Longbourn to London Read online

  Also by LINDA BEUTLER

  THE RED CHRYSANTHEMUM

  2013 Silver Medal, Independent Publishers Awards

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  LONGBOURN TO LONDON

  Copyright © 2014 by Linda Beutler

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any format whatsoever. For information: P.O. Box 34, Oysterville WA 98641

  ISBN: 978-1-936009-36-7

  Cover design by Zorylee Diaz-Lupitou

  Layout by Ellen Pickels

  Introduction

  Longbourn to London was my first attempt at writing Jane Austen fan fiction (JAFF). If you read this perfected version carefully, you will recognize the exact moment Lizzy asks Darcy a question I would love to ask Jane Austen—should I ever have the chance—and thus was born The Red Chrysanthemum (Meryton Press, 2013). At the moment both stories were finished, I realized the second story might be more publishable than the first, so it was the one sent to Meryton Press, and thus was my debut.

  Wise people that they are, the folks at Meryton Press suggested I join the Meryton Literary Society, and post anything I had lying around at A Happy Assembly, a forum for JAFF writers and readers. Imagine my surprise to find a whole world of people like me! Until that point, I had been reading printed novels, and I was unaware of this vibrant online universe with hundreds of new stories by great authors, many as yet unpublished. I began posting Longbourn to London there, after determining that it was sufficiently unique to be worthy of such an astute audience.

  Why did I think Longbourn to London was “sufficiently unique”? After reading even more JAFF, I became aware that there are “what-ifs” in abundance—the variations, if you will—taken from the Pride and Prejudice original plot. There are ample sequels, too, which take Lizzy and Darcy all over the world, set them many trials, and usually require some sort of physical mayhem be visited upon one or the other of them, if not both. But when I was first thinking of even attempting to summon hubris enough to put pen to paper, I wanted to do something few others had tried.

  With that motivation in mind, I turned to Jane Austen’s masterpiece, looking for gaps. There are some; the biggest and most often commented upon is the dearth of detail about Lizzy and Darcy’s official engagement. We know only that Mrs. Phillips made a vulgar pest of herself, letters to family were written, Caroline Bingley strove mightily to stay in everyone’s good graces, and Lizzy required Darcy to provide a thorough reckoning of how he came to love her. Jane gave us no first kiss, no flights of hysteria by Mrs. Bennet as she planned a double wedding, no pre-wedding night jitters for Jane, and none of Lizzy’s undoubtedly active curiosity about what would befall her as the wife of Fitzwilliam Darcy.

  Since there would be no harrowing Hunsford, no catfight with Lady Catherine, and no wickedness from Wickham, it seemed at first that nothing would happen. But thanks to the beautiful screenplay by Andrew Davies for the 1995 BBC adaptation, and the portrayals of Lizzy and Darcy by Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, my couple had faces and voices, expressions and mannerisms, making it only necessary for me to provide their thoughts. Somehow, a rudimentary plot laid itself before me.

  Then a bigger picture developed as I wrote. In this story, both Lizzy and Darcy are quite stunned by their individual felicity being wholly based on making the other happy. Darcy has some rudimentary idealized notion of this, but the reality of Elizabeth Bennet has him overawed. For Lizzy, the astounding thing is Darcy’s playfulness. That he is amused by her from the very beginning is a given, but in canon Lizzy thinks he needs to learn to be teased. I believe the contrary is true. Darcy has watched her affectionate teasing of those she loves, and he longs to be teased by her; it is a sign of her fondness and acceptance. And he has the temerity to tease her! From the beginning of Pride and Prejudice, although we don’t know it fully until the end, he is a more accurate observer of her than she of him.

  This story does dwell on the development of their physical relationship: how they approach the wedding night and all it symbolizes for their future. Darcy’s willingness to calm her worries with wry asides and silly observations is a revelation to Lizzy. She expects “marital relations” to be weighty and serious encounters. He clearly wants something much different and altogether more to her liking: he wants them to be equals in the marriage bed as well as in their day-to-day life as master and mistress of Pemberley.

  — Linda Beutler, June 2014

  Acknowledgments

  It has been my great privilege to work again with editor Gail Warner, and I hope she will always be so willing to go to bat for my stories, without hesitating to turn said bat on me when necessary. She is simply the best and makes me better. I thank everyone at Meryton Press for their support, efficiency, and unfailing joie de vive.

  And I thank my best friend, Jacqueline Martin Mitzel, who has spent more happy-hours listening to my daft ponderings than anyone should ever be subjected to.

  That the unvarnished version of Longbourn to London was embraced by the sometimes difficult-to-please audience at A Happy Assembly was so heartening that I started frequenting the chat room. It is populated by a worldwide array of JAFF writers and readers who encouraged me to publish my first story second. It is to them, the Chat-Chits and our one Chat-Chap, that I dedicate this improved version of Longbourn to London. It is an honor to know you, write for you, meet you, and share your lives.

  Prologue

  “Love me!…Why?”

  William Shakespeare

  Much Ado about Nothing

  It may be generally assumed, with few examples to the contrary, that a betrothed maiden faces the coming of her wedding night with some sense of disquiet, if not a complete and thoroughgoing fear. Even young ladies of some wit and good sense may become rather addled at the notion of engaging in the ultimate intimate act with a relative stranger of the opposite sex, no matter how beloved— an act with which they have little, if any, prior knowledge, and completely alien to all previous experience. It is an act able to reveal much about a gentleman’s character, which might otherwise remain unknown.

  In the case of Miss Elizabeth Bennet, and even more so for her elder sister, Miss Jane Bennet, the details of their wedding plans did little to distract from the event that would follow much later that same day. The sisters, dear confidantes from infancy, were to be married in a double ceremony to men who were the best of friends. These men were completely unlike in temperament and physical attributes, although both were tall.

  Jane Bennet, fair and blue-eyed, perpetually sweet-natured and believing the best in everyone, was to marry Charles Bingley, a neighbour recently arrived with the lease of an estate, Netherfield Park, which shared a corner boundary with Longbourn, the smaller Bennet estate. Jane and Bingley met at an assembly in the nearby market town of Meryton. It was to themselves and most observers love at first sight, or nearly so. For this well-matched couple, the road to betrothal was not as swiftly travelled as their feelings would have led one to expect, but they had been engaged a fortnight when this story begins.

  For Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, who first set eyes on each other at the same assembly, the path to betrothal was a good deal more fraught. A heedless remark made by a petulant Darcy, and unluckily overheard by the acute Elizabeth—known within her family circle to have hearing like a fox—led to a subsequent misreading of his character. Over time, Darcy’s caustic remark bred contempt. But as has been known to happen, it is not so very difficult for passionate hate to develop, in the right circumstances, into a deep and ar
dent love. So it was with Elizabeth’s fond regard for Darcy.

  Darcy fought his attraction to Elizabeth from their first meeting, although she fascinated him with her luscious dark hair, ready smile, intelligence, and lively manners. She did not fear him or defer to him. Whenever provided the opportunity, she laughed at him. On their third meeting, she refused to dance with him. Generally, she disagreed with any point he made in conversation, if only for the excuse to argue. Elizabeth did not examine the cause of this provocation and, had she done so, would have been most dissatisfied to discover a spark of attraction to his handsome features and elegant physique. Nor would she have understood it.

  For both, the dark warm eyes of the other were arresting. In Darcy’s case, by the time he acknowledged, towards the end of a party at Lucas Lodge, an appreciation for Elizabeth’s fine eyes, his heart was quite beyond redemption.

  A first proposal from Darcy to Elizabeth the previous April was nothing short of a catastrophe. It had not occurred to the conceited and arrogant Darcy that Elizabeth might view him with disdain. Darcy was vain of his position and worth, and expected the gently bred, though poorly connected, Elizabeth to appreciate the condescension exhibited by allowing his passionate regard for her to overcome his scruples.

  She did not.

  Her refusal was particularly illuminating in its minute delineation of his character flaws. He departed in anger, of course, but was also alarmed at the resonance of truth in her description, and it was this shock that lead Darcy to appreciate Elizabeth all the more. He came to own the veracity of her assessment and sought redemption even without hope of ever seeing her again.

  When Darcy and Elizabeth did later meet, quite by chance, he was a changed man. She was a changed woman, too, thanks to a letter he had written defending his actions— if not his character—in matters about which he felt Elizabeth had misjudged him for want of true information. The letter tacitly invited Elizabeth to question her perceptions. As she believed her first impressions of people to be rarely incomplete and never wrong, it was an exercise she had not previously undertaken.

  That Elizabeth and Darcy accepted love and abandoned hate brings us to the tale of their six-week engagement and the earliest days of their honeymoon, which to some may appear uneventful. These weeks were, in fact, full of countless small adjustments to their understanding of each other, as well as the deepening of regard necessary to convince a maiden that living with a gentleman might have more advantages than one initially assumed. The time also served to further convince a man who has lived in the world— and one who admittedly needed little further encouragement for his passion—that an unconventionally educated country miss with good principles and ready humour would make a worthy partner in every particular.

  As we begin, Darcy and Elizabeth had been engaged less than a week, and the larger world was only just realising that a handsome man of great consequence—one of the most coveted bachelors of his day—was marrying for the love of a young lady with teasing charm and a pleasingly healthy figure. Their immediate families— his, small with just a younger sister, and hers, large and mainly female—had given their blessings, extended families and friends had been written to, and the neighbourhood of Meryton was awakening to the approach of an event of great significance: the double wedding ceremony of the two eldest Bennet sisters.

  In the first days, Darcy and Elizabeth attempted to explain to each other the various turns of their minds as they grew towards a mutual regard, but many more particulars of growing affection awaited revelation. In private moments, the previously guarded Darcy offered love to Elizabeth with every breath; now that she had accepted him, he need not hold back. Elizabeth’s expressive eyes looked upon him with thrilling admiration, although her words were often as impertinent as ever. Darcy was not surprised.

  Chapter 1

  The First Kiss (or Two)

  “I wish my horse had the speed of your tongue.”

  William Shakespeare

  Much Ado about Nothing

  Fitzwilliam Darcy, as he had anticipated, was able to intercept Elizabeth Bennet’s early morning walk as he rode on horseback. It was the fifth day of their engagement. He knew she was fond of walking the countryside from the earliest days of their acquaintance, and, in April, his estimation of her had increased as he encountered her morning rambles through Rosings Park. It was outside his country home, Pemberley, on the west sloping lawn, that their paths miraculously crossed in July. His second proposal, the one she had accepted, happened along a lane less than a mile from her home. At just this moment, they were mere steps from that sacred spot.

  The fact that Elizabeth had rarely bid him more than a nod as she passed him at Rosings Park, and said little when he tried to engage her in conversation, should have been an indication—and would have been to a less proud man—that his attentions were not welcome. The man he was then could not apprehend that any woman he deigned to notice would not regard him positively, let alone might despise him. Reflecting, as he often did, upon the errant proposal—when all his words were ill chosen and the entire effort ill starred—he now saw it had the added disadvantage of being delivered in a sitting room rather than in the open air.

  How much had changed! Now when Elizabeth saw him on the paths, she ran to reach him, her cheeks flushed and her eyes brightened. Such welcoming delighted him and left no doubt of her affection. If she had not already removed her gloves, she did so when they met. They walked holding hands, or with her hand clasped to his elbow as he stroked it fondly. If he traced circles on her palm, she would watch with rapt attention. He was keenly aware that the sensations he was producing caused her pulse to race.

  If their conversation turned lively and amusing, as was often the case, Elizabeth would embrace his arm, sometimes quite fervently, and her bosom would brush against him. She was unaware of it, and he found this inflaming and a happy portent of a demonstrative nature—something he intended to test further on this day by attempting a first kiss.

  Just the day before, as Jane Bennet was in the Netherfield front hall awaiting the carriage after touring the house and taking tea with Miss Caroline Bingley, Charles’s mordant younger sister, Darcy spied Jane and Bingley in a secret embrace and kiss. If Miss Bennet, sedate and serene Jane, could be moved to respond to Bingley’s attentions, how would his more energetic Elizabeth respond? Although Darcy would not advocate for the anticipation of their wedding vows—his sense of honour and concern for her comfort would not condone it—he did mean, in as subtle yet thorough a manner as possible, to indicate he would welcome her responses to his ardour. He had no desire for a wife to “just lie there.”

  Darcy was appalled at the men of his club who spoke meanly of their wives. These were men who had not married for love and did not appear to want it to develop. Their wives were merely receptacles for their seed to produce heirs. These men went to the added expense of keeping mistresses if their bent ran to fornication. Darcy felt sorry for them and sorrier still for their wives. It seemed a ridiculous business to marry a woman one did not care for and then to bear the added cost—often considerable— of maintaining another woman whose honour would no longer be respected and often could not be trusted. Darcy dreamt of Elizabeth behaving as a mistress while actually his wife; in fact, he dreamt of it more and more often. It was his belief that such a felicitous circumstance was not only possible but also entirely likely. Her every look and gesture assured him that, with his loving and patient guidance, his private wishes would become hers, too.

  Does she know Jane and Bingley have progressed to kissing? How deep is their sisterly confidence? Thus were Darcy’s thoughts employed as Elizabeth repeated the list of invitations starting to arrive at Longbourn as a result of the announcement of their betrothal.

  After a few moments, Darcy realised Elizabeth had grown silent and he had not heard a word she said.

  “How will you bear it, sir, the scrutiny of Meryton society from now until the wedding?”

  Darcy shook
his head to clear it. “I am sorry, Elizabeth. I have not been attending you.” He stopped and turned to her.

  She released his arm. Her eyes flickered to his and then away. “I pray, sir, will you tell me what you were attending? You seemed miles away.”

  He remained silent until her eyes drew back to his. “No, Elizabeth, I am not miles away. I am here.”

  He saw her eyes widen but not from fear. He understood her quizzical response well enough. With a crook’d finger he raised her chin, thankful the brim of her bonnet was shallow. In the days to come, I shall remove our hats when we kiss. Her lips looked moist, and Darcy felt his mouth go dry, but he drew closer. She closed her eyes, her thick lashes brushing her cheeks. His lips met hers squarely, his mouth closed at first, and then his lips parted. He longed to taste her but stopped himself. He pressed harder instead. Her lips separated. She pressed his, too, following his lead. After a gentle moment, Darcy started to pull back, but Elizabeth’s lips pursued him, unwilling to break the connection. His hand under her chin slipped to the corner of her jaw then held the back of her neck, his fingers entwining in escaped tendrils on her nape. He tilted her head without making a conscious decision as his tongue lightly touched the delicate mid-point of her upper lip and withdrew. Her lips parted further as she drew in a gasping breath, and to his pleased surprise, her tongue touched his lip. Darcy exhaled and pulled away.

  Elizabeth’s eyes were full of dancing light. She blushed and murmured, “I hope that pleased you, Mr. Darcy.”

  He kissed her rosy cheek. “You seem to have a natural gift, assuming it was your first kiss.”

  “Yes, sir, it was!” she protested as her blush deepened. “Mr. Darcy, are you teasing me?”

  “I am.” He kissed her nose. “Was it everything a maiden might wish it to be?”

  “Certainly the company was as I have hoped— as to the rest, modesty forbids I reply.”