Page 6 of Midnight at Pemberley

To let Lord Thomas in.

“Bad news, bad news, Lord Thomas,” she said,

“Bad news you bring to me.

You’ve come to ask me to your wedding,

When I thought your bride to be.”

She turned around and dressed in white

Her sisters dressed in green,

And every town they rode through

They took her for some queen.

In an effort to force the tension from his body, Darcy clenched and unclenched his hands, attempting to hide his anguish behind a bland expression. However, Elizabeth Bennet’s voice mesmerized him as easily as it did the others. He had never heard the song done so well and with so much passion.

They rode and they rode till they came to the hall,

So loudly she twirled at the pin

And no one so ready as Lord Thomas himself

To let fair Ellender in.

He took her by her lily-white hand

When leading her through the hall

Saying, “Fifty gay ladies are here today

But here is the flower of them all.”

“Is this your bride, Lord Thomas?” she said.

“She looks most wonderful brown

You might have had as a fair a woman

As ever trod Scotland’s ground.”

“Despise her not, Fair Ellender,” he cried.

“Despise her not to me

For I love the end of your little finger

More than her whole body.”

The Brown Girl, she was standing by

With knife ground keen and sharp,

Between the long ribs and the short,

She pierced Fair Ellender’s heart.