Author's note:
I've never before attempted to modernise this most beloved of romances, but I felt the need to try a night or two ago. Please r&r with constructive criticism, I'm still very much a newbie to this and hope to do the story justice. I'm not sticking to the plotline completely, more taking the overview and trying to modernise it as feels right in my head. If I stray too far, feel free to smack me!
Rated T because there will likely be swearing.
No Relation, an excerpt:
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be emotionally damaged, or batting for the other team.
Bennett, the magazine, was a magazine of small but loyal readership, belonging to the Meryton printing agency. Its staff numbered but few, but were often referred to (especially in tedious inter-office memo emails) as the Bennett Family. At the helm was editor-in-chief George Bennett, who had inherited the magazine from his father, whom he often suspected had neglected to divulge certain pieces of information about his personal preferences to a young family. Still, upon his father's "retirement" to Rio De Janeiro with his "friend" Juan, George had taken over the business of running a middle-market women's magazine, that was settled somewhere between fashion bible and gossip rag. All of them were, in his view. Bennett was no Vogue, but thank christ it was far from anything with "Women's" in the title. Second in command was George's wife, Francesca. Francesca Bennett had started life as Francine Gardiner, waitress extraordinaire, but a good diet and ambition could do a lot for a woman. Unfortunately, a lifestyle less grand than her hopes but more grand than her beginnings could be more expansive on the waistline than the mind, so Francesca spent the majority of her time in the office doing field research on the latest celebrity diets.
The writing staff consisted of a small group of women who were now so close with the Mr and Mrs Bennett that any formality had long since been disposed of. Lunches were long when necessary, and expenses were rarely cleared before being thrown willy-nilly at "entirely necessary" fashion pieces. So the squabble over who would get to lay claim to one particularly fine pair of Louboutins was hardly unusual of a Monday mid-morning. Even so, Lizzie Bennett (no relation) was tempted to bang together the heads of the two fashion and beauty writers, Kitty and Lydia. She had a begrudging love for the two empty-headed minions of Lancome, but a hangover was an sacred event, and shrill demands did not sanctity create. Lizzie had worked at Bennett since her nineteenth birthday almost four years previous, and in that time had worked her way up from bullshitting her way through an astrology corner to her own column, No Relation. It had been a natural sort of affair, with the phrase having to be uttered so many times around the office, and the exit of the former columnist to the land of nappies and bottles.
The cause of Lizzie's hangover had been a particular 'research trip' for her column. She had largely free reign with the subjects, but Francesca had of late become a little obsessive about the man-hunting sections of the magazine, and had been making a push for the writing staff to be likewise. With a glance to check the others were suitably distracted, Lizzie attempted to continue her column the only way she could currently cope with- with her head on the keyboard. The world was spinning, and huge wodges of the previous night were swinging at her like a hammer.
She had forced her best friend and flatmate out on the night- if nothing else, Jane was an amazing test subject. With her golden hair stretching down her back, clear blue eyes, perfect skin and not a curve out of place on her 5'9 frame, Jane was guaranteed to prove whether a male of the species were gay or straight- namely, if he didn't try to buy her a drink, women weren't his type. Standing next to Jane was guaranteed to give any woman of sense some major self-esteem issues. Even with this unfortunate fairytale beauty against her, though, Lizzie could not help but adore Jane Coupland. She was as kind as she was beautiful, and innocent as a day-old lamb, despite her intelligence. Paired with Lizzie's cynism and biting wit, the two were unlikely allies, but close as sisters. That bond had got them through many a night of 'research,' and the previous had been one of the worst. Having tottered their way to the latest watering hole of fashion, they had suffered through two toupees, four gropers and repeated attempts to guess the gender of the bouncer. They had come away with little by the way of subject matter for a 'how to catch the man of your dreams' bonanza that Francesca wanted, but Lizzie was tempted to write an in-depth guide on the correct way to kiss frogs.
Such cheerful thoughts were assaulted by the high-pitched squeal of the woman with the ideas herself.
'Girls! Girls!' Francesca screeched, in what she thought to be a whisper, 'you will never guess what news I have!'
'Brangelina have adopted a three-headed hydra?' suggested Lizzie, from somewhere in the region of the L key. She was thus spared the glares sent her way by Francesca, Lydia and Kitty.
Francesca's excitement was by no means an unusual event, nor inspiring of the great flights of drama she liked to fancy they should throw her staff into. Even so, her breathless delight on this morning was greater than usual, and Lizzie peered out from between strands of hair that she could see even through her dehydration-impaired eyes needed a good deep conditioning. Her boss was practically vibrating. Lizzie failed to suppress a groan.
'The men from Pemberley Publishing are here!' this was uttered in an even higher pitch than her previous statements, and made Jane wince at the adjacent desk. Lydia and Kitty joined in the squealing, and only Jane, Lizzie and Mary, the current aspiring writer bullshitting her way through the astrology, remained mercifully silent. Rumours that Meryton was to be bought out by Pemberley had been swirling for weeks, and all the talk of the handsome businessman who ran that company had failed to enthuse Lizzie to the possible demise of a small company that had survived in a cut-throat industry for so long. Snorting, she returned to her position on the keyboard.
'Oh goodie,' she enthused, voice practically dripping with sarcasm, 'because what could possibly be more important to women than that the sharks circling are handsome?'
Perhaps it was the stony silence that alerted her. Perhaps it was the drop in temperature she swore she felt, but something told her that the only noise that would break the silence becoming ever more deafening around her was the sound of the guillotine.
She was wrong. The sound was in fact that of a throat being cleared.
'I see we were expected,' came a deep voice from the doorway.