Elizabeth Bennet loved riding a horse with her betrothed. She loved everything about it. She loved being outside in the sunshine and fresh air in the woods she loved so much, instead of cooped up in a carriage. She loved her beloved's fearsome horse. She loved the fact that it was a tall, black, bad tempered, beautiful stallion. She loved his name, "Thor", Son of Odin, the Hammer Wielding God of Thunder, Lightning, Storms, Oak Trees… (Oops, speaking of the Hammer of Thor; she really needed to correct Annie about her true affections). She even loved that the horse was such a cliché. I mean 'tall, black, named after a god… Really!' She loved snuggling up to Baby Bear, and the less said about what happened when he kissed the back of her neck the better. She loved the feel of his arms around her waist, and the squishy feelings that produced… well, again, excessive detail might be best avoided. She loved the smell of him. She loved the shape of his hat, and his tall and handsome person. Yes, this highwayman business was most inconvenient, but it did have its compensations and she was loving every single minute of it. Yes, Elizabeth Bennet was completely happy with her lot in life, riding on this fine stallion with her beloved fiancé… for about an hour.
Elizabeth Bennet hated riding this infernal horse, with this insipid man she was attached to. She hated the horse's stupid name… who named a horse after a god, how stereotypical could you get? She hated the saddle sores that were developing on… well, again excessive detail was still be avoided, but suffice it to say, you don't really want to know. She hated the smell of the infernal man she couldn't escape… who smelled of sandalwood? And what exactly was sandalwood to make it such a popular fanfic trope? She hated the jostling, and the sun that was about to fry her brain, and the uncomfortable breezes coming off the local hills. She hated the pitted ruts of the horrid woods that they were forced to traverse instead of the smooth speed of the roads and a well-slung carriage. Worst of all, she hated this man behind her that she just couldn't escape. If she had the hammer now, she wasn't sure if she'd kill the horse or one of the men first. She didn't know if she wanted to kill Jolly or Fitzwilliam more, but it was a difficult decision. She really was about to strangle man or beast or… when the horse had to jump a small tree, and Fitzwilliam unconsciously grabbed her a little higher around the middle than usual and… …weeeellllll, maybe it wasn't quite so terrible after all.
This went on forever and ever and ever, back and forth, love-hate-love-hate-love-hate. Was marriage going to be like this? If so, she wanted no part of it… but on the other hand, she rarely saw spinsters riding horses with handsome men. During one particularly unpleasant bout of… well, we said no details… she finally decided to ask one of the pirates to shoot her and be done with it; when they entered a small glade with a neat cottage on the far side, next to a picturesque stream, entirely suitable for a story of this nature. It was rather archetypical, rather than clichéd and it meant she could get off the damned horse, so she liked it very much indeed.
Jolly Rogers made a quite regal flourish of his hat and said, "Welcome to your jolly abode."
Liz said, "You've been waiting all day to say that, haven't you?"
"All my life, my lady"… HAHAHAHA
Liz looked over at Anne, and found she didn't seem quite as put out as she might have thought. Anne had been stuck on a horse with a complete stranger, obviously a far worse situation than Lizzy's but didn't seem so very unhappy. She hoped that Anne wasn't entertaining any romantic notions. Granted, the boy was quite handsome but he was obviously not the highest ranking member of this pirate band, maybe not even midlevel; so his prospects wouldn't suit for the heir to Rosings. Even Jolly Rogers himself would be marginal. On the other hand, he was quite handsome, and Rosings did not usually host a surfeit of handsome men, and what with Liz herself about to reduce the current crop by half, maybe Anne was rethinking her level of pickiness.
The ladies were ushered into the house, and shown to a room they were to share, while Fitzwilliam was shown to another room on the other side of the house. You couldn't be too careful. No telling what these gentlemen would get up to if they were close to the ladies. He might try an escape, even if it was only to the ladies room. Jolly was a gentleman, so he wished to maintain all appropriate propriety… well, except of course for the kidnapping, which probably wasn't quite within the normal bounds of decorum; and forcing the ladies to share horses with unknown and detested men probably wasn't strictly allowed either; but other than that, everything was shipshape. He loved that word, as long as there were no actual ships involved.
Liz threw herself on the bed, and started ranting about how much she hated horses, and how much she hated being abducted, and how much she hated Fitzwilliam Darcy in particular, when she just ran out of steam (which wasn't really a thing yet). She stopped talking mid-stream, the brandy and shortage of sleep caught up with her, and she fell asleep on the bed in mid-rant, but not before Anne had an epiphany. Lizzy didn't look all that unhappy with her situation during most of the ride, just when she was in real pain, and nobody could rant about someone they actually disliked that much. Nobody could carry on in such a manner giving completely redundant information to the woman who drew her as Thor…unless… unless… unless… Eureka! She had it!
Elizabeth Bennet was in love with Fitzwilliam Darcy. They were the ones going to Scotland to get married. Everyone in the party was completely wrong in every particular. Worse yet, they had apparently all decided to follow the lead of Aloysius Fitzwilliam despite the fact that he hadn't been correct about a single thing since… well, she couldn't remember the last thing he was right about. Elizabeth Bennet was in love with Fitzwilliam Darcy. Elizabeth Bennet was in love with Fitzwilliam Darcy. Elizabeth Bennet was in love with Fitzwilliam Darcy. It all made sense. It was all so perfect! It was all so lovely! Elizabeth Bennet loved Fitzwilliam Darcy, and nobody knew except her and probably Charlotte Collins. You didn't get anything past Mrs. Collins. There was some chance Mr. Collins had stumbled on the truth as well… and Mr. Collins' behavior was very peculiar before they left; almost sensible and trustworthy; very odd indeed.
At any rate, whoever hired the pirates was operating under the same assumptions as everyone else, and they separated him from his erstwhile betrothed by forcing them to ride together on a horse for six hours. OOOhhhh! This was so delicious. This was so wonderful. If her mother hired the pirates, she was just going to die when she found out the real story. Her new best friend Liz was going to take the ton by storm. She was going to rip and rend, shred and tear. She would be the talk of the season… the talk of the decade… maybe the century. This was to be the wedding of a lifetime (literal for some, figurative for others). Annie felt like she might even be persuaded to go out into society as long as she had her Valkyrie friend beside her. Yes, yes… That was it… The two of them were going to take the ton by storm. They would have tea with the queen, and turn down dances from the prince regent. London would never be the same.
Annie got extremely excited that she now fully understood the story, and she felt a little bit like her own sort of warrior queen… because she knew she, Anne de Bourgh, had a role to play in this drama. She was obviously going to be the troubadour that gave the story to the world, but she could also be a player. This was too perfect for words. This demanded that she immediately begin writing this most excellent story down, and to send it along the appropriate channels; and of course, she had some letters to write. The story couldn't continue without an appropriate protagonist, and really it was her turn!
Anne began channeling her mother and screaming for writing supplies. She beat on the door until a poor beleaguered servant answered it, then demanded to see Jolly immediately. Once Jolly was there, she used her mother's voice, and her mother's mannerisms, and her mother's words, and her mother's shrill tone, and her mother's implacable stubbornness to make her demands known. By the time his ears started to bleed, he would do anything just to get her to shut up. He agreed that she should be able to write a few letters to relatives, and he would send the ever-handsome Jimmy to post them. He even agreed to have some of his men deliver the more important ones by express. He agreed to give her enough supplies to make notes for her next novel as long as she promised faithfully to omit the whole afraid of water thing (just for completeness, she promised the opposite should he fail in his duty). Oh, Lizzy was going to love this… or come back and burn Rosings to the ground… one or the other. This was going to be so wonderful. Lizzy and Annie, Queens of the world!
The servant came back a half-hour later with some quite disreputable parchment, and some quills that looked like they were plucked from a buzzard that died eating the carcass of another dead buzzard six months ago, but she didn't care. Anne de Bourgh had parchment. Anne de Bourgh had ink. Anne de Bourgh had her best friend Lizzy Bennet who was in love with Baby Bear Darcy, even though she would have been happy to bash his skull in two days ago. Annie didn't mind that the quill looked like a buzzard's feathers, even though buzzards were an American thing, so that was most likely a literary affectation rather than an actual bird. She had everything she needed to make the greatest novel ever written. People would be reading this novel in 200 years… Nay, 1000 years. She would be the best novelist of all time. This was fantastic. This was unprecedented. This was historic. This was… frustrating. The thesaurus had been invented 6 years previously, but Annie's copy was waiting back at Rosings, and she was fresh out of overused adjectives. She would have to add more fluff to this paragraph later during revisions.
With a contented sign, Anne looked over at her source of inspiration asleep on the bed, reviewed everything she knew about her and everything she thought about her, and put together a surprisingly accurate picture of just how everything came about. Vampire Darcy probably offended her… not that much of a stretch to figure that one out. Probably wouldn't dance with her, insulted her appearance or said something rude about her family… the usual. She had obviously used her superior intellect to put him in his place without him even knowing it. She was so smart, and he so clueless that he probably thought she was flirting with him. Things went along, bumpy bump until Bang! A little brandy, a little snuggling and everything was turned completely topsy-turvy. Yes, this was the story of her life, and she got to be both player and troubadour.
Anne almost skipped over to the writing desk. There was much to be done, so with a happy heart, she gathered paper and ink; and set about the task of mending her buzzard feathers.