Blog tour: The Reintroduction of Fitzwilliam Darcy by Christine Combe - with giveaway!

Greetings, fellow Austenians! I’m so excited to be visiting Laughing with Lizzie today to talk about my new book, The Reintroduction of Fitzwilliam Darcy — especially today, because it’s RELEASE DAY! Woohoo!

::does a happy dance and a double-fist pump::

I do hope you’ll celebrate my new release with me by checking out this book and maybe even my first two novels (all available at Amazon). Reintroduction is my first standalone Austen variation, and I really hope you’ll like it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.

 

In this new story, circumstances are vastly different for ODC: Elizabeth and her sisters are the daughters of a baronet, and Darcy has no fortune. But as always, the stars align and one of literature’s most beloved couples unite, determined to take on the world together!

In case you haven’t been following along as I posted the chapters at A Happy Assembly, here’s the opening of chapter 3:

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Darcy found himself awake at six the next morning.

This was not an unusual time for him to rise, for there was always something to be done about the few acres of land he inhabited. Sometimes he would offer his assistance to a neighboring tenant if there was a need for extra hands for the building of a fence or repairs to a roof; once, he had spent an entire day on a neighbor’s farm helping to build a new barn.

Though he often let his beard grow out to “disguise” himself, since he saw no one of his old circle of acquaintances, his neighbors knew who he was. They knew what had happened to his father, his fortune, his dignity. None of this was ever mentioned. The tenants were grateful to him for ensuring they would not lose their own homes in the wake of the disaster that had befallen his family, and they respected him more than ever for being willing to humble himself and live at their level. It was well known that he could have joined his sister at the home of his lofty relatives, the Earl and Countess of Disley—the earl now having management over Pemberley Park—but had chosen to remain close to the home that had been his from the day of his birth. He had not abandoned the people who had for so long made a piece of the park their homes.

After completing his morning ablutions, he dressed in one of the suits that Reynolds had packed for him, a pair of black breeches and a brown waistcoat and jacket. He was supposed to go riding with his sister but had no riding breeches or boots with him, so what he had would have to do.

He was just tying his cravat when there was a knock at his door. Half expecting his uncle, he opened it to find not the earl but his valet on the other side. “Does Lord Disley have need of me?” he asked.

Perkins shook his head and lifted his hand; Darcy took note of a towel folded over his arm, with a mug in his hand that held a brush, a razor, and a pair of scissors.

“No, sir,” said the valet. “Lord Disley thought that perhaps you might like a shave and a haircut.”

“It’s more likely His Lordship desired his nephew not go about the grounds looking like a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Darcy muttered, though he stepped aside and allowed the man to enter, wondering how his uncle could possibly have known he would be awake at this hour.

He wordlessly took himself to the chair at the dressing table and sat in it as Perkins arrayed the few instruments he’d brought on the table’s top. He then moved to the wash stand and poured a draught of water into the mug, which Darcy knew would have a chunk of soap at the bottom. On his return, Perkins unfolded the towel and put it about his chest and shoulders. The long-serving valet made quick work of trimming his hair to a more respectable, shorter length before he went to work on clearing the beard from his chin.

Afterward, Darcy was forced to admit that he both looked and felt better—more like his old self, though he knew it would not last long. Thanking Perkins for his time and the excellence of his work, he then quit his room to go in search of his uncle. Surely the earl was up if his valet was already at work.

He found the older man, not unsurprisingly, in his study. The clock on the mantle over the fireplace read seven, and he still wore a flannel banyan.

“Ah, Fitzwilliam… I see that Perkins has done his duty,” Richard Fitzwilliam remarked on bidding him entrance.

“Indeed. You need not be embarrassed to be seen with me now,” Darcy remarked.

Lord Disley frowned. “Fitzwilliam, there’s no need to be unpleasant. I know you haven’t a man of your own right now—”

“I have Reynolds,” Darcy rejoined. “He does well enough in lieu of a proper valet, though given my living situation, I see no need to waste time having him shave me every morning or trim my hair every month. Those are, at present, luxuries I can do without.”

“You chose to stay behind and live as your tenants do,” his uncle reminded him needlessly.

“On the contrary, Uncle—there was no choice,” said Darcy. “Not for me. Perhaps you would understand how I feel if our situations were reversed.”

“Perhaps I would, but that is a moot point, one which we have argued countless times over the last five years,” said the earl with a sigh. “I did not ask you here to debate the merits of your choice. I sent Perkins to you because I thought I might do you a kindness while you were here, not because I was ashamed of your appearance.”

“You didn’t ask me here, Uncle. You said you expected me by supper, which I believe qualifies as a summons,” Darcy pointed out.

Lord Disley frowned again and sat back in his chair. “Might I ask why you are behaving so churlishly?”

Darcy scoffed. “Need you really ask? You demanded I come and then made me wait for an explanation as to why, then you had your man tend me this morning as though you could not stand the sight of me. You reminded me that I chose the life I now live as though I am not reminded of it every single day, and though we have argued the necessity of that choice ‘countless times’, you still fail to understand why I made it. Pemberley is all that I have left, and I don’t even really have that—you do.”

He emitted a groan born of exasperation and annoyance. “I just don’t understand how you cannot see what it means to me, both to remain at the park and to live with the knowledge that Pemberley is yours and not mine.”

An expression he could not decipher had fallen over his uncle’s face, and when at last Darcy had finished speaking, the earl sighed heavily. “I suppose you are right,” he said at last. “I cannot truly understand because I have never been put in the position to have to make the choice you did. But I can imagine, Fitzwilliam. I can imagine the humiliation, the loss of pride and dignity you suffer. I can imagine how much it hurt you to lose your father in the manner he left us, to place your only sibling into the custody of others to care for.”

He sat forward then, his hands clasped together on the desktop and his gaze now earnest. “I hope that one day, you will know how very, very proud I am of the man you have chosen to be. I don’t know that I could be such a man. I’m too used to this life, too old and set in my ways to so easily give it up for a cottage in a distant corner of my own estate.”

Disley then gestured to the chair that sat before his desk. Drawing a breath, Darcy moved, at last, to take it, expelling the breath in a whoosh as he fell back into it.

“Please believe me when I say that it pains me more than you will ever know to have to sit by and do almost nothing for you,” his uncle continued. “I have honestly done all that I can these last five years.”

Feeling suddenly ashamed of his behavior, Darcy nodded. “I know you have, Uncle. Forgive me for being such an ungracious oaf. Sometimes the weight of… well, everything… just crashes down upon me, and I lash out when I should instead be silent.”

His uncle nodded. “Given all you have endured—and how you have always tended toward keeping your emotions under strict regulation—it is only natural that you should explode once in a while when you have no one with whom you feel comfortable confiding in to vent upon,” said he. “Shall we say no more about it?”

“You are very good, uncle,” Darcy replied. “Now, you said in your note that you wished to discuss Pemberley, but thought it best to do so in person.”

“Yes, I suppose it is best we have done with it so that your mood is calmer when your sister rises,” said Lord Disley. “She has been looking forward to having you here since I told her you were coming.”

“I am sorry to have stayed away so long. I simply thought it for the best.”

“I understand that, and she will as well, in time.” His uncle then shifted some papers on his desk about, seemingly looking for one or more in particular. When at last he found what he was looking for, he held the sheets out to Darcy.

“That,” he said as Darcy took the two pages of parchment in hand, “is a plan for returning at least some of your fortune to you. It will take some time before the estate can be solvent again, but it’s doable.”

Darcy frowned as the full meaning of what he was reading registered. It was a business plan…for leasing Pemberley.

“You want to let Pemberley? Pemberley—in the hands of other people?” he said, not bothering to keep the incredulity he felt from his voice.

“Fitzwilliam, you forget, perhaps, that not only was much of the Darcy fortune lost to those wretched Wickhams but also that your father spent what they didn’t take trying to find them—not to mention his desperate attempts to recoup his losses through gambling and bad investments,” Lord Disley pointed out. “It is a miracle that your sister’s dowry was saved! The rent from Pemberley’s tenants has not been enough to pay off all the debt accrued, and it’s been almost five years. We ought to have done this from the start, but we were both of us so hopeful that those bounders and the money they took might yet be found. We were, as you are full aware, unfortunately wrong. And I can no longer justify taking no action at all regarding the estate. Something must be done, as I know you’ll never agree to my selling it.”

“You’re damn right I won’t,” Darcy growled. “You may legally own Pemberley at present, uncle, but that house, that land, and their history belong to Georgiana and me.”

“Precisely my point,” Disley retorted. “Nor would I wish to take it away from you; as you said, it’s all you have left, and I do want to be able to place ownership of the estate back into the hands in which it belongs. I’d have done before now, but with the state of your father’s affairs, I did not wish to chance his debtors trying to claim it piecemeal.”

“And for that, uncle, I do thank you. Despite the collateral damage done by my father giving up the estate, I am content in the knowledge that it will one day be mine again,” Darcy replied. “You have saved it for me, and I am grateful.”

“I haven’t the ability to manage Disley as well as Pemberley on my income—I’m rich, Fitzwilliam, but sadly not that rich,” his uncle continued. “With a yearly lease in place—asking as much as can legally be asked and perhaps a little more—we can put that much more of the tenants’ rents toward the debt. A trifling amount in comparison, but still something. You’ll at least get your ten thousand a year back, which is a vast deal better than what I’ve been able to give you.”

A vast deal better, indeed! Ten thousand a year would be a far cry from the five hundred he now lived under. And having Pemberley as his own once again—though up to half his income would be spent on maintaining the house and grounds, and seeing to the needs of the tenants—would be eminently preferable to what he made do with at present. He could pay Reynolds and his wife a salary again—he could get them help for carrying out their daily tasks. They could delegate to maids and footmen as they had done before.

And he just might go back to shaving more than once a week.

Darcy lifted the papers in his hands as he asked, “What, pray, is your projection for solvency?”

His uncle sat back again. “Unless by some miracle the money stolen by your father’s steward and his son is found…? Three to five years.”

Stunned was the only word to describe what the earl’s declaration made Darcy feel. No—he felt cold at having to face another three to five years living barely within view of his family’s ancestral home whilst another lived inside it. It was one thing to endure the cottage knowing the estate house was empty, but to be forced to watch some other man come and go from it as he pleased?

“What…what am I to do?” he stuttered. “How…how can I possibly remain when my home is given into the hands of another?”

Lord Disley’s expression was not unsympathetic. “The way I see it, Fitzwilliam, you have three options: One, you might finally take me up on the offer to come and live at Disley Court. Two, you remain as you are on your four acres in a secluded corner of the Park and continue to hide away from the world. Or…”

“Or what?”

“We could set you up as Pemberley’s steward,” his uncle replied, then raised his hand as Darcy opened his mouth to object. “Hear me out, Fitzwilliam. No one knows Pemberley Park better than you—I daresay not even that scoundrel Albert Wickham or his worthless offspring could best you in knowledge of the grounds or the tenantry, especially given you’ve spent the last five years living amongst them. You could stay in the cottage you have now, or we could move you to a farm closer to Pemberley; it would be your choice. So long as we are careful in our selection of the tenant—”

Darcy scowled. “Pray tell me you do not intend to advertise.”

Lord Disley scoffed. “Certainly not! I would not blaze your degradation to the world any more than has already been done. I do, however, intend to make some discreet inquiries—will have to if we’re even to find anyone to let the place to. I know you abhor disguise of any sort, especially in light of how your poor father was duped, but you may have to use an alias if you choose the third option. It may be wise to remove your most recent portraits from the gallery so that you’re not recognized as belonging to the Darcy family that owns the house.”

Looking over the papers in his hand again, Darcy had to admit—albeit reluctantly—that his uncle’s plan was sound. Thank goodness he’d had a first-class education to help him understand the minute details as well as the “layman’s terms” his uncle had just laid out.

“And aside from locating the stolen money, there is no other way to pay Father’s remaining debts?” he was compelled to ask.

The earl shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Fitzwilliam. Not unless you’re willing to deprive Georgiana of her dowry, and you know how bloody difficult it was to get your father to part with the thirty thousand, and Pemberley’s deed, before he lost those as well as himself.”

“No, uncle. You know I could not bear to strip my sister of the last shred of dignity our father has left her, even if you practically had to wrestle it from him,” Darcy said.

“Indeed. So, nephew… What will you do?”

Darcy drew a breath and blew it out. “I do not know. I must have some time to think on it.”

His uncle inclined his head. “I expected as much. I would suggest attempting to put it from your mind, as I know Georgiana intends to go riding with you this morning—she spoke of missing your rides together while we awaited your arrival last evening—but I also know it will be difficult to do. I’ve given you a great deal to ponder, and deciding on how little or how much you wish to be involved with Pemberley’s tenant will be a weighty decision indeed.”

“In that much, at least, we are in agreement, sir,” Darcy quipped, before sighing and handing the papers back to his uncle; then he stood and took his leave.

 

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GIVEAWAY! 

I feel like Darcy was channeling Persuasion’s Sir Walter Elliot for a moment there! Tell me what you think in the comments below to enter for a chance to win an ebook copy of The Reintroduction of Fitzwilliam Darcy!

But wait, there’s more! Because today is RELEASE DAY, there’s a bonus prize available. Continental US commenters on today’s blog (must comment by 11:59 p.m.) are not only entered to win the ebook, but also a signed paperback copy in a second drawing!

(International readers, I’m sorry I cannot offer you a signed paperback at this time. If a non-US resident is drawn for the paperback, I will send you an ebook.)

 

Contest open until August 14, 2021. Good luck!

 

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Christine, like many a JAFF author before her, is a long-time admirer of Jane Austen's work, and she hopes that her alternate versions are as enjoyable as the originals. She has plans to one day visit England and take a tour of all the grand country estates which have featured in film adaptations, and often dreams of owning one. Christine lives in Ohio and is already at work on her next book.

Thank you so much for stopping by Christine! I wish you all the best with the new release!