What Would Lizzy Bennet Do? (40 page)

On that note, I’m happy to provide you with a reference for whatever job you seek. I’m presently a script consultant for ‘Mind Your Manors’ – a reality television programme focused on restoring country homes – I’m sure you’re familiar with it – and were there employment available, I would happily recommend you for it.

Unfortunately, there is nothing specifically suited to your capabilities at present. I will of course let you know immediately should a position become available.

In the meantime, I wish you every success and remain

Yours,

Mark Knightley

She sighed again and crumpled the page, tossing it aside. Staying at Litchfield for very much longer was something she simply couldn’t bear. Coming back home and seeing Hugh Darcy again had been a mistake.

Oh, she wanted to be happy for him, and she was. But her heart felt as if someone had cleaved it in two.

Hugh was much more than her dearest friend. He was her ballast, her strength, whose restraint and good judgement countered her impulsiveness, and always had. When she was distraught and inconsolable after Mum’s death, he’d helped her navigate through a wild sea of grief, sometimes by offering comforting reassurances, but more often without saying a word.

She loved him. Nothing would ever change that.

After thinking long and hard, Lizzy had decided to return to London and stay with her Aunt Gardiner until she found a job and an affordable place to live.

Retrieving the blank sheet of stationery she’d tucked inside the front of the book and a pen from her pocket, she rested her back against the rough bark of the tree and, after chewing the top of her pen for a moment, began to write.

My Dearest Aunt,

I do hope this letter finds you and my uncle well. It’s been far too long since we were last at Gracechurch Street – six months, by my estimation. My father and sisters and I are in good health, and regret that we have not seen you or my uncle more recently.

To that end, I hope what I’m about to propose will appeal to both you and him. I intend on returning to London next week, and knowing that you both reside there at present, hope that I might ask the favour of staying with you while I endeavour to ~

The sun chose that moment to hide behind a bank of clouds, and Lizzy paused to look up, pen still touching the page. The sky had turned from blue to grey. A freshening wind scattered the leaves and sent them cartwheeling across the grass, and she nearly lost her letter as a breeze caught it and snatched it out of her hand, where it blew against one of the gnarled tree roots.

Lizzy stood to grab it, and as she straightened and clutched the letter, she glanced out over the field. She frowned, perplexed.

Someone was walking down the dirt path to the orchard.
A man
. He was tall, and broad-shouldered, and he moved with purpose and long-legged strides towards her. His face was set in grim determination.

She waited, her heartbeat quickening. As he came nearer she stared at him, her surprise mingled with wariness, and drew a steadying breath to calm herself.

‘Hugh – what are you doing here?’ she called out. ‘There’s a storm coming, you should be inside.’

‘Your father told me I’d find you here.’ He came to a stop before her. ‘A better question might be, why are you out here in the orchard, propped under a tree with a storm on the way?’

‘I have a letter to write.’ She volunteered nothing more.

‘A letter,’ he repeated. ‘I know you better than most, Lizzy,’ he said as his glance went to the paper she clutched by her side, ‘and I know you only come here and sit under this tree when you’re upset, or when something troubles you.’ His voice gentled. ‘What is it?’

She didn’t answer, but held the letter out to him. ‘Read it,’ she invited. ‘See for yourself. You’ll spare me the trouble of telling you the news later, or writing to inform you after I leave.’

‘Leave?’ He looked at her in puzzlement. After a moment’s hesitation, he took the letter and read it, his expression changing from one of incomprehension to disbelief.

‘This cannot be right. You’re leaving Litchfield?’

‘Next week,’ she confirmed, and took the letter back, folding it with unsteady hands, and returning it to her pocket. ‘If Aunt Gardiner says I might, of course.’

‘Why?’

A world of emotions was contained in the word, Lizzy noted – bewilderment, disappointment, even something akin to anger – and his expression was an equal mixture of disapproval and frustration.

‘Why?’ she repeated, and felt anger warm her cheeks. ‘Indeed, why should I want to leave here, when I could stay and see my best and dearest friend married to someone else? Why should I not stay and watch while you and Holly host the hunt ball every year, and attend church every Sunday, and…’ She stopped, and drew in a ragged breath. ‘And have children together… a life, together. A life without me.’

‘Lizzy…’ he began, and reached out to her.

She drew away. ‘I can’t do it, Hugh. I’ll try – I
am
trying – to be happy for you, and I wish you and Holly well. I could never do otherwise but wish the best for you.’

‘Lizzy, please…’

‘But I cannot remain here in Litchfield to have your great good fortune paraded before me every day, taunting me, every minute, every second.’ Her throat thickened. ‘I cannot… I will not… do it.’

She brushed past him, knowing but not caring that her book remained under the tree, and struck out down the dirt path for home. Anger made her feet fly; so furious was she that she scarcely felt the tears on her face.

As if to add to her misery, a few drops of rain began to fall, rapidly turning from a shower into a deluge that soaked her through to the skin in seconds. She choked back a sob.

On top of everything else, her letter to Aunt Gardiner would be ruined…

Strong hands caught her by the shoulders and turned her around. ‘Damn it, Lizzy – listen to me,’ Hugh demanded, his breath uneven and his face as forbidding as the sky overhead.

‘No. There’s nothing –
nothing
! – left to say.’

‘There’s a great deal left to say,’ he ground out. ‘Things I should’ve said much sooner. But I convinced myself you were too young, too much like a sister to me, and I told myself you only needed my help to get you through a difficult time after your mother died, nothing more.’

‘I
did
need your help,’ she cried. ‘I needed it desperately! And you freely gave it. It was your kindness, Darcy, and your strength and presence of mind that got me through losing her.’ She met his eyes. ‘And it was your kindness and patience, your decency and strength, that made me fall in love with you.’

Tears cascaded down her face, mingling with the rain and no doubt turning her mascara into black streaks on her cheeks, but Lizzy didn’t care. She’d said what she needed to say. She couldn’t bear to hear him tell her one more time how sorry he was, and to ask her to be happy for him. She couldn’t.

But words proved unnecessary as Darcy’s lips, hard and demanding, descended on hers. His mouth tasted of rain and determination.

It was glorious.

‘No,’ Lizzy breathed after several delirious, head-spinning moments, and tore her lips away from his. ‘You can’t do this.
We
can’t do this. You don’t belong to me.’

‘But I
do
belong to you, Elizabeth Bennet.’ His words were fierce. ‘I belong to you, heart and soul, mind and body, and always have. I was too blind to see it… too proud to acknowledge my true feelings.’ He bracketed her face in his hands and kissed her passionately, but with great tenderness. ‘I love you.’ He kissed her again. ‘I love you. I love you…’

Laughing, crying, Lizzy tilted her face up to his. ‘And I love you, Hugh Darcy. I never stopped… not even after you brought me here that day to tell me you were marrying Holly.’ Her expression clouded. ‘Have you and she decided…?’

‘We’ve called it off. Holly’s returned my ring, and…’ He smiled. ‘She told me she’s in love with Harry.’

‘Harry!’ Lizzy echoed. ‘Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s obvious your brother’s mad for her.’

He rested his forehead against hers. ‘I’ve made such a muddle of everything. I’ve wasted so much time, made so many mistakes.’ He drew his head back and met her eyes. ‘Will you marry me, Elizabeth Bennet? Will you forgive me my pride, and my stubbornness, my sheer and utter stupidity, and be my wife?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, and cupped his face, so dear and beloved, in her hands. ‘Yes, Mr Darcy, I will.’

Can’t wait for the next book in Katie Oliver’s fabulous
The Austen Factor
series? Keep reading for a sneak-peek at
The Trouble with Emma
– out now!

“I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.”

—Jane Austen, Emma

Chapter 1

“Miss Bennet! Miss Bennet! You’ll never guess what I’ve just heard!”

Emma Bennet glanced up from her crossword puzzle. Martine Davies, the local girl whose Monday, Wednesday, and Friday visits kept the interior of Highbury Manor more or less tidy, burst into the kitchen hugging two grocery sacks to her chest and slid them down her hips to the table. Her cheeks were pink with excitement and her dark eyes sparkled.

“Don’t tell me,” Emma said. “You’ve just won the EuroMillions and you’re turning in your notice.”

“I wish. Not that I mind tidying up and doing the weekly shop for you and your dad,” she added hastily. “But if I won a million pounds-?” She grinned. “I’d be gone like a shot.”

“Well, at least you’re honest.” Emma gave her a brief smile and returned to her puzzle.

Martine began pulling groceries out of the sacks – tinned tomatoes, a carton of ice cream, a punnet of raspberries, boxes of Weetabix and Coco Shreddies – and set them on the table. “Wouldn’t it be something, though,” she mused, “to win pots and pots of money, and never have to work again?” She sighed at the pleasure such a prospect brought.

“With money comes responsibility. You need to manage it properly and make it work for you.”

“I wouldn’t know how,” Martine said, and gave a shrug. “I’ve never had two pennies to rub together, myself.” She opened the refrigerator and put the raspberries and ice cream away. “And I reckon I never will…unless I find a rich bloke and convince him to marry me.” She laughed at the absurdity of that particular notion.

“It could happen. Anything’s possible.”

Martine shook her head firmly. “Where would I meet someone like that - in the grocer’s? Havin’ my hair done at Miss Bates’ Beauty Salon?” She giggled. “Not likely.”

Emma studied the girl’s face. With her high, round cheeks, perpetual smile, and glossy dark hair – scraped back now into a ponytail – Martine was pretty in an open, uncomplicated way.

With a few elocution lessons and a bit of guidance on how to dress – she eyed Martine’s tight t-shirt and jeans with barely concealed disapproval – she had the potential to be stunning.

“You meet the right man by going to the right places,” Emma informed her.
Not to mention knowing how to dress and speak properly once you’re there,
she nearly added, but didn’t. “Garden parties and dances and suchlike.”

“I s’pose.” Martine’s words were doubtful. She grabbed the tinned tomatoes and turned to put them away in the cupboard. “I don’t get invited to places like that, anyway. And even if I did I wouldn’t know what to do. Right now,” she added, “I’d be happy just to meet a nice bloke with a steady job.”

Frowning, Emma tapped her pencil against her lips.
What was a six-letter word for ‘behave in a certain manner’?
“Perhaps you should raise your expectations a bit higher.”

“Why? I’d only get slapped down if I did.” Martine was nothing if not a realist.

“Well, if you haven’t won a million pounds,” Emma said as she wrote ‘a-c-q-u-i-t’ neatly into the puzzle’s squares, “or received a marriage proposal from a wealthy aristocrat, what’s your news, then?”

“Right, I nearly forgot!” She turned back to face Emma as she rested her generous derrière against the counter. “Someone’s bought the manor house up on the hill.”

“Enscombe Hall?” Emma’s eyes widened. “But that old place has been empty for years. Are you quite sure?”

“Positive. There’s an estate agent’s sign stuck out front an’ everything, says ‘sold’ plain as day.” She leaned forward. “But that’s not the best bit.”

“No? All right, then, tell me - what is?”

“The Hall’s been bought…by a man.” She crossed her arms against her chest and eyed Emma smugly. “A bachelor, from London.”

Hearing the news, Emma dropped her pencil, the crossword puzzle forgotten. “Indeed? And who is this mysterious bachelor who’s chosen to move house to our little village?”

“That’s the thing, miss.” Martine’s face clouded. “I asked around, but no one knows who he is. Not the grocer, not the postmistress – not even the stylists over at Miss Bates’ beauty salon. And they know
everything
that goes on in Litchfield.”

“Well, we’ll find out soon enough when our new neighbour moves in. Although it might be some time before he does,” she added, “as I’m sure the Hall isn’t fit for habitation. It’ll require a lot of work, inside and out. It’s stood empty for a good many years.”

“It’s probably full of mice and spiders and furry creatures,” Martine agreed, and shuddered. “I wouldn’t want the job of cleanin’
that
place up.”

“Ah, Martine,” Mr Bennet called out as he came in the front door and made his way into the kitchen. “There you are. You’re just the person I wanted to see.”

“Me, sir?” She saw the sacks in his arms and hurried to take one from him. “What’ve you got in here?” she asked, and peered inside. “Apples!”

He nodded and set the other sack down on the counter. “Two bags full of Pippins, just picked and waiting to be peeled and made into lovely apple pies.” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “I’m counting on you to help me make it happen.” He turned his attention to his eldest daughter. “Emma, grab a paring knife. You can turn the radio on and help us peel.”

“
Such
a shame,” Emma said with mock regret, “but I’m on my way to the village.” She stood and kissed her father’s cheek and added, “I’ll see you both later. Have fun peeling.”