Mr. Darcy Forever

by Victoria Connelly

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2012 by Victoria Connelly

  Cover and internal design © 2012 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by Oceana Gottlieb

  Cover images © Vincent Besnault/Jupiter Images; Eastnine Inc./Getty Images

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  FAX: (630) 961-2168

  www.sourcebooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Connelly, Victoria.

  Mr. Darcy forever / by Victoria Connelly.

  p. cm.

  1. Austen, Jane, 1775-1817—Influence—Fiction. 2. Sisters—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6103.O547M7 2012

  823’.92—dc23

  2011050595

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  An excerpt from A Weekend with Mr. Darcy

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  To my wonderful friend Caroline.

  You are such an inspiration.

  ‘Do not be in a hurry: depend upon it, the right Man will come at last.’

  Jane Austen, Letters 1817

  Chapter 1

  Sarah Castle wasn’t in the habit of blindfolding people, but her sister’s twenty-first birthday was a delightful exception. As she drove through the winding lanes of Devon, she glanced quickly at Mia. She did look funny with the red polka-dotted scarf tied around her eyes and her curly dark hair flattened into submission.

  Slowing down to take a bend in the road, Sarah tried to think how she’d spent her own twenty-first birthday. With a nine-year gap between them, Mia would have been just twelve and had probably been at school.

  I would have just finished university, Sarah thought, remembering that summer. It had been the summer their mother had walked out on them and the summer Sarah’s role had changed. There had been no note of explanation and no telephone call to check up on them. It was as if Monica Castle had decided she’d completed her role as a mother and moved on to other things somewhere else. Of course, neither of their fathers wanted to know, although the occasional check arrived to pay the rent and assuage some guilt.

  From the wide-eyed graduate who was going to conquer the world, Sarah became a surrogate mother, tidying up after her little sister and making sure she always had clean clothes and was eating properly. Her own life had taken a back seat and, whilst working part-time at a restaurant, she’d studied to become an accountant.

  No wonder she hadn’t had time to celebrate her twenty-first birthday, but this weekend was going to make up for it.

  She glanced quickly at Mia and smiled. Some sisters might not have survived the kind of relationship that was forced on them, but it brought Sarah and Mia closer together, and now that Mia had also graduated, she was about to leave home and start leading her own life. She’d already been talking about sharing a flat in Ealing with her friend Shelley, and Sarah was desperately trying not to act like a mother hen, fussing around Mia and making life impossible with endless questions. Mia was a grown woman, and Sarah had to remember that, although, looking at Mia now, she still seemed young and naive. She’d always reminded Sarah of Marianne from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. She had the same drive and passion, teamed with inexperience. A lethal combination, Sarah thought.

  Oh, stop worrying. Stop worrying, she told herself. This week was about pure unadulterated pleasure. She wasn’t going to think about Mia living in an appalling flat, unable to pay her bills, and getting into all sorts of trouble because she wouldn’t have her big sister to keep an eye on her. Oh, no. It was going to be a week of ‘busy nothings.’ They would walk. They would talk. They would eat and read and watch films. Sarah had a suitcase that was almost completely full of films, from the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice to the BBC version of Persuasion. She had been forced to take out some of her clothes, because they wouldn’t all fit in. Of course she could have put the films in a separate case, but that would never have done. Sarah was very particular about such things. You took one suitcase away on holiday, and that was all. She only hoped that the warm weather would continue and that she wouldn’t have need of the big woolly sweater she pulled out at the last minute.

  Banishing thoughts of a freak May snowstorm, Sarah thought about the week that lay ahead. No doubt there would be the usual arguments about who was the best Elizabeth Bennet and who made the most dashing Mr Darcy. This disagreement was when their difference in age became most pronounced, as Sarah would be singing the praises of Colin Firth as Mr Darcy and Ciarán Hinds as Captain Wentworth, whereas Mia would be swooning over Matthew Macfadyen and Rupert Penry-Jones.

  ‘But he’s far too pale to be a convincing Captain Wentworth,’ Sarah would say. ‘He doesn’t even look as if he knows where the sea is!’

  ‘Well your Captain Wentworth looks like a grandfather,’ Mia would retort.

  Sarah grinned. There were some things about which they would never agree, but one thing they agreed on was that this week was going to be free from men. Sarah had just ended a relationship that had been a complete disaster from start to finish, and Mia was still nursing a broken heart after her latest boyfriend, Guido, had gone back to his mama in Italy. Sarah sincerely hoped there were no men in Devon or, at least, not in their little corner of it. She was fed up with living in a city where there was a rogue around every corner. The only men she wanted to think about were the fictional heroes in her Jane Austen novels. They were the only perfect men in the universe, weren’t they? They never broke your heart. Living safely within the confines of a novel, they were the very best kind of lover.

  ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ Mia asked, breaking into Sarah’s thoughts.

  Sarah laughed at the childlike question. ‘Nearly,’ she said. ‘You’re not feeling dizzy, are you?’

  �
�No, I’m fine,’ Mia said.

  ‘Because we can take the scarf off, if you’d like.’

  ‘Oh, no! I like surprises,’ Mia said.

  ‘And you’ve no idea where we are?’

  Mia shook her head. ‘Somewhere complicated,’ she said. ‘All these twists and turns.’

  It had certainly been a complicated journey, with Mia coming from London and Sarah from Winchester. They’d finally managed to meet up in Exeter and had driven through the rolling Devon countryside together, both glorying in being released from their city lives for a few days. Sarah couldn’t wait to get out of the car and stretch her legs and stride across a few fields like Elizabeth Bennet or Marianne Dashwood.

  It was then that she saw the track that she’d been looking out for and turned off the main road onto the private one. Mia swayed in the seat beside her.

  ‘We’re getting close, aren’t we?’

  ‘Not long now,’ Sarah said, although she had never been there before herself, so had no real idea of where they were going. Still, she could feel a bubble of excitement inside her. It had been such a hard secret to keep from Mia. Sarah didn’t like secrets. She liked openness and honesty, but, she told herself, this was different. This was a secret to beat all secrets, and she couldn’t wait for it to be revealed.

  The turnoff came quickly, and Sarah slowed the car, parked it, and turned off the engine.

  ‘Can I take the scarf off?’

  ‘No!’ Sarah said. ‘Stay right there.’ She got out of the car and ran around to open Mia’s door, releasing her seat belt and taking her arm.

  ‘I feel like an invalid,’ Mia said.

  ‘Come on,’ Sarah said.

  ‘It’s steep,’ Mia said.

  ‘It’s all right. I’ve got you.’ Sarah led the way down a path and then up a grassy bank until she reached a small wooden gate. She placed Mia’s hands on top of the gate, and only then did she untie the scarf.

  ‘Happy birthday,’ she said, leaning forward and kissing her sister’s pink cheek.

  For a moment, Mia just stood blinking, as if getting used to seeing again, but then she gasped and her mouth dropped open.

  ‘Oh, my goodness! It’s Barton Cottage! You found Barton Cottage!’ Mia jumped up and down on the spot like a little girl, which, Sarah knew, she would always seem to her. She would always be her little sister. She smiled as Mia’s eyes widened in delight at the sight that greeted her. It was truly beautiful—the perfect Georgian country manor, its pale walls and large sash windows so open and friendly. But it was more than just a beautiful house—it was the house used in the 1995 film adaptation of Sense and Sensibility—the one to which the Dashwood sisters have to move after their father dies.

  ‘It’s so beautiful,’ Mia said. ‘This really is it, isn’t it?’

  ‘It really is.’

  Mia turned to face Sarah, her dark eyes brimming with tears. ‘I can’t believe you found it, and I can’t believe we’re really staying here.’ She opened her arms wide and then wrapped them around Sarah, squeezing her until she begged for mercy.

  ‘Don’t you want to see inside?’ Sarah asked, extricating herself from Mia’s embrace.

  Mia nodded, her smile reaching gigantic proportions.

  They opened the little wooden gate and walked up through the garden. Everything was lush and lovely. Frothy cow parsley grew in abundance, and bright red campion blazed in the hedgerows. To the left of the house lay a field of bright bluebells, and a beautiful lawn stretched out in front of the house in green splendor. It was as if spring had danced over everything, leaving no surface untouched.

  As they reached the front door, Sarah turned around to admire the view down to the estuary. It was flanked with pale blond reed beds, and a little lane ran alongside it.

  Mia gasped. ‘That’s the lane Willoughby rode along, isn’t it?’

  ‘And Colonel Brandon too,’ Sarah said, wistfully glancing along it in the hopes that Alan Rickman might show up on horseback at any moment.

  ‘We’re going to have the best week ever here!’ Mia said.

  ‘Of course we are,’ Sarah said. ‘A perfect week.’

  But perfection is hard to come by, even in Devon, and Sarah had been wishfully thinking when she’d hoped there were no men in their little corner of the English countryside.

  Chapter 2

  Three years later

  Sarah Castle woke up and couldn’t believe what she was seeing. What on earth had she been thinking? How had she let it happen? She felt absolutely mortified and tried to shut her eyes, banishing the image from her brain, but it was no good— it had to be faced head on.

  Sitting upright, she flattened down her hair with her hands and then swung her legs out of bed. She placed her left foot into its slipper and then the right one, careful not to touch the carpet.

  It wasn’t the first time this had happened, and she swore silently to herself that it would never ever happen again. Taking a deep breath, she stood up and straightened the offending curtain, shaking her head at the kink that had somehow been left in it overnight, and then she sighed in relief. That was better. Now the morning could begin properly.

  There followed a strict routine of bed making, washing, and tidying before Sarah allowed herself to have breakfast. Not for her was the slatternly slippered shuffle into the kitchen for that morning cup of coffee. Oh, no. Sarah had to be immaculately dressed before she graced the kitchen. There she would take breakfast whilst writing her first list of the day, which was actually a list of lists. She would need to make a list of jobs for the week ahead, a list of all the jobs that needed doing that day, and a list of things that needed doing around the house.

  Today was different, however, because she was going away. Work could be forgotten for the next few days. Well, not completely forgotten—she wasn’t the type of person who could wholly switch off from work—but being a self-employed accountant, she found it easy to take time off when she needed, and the Jane Austen Festival in Bath each September was an annual treat.

  People would come from all over the world for the festival, taking part in the great costumed promenade through the beautiful Georgian streets and going to talks, dance lessons, and classes in etiquette and costume. It was an event that no true Janeite could miss.

  Sarah had booked herself into a small bed and breakfast just off Great Pulteney Street, an area that would have been familiar to Jane Austen. Sarah had already made one trip ahead of her time in Bath, to see the bed and breakfast, because she couldn’t risk staying somewhere that wasn’t suitable. She’d only made that mistake once, booking a hotel room in Glasgow for an accountancy training day. It had been a disaster. The carpets looked as if they hadn’t been vacuumed for at least two days, there had been a strip of wallpaper in her room that had unfurled itself in a most unbecoming manner, and nothing had been straight—the pictures on the walls, the curtains across the landing, and the dining-room place settings. Sarah had to spend a good half hour of her own time going around straightening things before she could settle. It really wasn’t the sort of thing she wanted to worry about when she was on holiday, but it was impossible to switch off from such things.

  Sarah had always known she was different. It had nothing to do with her looks, because she was very pretty, with rich brown hair and eyes to match. Neither did it have anything to do with her intelligence, which was way above average, but even from a young age, she felt removed from those around her, because she seemed to see the world differently.

  The earliest recollection she could pinpoint was when she was ten years old. She’d been shopping in Oxford Street with her mother and paid a visit to the ladies’ toilets in a big department store.

  Sarah had been very careful not to touch anything she didn’t need to touch and had washed her hands twice, and then her mother asked her something. It was a simple enough question, but it stopped Sarah in her path.

  ‘Open the door, will you, darling?’

  Sarah stared at the big, wide
door handle, a handle people would have touched, people who might not have washed their hands twice, as she had, or even washed their hands at all.

  Her mother sighed. ‘Sarah, open the door for me.’

  Sarah turned to her mother and saw that she was carrying four big bags and didn’t have a hand free. She bit her lip and looked, once more, at the door in front of her.

  ‘What is the matter with you, child?’

  ‘I’ve just washed my hands,’ she said, but her mother didn’t seem to understand her and, if it hadn’t been for the little old lady who had come into the ladies’, Sarah and her mother might still be standing there today.

  Her mother never understood Sarah’s profound fear of dirt—not just the sort of dirt that clumps around a pair of Wellington boots or blows in the summer wind and sticks to your sun cream. There was other dirt too, the invisible sort that came from other people and could make you ill. Microbes, bacteria, and viruses—they were all out there, and one had to be constantly on one’s guard against them.

  Sarah tried to avoid public toilets as much as possible now. If it was at all possible, she’d much rather go in a nice clean field where one didn’t have to worry about door handles or picking up a bar of soap that would probably do more harm than good.

  It wasn’t just her fear of dirt that marked her out as being different, though. Growing up, Sarah had earned herself the nickname ‘The Neat Freak,’ because she was forever tidying up and not just after herself, but after everybody around her, as well. Everything had to be in its right place. Didn’t that make sense? Wasn’t that the way things were meant to be? Why didn’t everyone agree with her? Why did everybody else seem to like living in chaos where keys and purses and umbrellas were constantly lost? It baffled her, it really did.

  This determination for everything to be just right was noted by her first boss—Mr Henderson—who couldn’t understand why the teenage Sarah was taking so long to stack the supermarket shelves, but every tin had to be exactly right, with the label not just facing out but also facing out symmetrically. She then noticed some of the other products on the shelves that had been put out by others, and had to straighten those. It was all very time consuming, and Mr Henderson had thought she was a slow worker, so she was fired. How ridiculous was that, to be fired for being too good at her job?