A/N: Chapter 15 was pretty short, and it's bedtime her in Sydney so just one more, then off to bed. Once again, thanks ever so much for all the favs and reviews. I enjoy each and [insert more mushy sentiment here].

Enjoy "Breakfast of Pirates"

Elizabeth gradually awoke to a feeling of extreme confusion. On the one hand, every part of her body hurt, and some parts hurt much more than others. On the other hand, she was now safely ensconced back in her comfortable bed, with her Jane snuggled up beside her. With Jane back in her presence, all must be right with the world. The only oddity was that Jane seemed to have lost a lot more weight since she had seen her than seemed possible. Could it be that she was not eating at all, with all of her suffering over the perfidy of Mr. Bingley?

With a start, she jerked awake and saw that she wasn't in fact snuggled up with Jane. She was snuggled up with Anne de Bourgh; or as had been determined yesterday, Anne or Annie. The previous day's exertions gradually became clear to her, and she started feeling badly about how sorely she had abused her betrothed during the day. She was once again thoroughly and hopelessly in love with him, although if she had that famous hammer she would probably still be inclined to kill his horse. Her forgiveness only went so far, and she really thought she could use a hammer in the morning.

With a gasp, she remembered the last thing she had said to Annie, which was, "Oh my", the authors favorite silly expression for making mini-cliffys at the end of chapters. Remembering the Valkyrie she said, "Annie, I'm afraid I must correct your most excellent, precise, and accurate; yet out of date impression of me with respect to your cousin."

Annie stirred, and said, "I know Liz. You're in love with him. I figured the whole thing out. I'm smarter than people think you know, although I suspect a blind goat would've been able to detect your newfound fondness for him."

Elizabeth's relief was palpable. She really did desire Anne's good opinion, and was not particularly looking forward to correcting her… and besides, she loved the bad-ass Anne drew and wanted to be her.

"Annie, do you think you could draw the same thing with somebody else under the hammer?"

"At the moment Lizzy, I'm fairly inclined to draw my mother under the hammer."

"What ever for?"

"I'll explain later. We need to get ready for breakfast, because I think Baby Bear (she couldn't keep the smirk out of her voice when she said the pet name), will be here shortly. We can discuss it once we're together."

"Will we be discussing Jimmy too… and by the way, what's his pet name?"

Anne at least had the decency to look chagrined.

The ladies got up, used the overly rustic facilities and started preparing to dress. Lizzy was intrigued by Annie's amazing thoughtfulness in being prepared to ride a horse the previous day. "If you knew we were going to be abducted by pirates Annie, you might've told me to get some padding myself."

Annie had to laugh. "No, no, Lizzy. I actually wear these all the time. It makes me look somewhat less pale and sickly."

This made Lizzy feel guilty about her original comments to Maria, and she started to explain, but Annie would have none of it. "That's all in the past Lizzy. Let's not beat it to death. We're to be cousins after all."

"I think sisters. I don't know how to deal with cousins, but I'm an expert on sisters."

"Sisters it is! You know you're getting another with Georgiana don't you."

"Once you get past four, it's pretty much all the same."

With that bit of wisdom, they prepared for breakfast.

Dressing properly in a pirate's cabin hidden in the woods was not as ideal as you might hope for. They had to wear the same clothes from yesterday, which were already dirty, dusty, sweaty, horsey (is that even a word?) and altogether unpleasant. Then to top it all off, Lizzy had to sneak out the window and stalk quietly across the yard to find a lavender bush; which she then had to beat between two rocks and rub all over herself to get her characteristic sent that apparently drove all of the Darcy boys wild. Then she had to do something with her hair, which was quite wild. The remedy apparently involved some combination of pins, ribbons and bonnets, but Jane never adequately explained the technical details.

They were just barely cleaned, corseted, coiffed, scented, padded and dressed appropriately when a knock on the door got their attention, and Mr. Darcy was ushered into the room. It might've been considered a breach of propriety, but the highwaymen didn't seem to be all that discerning in that area. Perhaps Jimmy would improve his manners after he was married to Annie.

Darcy rushed to his betrothed quickly, but then became a little bit shy, as he was trying to determine whether she was going to kiss him or bash his head in with a rock. Since there was a convenient rock in the corner of the room, unaccountably covered in lavender, he thought it best to be cautious, but it was tough with her scent of lavender driving him mad.

Feeling somewhat bad about her capriciousness of the previous day, Elizabeth set about easing his mind. This naturally involved standing on tippy toes so she could give him a good kiss on the lips, followed by a bout of tickling him until he practically fell over. This apparently was an acceptable apology, although slightly embarrassing to Anne. As these things go, one kiss and one tickle led to a second kiss and a second tickle, and Elizabeth became quite content with her lot and her betrothed. She was even feeling good enough to preemptively remove Thor from the doghouse, which given the relative sizes of horses and doghouses was probably for the best.

"If you two could tone it down a little bit, we have many things to discuss."

The two lovers settled down, although just barely. They still couldn't resist a little bit of giggling, and a few deep looks of instinctive understanding.

Anne immediately took charge, by explaining exactly all that she had figured out in the night. She explained her careful reasoning about how her mother had set the highwaymen upon her to prevent their elopement, and then explained in detail the letters she had sent the previous evening via the ever-handsome Jimmy.

"Anne, if your mother finds out that William is actually betrothed to me, I suspect she'll be crazy mad enough to crawl into the doghouse with Thor."

"You let Thor out of the doghouse, remember?"

"Quite right. That's good. Anne, you can tell your mother it's all hers."

Elizabeth asked many questions about her reasoning, and about what instruction she had put in her letters. Once she was sure that she understood it all, she asked Annie one simple question,.

"Anne, If your mother hired the highwaymen, why did she tell them to escort you back to Rosings? Wouldn't she have a wanted you to go to Scotland and proceed with the wedding?"

"Oh dear"