CHAPTER ONE
THE FORTUNATE ELIZABETH
Elizabeth Bennet wishedshe had never returned to Longbourn—or, better, had never been born.
“Ten thousand pounds, Mr. Bennet! Ten thousand!” Mrs. Bennet’s shriek pierced the oaken library doors. “And she sits there—that girl—as if she has not plucked the very bread from her sisters’ mouths.”
Elizabeth plugged her ears while her father pushed a heavy chair against the door, but the tumult on the other side did not relent.
“Lizzy, I will never forgive you. Never!” The walking stick thudded against the wood. “Refusing to marry Mr. Collins was foolish. But to refuse Mr. Darcy is the unpardonable sin.”
Papa hunched his shoulders against the onslaught, but neither father nor daughter expected the siege to end—not until Elizabeth promised to stop refusing proposals.
“I don’t suppose you can hide here forever.” Her embattled father wiped his spectacles.
“When will she tire? She promised never to speak to me after I turned Mr. Collins away.”
“I’m afraid her nerves won’t allow her to stay silent,” her father sighed. “We will need to eat and drink eventually.”
Mrs. Bennet’s daily assault on the library doors had been going on for the better part of six weeks, ever since Elizabeth returned from visiting her friend, Charlotte, who had married her rejected suitor, Mr. Collins. What made matters worse, she had incurred yet another unwanted proposal in the form of a scathing insult—from Mr. Darcy, no less.
The door shook as Mrs. Bennet pounded it with renewed vigor.
“Mr. Bennet, you must do something! Write to Mr. Darcy this instant! Tell him the girl was in a fit of vapors. Tell him she is a simpleton who knew no better—that she has repented in sackcloth and ashes! He is a man of pride; he will want the satisfaction of an apology before he deigns to stoop to us again!”
“Your mother’s logic is impressive,” Papa murmured, “in its complete disregard for logic.”
“She isn’t wrong about his pride.”
Her father looked at her over his spectacles. “No. But pride cuts both ways, doesn’t it? And yours cuts deeper. He will not forgive that quickly, if at all.”
“Neither will I.” Elizabeth threw her hands up in exasperation. “Refusing a flawed proposal is not a sin that begs forgiveness. If anyone needs to repent, it is Mr. Darcy, who has thoroughly insulted our entire family.”
“Aye, but perhaps you could have used a gentler touch?”
Elizabeth didn’t even dignify that with a glare. Her father should know better. Arrogant, boorish, and pompous men deserved no such consideration.
“Mr. Bennet! We must invite Mr. Darcy to dine with us. Perhaps we could offer him another Bennet bride now that Jane is idle. She has the looks, if not the sense!”
“Dear,” Papa called back, “perhaps we could offer you, Mrs. Bennet. You still cut a fine figure, and your nerves might besoothed by ten thousand a year. That would solve our difficulties beautifully.”
“And then Lizzy and I can break this siege,” he added under his breath.
Elizabeth could not suppress a smile at her father’s jest, but she recognized it for what it was—a gentle nudge to face her mother’s wrath. With a sigh, she rose and moved the heavy chair aside, reaching for the door handle.
As the door swung open, Mrs. Bennet’s walking stick came dangerously close to Elizabeth’s cheek, stopping just short as it grazed the doorframe.
“You impudent girl!” she exclaimed, lowering her weapon. “You have not the intelligence of a gnat. If you wanted to vex him, you could very well have vexed him—at length and with great satisfaction—after you were settled as mistress of Pemberley.”
“Mamma, I believe you called him the most disagreeable, horrid man, not at all worth pleasing. I was merely following your opinion.”
“That was before he offered you marriage. Marriage! To ten thousand a year.”
“He insulted me. There is a distinction.”
“A distinction! She speaks of distinctions!” Mrs. Bennet appealed to the room at large, which contained, beyond Jane and Mary, only Kitty, who was curled upon the window seat, making desultory alterations to a bonnet ribbon, and Nettle, Elizabeth’s small, wire-haired terrier she’d found in the hedgerow.
Her puppy pressed her tiny body against Elizabeth’s ankles with the unerring instinct of a dog who always knew which human in the room was in the most distress. Not that Elizabeth was as distressed as her mother.
