This is the book that was never planned in this series… but when I sat down to write what I wanted Book 3 of the series to be, Elizabeth Bennet had other plans . . .
XOXOXO Elizabeth Ann West
Chapter 16 - The Whisky Wedding, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
FOR HER PART, Fiona found her mistress in a heap of tears and still clutching the clothing from the previous day to her person. Fiona clucked her tongue in sympathy and helped the poor woman up as sobs wracked her body.
“Now, now I love a good fuss as much as any, but there is much to be happy for, Miss.”
Elizabeth froze mid sob, confused that this maid had such familiarity with her.
“And who might you be? I demand,” she sniffed, “I demand your name.”
Fiona laughed and offered her lady a bobbed curtsy. “‘Tis Fiona, you asked me the same question yesterday morning when I helped you off the floor.”
“You mean I did not remember yesterday, either?”
Fiona shook her head and began to assist her mistress into the soiled garments so that they might walk in the hall to her apartments in the home. Broadmeadow was built before fancy connecting doors allowed the master and mistress to come and go as they pleased in each other’s company. “Nay, you had no inkling of where you were or how you had come to be safe here at Broadmeadow.”
“Broadmeadow.” Elizabeth lifted her arms so that her gown could be placed over her shift. She tested the name on her tongue, and a spark of familiarity echoed deep in her mind. “So this is my second day in this place?”
Fiona offered her arm as Elizabeth still appeared wobbly on her legs and led her toward the door. “I believe it would be your third day if you count the night you arrived, unconscious and much maligned. Mrs. Aldridge and I helped you to bed, and it was my honor to serve you in the morn.”
For a time, Elizabeth kept her thoughts to herself and Fiona did not fill the silence with chatter as they maneuvered to the mistress’ chambers. Elizabeth gasped as the sheer elegance of the room once more impressed upon her the life and luxury she could expect as the wife of Fitzwilliam Darcy. But her emotions refused to yield to her logic, and warred between states of anger and frustration as too much of her situation felt new and foreign. The last time she had spoken to Mr. Darcy, in her recollection, was in a spirit of meanness and gross ignorance. How had she repaired the breach with the man, so much so that he married her despite Lydia’s flight?
As more and more questions filled Elizabeth’s mind, Fiona helped her out of the soiled gown and shift, then asked her mistress if she would like a bath. Elizabeth nodded her consent and found herself wrapped in an elegant robe of silk she did not recognize.
“Pardon me, but whose clothing is this?”
“‘Tis the clothing of the mistress.” Fiona offered her lady a small smile as she left the room to see to the warm buckets of water and lavender oil being dumped into the tub in Mrs. Darcy’s private bathing closet. When Callum had ordered Mr. Darcy’s bath, Fiona did the same, before informing her lady. Her gamble had proved correct, and she had a strong suspicion that Mrs. Darcy would feel much better after a nice hot bath to clear her mind. It was unfortunate that her mistress suffered from bouts of memory loss, but she was safe in the master’s care and Fiona could think of no luckier place to fall ill than Broadmeadow.
The angry gash just behind Elizabeth’s left ear made washing her hair a trial for her maid, but Fiona managed well. Just as she had done the day before, she would curl Elizabeth’s brunette locks into pretty ringlets, and allow a portion of her hair to be down to cover the unsightly mark. Fiona had offered Elizabeth the possibility of a cap, but her mistress had declined.
“Though I am married, I should not like to hide beneath such a monstrosity so soon after my vows!” Elizabeth laughed in spite of herself as she dunked her head to help remove the soap from her scalp. Coming up for air, she wiped any remaining suds from her eyes and looked up at the ceiling, as pitchers of warm water cascaded over her locks. A mild headache still plagued her as she tried to remember more and more, but continued to fail.
“Were you with me yesterday when I married Mr. Darcy?”
Fiona picked up a brush to clean her lady’s back. “Aye, Mrs. Darcy.”
“And I was happy?” Elizabeth shivered as the room’s coldness contrasted with the warm bath.
“I should think any lady would be happy to marry the master. But the two of you together . . . forgive me, it is not my place to speak.” Fiona returned to her duties.
“No, please. I have been robbed of my memory and I would be ever so grateful if you might tell me what you saw.”
Fiona held up a white sheet for Mrs. Darcy as she stood from her bath. Using the action to practically embrace her new mistress, a development that meant an entire promotion for Fiona Grace, the maid finally gushed. “At first, you were upset because your auntie had left. But then you and Mr. Darcy sat at a table and you talked the matter out. And then we, young Peter and I, were hot on your heels as you both so merrily made your way to the blacksmith.”
Elizabeth accepted a fresh shift and one of her own gowns that functioned well as a day dress with its soft calico in a blue-and-white stripe. “Oh, but why can I not remember?” Elizabeth stomped her bare foot to the giggles of her maid.
“Forgive me for speaking plainly, Mrs. Darcy.” Fiona continued to test the new relationship budding between them that any great lady and her personal maid would foster.
“I should have you speak plainly. When we are in private, of course. If my memory will be so unreliable as to deny me the knowledge of what passed just the day before, I find that I will be relying on your word more than you know.”
“As you wish, Mrs. Darcy. But it seems to me that you and the master are a love match, as rare as they may be where you come from, the hills of Scotland be full of them. And no love match ever to be came easily. In time, your wounds will heal and your mind will rest.” Fiona began the lengthy process of untangling Elizabeth’s tresses as her mistress sat for her before the vanity.
“And in the meantime, how does one proceed in a love match where one member cannot recall the particulars?”
Fiona frowned as she struggled with a particularly difficult knot, an expression Elizabeth spied when she looked in the mirror at her reflection. When her maid looked up, her frustration melted into a wide grin.
“If you love him, that is one memory your mind cannot forget. Hold to that, and patience will have to be the way.”
Laughing with her maid, Elizabeth reminded herself all was not lost. She did care greatly for Mr. Darcy, and she was inordinately safe in his protection. As she picked up a comb with accents of aquamarine jewels along the crest from the top of the vanity, a girlish fancy bubbled in her chest. She would just find joy where joy could be found, and shrug the worries off for a later time when her health allowed it.
Chapter 17 - The Whisky Wedding, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
FITZWILLIAM DARCY STARED in frustration at the blank parchment before him. His last letter to Mr. Bennet had been challenging at best, and now he struggled to relate that he had married Mr. Bennet’s second eldest daughter through elopement. If that was not bad enough, there was the added burden of explaining that his daughter Elizabeth did not remember marrying.
A knock on the door signaled to Darcy he could delay this responsibility of notification for the time being. After he called the order to enter, a tall, slender man with a head full of copper curls appeared in his study with a medicine bag in hand.
Darcy stood and greeted Doctor Jamie Rowley as both men grasped one another by the forearm in a spirit of brotherly affection.
“I did not think we would see each other this visit. I was to understand you were coming to see to the fall and winter preparations and then spending the rest of the year at Pemberley?” Jamie asked.
“But even the best plans go awry.” Fitzwilliam dispensed with pleasantries and moved straight to his point. “Do you recall me talking about my visit to Hertfordshire when I visited in the spring? Just before I had to go to Kent to see my aunt?” Darcy motioned for Jamie to find a seat and the doctor gave a slight tug to the knee of his trousers before taking a chair next to Darcy’s desk. Darcy frowned that his friend had not moved to the more comfortable area closer to the fireplace and reclaimed his seat behind his desk, with the mocking blank piece of parchment still visible on the blotter.
“I seem to recall but to be honest, the travels of Fitzwilliam Darcy are rather difficult to keep up with.” Jamie offered Darcy a silly grin and laughed out loud. His chuckles came to an abrupt stop when one of his oldest friends would not join him in the banter. “Are you ill? I should have realized when you summoned me there must be something wrong.”
Darcy let out an exasperated sigh and held his palm up. “Not I, but my wife.”
Doctor Rowley blinked furiously at Darcy wondering if he had heard the man correctly. “Pardon me, did you say your wife?”
“Yes, Mrs. Darcy is gravely ill, but it is a sensitive matter.” The sheer enormity of the story that was his and Elizabeth’s courtship, or lack thereof, began to play in Darcy’s mind and he wondered how to explain the situation as it now resided.
“Forgive me, I was not aware you were betrothed. Unless . . . did you finally give in to your aunt and marry your cousin?”
“Heavens no! I do have better sense than that, though not much, as it will appear once you hear my tale.” Darcy abandoned his desk, and the mocking responsibility of a letter still to write, to pour both himself and his guest a drink. The good doctor may not have the need for liquid courage, but Darcy found when the subject of Elizabeth came up, he was very much in need.
“It all began last autumn when I visited my friend Bingley’s estate. There was a family there of five daughters, and I found myself enamored with the second eldest, Elizabeth. I did not conduct myself well, and there were a number of misunderstandings between us that I did not become aware of until I proposed to her this past spring in Kent.”
Doctor Rowley nodded and helped himself to his drink as Darcy explained. “And so you married last spring?”
Darcy shook his head. “Like I said, there were misunderstandings. She rejected my first proposal.” Darcy winced at having to confess such an embarrassment. He had not shared his failure with many and the wound still stung.
“A lady rejected Fitzwilliam Darcy? Now I am intrigued as to who this fearless woman is!” Jamie Rowley had attended school with Darcy but refused to take on Lord Rosburn’s expectations for his second son. Instead of going into the law, the very disappointing James Rowley went into the medical arts. That his father and older brother managed Castle Lindore without him never bothered Jamie, who kept apartments in the village. He had found a good friend in Fitzwilliam, even if their professions were a great difference, and a greater purpose in healing those around him.
“I wrote her a letter, a rather dangerous action in hindsight, and I believe my missive made great inroads into the lady’s heart. I next saw Elizabeth again here in Scotland, just two days ago. She had been in the nasty mail coach accident just outside of Canonbie.…” Darcy trailed off as his friend gasped. Confessing to the letter he wrote in Kent, a minute part of Darcy’s mind wondered if he had hoped to force Elizabeth into marriage as a fail-safe. But as quickly as the thought passed through his mind he rejected its veracity; he would never knowingly harm Elizabeth by word or deed.
“I treated two persons in that accident; it was ghastly. One young boy lost his life.”
“Yes, Elizabeth should have sought a doctor’s care, but again, as I say, it was a complicated matter. She was in Scotland to search for her sister who has run off with our mutual acquaintance, George Wickham.”
Doctor Jamie Rowley finished his drink and wiped his mouth with his hand. “So he lives.”
The two men shared mutual looks of disgust. “I must say, I’m surprised his Lothario ways have not caught up with him.”
“Patience is a virtue. It would appear he has deserted the militia as well. A capital crime.”
“If they can catch him.”
Darcy nodded. He glanced at the drink in his hand and remembered the adorable exchanges with his Elizabeth when she was more than a little tipsy herself. “The first evening, I brought her to Broadmeadow with plans to restore her to her aunt in Gretna Green. But when we arrived there yesterday, her aunt had left, and Elizabeth and I were married over the anvil.” Darcy said the last part as quickly as he could before knocking back the rest of his drink to match his friend. Jamie howled in surprise.
“You dog! Her father will have your hide!” Jamie watched Darcy shake his head. “No?”
“My wife’s father is a man of subtle intentions in the sense that I don’t believe he does very much to protect any of his daughters. Remember one of them is run off with Wickham as we speak.”
“And you ran off with another! How ironic. So how is it that I may help you? Does she need someone to speak to her about the marriage bed? If that is the case, I should think your housekeeper the better candidate.”
Darcy sat his glass on top of the blank piece of parchment and watched the magnification of the sun’s rays from the window focus into a single ringlet just beyond the rim. He lifted the glass this way and that to move the beam of light around the desk for mild amusement. “When she woke this morning, she had no recollection of marrying me and barely any recollection of the accident.”
Silence filled the study and neither man knew what to say next. Darcy struggled with an intense wave of melancholy. His heart clenched to acknowledge there stood no proof if his wife genuinely loved him, as her mind appeared addled.
“How badly was she injured in the crash? Do you know?”
Darcy shook his head. “I noticed a lengthy cut behind her left ear when I spied her at the inn, but there were so many other pressing matters at the time, and she refused to speak about it. I believe she must have hit her head very hard. Perhaps on something sharp inside of the carriage.”
Jamie pulled out a small notepad and a pencil and began detailing the information that Darcy gave him. “According to the staff, her maid Fiona said her mistress did not remember where she was the first morning she was here, either.”
Jamie nodded once more and began to hum to himself as he stared at his notes.
“How serious is this?”
“To be honest, I cannot say until I speak to Mrs. Darcy herself. Have you noticed any signs of stumbling or difficulty walking? Has there been any nausea?”
Darcy recalled them stopping the carriage so that Elizabeth might retch on the way home from Gretna Green. “Yesterday afternoon, however, we had both drank a considerable amount of whisky before heading to the anvil. I fear she did so on an empty stomach and without much experience of the drink.”
“So this woman had an injured head, and she was drunk when you took your vows?”
“I do not like what you’re insinuating, sir. I am not a cad!”
Jamie laughed. “If I were speaking to any other man save you I would wonder. But by facts, I am not sure that your marriage is even valid. Have you joined with her in–”
“Of course not!” Darcy did not add that it was not for lack of trying. “When we returned from Gretna Green, I could not rouse her just as the first night when we brought her from Canonbie. I rationalized she might be a sound sleeper, as I don’t have much experience with her sleeping habits. I would never be so crude as to root a woman unconscious for the ordeal.”
“It is a testament to your character that you would only marry them.” The good doctor held up his glass to ask for more refreshment, perfectly enjoying the ribbing he could provide the stalwart Fitzwilliam.
In school, Darcy had been the only man to refrain from the company of whores. The only man to stay under good regulation with drink. To reconcile the careful lad with a pound to pay for all the world and indulge none with the man haphazardly eloped with a woman in poor health eluded Jamie Rowley for the present.
“I love her.” Darcy paused as he poured his friend more to drink. “I cannot answer for the reprehensible actions on my part but to say that I am so hopelessly in love with this woman that she torments my every thought.”
Jamie accepted the second glass. “And she loves you in return? That is before she was injured?”
Darcy’s face fell. He stormed away from his friend, finding his study sorely lacking a place to hide. Elizabeth’s words in Kent, her anger, her declaration that he was the last man she could ever marry, trumpeted in his mind so fiercely, Jamie had to speak again to grab Darcy’s attention.
“I did not see her before she was injured and after I had given her my letter,” Darcy said, finally. He turned to look at Jamie. “I am a fool, but I wanted to believe what I saw, that she was searching for her sister so that she might still have a future with me. To speak this betrays the utter madness and complete lack of credibility on my part.”
“Don’t think too badly of yourself, you have not abandoned her and whether she loves you or not is irrelevant at this point.”
“Not to me!”
“Of course, not to you, but you have a lifetime, it would appear, to work on the lady’s heart as, regardless of the legalities, she is utterly ruined by reputation if I followed the parts of your story that you conveniently left out.”
Darcy gave Jamie a sheepish grin, he had tried to make Elizabeth’s flight in Scotland sound as proper as possible.
“Right, after my interview with her, I will be able to tell you more. But as you say, she is able to speak sense and merely loses memory when she sleeps. I think you will find her as recovered as she will be in a few weeks’ time with lots of rest.”
“A few weeks?” Darcy scowled, mentally working his other plans into the doctor’s tentative prognosis.
“I’m sorry, do you have a pressing engagement? Most grooms I know would be happy to spend a few weeks in solitude with their new brides.”
Darcy agreed, but added that in two weeks’ time, an entire house party was to descend upon his home in Derbyshire, thanks to an invitation he had offered Bingley and his family to repay their hospitality in Hertfordshire.
“As I said, I will need to examine Mrs. Darcy and learn if there are any more symptoms she has not shared with you. But by the book, this is no different than when you fell from your horse at thirteen. Do you remember?”
Darcy flinched involuntarily at the memory, a new stallion in his father’s stable had thrown him during a hunt. His head had bled so badly, his father had feared for his life. He had been told he slept for two days, and when he awoke, could not remember anything that happened.
“But I only forgot the fall. My wife cannot seem to recall anything since her accident.”
Jamie shrugged as he stood, insinuating he was ready to see Mrs. Darcy. “A blow to the head kills one man, does nothing to another. Perhaps the additional trauma and strain has complicated matters for Mrs. Darcy. Perhaps she simply has not had a chance to rest, you say she has traveled every day since the accident?”
“Yes. I should have listened to my instincts and overruled her wishes, waited before we left for Gretna Green.”
Doctor Rowley picked up his medical bag and waited by the door until Fitzwilliam seemed to realize what he desired, then Mr. Darcy followed his friend into the hall.
“The one malady for which there is no cure is regret. Let me see to your lady and in time, the guilt you feel now will lift.”
Darcy agreed and began to show Jamie up the stairs to the apartments for the mistress of the home. He remembered halfway up the stairs that he still needed to write a letter to Mr. Bennet, but reasoned waiting until after Elizabeth had been seen properly by the doctor was in order. After all, perhaps he would be able to add good news of the prognosis besides just that she couldn’t seem to remember anything.0
NEW RELEASE
For the Love of a Bennet
What if Elizabeth Bennet traveled with Lydia to Brighton?
A reimagining of Jane Austen’s most beloved tale, Pride & Prejudice, join author Elizabeth Ann West as she writes the romantic adventure story she always wanted! When Lizzy and Lydia arrive in Brighton, it’s very clear that the younger Bennet sister came with very serious plans towards Mr. Wickham. Thankfully, an old ally is also in town, with problems of his own to solve. After Mr. Darcy, himself, is summoned to Brighton to hopefully solve two dilemmas with one wealthy member of the gentry, the whole militia is thrown into an uproar by Wickham’s most dastardly deed, yet. Together, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy have to save Lydia from her own undoing, or it will mean more than just mere reputations are ruined.
For the Love of a Bennet is a novel length story, currently being posted chapter by chapter on Elizabeth’s author site. This story was originally conceptualized in 2019 as a part of the All Go to Brighton challenge.
Chapter 18 - The Whisky Wedding, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
AS THE SUN set at Broadmeadow, Elizabeth Darcy found herself confined to her bed, beyond restless. It had been a bewildering afternoon after answering Dr. Rowley’s questions about what she could remember and what she could not, and she still had not yet held a decent conversation with Mr. Darcy concerning their situation. Her stomach fluttered at the thought of a private conversation with the man, as she both wished to address the pressing matter of their marriage and also avoid discussing something so horrifyingly embarrassing as not recalling how she came to be married.
Elizabeth rolled over in bed and pursed her lips at the stack of books on her bedside table. The footman had brought them up not an hour ago, but Elizabeth found them unable to capture her interest. The first contained a personal history of the surrounding area, but the language of an older time gave her a great headache. They may have used the letters of the King’s alphabet, but were arranged in such a way as to form words utterly foreign to her experiences. Another was a novel that had been such a favorite in the Longbourn home of five daughters, but Elizabeth found herself still exhausted by the oft-repeated lines and play-acting of the heroine her younger sisters tormented the household with after they had read it. In the third book resided a treatise of the plants and flowers of Scotland, a tome she did find interesting for the many illustrations. But the handwriting so cramped in the margins made reading the captions too difficult in her current condition.
Groaning in frustration, Elizabeth rolled away from the offending books and blew her breath out. She felt a momentary twinge of discomfort and pain. She had forgotten she could not lay on her left side without aggravating her injury so she rolled to her back and stared up at the ceiling. Her hands methodically thumped on either side of her hips in an exasperated drumming as she considered her options. She had to rest, but she was not tired. She wanted to walk out of doors, but Dr. Rowley had warned Mr. Darcy that people with injuries such as hers were prone to wander and should never walk alone. She did not feel so injured as to not be able to walk, but then again, she was so injured that she could not read. It was a vexing situation and a wave of homesickness brought a familiar tickle to Elizabeth nose. She scolded herself that she might cry if she thought too much about her unfamiliar surroundings and how much she longed for her sister Jane.
A tentative knock on her door interrupted her woolgathering and Elizabeth called out for whoever it was to enter. She knew it was not Fiona, that woman’s knock was soft and only two raps. When the door did not open for a few seconds longer than one would anticipate it to take to turn a door handle, Elizabeth called out again.
“I suspect it is you, Mr. Darcy. Please come in.” Elizabeth sat up, feeling a bit of dizziness as she tried to prop her own pillows behind her. The door finally creaked open and an impeccably dressed Fitzwilliam Darcy stood in the doorway with such an expression of care upon his face that Elizabeth caught her breath.
“I am terribly sorry to trouble you if you are resting–”
“Please trouble me, sir!” Elizabeth offered him a smile. “I am doing my best to rest as instructed by the doctor, but I’m afraid it is not going very well. I find I do not feel so injured that I may not walk, but yet I am too injured to read a book, though perhaps if there was one I was actually interested in I might find the task less odious.” Elizabeth shrugged at the end of her long rant, upset that she was prone to these outbursts of anger and frustration. Why could she not speak nicely to Mr. Darcy as he had truly done nothing but be so kind to her?
“I wondered if you would be willing for me to read to you? I brought a copy of Twelfth Night which I know is a favorite of yours.” Mr. Darcy held up the blue leather bound volume as proof of his offer.
Elizabeth cocked her head to one side. “And how did you guess it was a favorite of mine? I don’t believe I’ve ever told you that it was.” Elizabeth remembered all the way back to their exchanges at Netherfield Park, the local estate she stayed at when her sister had turned ill and was leased by Mr. Darcy’s friend, Mr. Bingley. Not once did she mention that specific play, though they had sparred over Romeo and Juliet after their dance set.
“You translated it with your father one summer, did you not?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said tentatively as Darcy pulled a chair closer to her bedside. “Did my father tell you about that?”
Darcy remained silent for a moment as he considered his answer. Jamie had warned him to be careful about overloading his Elizabeth with too much information of memories she could not recall. Such abundance of lost details would lead to greater frustration and anger on her part and make recovery more difficult. So Darcy chose to lie.
“Your father may have mentioned it when I visited Hertfordshire. It feels wrong to make such a boast at this moment in time, but I have a good memory, Mrs. Darcy. You can rely upon that.”
Elizabeth felt herself mesmerized by the warm and genteel manners of Mr. Darcy sitting by her sickbed and offering to read. She saw none of the proud and haughty man who had insulted her at the first assembly and again in his ill-worded proposal.
“And do you enjoy the play?”
Darcy shrugged. “I read it to my sister last Christmas at her command, you see. And I have found that recently I have come to understand the pain of unrequited love more so than I ever gave the Bard credit for.”
Elizabeth laughed and reached out her hand to her husband, a gesture that Mr. Darcy simply looked at before reaching out with his own. Elizabeth clasped his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, a sign of affection that threatened to break Darcy’s heart.
“My, my, I must meet this sister of yours who controls you so brutishly!” Elizabeth removed her hand as she continued to laugh at her own jest while Darcy forced a smile. Inside, the man’s heart broke further as Elizabeth had repeated the same words she had said in the carriage just the day before.
“So I should begin?” He asked hopefully as Elizabeth frowned. “I have already disappointed my lady I see.”
Elizabeth furrowed her brow. “If I am to speak the lady parts, should you not sit next to me on my bed so that I might read as well?”
Darcy sucked in his breath at the invitation Elizabeth offered. Though they were indeed married, he was not ready to assert any rights of a husband given her condition. Nor did he trust his mettle to resist her charms when he was so hopelessly enamored. “I believe if I moved the chair closer you might be able to see, and I can always hand you the book as it will not be long until dinner will be delivered.”
“I shall not bite.” Elizabeth patted the mattress in hopes of convincing the man to her way of thinking.
“I am not certain I wish to test that declaration. But you must understand, you’re placing me in a difficult position.”
Elizabeth’s face crumpled into sheer agony as she felt another wave of homesickness. The tears that had threatened to fall earlier gave no such warning before they began to tumble down her cheeks. “I cannot begin to understand your patience, sir. You are so very kind, and I am forever making the worst of it.”
“The first time you said those words to me I suffered through them with silence and strength. But I do not hold such strength in this moment, Elizabeth.” Mr. Darcy grasped his wife’s hands and held them close to his lips to offer a chaste kiss. “I wish nothing more than to remove all impediments between us, but I cannot. Together, though, I am certain we can survive this trial. We’ve survived so many others.”
Elizabeth sighed and wiped her eyes with the back of one hand she wrestled free, not willing to remove the other one in Mr. Darcy’s hands. “And we have so much more to confront, I am afraid. My sister–”
“Is the least of my concerns right now. But you madam, becoming well again, becoming the Elizabeth I know and will chase to the ends of the earth. That,” he paused to press a kiss to her hand once more before reluctantly letting it go. “That is my greatest concern. Now shall I?”
Elizabeth bit her lower lip and nodded, and in a deep, rich baritone Fitzwilliam began to read:
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound,
You’ve been reading The Whisky Wedding
When Elizabeth Bennet of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice learns of her sister’s elopement before leaving for the Peaks District, she and her aunt are off to Scotland to chase the wayward couple. Inn after inn, there is no sign of Lydia or Mr. Wickham, but Elizabeth won’t give up. A foolhardy decision to continue to search on her own lands Elizabeth right into the arms of a familiar face . . . Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Join author Elizabeth Ann West in a tale of carriage accidents, amnesia, and a forced marriage, but happy endings for all. Well, maybe not Mr. Wickham!
The Whisky Wedding
a Pride and Prejudice novel variation
Release Date: December 28, 2016
514 pages in print.
+ 23 additional Pride & Prejudice variations are available at these fine retailers . . .
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A Jane-of-all-trades, mistress to none! Elizabeth Ann West is the author of 8 novels and 11 novellas, 18 of which are story variations of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice.