It is a truth universally acknowledged that on escaping an unhappy marriage, a young widow will be delighted to remove to the dower house and lease the marital abode to a single man in possession of a good fortune, provided he looks elsewhere to fulfil his want of a wife.
Five years after being forced into an unwanted marriage at the age of sixteen, and freed six months later by the death of her abusive husband, Elizabeth Grayson (née Bennet) has finally found a measure of peace. The inheritor of her husband’s estate, Netherfield Park, Elizabeth is now a wealthy young widow, independent and self-reliant. With an eye always on improving her four sisters’ woefully small dowries and providing for her mother, who will be homeless when her father dies, Elizabeth is pleased to lease out Netherfield to the Bingley family, making her home in the dower house in Meryton and vowing that she will never remarry.
Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley in Derbyshire is rich and well connected, but reserved in company with anybody outside the very few he counts as friends. Towards those friends, he is loyal and steadfast, the staunchest of supporters. So when a young man comes to him with a tale of the clandestine marriage and mysterious death of Darcy’s old schoolfriend, James Grayson, and begs Darcy’s help to investigate the widow’s role, Darcy agrees. Visiting Charles Bingley, the new tenant of Netherfield, Darcy is very soon torn between his loyalty to his dead friend, and his burgeoning attraction to the widow.
Throw two unprincipled rogues and an elopement into the confines of Meryton, and how will Darcy’s dilemma over Elizabeth ever be resolved? And is she willing to put aside her misgivings, and trust again?
Excerpt
“Oh,
where is Mama?” demanded Lydia. “I have such news!”
“Oh
yes,” said her faithful echo. “Such a wonder—”
“Quiet,
Kitty! I shall tell Mama. Where is she, Lizzy?”
“She
went to her room for something,” Elizabeth glanced up from her embroidery. “She
will be back when tea is brought in, I expect. Papa is in his study and Mary is
practising—”
“Hmmph,
I can hear her. She pounds that poor pianoforte as if she were a blacksmith
beating out horseshoes.”
Elizabeth
attempted to quell Lydia’s spite with the observation that Mary was most
diligent in her practice and that was to be commended.
“Oh,
if you say so. We shall tell you the news, then. You should have joined us.”
And Lydia plumped down hard onto the sofa beside Elizabeth, bouncing her
against the springs.
Elizabeth,
who had her work tilted towards the candles so she could see to set her
stitches, sucked on her needle-jabbed finger. Just as well for Lydia, the linen
had not been blood spotted. “Is our aunt well?”
“Oh
yes, I suppose so. She was vastly glad Kitty and I went to keep company with
her while Mr Phillips was out, was she not, Kitty?”
Kitty
had come to lean against the sofa’s high back. “Ye—”
“He
was still at dinner with the officers, of course, when we walked home, but she
set uncle’s clerk to escort us.” Lydia pulled her face into a disdainful pout.
“He is a paltry sort of fellow. I care for none unless he wears a red coat.”
“Nor
do I,” Kitty said.
“You
both astonish me.”
“But
you should have come with us! Did you see the gentleman with Denny? He is to
join the regiment tomorrow. He came today to speak to Colonel Forster and sign
his papers, but he will not have a uniform until tomorrow and… well I do not
understand it perfectly, but it means he is not yet properly a redcoat and so
did not attend the officers’ dinner. I told him that it was little loss to him,
since he went to Aunt Phillips’s house with Kitty and me instead, and —”
“He
went to her house?” Astonished, Elizabeth jabbed her finger again, and with a
smothered exclamation, she bundled the abused handkerchief away into her silk
workbag. “He did not dine there, surely! He went to the house, despite the
master of it not being there to accept an introduction? You must be jesting,
Lyddie!”
“Oh,
no one cares about such old-fashioned notions! You are far too fastidious
sometimes.”
“I
may be fastidious, but you are not nearly as fly to the time of day as you
think you are! You little ninny, what sort of true gentleman does such a thing,
uninvited?”
Lydia
dismissed Elizabeth’s disbelieving stare with a wave of her hand. “No, no. You
do not understand. Aunt leaned quite out of her window to invite him, so far
that I feared she might topple into the street. How I should have laughed!
Would not you have laughed, Kit?”
“Oh
yes! Prodigiou—”
“Well,
she did not fall, and she was delighted to invite him in, make his acquaintance
and welcome him. She loves company, as you know. He did not dine. He said it
would not be proper without Uncle’s sanction, although he was very grateful for
Aunt’s attention. He sat with us only a quarter hour, then betook himself to
the inn—the Red Lion, I fancy, rather than the Hart—promising to return with
the other officers when Uncle is there and make his apologies for imposing.”
Lydia beamed. “There! Was that not very gentlemanly and proper enough to
satisfy even your notions of good conduct?”
“It
has improved my opinion a little.”
Lydia
sighed. “Far too fastidious, is she not, Kitty? His name is Wickham. He is very
handsome and charming, and shall be even more so when he is in his
regimentals!” She swayed a little in her seat, her expression rapt and her eyes
half-closed. She clasped her hands below her bosom. “Oh, I cannot wait to see
him in his red coat!”
“Nor
I!” Kitty sighed and clasped her hands in imitation.
Elizabeth
contemplated using her own hands to box two pairs of ears, but that office was
not her responsibility, though she doubted her father would shoulder it as he
ought.
“Pish,
Kitty, he will want nothing to do with you when I am there to engage with him.
You may forget him entirely.” Lydia abandoned her melting looks and dreamy
expression to glare daggers at her sister.
“Why
should he like you better? That is all—”
“Because
I am prettier than you, and livelier, and the gentlemen all do like me better.
That is why. Oh do stop crying! You are such a watering pot— oh, Mama! Mama!
There you are! Mama, I have such news!”
Mama
entered into Lydia’s feelings quite as fully as her youngest daughter might
wish, and for the next half hour, the room reverberated with their joyous
chatter. Elizabeth huddled into her corner of the sofa and sipped the tea Hill
brought in a moment or two after Mama had joined them. Not for the first time,
she contemplated abandoning the drawing room for her father’s study, and the
chance of sipping something stronger.
Something
much stronger.
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