Darcy Sails After Her

Prologue

June 3rd, 1812

Elizabeth Bennet took a deep breath of hot, muggy air as she strode, arms pumping vigorously, toward her home of Longbourn. Her long walk along the familiar paths near Meryton had cleared her mind, and she felt ready to face her family again. Her mother, always restless and noisy, had been particularly indignant this morning over her daughters' inability to find husbands. Kitty had coughed and complained, still outraged that the youngest Miss Bennet, her sister Lydia, was enjoying herself in Brighton as the guest of the wife of Colonel Forster, who commanded a regiment of militia men. Mary had pounded on the pianoforte with more determination than skill. Dear Jane, precious Jane, was always a sweet companion, but Elizabeth's eldest sister was still mourning the loss of her first true love, Mr. Charles Bingley. The man had courted Jane the previous fall, only to be driven away through the combined efforts of his best friend, Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Bingley's sisters.

Mr. Darcy …

As always, thoughts of Mr. Darcy, a handsome gentleman who owned a vast estate in Derbyshire, provoked a maelstrom of emotion. On the one hand, Elizabeth was still outraged over the man's high handed and insulting marriage proposal to her only a few weeks previously while Elizabeth was visiting a friend in Kent. Mr. Darcy had claimed to be in love with her, and then proceeded to roundly insult her connections, denigrate her family and their manners, and had admitted to encouraging Charles Bingley to abandon her sister Jane.

On the other hand, she could only feel shame over her championship of one Lieutenant George Wickham, a member of the militia. She had found Mr. Wickham completely charming and had accepted, like a gullible fool, his story of being cheated of a valuable church living by Mr. Darcy. It turned out that Wickham had lied about the living, and that the man was a practiced seducer.

Well, she would never see Mr. Darcy again, nor was it likely that Mr. Wickham would ever cross her path. In a few short weeks, she would be traveling north to the Lakes with her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner, the latter a tradesman in London. The Gardiners were kind, beloved and refined. Her own family was often an embarrassment in society, but at least she had some relatives of whom she need not blush.

One of the servants was carefully trimming a bush and she smiled at him as she walked down the main path toward the front door. Mr. Hill, the butler, opened the door for her, obviously having noted her approach. She smiled at him as well, fondly; Mr. and Mrs. Hill had served at Longbourn for many years, and she loved them.

Elizabeth passed into the hall and hesitated. Mrs. Bennet was still carrying on loudly, lamenting Mr. Bingley's abandonment of Jane. She really did not want to hear more about that sad subject. She turned to the right and stopped at the end of the corridor where the library door was, as usual, firmly shut. Mr. Bennet, her father and the master of Longbourn, spent many hours in his library, hidden away from the absurdity of his family. Elizabeth was his favorite and always welcome, and she could safely hide here with her father until the next meal.

She rapped on the door and then opened it immediately. Mr. Bennet was seated on his favorite arm chair but he was slumped to one side, his head lolling oddly, his eyes open and blank, and his book had fallen on the floor.

For the first time in many years, Elizabeth Bennet screamed.

Chapter 1

Pemberley

July 28th, 1812

Fitzwilliam Darcy, master of Pemberley, gazed with distaste at the two letters sitting on the desk in his study. They were both from his widowed aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and he knew exactly what would be in them, to the point that he was almost prepared to throw them into the fire instead of reading them.

Lady Catherine would harass him about marrying his cousin, Anne, his aunt's only daughter and the heiress to the great estate of Rosings in Kent. Catherine de Bourgh had dreamed for twenty-five years, ever since her only child had proven female, of marrying her daughter to the heir of Pemberley, her sister's son, Fitzwilliam Darcy.

There was a time, years ago, when he had vaguely contemplated marrying his cousin, though he did not love her in a romantic sense. Indeed, if he were entirely honest, he loved Anne only in a dutiful way. Poor Anne was not a healthy woman, and spent much of her time wrapped in warm clothes and nodding by the fire. She was as different as could be imagined from …

No, he would not think of her. He would not! He had offered her his hand in marriage in a moment of madness and been turned down, and he was grateful. He was. Elizabeth Bennet was not truly worthy …

But no, that was not true. Elizabeth was entirely worthy. She had faced him with fire in her eye, her petite form rigid with righteous anger, and blasted him for his ungentlemanly behavior. He, Fitzwilliam Darcy, had been proud and arrogant and rude and had reaped the harvest of his poor behavior. Her understanding of his character had been deviously twisted by that scoundrel, George Wickham, but he had only himself to blame for the initial misunderstanding between them. Darcy had insulted Elizabeth on the day they met, and his subsequent behavior had convinced her of his arrogance and disdain.

And yet, he still loved her. He loved Elizabeth desperately. When he had fled Kent after being refused, he hoped that his ardent adoration would fade with time. It had not. He and his sister, Georgiana, had quickly traveled to Pemberley, but he found that painful too. He had hoped to marry Elizabeth and have her installed as the mistress of Pemberley, and to walk the quiet halls of his home was agony. He found himself listening, sometimes, for her musical laughter, and mourned the silence of the great house.

So he and Georgiana had traveled farther north to a subsidiary Darcy estate in Lancashire, which no Darcy had visited in more than a decade. He had found much to do there and, as was usual when his heart was in turmoil, found refuge and some comfort in work. Georgiana too, had been happy. The countryside near the estate was quite different from London and Pemberley, and she had spent pleasant hours sketching.

But now they were back at Pemberley and Darcy, after dealing with all the other personal correspondence which had piled up in the last weeks, stared gloomily at the his aunt's letters. With a deep, self-pitying sigh, he opened the one dated first and began reading the page.

June 12th, 1812

Dear Darcy,

Well, this is inconvenient indeed. You no doubt remember Mr. William Collins, the rector who been established at Hunsford for less than a year. You may recollect that the man is heir to Longbourn, the estate where Miss Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters were raised. Her father, Mr. Bennet, died suddenly last week, and Mr. Collins is departing to take control of his estate in the next few days. It is quite inconsiderate of Mr. Bennet to die so suddenly! Now I am forced to interview other candidates for the Hunsford parsonage …"

Darcy realized he was holding his breath and forced himself to suck in deep draughts of air. He quickly scanned the letter for further news of his beloved Elizabeth. But while the expected harassment about marrying Anne filled the rest of the letter, but there was nothing more about his darling who had unexpectedly lost her father and likely been forced from her home.

He tore open the second letter when he was finished with the first and scanned the paper greedily in search of more information.

"… it is indeed most regrettable and absurd that Miss Elizabeth Bennet refused Mr. Collins's offer of marriage some months ago. If she had accepted him as any sensible woman would have, her mother and sisters could have remained at Longbourn. As it is, with my advice, Mr. Collins has ordered them all to depart. Mrs. Bennet has a reputation for being a vulgar sort of woman, and I see no reason for Mr. and Mrs. Collins to support her and her numerous daughters. I do not understand at all why the woman did not have a boy like a sensible female. If I had had more than one child, he would have been a boy, and remarkably well favored.

I did quite like Miss Elizabeth Bennet, though the girl has at times an inappropriately pert tongue in her head, so I have devised a splendid plan for her care. You may remember Lord Daw, a distant cousin of my husband. The man is now in his forties, a widower, and he is very desirous of marrying a young lady in the hopes of producing an heir. He is but a baron, but any member of the peerage is far more than a Bennet daughter has any right to expect. Indeed, I am astonished that Lord Daw has not yet found a woman to wed, but men can be quite incompetent at times. I have recommended Miss Elizabeth to him as an appropriate bride and am confident that now, with the specter of starvation looming, that she will sensibly accept his offer …"

Darcy's heart thundered and he felt both sick and faint. Elizabeth, married to an aging widower? It could not be!

/

London

3 days later

"Mr. Darcy, sir."

Mr. Charles Bingley, who had been gazing blankly out the window at nothing in particular, leaped to his feet as if stung by a hornet, "Darcy! Come in, my friend, come in! I had no idea you were in London!"

Darcy walked inside quickly, barely waiting for the door to close behind him before addressing his friend, "Bingley, do you have any idea where the Bennet women are living now?"

Charles Bingley gazed at his closest friend incredulously. Now that he was over his surprise at Darcy's sudden appearance, he noted that Darcy's face was pale, his eyes shadowed and his necktie slightly askew. In a more casual man such an appearance would merely indicate a late night with too much ale, but Darcy was sober to a fault and always carefully dressed.

Wait, the Bennet women?

"What are you speaking of, Darcy?" he demanded, gesturing toward a nearby seat as he poured a couple of brandies. "The Bennets? What about them?"

Darcy accepted the brandy and threw it down his throat, coughing slightly as it burned.

"Mr. Bennet died some six weeks ago, Bingley," he explained, his eyes watering from brandy, exhaustion and distress. "I have been at my satellite estate in Lancashire until a few days ago, and returned to Pemberley to find two letters from my aunt Catherine describing the death of Mr. Bennet and Mr. Collins's move to Longbourn …"

He trailed away and shook his head, "With my aunt's encouragement, he evicted the Bennet ladies from their home within weeks of the loss of their husband and father. I can hardly understand such cruelty."

Bingley's mouth was hanging open, "It is cruel and indeed immoral, Darcy, but why should you care? You were the one who convinced me that Miss Jane Bennet did not truly love me and was only interested in my money! You despise the Bennets; they are hardly your concern."

Darcy sprang to his feet and took a few turns back and forth before facing his younger friend, "I was wrong, Bingley."

"Wrong? About what?"

"About everything, really, I suppose. Everything that mattered. Miss Jane Bennet did love you. The Bennets — yes, there is a want of both connection and propriety in the mother and younger girls, but does it really matter when one is truly in love?"

Bingley was aware of a ringing in his ears and he glanced uneasily at the brandy decanter. Was he dreaming or drunk? Was this really his staid friend, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy saying such absurdly romantic things?

Wait.

"Miss Bennet did love me? How could you know that?"

Darcy ran a frantic hand through his now very ruffled hair, "I offered for Miss Elizabeth two months ago while she was visiting a friend in Kent. She had discovered that I was involved in your abandonment of ... in your decision not to return to Hertfordshire, and she was outraged. She stated that her sister Jane was very much attached to you and most grieved when you did not return to Netherfield."

Bingley's eyes bugged out incredulously, and his next words were full of fury, "You offered for Miss Elizabeth Bennet? How could you discourage me from offering for Miss Bennet and turn around to ask her younger sister for her hand in marriage? And if you offered for her, why do you not know where she is?"

"Because she refused me, Bingley," Darcy replied starkly, "I was an utter fool. I thought she admired and loved me as I admired and loved her, when in fact she utterly despised me. I ... my proposal was horrific, Bingley. I insulted her and her family and spoke of how debasing it was that I would even ask for her hand. And now she and her mother and sisters are destitute and I do not know where they are. Indeed, I can do nothing for them, not really, but I need to know that they are well. That she is well."

Bingley felt slightly dizzy from this outpouring of information and leaned against the desk of his office for support. He poured himself another brandy and, at Darcy's gesture, poured his friend another one as well.

"Miss Bennet did love me," Mr. Bingley said finally, in wonder.

"Yes."

"She must loathe me now. I left her without a word ..."

"That was my fault, Bingley. When I wrote to Miss Elizabeth ..."

"What?!"

Darcy waved an impatient hand, "She accused me of more than destroying her sister's hopes; she also had her head filled with lies from George Wickham, the licentious son of my father's steward. I wrote a letter describing my dealings with him. I also told Miss Elizabeth that I had persuaded you to stay in London instead of returning to Netherfield, and that I also conspired with your sisters to keep you from learning that Miss Bennet was in London at the beginning of this year."

"What?!"

Darcy's expression grew even more shamefaced, "Yes, Miss Bennet was visiting her relations at Gracechurch Street for three months this last winter. Miss Bennet visited your sister Miss Bingley, who was distant and did everything in her power to discourage the acquaintance. Indeed, I know your sister waited three weeks to return the visit, and when she did so, she was sufficiently unpleasant that Miss Bennet realized that the relationship was at a permanent end."

Now Bingley's expression was one of open fury, "You concealed Miss Bennet's visit to Town and that she visited my sister? You connived with Caroline to break the heart of the kindest woman in the world? Darcy, how could you? How dare you?"

"In truth I do not know. It was a mixture of arrogance, impertinence and misguided concern for you that led me to believe that I had the right to so interfere with your life, Bingley. I apologize. Indeed, if it makes you feel better, feel free to strike me. I deserve it."

Bingley, to the surprise of both men, took Darcy at his word and sent a strong right hook into his friend's jaw. Darcy was knocked into a convenient chair, where he sat panting in amazement, caressing his aching mandible.

"That did make me feel better," Bingley stated thoughtfully, reaching out his right hand toward his friend. "Come, Darcy, get up. We need to find the Bennet ladies. Given that my sister actually visited Miss Bennet, I know how we can easily find the address of her relations."

Author Note: Many thanks to those of you who are reading this fic. And my hat is off to my handsome editor and husband, who is now juggling edits on three fanfics. Though this particular one was HIS idea so... :-).

Be sure to check out my P&P Variation novels on Amazon. My new release: The Banished Uncle

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