Chapter One
“Blast this infernal mud!”Elizabeth Bennet muttered under her breath. She tried to wipe a slimy splatter off her riding gloves as her horse trudged through the soggy autumn fields, its hooves heavy with the weight of the mire.
Hertfordshire had not even been experiencing any extraordinary measures of rain this autumn. But the fields had become irredeemable marshes—a complaint Elizabeth had largely ignored when she heard anyone speak of it until she became the one to accidentally try wading through the quagmire.
“You should have stayed home, Lizzy,” she grumbled. Jane had warned her, but no, she simplyhadto call on Charlotte, even though her ankle was still tender from the day before when she had slipped most ingloriously on the path back from Oakham Mount. So, what was her solution?
A horse. A bloodyhorse.
And as the carriage horses were wanted on the farm that day, the only alternative had been her father’s riding horse—a temperamental beast with a penchant for putting his head between his front legs and pitching his tail in the air whenever the fancy suited him.
Which it had earlier… Thus, the muddy gloves.
But for Charlotte, Elizabeth had been willing to put up with a little discomfort, perhaps even a little danger. Charlotte had been suffering from what Elizabeth could only describe as low spirits this autumn. Indeed, that was a generous term for the way poor Charlotte had been feeling, and she found little comfort in her mother’s admonishments or her younger siblings’ carelessness. And so, Elizabeth had been making the trek nearly every day of late, hoping to lift her friend’s spirits even a little.
The horse’s hooves squished into another soft bit of earth, and being as displeased by the notion of slogging through another swamp as his rider was, he lodged his feet in the ground and refused to move forward. Elizabeth uttered one or two indelicate phrases about the horse’s parentage, but rather than fight with him again, perhaps it was bestif she turned back and found firmer ground. Just… Where was that? She leaned slightly forward, inspecting the earth below for a promising path.
That, however, proved to be an ill-judged notion. The moment her weight shifted, the horse tossed his head and snorted, and then his front feet popped a few inches off the ground in a menacing threat to rear if she tried to make him go where he did not wish to go.
“Easy now,” she coaxed. She would get nowhere by telling the horse exactly what she thought of him, so perhaps gentle manners might prevail. “Just a little further, and we’ll be back on solid ground.”
Another rabid-sounding snort and the horse subsided long enough for Elizabeth to pull him away towards firmer footing. There, now, they were getting somewhere. Just a little farther on, and they would be on the road. And she would be hanged before she tried to cross these marshy fields again before next summer. Shortcut or not, her petticoats were already several inches deep in mud, and she was starting to shiver. Just a few seconds more…
But fate, it seemed, had other plans. As they approached a particularly waterlogged section of the field, the horse’s feet seemed to just… stop. He splashed up to his knees, and then his head went down, his body wrung to the side in a slithering hop… and Elizabeth felt, just for an instant, what it would feel like to fly like a bird.
A pity she could not land like one. Elizabeth hissed when she splashed into the wet grass, rolled to her side, and then surveyed herself with a groan. Good heavens, she was a slimy wreck! There was another gown ruined.
But that was not the worst of it. Pain shot through her already injured ankle as she struggled to sit up, her hands sinking into the cold, wet mud. The horse, its eyes wide with panic—or malice, she could not decide which—thrashed against the sucking earth and splattered her with more of the infernal stuff. Not that it made any difference now, though.
“No, no, no!” Elizabeth gasped. “Don’t you dare try to run off. You got me here. Now, you shall… Ooh!” She grabbed whatever leather was within her reach and pulled herself to her feet, wincing as she put weight on her throbbing ankle and tried to reach for the dangling rein.
Where was she? Elizabeth steadied herself by resting a hand on the pommel of the saddle and sought her bearings. She should never have taken the shortcut.
“Let me see… There is that stand of oaks, and the lane wrapping around, and oh, drat. Had I not got farther than that?” She shaded her eyes and turned about one more time. There was the marker for Netherfield, just around the bend. And that meant that she was still three miles from home.
There was nothing else for it. She would have to climb back on that pompous, twitchy beast somehow. She certainly could not walk home in this condition, but just now, hobbling three miles back to Longbourn on one good ankle seemed a great deal more appealing than getting back on that recalcitrant brute. He had done nothing today to earn her regard.
With a heavy sigh, Elizabeth gathered her skirts and braced one arm over the saddle to keep herself from falling as she tried to walk. And thus began the long, painful trek back to Longbourn.
Fitzwilliam Darcy fingered thebrim of the hat in his lap as his friend, Charles Bingley, strained to look out the carriage window. The autumn air was crisp, carrying with it the promise of change and new beginnings—that was the poetic way Bingley had described the weather. He had hardly ceased chattering since they left London, and now he was busy pointing out every building with which he had already become acquainted in the little village of Meryton.
Darcy obliged by glancing out the other window and nodding agreeably whenever Bingley seemed particularly enamoured of something or other. “That there is the bookseller’s,” Bingley informed him—as if the sign in the window was insufficient to the task. “You recall that fine first edition I showed you the other day? Well, that is where I found it. Odd thing, too, for I should never have thought to find… oh, and there is the haberdasher. I was a little concerned there would be few options outside of going to London—you know, a small village like this. It is a very respectable shop for all that. And there is themilliner. They had a very fine beaver that I admired immensely, and I think I shall look in on it again after we have concluded our business.”
“We are not here to purchase a hat,” Darcy sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Drat this wretched headache—would it never leave him in peace? “In fact, we are very nearly late for your appointment with Mr Philips. We shall not have time to make ourselves presentable at the inn before we are expected.”
“I suppose we ought to have left when you recommended,” Bingley confessed. “But I thought surely it was not so very critical, as I expected the roads would be quite good. A real shame about that downed tree we had to go around. Fancy, a two-mile detour just to go around a tree!”
“Would you rather drive off the road and get the carriage wheels stuck in the mud?”
“No, no. It is only that it seems like it should not have been such a bother. But Mr Philips seems an easy chap. I doubt he shall mind so very much.”
“I always mind when people wastemytime,” Darcy grumbled. But the complaint was lost on Bingley.
Some minutes later, the carriage stopped directly outside the legal office of one Mr Walter Philips, solicitor. Darcy gave his jacket a cursory dusting, wishing he did not feel so badly on account of their tardiness that he refused to stop at the inn first, as planned. Well, Mr Philips was a solicitor from a small village. Surely, he had seen gentlemen arrive with creases in their trousers before.
They entered the office and were asked to wait a moment, but before they had even taken seats, Mr Philips himself came to greet them. “Mr Bingley, Mr Darcy,” he began, his tone heavy with regret, “I am afraid I have some unfortunate news. The lease for Netherfield has been taken by another party. I sent a letter to inform you only yesterday, but it appears it did not arrive in time. I do apologise, sirs.”
Bingley’s face fell, his enthusiasm draining away like the colour from his cheeks. “But... How is that possible? We were in negotiations, were we not? I had hoped to establish myself in a house before winter.”
