Author's Notes: Welp, I suppose it's time for your yearly update on this tale right!? I kid, mostly. I actually have the next chapter almost complete and waited to post this one until I was more than halfway done the next so that I don't torture anyone still reading with a ridiculous gap between the next update batch. I've moved 4 times in 14 months and didn't have a working computer for most of 2017, which are very simplistic ways of saying working on my story wasn't a top priority and I apologize for that. I hope you guys keep reading and reviewing, because honestly nothing gives an author life like hearing that feed back.

Next chapter will be much heavier in dialogue and forward plot progression. This one resides primarily in Mrs. Collins head. Some of the situation at the end of the chapter may make readers uncomfortable. Please be mindful of my warning on the story in description. I will not interrupt the flow of the story with trigger warnings, and I don't think what I've written necessitates it, but please reach out if you believe the rating should be upped. I'm not interested in writing descriptive violence, but we have to make our villain be a villain.

Deft fingers pulled the stitches of a delicate lace cap loose once again. Mrs. Collins ran her hands along the fine piece of fabric, looking for any imperfections. Jane was no stranger to the cap, she had, of course, grown up seeing many married women sport the fashion. She simply had never anticipated that she would have donned it herself so very young. A sixteen year old girl was still simply just as described, a girl, a debutante first beginning the transition into womanhood - but Jane had been wearing her cap since a few brief months past that birthday. Now, she had been wearing one for the better part of a decade. In quiet moments such as this one, when her husband was out of the house and the servants well instructed and perfectly occupied, her sister reading in a quiet corner, Jane could sometimes indulge in the fantasy that she was still a girl herself.

And if she was still Miss Bennet, rather than Mrs. Collins, what pleasant reverie would occupy her thoughts in such a moment? It was a game she played with herself very rarely, for the sweetness of her fantasy could easily make the reality of her situation all the more unpleasant. She had many things to be thankful for, after all. She had been blessed with a strong constitution, a quick mind, and a gentle heart. She had a roof over her head, a roof that sheltered almost all that Jane dearly loved. She had sisterly companionship, friendly neighbors, and the quiet pursuits of country living. Her lot in life was not a bad one, and surely choosing the alternate route…to reject her husband and lose her childhood home, it could not have been a better outcome for her or her sisters.

Yet if Jane had remained Miss Bennet, she imagined her excitement for the coming ball at Netherfield would be palpable. Mr. Bingley and his sisters had come around with their card to personally deliver the invitation. Mr. Collins had been extremely pleased at this display of deference, believing it his due as the Master of Longbourne, and Jane had encouraged that notion. Quietly, she thought it a vain idea, as Miss Bingley has made it very clear that they had also done so for the Lucas family. She wanted to believe it was for Mary's benefit, but her heart could not reconcile that idea with her mind. While Mr. Bingley was perfectly solicitous to the current Miss Bennet, the warm looks of admiration he often sported seemed to be directed at the former.

Oh! He was a proper gentleman, there could be no debate on that score! However, there was a heat in his gaze when he met her eyes that Jane was very familiar with. Most men she encountered coveted her to some small degree or another, it was their natural reaction to her famed beauty. Was it vanity on her part to recognize this admiration for what it was? She certainly did not revel in her own attractiveness, however there was something to Mr. Bingley's looks that made her blush. The sensation that discomposed her was she found that for the first time, a gentleman's admiration was not unrequited.

His initial introduction to the neighborhood had shown Bingley to be everything a young man ought to be, lively, good-natured, sensible, kind, and rather handsome. He only improved upon further acquaintance. Jane could not help but admire his happy manners, so in contrast to her own husband's stern character, though she was always as circumspect in that admiration as her situation in life warranted. He was exactly the sort of amiable man Mrs. Collins had always imagined herself falling in love with. However, fate had not given her the opportunity to do so.

No indeed, Jane was Mrs. Collins, Miss Bennet no longer, and even if she had refused her husband's suit, it certainly would not put her in the path of meeting Mr. Bingley or any other kindly gentleman in his stead. There would have been no Netherfield ball for her, and unlikely many others as well. The future of the Miss Bennets had been bleak indeed. With both parents dead and Mr. Collins the Master of Longbourne, to be Miss Bennet would mean that the pleasures of a ball at that Great House would be lost to her - she and her orphan sisters would not have been able to afford to stay in the neighborhood, and certainly not within the sphere in which they had been brought up.

Jane shook her head at her own idle day dreaming. It was foolish to engage so…and yet…In an alternate life, a life where her father had lived to a ripe old age, a life where all the Bennet sisters remained at home, what delight would she have felt as such a prospect? She closed her eyes for a brief moment, letting the girlish chatter of a house in uproar fill her ears and touch her heart.

A rueful smile graced her pretty lips at the imagined cheer. Her mother, still loving a ball as much as any of her young daughters could, had been insistent on a dance master being hired for her daughters. Even little Lydia had participated in the instruction, watching with wide eyes and gleeful claps as the four elder sisters paired together. Hiring the master was the one insistence on which Mrs. Bennet would not be denied in the education of her daughters. Mr. Bennet never had been able hold firm against the wishes of Mrs. Bennet when she was truly determined to get her way. To have a ball held at Netherfield, the most grand house in the neighborhood, would have thrilled Mrs. Bennet as much as it would have Jane or any of her sisters.

Returning to the task at hand, she pulled a pretty gold ribbon from her sewing box, intent on reworking her best cap to suit the finery such an evening required. If she had still been Miss Bennet, there would have been no cap, instead she would have worn her grandmother's pearl comb and with sprigs of fresh hot-house flowers worked into her coiffure. She also would not be selecting ribbons to rework such a venture, but would have had fabric and lace to create a new gown. A private ball at Netherfield would have called for the eldest and most eligible of the Bennet girls to have a new gown, would it not? Would Mrs. Bennet have left such a dress to the skills of the modiste, or would the girls all have worked on the project together?

Jane did not begrudge her younger sister any of the finery, nor any of her opportunities. She always gave Mary's preparations as much as attention and care as she imagined their mother would have for her eldest unmarried daughter in the house. Mrs. Collins' temperament did not have any room for resentment. Yet, in quiet moments, in the privacy of her own thoughts, she did wish that her time to be young and beautiful and gay had lasted just a touch longer. She envied that Mary had her chance to be young, such as it was, when Jane's own transition to adulthood had been so very harsh and abrupt.

It was Mary who would wear grandmother Gardiner's pearl comb, Mary who would wear a dress almost new. It was Mary who had the chance to meet a gentleman she truly preferred. Mary who Mr. Bingley should be admiring with that heated gaze of his. Indeed, Jane felt foolish for indulging even for a moment in the idea of his flirtation. Mary's time to find a suitable partner was swiftly dwindling. Mr. Collins was a harshly critical man when he could be troubled to speak, and he had never had any admiration for Mary. As a child she had unnerved him with her wide eyed stare and morose nature, and he had only been too glad to have her live with the Phillips family. As an adult he found Mary's quiet, determined, unflappable disposition repugnant and her looks almost plain enough to be repulsive.

Mary was not plain. Jane had never thought so, but she always tried to find what was most attractive in another person and admire that feature. Mary had many features to admire if one were but to spare her a second glance. No, Mr. Collins ugly remarks were fueled by the ugliness of his heart. He was not a man known for his amiability or his kindness. He was cruel to others seemingly because he was able to be so, as if it brought him pleasure to spew forth the venom that resided inside of him. There was no reason to hate Mary, and yet despise her he did. Mary would have a very little window to escape this life for a better one. If she was not married by her twentieth birthday, Collins planned to place her in service before her majority.

Mr. Bingley's arrival in the neighborhood was fortunate. But it was not for Jane's good fortune but Mary's. It was natural that Jane should want a husband for her sister who she herself would admire, were she a single woman, was it not? She needed to take Bingley's admiration for herself, and transfer it somehow to the eligible Bennet sister. They did not know when such an opportunity would arise again. It would be very encouraging if Bingley seemed to particularly admire Mary, but he seemed indifferent. Jane could not let his arrival be for naught. Mary must escape Longbourne, she must get away before she was sent away. If Mr. Bingley was not persuaded to court Mary in the traditional fashion, it was Jane's thought that he must be made to with a compromise.

Somewhere buried deep, tender hearted Miss Jane Bennet was disgusted by the ugliness of her own design. Mr. Bingley had shown himself to be nothing but a good neighbor and honorable gentleman, and Mary seemed to care for him as little as he did her. They were common and indifferent acquaintances. She remembered what it felt like, to be forced to marry a gentleman who she barely knew and for whom she had felt absolutely no affection. But she was Miss Bennet no longer, she was Mrs. Collins, and while she redid her best lace cap, she left the fantasies of that girlhood aside and she plotted for the future. There was nothing she would not do for her sisters.

When Mrs. Bennet had passed in childbirth, taking the young heir of Longhorn with her to the grave, it had been a painful, trying time. Jane was the eldest of a gaggle of motherless sisters and eldest daughter to a father stricken with bereavement. No one, not even gentlemen's daughters, sheltered from the particulars, could be unaware of the dangers associated with bringing a child into the world. The death of her own mother was the first loss of any kind that Jane had ever experienced personally, but it was not the first such loss in the society of Hertfordshire, small as it may be. Many things are hushed away from children's ears, but being the eldest, and always having such a steady, mature comportment, Jane had been privy to details that her younger sisters were not. It had been trying indeed, but it was not a shock. Mrs. Bennet had born five healthy children into the world, with varying degrees of ease. After Lydia's birth, the physician and the mid-wife were both of like mind that Mrs. Bennet should not have more children - but with an entail and no heir, Mrs. Bennet was not to be dissuaded from the wifely duty she considered her life's mission. Sadly, it was proven to be a fool hardy endeavor. There was always risk where there was children involved.

Everyone was kind and conciliatory. Neighbors and family alike did their best to care for the Bennet family in their loss. Aunt and Uncle Phillips were nearly daily visitors at Longborne, despite Aunt's tendency toward excessive weeping at the slightest provocation. Aunt and Uncle Gardiner were an even greater balm, bringing their own young children and nurse with them, going a long way to distract Kitty and Lydia with playmates. When Mrs. Bennet was gone, Jane knew that the task of caring for her family was naturally her responsibility — and how could she possibly give way to her own grief when her dear sisters and poor Papa were so bereft?

One may weep, but time could not be constrained by the wash of tears. It pressed ever onward, marching relentlessly against the tides of life's tribulations. There could be no hindering the passage of time. Jane had only been five and ten when she learned this, yet she had accepted it with all the grace she could muster. There could be no thinking or feeling for herself when there were others to care for - sisters, several of them, each younger and more frightened than the next. She had witnessed it in her father as well. Certainly a year of mourning seemed a respectful time to live in their grief, events outside the Bennet's family control could not stop with them. There was a hardness in Mr. Bennet at all times that had never been present before. Not cruelty, but a certain steely resolve so plainly written in his countenance that he had become something of an imposing figure.

At the time of Mr. Bennet's inheritance, Longbourne had resided under the care of a good-hearted steward and an indulgent estate owner, life time friends of some forty or more years. His father had died an old man, with a son and heir who had just begun a handsome little family. The estate's income was such that Thomas need never seek employment before his inheritance, and his father's temperament one that indulged his son's idle life style at all times. Yes, the Bennets of Longbourne were gentlemen, there could be no argument. However the estate had not been flourishing under the care of two old men whose only care in life was maintaining the comforts of their life style until the end of their days. Thomas, comfortable and invested in enjoying his young family as his only responsibility, had not given the ledgers more than a passing glance since his formal training in estate management directly after his grand tour. It had been many years, and as his pocket money had never changed, he had never wondered at the prosperity of the estate itself. What he learned was disheartening. Longbourne was not doing nearly so well as other estates in Hertfordshire, and his pocket money should, indeed, be changed until it began to perform again. It was going to take financial investment and serious hands on management to bring the land under good regulation once more.

Fanny Gardiner was a good sort of girl, certainly very pretty…and she had brought with her a respectable sum of ready money. Thomas had courted Fanny because it was his father's desire that he find a girl with a dowry, and here was one who lived in Meryton, sparing the expense and nuisance of going to London for the season. His life had been easy and idyllic, and so as the dutiful and contented son he married as his father chose for him with nary a second thought. He had enough of a young man's lustiness to believe he could be quite comfortable with a pretty, empty headed thing to share his bed, and had not minded that he held his own wife in little affection and viewed her mostly with conceited amusement at the inferiority of her mind in comparison with his own. He had not counted on time to slow that desire and increase his need for a companion and helpmeet as his concerns over his struggling estate mounted. When the initial fog of shock after Fanny's death had lifted, Thomas had known what must be done. Fanny had given him children, children he did truly love, but she had not borne him an heir. Longbourne needed an heir, and so he needed a wife. It was Thomas Bennet's duty to marry again. It was Jane Bennet's duty to raise the children of the wife he had buried.

What had occurred to neither father nor daughter, as they looked to the future with a grim equanimity, was that Mr. Bennet would be unable to see his promise through. Not seven months out of full mourning, the Bennet family was torn asunder once more with the worst sort of news — the patriarch was dead after a terrible carriage accident on a wet Spring road. The Bennet daughters were orphans. Thomas Bennet had died without male issue. The name Bennet ended with Thomas, his will, the same as his fathers, had never been updated to specify anything that belonged to family rather than the estate….all of Longbourne not clearly directed toward Mr. Bennets daughters in his marriage settlement - every inch of the grounds and every last ornament on the walls, went to a stranger named Collins, whom none of them had ever met. The girls had next to nothing in their own right.

The heir of Longbourne was arrived, with wagons of belongings in his wake, while Mr. Bennet had been buried only two days. The rapidity of his arrival had been startling, for as it was an unseasonably warm Spring riddled with violent rain storms, the parson was insisted that they inter Mr. Bennet while the skies clear and the ground dry. They must have begun packing as soon as word was received and ridden with a back breaking pace to be upon them so shortly. The neighborhood had been affronted at his lack of sensitivity in coming upon a family so shortly in their grief, but a few well placed whispers had the neighborhood turning in his favor as word spread he planned to take on the Bennet daughters as his wards.

For her own part, Jane found the new head of her family rather intimidating. A tall man, perhaps the tallest she'd ever seen, with broad shoulders and a faced browned with much time spent out of doors, his presence was a dark and foreboding one in the household. He was not kind, and he had little patience for the youngest girls and their childish needs. Yet he did not show himself to be cruel, simply stern and unfeeling.

The Gardiners had come from London, once again installing their own nurse to look after the youngest girls while the will was read and the house prepared for the new master. Jane was not always included, but many heated discussions had ensued about the future of the Bennet daughters, and she was quick enough to fill in the pieces. Mr. Collins had a son, only a few years Jane's elder, away at school, and no wife. The new master had no patience or desire to raise five young girls. He did not consider it his concern whatsoever, yet was very concerned that his reputation in this new part of the world be that of the most outstanding gentleman. He had always known of the entailment, but had not been given a gentleman's education or raised in a family that had any expectation that this good fortune would come to the Collins line. Having worked all his life, to now be gentry, to be part of the class that had always snubbed him, Collins was filled with a conceit he had never known before. He must be seen to be doing the right thing for the Bennet girls, while taking on as little of the burden himself as possible.

It had been Jane's uncle who had unwittingly decided her fate. Learning that the senior Collins already had his heir, Mr. Gardiner suggested that they affiance Master William Collins to Jane, allowing them to marry when William finished his schooling and received his ordination. This would irrevocably connect the two families, so that the Bennet line would continue at Longbourne, and by accepting Jane for his son's wife, the local populace would look favorably at Collins. In exchange, the Gardiners would take on two of the sisters into their household, and the Phillips' would take responsibility for one. Collins would need to only support Jane as his son's wife, and Elizabeth, the second eldest, as his ward.

It had seemed such a sensible solution, agreeable to all parties involved. Jane had never met her future husband, but her Aunt and Uncle pressed upon her that it was the most sensible solution to help her sisters — and Jane wanted to help the Bennet orphans, did she not? As her sisters were all she had, Jane rallied herself to comply. After all, she would have a protracted engagement, perhaps she would learn to love her fiancé given time and proper encouragement. Fortunately to some and less fortunately to others, the long engagement was not to be. By the new patriach's instance, Jane found herself standing upon the alter in her best half-mourning dress of lavender and a grey spencer. The timing was not quite as shocking as the groom was.

Uncle Gardiner had been the one to propose an alliance between the houses of Bennet and Collins, but he had not seen the details of the arrangement examined as closely as one might have wished. Master Collins, the next heir to Longbourne before his father, was his father's namesake. Indeed the vanity of the latter would not allow for anything else. Gardiner had of course attended the marriage settlement when it was written, but so busy in tying up the financial future of the Bennet daughters and seeing they were provided for, he had neglected to notice that while the name of William Collins had appeared many times, William Collins II, had not. Gardiner had affianced his barely sixteen year old orphaned niece to a man nearly as old as her father. It was a legally binding document and should Jane refuse and create a breach of contract, Gardiner had no doubt Collins would have delighted in taking his case through every legal avenue he could. He would leave no stone unturned. He had decided he wanted Jane, and she would belong to him. Her Uncle had seen to that.

As if summoned by the turn of her thoughts, the man in question appeared in the door way, his large frame cutting an imposing figure.

"I hope, Mrs. Collins," her husband said, crossing the threshold of the sitting room where his wife sat alone with her sewing, "that you have arranged a good dinner for today, for we are to have an unexpected visitor."

Jane obediently looked up from her project, folding it neatly in her lap. She did not speak but fixed her husband with her full attention. The small furrow in his brow and the flatness of his speech did not encourage a reply. He seemed in a foul temper.

"It seems," he continued, pulling himself up to his full height, "that my doddering, fool of a son has seen fit to visit his father for a short while, now that he is comfortably settled in his parish." The very idea of it seemed to sour further as each word passed his lips. His countenance was flat and yet extremely foreboding.

Jane tilted her head and gave a small nod, to indicate that she heard him. She had learned better than to speak if not directly, expressly addressed when such a look crossed her husband's face. What little patience he possessed was totally absent in a moment such as this. She would make herself as small and meek as she could appear.

"From what I have discerned in his sprawling missive, is that it is the express wish of his patronesses to show his familial duty in both honoring his father, AND in finding a wife! He must set an example for his parishioners after all." He took two strong strides toward her, his eyes carrying the steely glint of barely contained rage. Jane willed herself to crane her neck so that she might look up at him. This seemed to give him a dark sort of pleasure, to be admired from below.

"This Lady Catherine oversteps herself. She may be the wife or daughter of some good for nothing noble, but the Collins family is gentry, and she would do well to remember it. Her circle may be the first, but her class is the same. How dare she command a gentleman of her own sphere? And to send him to Meryton where she knows the Collins family to be the best in the neighborhood? Who does she expect him to find in Hertfordshire worthy of the Collins line? She insults us with her edicts. We are a proud family, are we not Mrs. Collins?"

"Yes, Mr. Collins." came the soft, steady, reply.

"Ha!" He barked humorlessly, throwing a large calloused hand to the air in exasperation, "Proud indeed! What good is the pride of my name when that pathetic, spineless boy carries it forward? A respectable living and a respectable inheritance have taught him nothing! To bow and scrape and comply with the demands of a woman, just because he thinks her father worth more than myself! I shall box him soundly upon his arrival here, that is as proper a welcome as I can deem fit to give him. If that doesn't remind him of his place in this family, a proper thrashing with my crop will do the trick."

As many years as Jane had been married, as well as she knew her husband, for she had made studying him her life's duty, mastering her natural aversion when he spoke so violently was still almost impossible. He knew how she hated the passion of his anger, and her revulsion to it only seemed to fuel the violent turns of his nature. Mr. Collins had spent so much of his life being looked down upon by betters, that his only pleasure was to look down on others in turn. To have others fear him, well that was simply euphoric. And though at times he realized he knew better, how could such temptation be ignored when there were so many smaller, weaker, softer, than himself in his household to tremble before him? She tried to drop her gaze and swallow her grimace, but he caught it all the same.

A weather worn hand grasped Jane's chin. His grip was not truly painful, but it forced her head to tilt back, exposing the length of her slender neck. It was a command backed by a threat. She had no choice but to obey or to directly defy the angry man. And so Jane looked where her husband lead her. Fields of cornflowers stared into a black abyss.

"If something I have said displeases you Mrs. Collins, will you not speak it?"

Jane prayed that he did not feel her gulp down her nerves. "No sir," she replied, her voice even with years of practice, "you are the head of Longborne, and as such your opinions hold the greatest value in our house. I have the soft heart of a woman, I must leave such judgments to your purview. Surely you know better than I do."

Her husband's lips turned up in the mockery of a smile. "You would do well to remember it, Mrs. Collins." A calloused thumb roughly passed over Jane's lower lip, pressing the corners up into a forced smile. "You are fortunate to be so comely, for you have nothing else to recommend you." His eyes brightened with the pleasure of insulting her. "Is that not correct?"

Jane prayed that the blood rushing to her face in anger would present itself as a becoming blush. She had never imagined she would be bound to a man with such a hateful heart, but by any law, he owned her, and could do with her as pleased for the most part. She had learned long ago that defending herself against such attacks on her character only tempted him to commit further injury to both her spirit and her person. "Yes." She answered.

The dark orbs gazing down at her crackled with intensity. "Yes?" He asked, the word hanging with a question.

"Yes, sir." his wife corrected.

He released her chin with a small slap to her flushed cheek. It was a not enough of a hit to cause any injury outside of her abject mortification, but her husband far preferred to land blows to her pride rather than mar her comely face. "Good girl." He replied smugly.

William Collins took a step back, drinking in the site of his beautiful and submissive wife, trembling ever so slightly before him. He did not smile, but his shoulders rolled back with self satisfaction at the pretty picture of obedience she made before him. "Well get up." He spat, pulling the delicate piece of lace she worked on from her hands and throwing it to the floorboards beside her. "You have useful employment to occupy yourself with now."

"Indeed," Jane answered, rising dutifully, "there is much to be done."

Next Chapter coming SOON! (for me) Thanks for reading and as always please leave your thoughts!