A/N: third entry for the OQ prompt party. Wednesday.
2. pride & prejudice au, with Regina in the role of Mr. Darcy.


I

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

However, Robin Locksley is indeed single, but a wife is the last of his concerns. Life can go on as it always did, slowly but surely, and it's good. He doesn't need a wife to complete his life, least he'll end up in a marriage like his parents'. Completely hurried, they are most decidedly not a good match. Truth be told, they have managed to bring to the world five children, so it hasn't been that bad.

George Albert Locksley and Eva Hannah White have married twenty-some years ago, and their first one was named David. Their father's favorite, he is, the charming one, and just all of the ladies want to marry him someday. His baby blue eyes will do that, to completely capture every woman who speaks with him.
Then, Robin is the second, and Eva loves him particularly. He has a special bond with his mother, less so with his father.
There is Alistair, a lonely soul, his nose always buried in books and such, his quiet demeanor making him a shy man – he does always seem to be bored with the other's low wit.
Will is the fourth, and he could easily be considered as a lad who tries his best to be funny but fails, and he hasn't quite learned the tricks to charm the ladies, even so, if he will keep up with the silly pranks to his brothers.
And Emma is the last one – his father's pride and joy, she's their little sister, and her brothers are very protective of her. Emma is a free spirit – young and impulsive, a bit of a tomboy, she has grown up surrounded with men, and learned very soon how to be listened.

Life at Longbourn couldn't go better. He fills his days with books, hunting, walks, and generally speaking he loves to be with people. He is, if you may call him so, a man of many talents, and he likes to be of help with the elderly, the poor, the underdogs. This behavior, fueled by Eva's compassion, irks his father to no end. He has always thought his life would be a clear, well-defined path: he'd find a nice girl from the countryside, buy a little home, and spend his days there – raising kids and caring for the pigs in the backyard. Simple.

And yet, not that simple.

Longbourn has long lost his high status, the money they were about to inherit when Eva's father had died have been wiped out of existence. Robin was just a boy then, but he remembers words like Leo has lost it all, and Cards and wine, what else, so now they… live on, but the fortune is long gone. Of course, he hears it in his father's words, he reads it in his mother's gaze, it's there: the undeniable hope for their children to find a good match, tie in a good marriage, with wealthy girls, so they can leave the property to just one of them. They simply can't live there once their parents have gone, not all five of them. Emma may be the easiest, in that sense: she's beautiful and a little silly, dreaming of her prince, and when she's of age she will probably find a husband to make her happy. The others, well, it's… difficult.

Robin loves to be alive. He just loves everything of the world. Nature, books, discovery: those are things keeping a man alive, the beating of a heart, the burning of one's thighs after a long walk. Climbing trees. Swimming in the lake nearby. He has no interest in paintings, music, art: things that are inherently for a woman's soul. (Books, yes, that he can live with. His brother has been able to address him towards some of his favorite, that Robin has devoured but pretended not to like.)
Still he thinks he'd make a good husband. But he's not just going to settle, as his father would want for all of them.

Yet it will be necessary, if they want to save Longbourn.

Letters on letters have been sent during the years, hoping to provide their family a solution, but there isn't any: they can marry, or join the army or the clerk, as usual for the boys of an once-wealthy house. His father is pained to see them, Robin knows, during those lazy summer afternoons, when life goes slow and they swim in the river, ride horses, and Alistair is sitting under a tree with a book.

It's during one of those said afternoons that a letter comes. And Robin doesn't know, but that letter is about to change everything.

(He's never liked writing letters so much. They are, somehow, required in the society he lives in, but he tries not to dawdle too much in them. One can get lost in words, Will has said once, with a pointed look to Alistair.)

That letter brings unexpected news and of course his mother already knows what is that it's hidden in the envelope. Gossip in Meryton flies fast. His mother always says that the quickest way to let your affairs be known is to entrust old Leroy with them.

So that afternoon, Robin is strolling down the longest path back home, back from one of his walks in the woods, he's opened the front gate, and suddenly he's almost thrown away by a fast, pink, yellow little thing running towards the house. Emma runs inside, waving the elegant piece of paper, and her long blond hair bounces on her back as she enters the kitchen. "There's a ball!"

Their mother snatches the letter from her hands, with more hurry than composed grace, and reads quickly. "It's at the Meryton Town Hall, tomorrow, in honor of a Miss Blanchard," she informs the family. "Isn't it, darling, the lady…?"

George also takes the invitation, skims it, but the question his wife has just made is not pinned in ink. "It's that rich girl who wants to buy Netherfield," he says. "Her father died and now she's inherited it all. With great joy of her younger brother, but alas, the old man's will said she was the one to gain the price."

"Are we going, Mama?" Emma pleads, her green eyes so wide. Robin raises an eyebrow. Emma is not that old, after all, but balls like this one are greatly supervised by the eldest, so she is, in fact, allowed to.

"Oh darling, of course we are. The Lord knows we should hope for one of your brothers to charm her enough and to marry her. Of course that would be our David, right, dear?"

Robin shakes his head, deeply amused. David has just turned red, but he's smiling.

"And you, Mr Locksley, will have to go and introduce our family to this Miss Blanchard. It is only polite, after all. And you shall do it before our dear neighbors do. Oh, Emma, sweetheart, we ought to go to the boutique this afternoon. I know there is going to be an enormous crowd now that the invitations have been sent, and we should really buy a new dress, shouldn't we?"

George shakes his head, choosing not to comment about their evident lack of money and his wife non-existent need of dresses, and he exits. Robin winks at David (he just can't pass out the chance of teasing his favorite brother). "Are you ready for the orange flowers, man?"

"Oh shut up," David answers, patting his shoulder. "What about you? Maybe you will like this Miss Blanchard and you will marry her first. I will end up an old spinster and you will have to take me in your beautiful, ten-thousand-pounds-a-year house."

"You could be the nanny," Robin answers. "Old Meg's kid always loved you, you taught him how to burp."

"I'm a man of many talents," David answers. "So, shall we go see if we have something suitable in our closets to be introduced to the fine Miss Blanchard? Remember, Robin: to be fond of dancing is a certain step towards falling in love."

Robin laughs, and follows his brother upstairs. This ball is going to be either a disaster or a perfect evening, and he can't wait to discover which one will come true. What do they even know of this Miss Blanchard, after all? Of course, the perfect little heiress. He can just picture her – haughty, not a humble bone in her body, all content with her money and splendid estates. He pities David, but he can't wait for this ball.

Who needs a wife, when life provides you herself with such an entertainment?