Page 1 of A Prudent Engagement

Prologue

The terrible news came whilst Elizabeth made the circuit of Lady Catherine’s park with Colonel Fitzwilliam.

She had just attempted to jest about how difficult a girl of Miss Darcy’s age must be to manage, and the colonel had looked at her in such a way that Elizabeth suspected Miss Darcy had in fact caused great difficulty for her guardians.

To divert him from any concern that she knew anything particular about his young cousin’s no doubt amusing, or at least extremely interesting, escapades, Elizabeth mentioned the girl being a great favourite of Mr. Bingley’s sisters, whom she understood Colonel Fitzwilliam to be acquainted with.

“I know them a little,” replied the officer. “Their brother is a pleasant, gentlemanlike man—he is a great friend of Darcy’s.”

“Oh yes,” Elizabeth returned. “Mr. Darcy is uncommonly kind to Mr. Bingley and takes a prodigious deal of care of him.”

“Care of him! Yes, I really believe Darcy does take care of him in those points where he most wants care. From something that he told me in our journey hither, I have reason to think Bingley very much—”

Colonel Fitzwilliam’s disclosure was interrupted by Charlotte’s shouting as she ran breathlessly towards them.

“Lizzy! Lizzy! Oh, Lizzy! I am so sorry. I have looked everywhere for you.”

She approached her friend with tears spilling down her cheeks.

A black envelope was in her hand.

For an instant Elizabeth understood the missive as having come for Charlotte and indicating that one of her dear relations had died. But then something about her friend’s expression struck her like a punch to the gut.

Charlotte was not here to announce her own grief.

Elizabeth would easily recall the details of this moment sixty years later, when she was a frail and white-haired grand lady. The sunlight speckling the ground as it filtered through the leaves, the warm drowsy air, and the few fluffy white clouds set against the beautiful blue of the sky.

“Who?” Elizabeth gasped out.

Charlotte put her hands on her legs and panted as she caught her breath.

All hung in terrible suspension.

“For God’s sake! Who?” Elizabeth demanded again.

Charlotte held out the envelope. “Mr. Bennet. Lizzy, I am so sorry. It is your father.”

Had Charlotte delayed even one more minute, the course of Elizabeth’s life would have been yet further altered.

Mr. Darcy’s behaviour over the following days was softer and showed much less of his arrogant and offensive manners. That gentleman was full of eagerness to offer comfort and kindness after the father of the woman he loved had died.

Elizabeth also felt a great anxiety about how they should live on her mother’s fortune now that her dear papa was gone—an anxiety accentuated by Mr. Collins’s arguably kind and inarguably immediate promise to use his influence with Lady Catherine to find her a post as a governess.

Despite all this, if Elizabeth had been told about how Mr. Darcy had triumphed in his successful separation of Mr. Bingley from her sister, she would have refused the proposal that he would soon make.

Chapter One

Darcy was in the drawing room, bathed in a warm beam of sun through the window he had propped wide open, the floral fragrance from the blooming wallflowers beneath wafting in. Anne’s companion was not present to complain about the warm spring air affecting his cousin’s health.

There was nothing wrong with Anne, in Darcy’s detached opinion, that could not be cured by fresh air, regular long walks in nature, and the acquisition of a more active disposition.

That is to say, he believed that Anne ought to become more similar in character to Elizabeth Bennet.

Darcy could not attend to the book he held in front of him.

He wanted to see Elizabeth.

He wanted to speak with her one more time before he made an irrevocable choice, and he wanted an escape from the endless back and forth of his own mind.