-I love a good soulmate story. So when the opening paragraph of this popped into my head one day, I was truly eager to start writing. While I know the general direction and how Lydia and Wickham's storyline will play out, I only have the loosest idea at this point where the rest of this will go. Honestly, I'm quite eager to find out myself. Posting will be intermittent. I have a number of stories in the works, and enjoy the freedom of working on the ones that fit my mood and inspiration on any given day. Feel free to point out grammatical or spelling errors, I don't have a beta, and would appreciate having specific issues noted. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy! - Cognisance -

Fate and Folly

By Cognisance

Prologue

Fitzwilliam Darcy had not yet started looking for his soulmate. Despite being on the cusp of 28, he was not truly worried. For while he would like to find her, mostly for his sister's sake, he disliked the idea of the soul mate bond. Not that he was against the bond itself, but the uncertainty behind it. The waiting for fate to surprise you with the one you would spend the rest of your life with. The lack of rationality. How could one study and deliberate and decide when driven by a fantastical 'destiny'. To be sure, he was not worried that she would be unsuitable or indeed that there would be much to study, deliberate, or decide. But it was the principle of the thing. He was Fitzwilliam Darcy and he was not ruled by feeling or emotions. Rationality and Reason. Sense. These were the tenets that his being strived for.

Elizabeth Bennet was content in the knowledge that she had a soulmate. She was sure that fate would bring him into her life at the right time. And until then she was determined to enjoy every day she had left on her father's beautiful estate, Longbourn. Between walking, reading, debating with her father, slipping in pianoforte practice when her sister Mary wasn't at the instrument, sharing confidences with her sister Jane and best friend Charlotte, and trying to ignore her youngest sisters and mother, life was full. And, for the most part, idyllic. Yes, God had fate well in hand, and didn't need her to tell Him how things were supposed to go.

Charles Bingley was constantly looking for his soulmate. Not a day didn't go by where he didn't give a little sigh and look off into the distance dreaming of a beautiful blonde angel smiling back at him. She was always blonde, honey blonde, with the most perfect pale blue eyes, and 5 small freckles upon her nose-to show that she truly was human and not a trick of fate. Whenever his sisters caught him with such an expression on his face, they shared a speaking look of disgust. Soulmates had begun to go out of fashion, and it irritated his older sister Caroline excessively that she was to have no say in who Charles wed. How would fate know that they needed a rich well-connected member of the ton? What if it matched him with a tradesman's daughter? It was too frequently done, matching stations when one had a soul mark. They had no trust for the things. Mrs. Hurst, his eldest sister, was slightly more pragmatic, after all, she had already married into the gentry, so her standing could not be too affected. She was a gentleman's wife no matter who Charles' soulmate was.

Grim was the day when Lydia Bennet realized that soul marks always appeared before one's 12th birthday. Having passed that milestone 3 days previously, a tantrum of epic proportions ensued. To be the only one of her sisters unmarked was shrilly and repeatedly announced to be unfair and incomprehensible. For was she not the liveliest and was she not even now almost as tall and beautiful as Jane? Fate was declared to be spiteful and stupid and, with a ferocity that was not to be gainsaid, she proceeded to the writing desk in the sitting room where she inked an extravagant and raphaelesqe heart on her wrist, spitting out that if fate did not see fit to give her a soulmate she would force it. To the surprise of everyone but Lydia, the heart never washed off.

In the coming years whenever Mr. Bennet saw a glimpse of it, he would sardonically smirk at the thought that his wife's favorite daughter was silly enough to think that she had won some type of battle of wills against God with this display. Elizabeth Bennet-his favorite daughter-had a different reaction, an uneasy sense that something had been wrongly twisted into the weaving of the tapestry of their lives and the picture had been irrevocably marred on that day.

Mrs. Bennet thought that it was wonderful that all five of her daughter had soul mates and was eager in pushing them all to meet as many men as possible, waiting for that moment when her daughters would meet their rich suitors (for of course they would be well placed gentlemen of good fortune) and never again would she have to worry about the hedgerows (or indeed anything else) after her husband passed.

Chapter 1

Elizabeth Bennet slipped into her sister's room, shutting the door quietly behind her. Jane was standing in front of her dressing table dabbing at her nose. "You didn't come down to breakfast." Jane nodded, but spoke not. Unusual.

"And you asked for a tray for supper. You have missed the news."

Jane leaned over to look into the mirror, her gaze solemn, "Do you think the lemon has done anything, Lizzie?" She asked, catching her younger sister's laughing gaze in the mirror as she inquired. Her sister's reflection grew closer until her chin was resting on Jane's shoulder.

"I think you are being perfectly silly, Jane. Using some of our lemon juice just to try to banish a few tiny little freckles. They are perfectly adorable."

Jane shook her head morosely and picked up a brush. As she lifted it to her hair, Elizabeth gently extricated it from her hand and began to do the office herself.

"I know it bothers you, Janey, I'm sorry that Mama has not quit remarking on them these 2 years."

"Honestly, Lizzy, If she would only quite blaming you for them! It does not feel quite fair that they are on my person, but you are scolded."

"Well," Elizabeth said philosophically, "In this Mama is not entirely in the wrong, for am I not the one that led you astray with my own hoydenish ways in taking my bonnet off while we played Pall Mall that summer?"

Jane shook her head morosely, "And in this she is even more unreasonable. Mama knows that I am equally as stubborn as you. If I had not wanted to take my bonnet off, you never could have teased me into it. It saddens me she cannot be more just to you. After all, according to her, the most important thing is that we are marked, our soulmates will come. Why then does she care what is on our faces?"

Elizabeth began the process of gathering her sister's hair into a tidy chignon, "I do believe, Jane, that someday a smattering of freckles will be the fashionable thing. And then Mama will be in alt at her foreknowledge. She will be preening at having made us keep our bonnets off on occasion so we could be leading lights!" She giggled at the thought and watched Jane's reflection turn momentarily lighter, a sly smile turning up one corner of her mouth.

"Did you hear the news, dear?" Elizabeth asked, turning the conversation to what she had initially intended to speak of upon entering the room.

"What news is that?"

"Netherfield Park is let at last! And Mama is determined that it shall be a rich young man who is to be your soulmate. Isn't it thrilling?"

Jane's head dropped a bit and Elizabeth yelped in surprise and dropped the curls she had been pinning up as she accidentally stabbed herself. Jane straightened quickly at the noise and twisted around to look at her sister. The few curls that were left to pin up draped gracefully over Jane's shoulder to frame her soulmark. They looked quite artfully placed as opposed to unfinished. It was unfair, Elizabeth thought, that even in her disarray Jane was gorgeous.

"I am sorry for moving, Lizzy," she said upon seeing her sister rubbing at her wrist, "But I do think that you have received your fair compensation for teasing me so."

Elizabeth stuck her lip out in a pout, "I am injured while doing you service and you are complacent?"

Jane laughed at the look, "That is a very Lydia-like expression, Lizzy. Do you think she got it from you?"

And expression of consternation, incredulity, and hilarity swept away the pout, "Jane, I do believe you are feeling feisty today. Shall it be swords at dawn or pistols then?"

Jane shook her head and sighed as she turned back around, her countenance falling again, "I think, Lizzy, that I am just tired of it all. What good has my serenity done? I am tired of feeling as if I must provide an absolute calm counterpoint to Mama and Lydia's vulgarity. It seems as if every time we are in company they rise to new heights of crassness, and I wish to stop this continual blushing of mortification!" Her voice rose at the end and Elizabeth stared in shock as her sister then buried her head in her hands and began to cry.

"What if the renter of Netherfield is my soulmate, Lizzy? What if he decides he doesn't want to be connected to such a family? At this point I couldn't even blame him-" Elizabeth stopped the rant with a gentle finger to her sister's lips.

"Come, Jane," she said as she tugged her sister up and over to the window seat, "Surely this did not come out of nowhere, you must tell me what happened." She gave Jane a gentle push to sit her down, then curled up in front of her and handed her a handkerchief.

Jane dabbed at her eyes, "Oh, Lizzy, I don't know if-"

"No, Jane, I insist. If they have indeed embarrassed you this intensely, I fear something must be said."

Jane lowered her eyes, "Very well, you are most likely right." She huffed a breath out, "It began when we took the carriage in to Meryton yesterday. You recall, Mama wanted to go see if the new dresses she had ordered for Lydia and I to attend the assembly in were finished."

Elizabeth eyes lit with humor again, "Yes, I do remember. You were trying to hint that the dressmaker would be able to finish them sooner if she wasn't interrupted daily with questions about them."

Jane nodded, "Yes, well, we made it Mrs. Bell's shop where she again pulled out the dresses for Mama's inspection. Mama again insisted on a change to both Lydia's dress and mine. I have spoken to Mrs. Bell, and she is still following what I originally indicated I wanted, but Lydia's dress becomes more ridiculous by the day. Lydia finally recognized that fact and threw a fit declaring that she did not want the trimming she had previously argued and begged for-which was now already sewn on-and insulted Mrs. Bell dreadfully by implying that Mrs. Bell's taste was wanting. Two of Mrs. Bell's customer's fled the scene before being waited on, and one was Mrs. Long. So I am sure the whole town shall hear of it. We had barely made it out of the shop before Lydia saw one of the officer's we met at the dinner party at Goulding's. You remember Mr. Denny?"

Elizabeth nodded, Mr. Denny was a friendly sort and handsome, even if he seemed a bit naïve and single minded in his topics of conversation. Lydia had immediately gravitated towards him at the Gouldings, and Elizabeth had been pleased at how polite he had seemed in the face of Lydia's fluttering eyelashes and tossed curls.

"He was in the company of another we had not yet met, and, Lizzy, Lydia turned toward the carriage and removed her fichu in the middle of town!"

Elizabeth gasped in horror, a flush immediately rising even as she saw an answering color in her sister's cheeks.

"She handed it to me with a demand to put it in my reticule before rushing indecorously towards the officers with Mama following. She then proceeded to introduce herself to the new officer without waiting for Mr. Denny to do the office. Mr. Wickham, who has just joined the regiment as a Lieutenant, was gentlemanly enough to not respond in kind and Mr. Denny finished the introductions. Whereupon Mama proceeded to fawn over how handsome the new Lieutenant looked in his regimentals and Lydia then demanded his escort to the sweet shop. She did not even wait until he offered his arm but grabbed it and pressed herself up against him in a most unladylike fashion."

The red had not receded from Elizabeth's face, "Oh, Jane, how utterly horrifying. No wonder you were so out of sorts."

"I did not know what to do, Lizzy! I could not stay and watch Mama's approving smile and manner at such atrocious behavior. So, I pled a headache and told them that I would just meet them at home."

"You didn't even need to make the headache up, did you, dearest?"

Jane laughed softly, "Not a bit, it had started before we even exited the dressmakers."

Elizabeth took Jane's hands in her own. "I am sorry you were put through that and astonished at how poor Mama and Lydia's actions were. Jane, we must tell Father, something must be done."

Jane shook her head.

"No. Truly. This has gotten out of hand. Father must curb Lydia's behavior."

"Will he listen though, Lizzy?" Jane stared into Elizabeth's eyes, "Will he do anything?"

It was Elizabeth's turn to drop her gaze, "I am unsure. But if we do not try to rouse him, what are we to do?"

Jane shrugged, "And so you find me here. What are we to do indeed."