, noon and night. I would dive into it at breakfast, luncheon and dinner, then I would ask for seconds.’

‘I would find your appetite most gratifying, I am sure,’ blushed Elizabeth. ‘But some of us are less gluttonous than others. I myself am content with the occasional
muffin.’

Mr Darcy smiled lasciviously. ‘Then we are in agreement at last, Miss Bennet,’ he smirked.

‘Um, should I leave the room?’ asked Charlotte.

‘No need, Mrs Collins,’ said Mr Darcy, rising from his chair. ‘I must depart. Lady Catherine urged me to hurry back; we are going riding – hard – together. She is
to send a carriage for you at eight,’ he continued, ‘in order that you may dine with us tonight.’ Then, addressing Elizabeth directly: ‘I am so glad that the two of you have
met at last.’

‘I’m sure we shall be great friends,’ said Elizabeth with a tight smile.

‘Really?’ Mr Darcy’s face lit up. ‘I do hope so. She is a remarkable woman.’ With a bow he departed, and Elizabeth turned back to her needlepoint. She frowned. She
would have to unpick it and start again. ‘There’s no place like home bitch troll bitch troll bitch troll bitch troll’ would not look quite right on a cushion cover.

At the proper hour Elizabeth and Mr and Mrs Collins arrived at Rosings, to be told Lady Catherine was at her toilette and would not keep them waiting long. A footman led them
into a small, comfortable parlour, tastefully decorated with black leather furnishings and paintings of goats being sodomized by demons. Suddenly, Charlotte let out a cry of alarm, and, following
her gaze, Mr Collins and Elizabeth noticed a figure kneeling in the corner of the room, his eyes downcast, clad only in leather hotpants and a studded collar: Mr Darcy! Elizabeth gaped at him.
Jeez, he was ripped!

‘Pray, what are you doing down there, Mr Darcy?’ she gasped. ‘For shame, get up and put on some clothes.’

‘He is
not
to move!’

Lady Catherine appeared in the doorway, her impressive leather-clad bosom halfway across the threshold and her skintight catsuit creaking menacingly.

‘Mr Darcy has displeased me, and this is his punishment.’

Mr Darcy remained motionless.
It’s almost as if he’s in a trance,
thought Elizabeth.
What power Lady Catherine has over him! How cruel and domineering she is!

‘I am sure your ladyship knows best,’ Mr Collins simpered, bowing obsequiously. ‘It reminds me of a Genesis tour in ’78, when I had to send Mike Rutherford to Coventry
for–’

‘But to humiliate him so!’ Elizabeth burst out. ‘Can it truly be justified?’

Charlotte tugged at Elizabeth’s sleeve. ‘Please hold your tongue, Lizzy,’ she whispered. ‘Think of Philstock ...’

Lady Catherine swept over to Mr Darcy and seized him by the hair. ‘Get up!’ she ordered. ‘Our guests need some peanuts.’

‘Yes, Mistress,’ Darcy intoned in a low voice, rising to his feet. Making his way over to a sideboard, never once lifting his eyes, he took down two china dishes and made his way
over to Mr Collins.

‘Will his punishment last long?’ the latter asked, seizing a handful of Mr Darcy’s nuts.

‘Until I am satisfied,’ replied Lady Catherine.

Elizabeth watched Mr Darcy as he moved wordlessly about the room. He looked so different – so young, so vulnerable, so broken. Damn Lady Catherine! How could she have dragged him into the
dark, twisted world she inhabited? She, Elizabeth, would show him there was another way. An afternoon of découpage, a duet upon the dulcimer ... Such diversions could surely lead even the
most damned soul towards the light.

‘Sit!’ Lady Catherine barked, and Mr Darcy returned to his place beside the doorway and knelt, wordlessly, once again.

Lady Catherine turned to Elizabeth. ‘Now, Miss Bennet, I insist upon hearing you play the pianoforte. Mr Darcy shall turn the pages for you, with his teeth.’

The evening continued in excruciating fashion, Mr Darcy performing the work of a humble servant, and Elizabeth and the Collinses in a constant state of mortification and distress. The only
person who enjoyed herself was Lady Catherine, who seemed to delight in both Mr Darcy’s humiliation and her guests’ discomfiture. Try as Elizabeth might to turn the conversation towards
innocent pastimes, such as flower arranging, Lady Catherine would insist upon turning it back to subjects such as fisting and genital clamping. And not once did Mr Darcy so much as glance at
Elizabeth, despite her best efforts to catch his eye.

‘She is the most interesting woman, is she not?’ declared Mr Collins as the carriage journeyed back to Hunsford. ‘Unusual hobbies, though, I admit.’

‘I confess, I find her taste in dress a little outlandish,’ commented Charlotte. ‘I had never imagined that it was possible for a lady to wear earrings
down
there
.’

Mr Collins beamed at Elizabeth. ‘And how, cousin, do you find Lady Catherine? She seems to take a particular interest in you.’

‘She is a complete and utter bi…’ Elizabeth began, but Charlotte’s pleading look arrested her mid-sentence. ‘She is,’ she began more diplomatically, ‘a
law unto herself’.

‘And a slag,’ her Inner Slapper added.

But chief among the impressions that particular evening at Rosings had left upon Elizabeth was her fresh determination to save Mr Darcy from his errant ways. The burden weighed heavily upon her,
and she slept fitfully that night, dreaming of firm buttocks in leather hotpants, and scratching out Lady Catherine’s eyes.

Over the next few weeks, as Elizabeth’s sojourn at Hunsford continued, Mr Darcy was a frequent visitor to the Parsonage. In fact, he had a habit of appearing when
Elizabeth least expected it. Once he surprised her in the garden when she was trimming Charlotte’s box; several times she stumbled across him in the woods – though quite what he was
doing concealed in a pile of leaves was beyond her – and he even tapped upon the window of her bedroom when she was using the chamber pot, ostensibly to talk about new harnesses and fittings
for his pony trap. It was all beginning to have a detrimental effect upon Elizabeth’s nerves.

‘You always come unexpectedly!’ she accused him when next they met, in the lane behind the Parsonage.

Mr Darcy’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who have you been talking to?’ he said in a low voice.

‘I mean to say,’ Elizabeth explained, ‘that you never give notice of your visits.’

‘Why Miss Bennet, I like to pop up and surprise you,’ he said with a sly smile. ‘Indeed, I am popping up right now as we speak.’

Their talk was usually of Longbourn, Pemberley or the weather, and Elizabeth did not feel she could raise the matter of what she had seen on her last visit to Rosings. Why did Lady Catherine
have such power over Mr Darcy? He had money of his own, property and prestige, and, she was informed, a joint share in her beauty spa business. Why did he need to debase himself in such a fashion?
And those leather hotpant … She could not quite erase the memory from her mind.

Late one morning, a few days before she was due to depart, Elizabeth was roused by the sound of the doorbell. Her spirits were made a little anxious by the idea of it being Lady Catherine, who
had threatened to come down and take tea with her. But this idea was soon banished, and her spirits were very differently affected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr Darcy stride into the
room, his grey flannel breeches hanging halfway down his hips and his definitely not-ginger hair soaked through by the rain.
Oh my! He was Byronic!

In a hurried manner he began an inquiry after her health, imputing his visit to a wish of hearing that she had been eating well. She replied, cordially, that she had enjoyed a hearty bowl of
Frosties that very morning, and that he should have no worries on that account.

Darcy sat down for a few moments, and then getting up, walked about the room. Elizabeth was surprised, but said not a word. After a silence of several minutes, he came towards her in an agitated
manner, and thus began:

‘In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I wish to bind your limbs with cable ties and flog the living
daylights out of you.’

Elizabeth’s astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement, and the list of every kinky thing he wanted to
do to her, from tickling her fancy with feathers to sandpapering her nipples, immediately followed.

‘You must understand, Elizabeth, that this will not be a boyfriend-girlfriend thing,’ he concluded, running his hands through his copper locks in an agitated manner. ‘I wish to
formalize our relationship, and to that end, I have had my lawyer draw up a contract.’

Elizabeth struggled to compose herself. A marriage contract! This was the culmination of all her hopes.
Fitzwilliam Darcy was proposing!

‘Yes!’ she breathed, her face alight with joy. ‘I
shall
be your wife.’

Mr Darcy visibly blanched. ‘My
wife
? I do not do
matrimony
, Elizabeth. I told you, my designs upon you are far darker than that. The document to which I refer is a kinky-sex
contract. A detailed list of what I intend to do to you if you agree to be mine. A list which, if the reader of this book happens to be titillated by the BDSM scene, will no doubt be highly
arousing. But to all other readers, will prove about as sexy as a list of borough council town-centre parking restrictions.’

From the pocket of his waistcoat he produced a slim roll of parchment, presenting it to Elizabeth with a curt nod of the head.

‘Read!’ he commanded.

With trembling fingers, Elizabeth unrolled the parchment.