Prologue


It was raining, turning the lawn into a sea of mud and wet grass. The lake sitting before the large house moved roughly, a combination of the downpour and the heavy wind. The windows whistled and the draft within Pemberley was nearly unbearable, barely kept at bay by the roaring fire within the parlor.

Shivering slightly, Elizabeth sat reclined in her normal armchair, etiquette be damned, pondering her life idly while half-listening to the man in front of her. She had not anticipated this situation when she had gotten married to Mr. Darcy. She had expected to live in the sun at Pemberley, with her husband and Georgiana, and to mentor her new sister in the ways of being a woman and live happily married, content with her role as a wife and, eventually, a mother.

But instead she sat in her dark thoughts, a shall around her shoulders, with a lawyer in front of her. He was a pale, sickly little thing, barely an inch taller than Elizabeth herself, with straight red hair and pasty skin; his clothes hung off of his thin frame unfashionably, and his high, brash voice, unpleasant to hear and listen to, echoed throughout the room intolerably. Elizabeth could do little else but listen to the tiny man prattle about legal documents and such, her eyes glazed over and her expression blank. The words he was saying to her did not make sense to her, as if he spoke a foreign tongue.

"Mrs. Darcy? Mrs. Darcy, are you aware of what I am saying?" he asked mid-sentence.

She looked at him, her dark eyes a mixture of grief and irritation. "Forgive me, my mind was elsewhere."

Frowning, he continued, "As I was saying, you will need to appoint an inheritor of the Pemberley, as we do not know if your husband is to return."

If. The word caused a shiver to run down Elizabeth's spine.

"Yes, I know; my father told me so already."

"Do you know who you will chose?" the lawyer asked eagerly, and Elizabeth felt bile rising in her throat: this man cared not for her or her husband's sister, but only for her husband's money.

"No, I don't," she said, her voice quiet. "And I will not decide presently. Now, if you would, my maidservant shall show you out." Turning towards the half-opened door, Elizabeth called, "Hill!"

Hill had been kind enough to follow Elizabeth to her married house to serve as her maidservant after the death of Mrs. Bennet, which was a shock to every person - man and woman - involved in her mother's life.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Show Mr. Pennington out; I shall take no other visitors today," she bid, Elizabeth's voice a facade of normalcy.

"W-what? In this weather?" Mr. Pennington cried.

Elizabeth smiled vaguely. "Yes, I am afraid; I am sorry for the inconvenience." Bowing hurriedly at the alarmed lawyer, she walked from the room before fleeing up the stairs.

"Lizzy!" a voice called behind her, high-pitched and worried, but Elizabeth ignored it dutifully. She could not look Georgiana in the eye whilst deciding what man was to takeover her missing brother's property, just as she could not look herself in the mirror as she pondered whether or not she was to ever see her husband again. Such ideas could not be borne without sorrow, and Elizabeth dreaded the moments that she would have to the face the fact that she might be legally widowed within the coming months.

She was in her husband's study before she realized where she was going, and she could not help the sob that ripped from her throat. This room did nothing to help the clenching in her stomach and the aching in her heart. The entire room spoke whispers of her husband, from the dark red chair next to the dark mahogany desk to the ceiling-high bookshelves that lined either side of the room. The windows were tall and encompassing bringing light to the room even in the stormy weather; Elizabeth remembered the fond smile that her husband would bestow upon the room whenever he would walk in, and her heart hurt to remember. His knowledge and sensuality littered the room and tears fell down her cheeks at the sight of his dark blue dressing gown - the one he wore when he found her wandering the fields the day of their betrothal - hanging haphazardly from her favorite chair in the corner.

"Oh, my love, where have you gone?" she whispered, sinking to the floor, her back against the French doors, ignoring Georgiana's quiet knocks in favor of staring at the Venetian rug on the wood floors.

The rain poured down, never ceasing, and a quiet darkness settled upon Pemberley, as blatant as the stormy clouds in the sky.


A/N: So I am a rusty writer who is not the most talented at writing period novels. However, inspiration has demanded this story of me, so I shall write it to the best of my ability. I do hope that I did an okay job here for the prologue. I'm already warning you that my writing style will never mimic JA's, and this story is based off the 2005 version of P&P. However, feel free to imagine whomever you wish. :)

x Carly