by Leenie Brown
Unravelling Mr. Darcy
A Pride and Prejudice Variation Novella
Leenie Brown
Leenie B Books Halifax
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews, without written permission from its publisher and author.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, events, and places are a product of this author’s imagination. If any name, event and/or place did exist, it is purely by coincidence that it appears in this book.
Unravelling Mr. Darcy © Leenie Brown. All Rights Reserved, except where otherwise noted.
Contents
Dear Reader,
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Before You Go
Acknowledgements
Leenie B Books
About the Author
Connect with Leenie Brown
Dear Reader,
This novella is part of my Dash of Darcy Collection. These stories of about 20,000 to 25,000 words answer the question “what if Darcy and Elizabeth’s story took a different path to happily ever after?” Each story will depart from the original work, Pride and Prejudice, at some specific point in that story’s timeline, and while some parts of the continuation may mirror the original, most will not because these tales are reimaginings and not retellings. Due to their short length, the stories in the Dash of Darcy Collection are perfect for when life is busy, and you just need a dash of indulgence.
Standing next to and adding to the Dash of Darcy experience is another collection of books called Dash of Darcy Companion Stories. These stories will also be quick, sweet reads, but will focus on characters other than Darcy and Elizabeth. Each of the stories in this collection will be a sequel to a Dash of Darcy story. While not all Dash of Darcy stories will have sequels, many, such as the one you are reading, will.
There are three ways to keep abreast of the development of new Dash of Darcy or Companion stories. First, there is my Dash of Darcy and Companion Stories Readers group on Facebook. Secondly, there is my blog where, each Monday, I share about what I have been working on. And last but not least, there is my mailing list.
Happy Reading!
Leenie B.
Chapter 1
Fitzwilliam Darcy took one final lingering look at the lady who had stolen his heart, then crushed it beneath her dainty slippers. With some effort, he turned and willed himself to leave the parsonage even though his heart cried out for him to stay and plead his case. But what could he say? He had injured her sister in separating her from his friend. The injury was not intentionally done, but it was done nonetheless. And he had done it.
She was also correct in that he had been aloof, but was that not to be expected from one of his position? He had to think of his family when choosing a wife. Did she not realize the great difficulty he would likely face in presenting a lady of little means, with a family seemingly devoid of manners that would recommend them, to the highest circles in the ton?
What she was not correct about was Wickham. But how could he defend himself on that account without placing his sister’s reputation in jeopardy? Why could she not see that Mr. Wickham was too charming to be trusted? She was not unintelligent. She was actually very clever and, yet, also very duped by a charismatic deceiver.
His shoulders sagged under the weight of such tormenting thoughts as he pulled open the door to the sitting room and prepared to leave his heart behind, laying at her feet, with no hope of it ever being restored.
His steps faltered just a bit as he stepped out into the passageway. He closed his eyes and whispered a plea that he not be sent away from her. With a sigh of resignation, he placed his hat on his head. He had hoped there would be an instant answer to his petition, but perchance he was to be punished for having harmed another by suffering the same fate of being separated from the person he loved.
“Wait. Do not go.”
Darcy turned slowly toward the door to the sitting room. Was his mind playing a trick on him? Was it making him hear words that he wished to hear but were not actually spoken? He had already learned that the orb between his ears was not to be trusted in its contemplations of Miss Elizabeth Bennet. It had been certain she would welcome his addresses. It had fancied her in love with him, and it had been wrong — horribly, cruelly wrong!
“Do not go,” Elizabeth said once again when he turned her direction. “Please.”
“Are you certain?” Darcy asked as he came to the door of the sitting room.
Elizabeth nodded. “I should not have spoken as I did.” She wrapped an arm around her abdomen and took a tentative seat on a chair. “I was abominably rude and have no excuse to plead, save my indisposition.” She rubbed a small circular pattern on her forehead between her brows as if to still the throbbing that lay behind her fingers.
Darcy took in the prospect of the woman before him. Her cousin had said that she had not come to Rosings due to a headache, and it looked to be a genuine malady and not just a ploy to avoid his aunt or for him to be able to find her alone.
He deposited his hat and gloves on a small table near the window that faced the front garden and crossed the room to sit near her. “You are unwell,” he said, and then he grimaced. Of course, she already knew she was unwell. He did not need to tell her.
She smiled at him and opened her mouth as if to speak but then closed it again before rising quickly, one arm still wrapped tightly around her middle. “Please wait. I shall not be long,” she said and hurried from the room.
For several minutes, Darcy paced the small sitting room, pausing each time he passed the door to listen for footsteps in the hall.
Quite obviously Miss Elizabeth was unwell and had remained at the parsonage because of that reason, and for that reason alone. He shook his head. Such arrogance to think she was possibly providing him an opportunity to make his offer! She had not been expecting his addresses at all. It was a sobering thought.
All of the ladies of his acquaintance who were not married, as well as a few who were, constantly put themselves in his path in an attempt to snare him for one reason or another. But not Miss Elizabeth. She didn’t fawn over him or promote herself to him. She was different — in a most agreeable way.
She was intelligent and lively. He sighed. And beautiful — not in the fashion of the day. He shook his head again. No, in this way she was also different. Her features, to look at them with a critical eye, as he had attempted to do, were not classically beautiful, but her eyes — how they danced and sparkled, capturing her every emotion. Her smile lit her face. She moved with grace, and her figure was exceedingly pleasing — slight but womanly.
He stopped once more near the door to the sitting room to listen for her approach, and hearing footsteps, he hurried to stand near the mantle. It would not do to be found wringing his hands and hovering at the door like some anxious nursemaid.
He did a fine job of playing the part of an unaffected gentleman for a full ten ticks of the clock before he was propelled to her side by the ashen hue of her face.
“You are ill,” he said as he assisted her to her chair. “May I call for someone to come sit with you? Is there anything that you require? I could send for the apothecary if you would like. In fact, I could fetch him for you myself.” The words fell from his lips as rapidly as his grandmother’s did w
hen she was concerned and on the verge of a nervous fit. He clamped his lips closed and sat beside Elizabeth.
“I require nothing but a few moments of quiet,” Elizabeth said, placing a hand on his knee, stopping it from bouncing. “The tapping of your foot,” she explained when he looked at her in surprise.
He grimaced. It was not like him to be so very agitated, but then the lady sitting next to him had been unsettling him from the moment he had met her.
“I should go. You are in need of rest, and I am keeping you from it.”
His voice was as apologetic as his look. If he stayed, he was likely to cause her greater distress than he had already caused.
“Are you certain there is nothing I can get you to ease your discomfort?”
He could use a good swift ride and a large burning drink. His every fiber seemed on edge.
She bit back a smile and that tauntingly impertinent eyebrow raised as she glanced at his hands which were rubbing back and forth on his knees. Immediately, he stilled them and rose.
“Please stay. I assure you my affliction is nothing out of the ordinary.”
“But you are ill. Your head hurts, and I assume your stomach is unsettled,” he protested as he began pacing. “You are in need of care.”
“Mr. Darcy, please sit down.”
Her tone was curt, and he immediately complied with a wary look.
“Your pacing was making me feel quite faint,” she explained. “It is easier at the moment to look at you when you are still.” She sighed.
His brows drew together, creating a worried crease as he looked at her. How could she wish for him to stay and claim that she was not ill? He could plainly see her discomfort. Her skin was not so ashen as it had been, but she was paler than normal, and her eyes did not contain the same liveliness. Would it not be better for her to go to bed and rest? He should insist upon that very thing, and he would insist if he were not so drawn to remain here with her. He had willed himself out of the room once already, and it seemed his heart was not in a state to cooperate a second time.
“I do not wish to be indelicate, sir. I assure you I do know what is right and proper,” she began, her cheeks flushing to a more normal colour and then to a deeper hue. “However, since you have a sister who is in your care, I will assume you are not completely ignorant of the fact that at certain times a lady suffers from a particular indisposition. For some fortunate souls, it is a trifling matter. Unfortunately, I am not among the fortunate. So, as you can see, there is no need for concern.”
Ah! He felt himself relax. This he both understood and knew how to assist.
“What you need,” he said with a smile, “is a small glass of wine and a warming brick.” He kept his tone soft and soothing. “Might I call for them?”
A small smile crept across her lips. “Your help would be most welcome.”
He rose and, leaving the room, found the housekeeper and made his requests. Then, returning to the sitting room, he pulled a small footstool close to her chair for her use, took a small quilt that hung on the end of a chaise, and draped it over her legs.
“My sister, Georgiana, insists that warmth helps,” he explained,” unless it is summer; then warmth merely adds to her misery.”
“You must be a good brother,” Elizabeth said as she tucked the blanket around her waist.
“I wish I could say I am, but I fear I have failed her on more than one occasion.” He walked to the door and stood looking down the passageway.
“Surely you are too hard on yourself.”
“Do you think me incapable of failure?” His voice held a hint of anger. Her words accusing him of not being a gentleman still stung. He should likely not indulge that feeling at present, but the wound was too fresh to ignore. “I should think you would find me more than proficient in it.”
She opened her mouth, and he expected a protest. However, no words fell from her lips before she closed them again. Her brows furrowed and her head tipped as she scrutinized him for a moment. Then with a bewildered look and a slight shake of her head, she again opened her mouth. This time the action was accompanied by words, but they were still not a protest.
“I fear I accused you unjustly,” she said.
Darcy lifted an eyebrow and folded his arms across his chest as he leaned against the door frame, waiting for her to continue.
Her head bowed. “I should have asked you about my concerns rather than racing to unfounded conclusions.”
There was contrition in her tone, and he longed to ease her discomfort just as he did when Georgiana used such a tone. But, he would not. He held his peace and allowed her to continue.
“I am ashamed to say at times such as these, my temper often gets the best of my tongue and together the two can cause much damage.”
He pushed off the door frame and moved into the room as a servant arrived with the wine and warming brick. “Place the brick on the small of your back, if you can, and sip the wine slowly. I would lower the lights to ease the pain in your head, but for propriety’s sake, I dare not. However, if you feel the need to close your eyes, I will understand.”
She shook her head but did as he suggested. “You, sir, are an enigma,” she said, situating the brick as he slipped a pillow behind her upper back. “I truly cannot make out your character. One moment you are lofty in manner, ordering and directing the lives of those around you, and the next, you are solicitous and gracious. You are a contradiction.” She took a small sip of wine and then placed her glass on the table next to her chair.
Chapter 2
“I do not see how that is an inconsistency in character,” he said as he took a seat near her once again. “Does not everyone have two sides — the one which is for public display and duty and the one that is reserved for those closest to you? May not those two sides be complementary, each supporting and balancing the other?” He settled back into his chair. “Are you the same in all situations?” he added before falling silent, waiting for her reply.
Elizabeth took another small sip of her wine before responding. “I had not thought of it so, and therefore, I will grant that you might be correct in your assessment. However, I believe that the two need not, nor should they, be exclusive of each other.”
“Perhaps you are correct.” He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. “You may have uncovered yet another one of my faults, a failure to be all things to all people.”
“I did not mean to …” Her words dropped away as she saw the small smile which pulled up the corners of Darcy’s mouth. She dropped her gaze to her glass. She had not thought him capable of teasing. Had Miss Bingley not insisted that Mr. Darcy was not to be teased? Did that not mean the gentleman did not approve of teasing at all? She felt her face flush as she thought it. Had she truly expected Miss Bingley to be forthcoming with information? Foolish girl! She had told Jane not to trust Miss Bingley, yet here she sat, evaluating another based on that woman’s words. She heard a soft chuckle beside her.
“Forgive me, I should not tease when you are unwell. Georgiana scolds me for doing so.”
“You must love her very much,” Elizabeth spoke softly. Perhaps Miss Darcy was not as Mr. Wickham had said. Mr. Darcy seemed to defy that man’s every word with his graciousness to her after having been so abused by her mere moments ago. So many things suddenly appeared to be the opposite of what she had believed to be true. Oh, why must she come to these realizations at such a time as this! She blinked to keep from crying.
“I do.” His voice was soft as was his smile when, upon finding his handkerchief pressed into her hand, she looked up at him. “She is all I have left of those who are dear to me, save for my cousin, his father, and the Dowager Countess.”
“What is your sister like?” Elizabeth dabbed at her eyes.
As he spoke of Georgiana, suddenly, the man before Elizabeth — the gentleman who filled the room with his presence, who commanded respect from all whom he met — crumbled away, replaced by the image of…a person, and not all so
different from herself. She saw not his wealth, nor his connections, nor his authority. She saw him — a son, a brother, a cousin, a nephew, and, yes, a master. All heavy responsibilities he shouldered by himself. Silently, she chided herself for not having taken the time to consider him as anything more than the dour and disapproving friend of Mr. Bingley.
He had paused. His eyes stared straight ahead, but she suspected his focus was not on the vase of flowers on the table or the chair that stood before the fireplace. Indeed, he seemed to be looking far off into the distance, and what he saw there caused his countenance to become drawn and pained.
“I nearly lost her last summer.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “It was my own doing. Had I been more attentive, or had I been more willing to bear her displeasure, it would not have happened. But as I was both too willing to please and too occupied with my own concerns, she was nearly convinced to run away with a man with whom she fancied herself in love.” He shook his head and turned his eyes back towards Elizabeth. “She had known him for years and trusted him because of her history with him. He was not, however, in love with her but with her money. He broke her heart, which in turn broke mine.”
Elizabeth could not keep all the tears from falling. She wiped at them quickly. A niggling suspicion crept into her mind. Mr. Wickham had claimed to know the Darcy family for years. Such a disappointment to his fortunes must have left him bitter. “It is how he lost your good opinion forever.” It was not a question, but a statement of understanding.
Darcy nodded.
“I shall not ask you about him again. I am ashamed I ever believed a word he said.” She wiped again at her eyes. Oh, how her heart broke at the way she had accused him of treating Mr. Wickham poorly when, in fact, it was Mr. Wickham who had harmed Mr. Darcy. “I am so very sorry,” she whispered.
Darcy grabbed the hand that was not wiping tears from her face and squeezed it firmly.
“He is a pretender, a liar, and a cheat. Many have been taken in by his tales. Please, do not berate yourself because of it.”