10/25/2017 In the summer of 2014, I learned a long-time friend and mentor had passed away months ago and I was one of the last to know because my family is military and moves. 2 friends each thought the other had told me. So when I found out, I was not only devastated to lose a woman who helped bring me to church, but I felt like I had somehow been cheated a part of my life once again by the fact that I have been a Navy dependent (child and spouse) my entire life. I was angry! I was bereft… And that channeled into what if the same thing happened to Elizabeth Bennet?
Out of my pain and loss came one of my favorite series to write. I am working on Book 6 as we speak.
XOXOXO Elizabeth Ann West
Chapter 11 - A January for Jane, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
“I hear your reservations, Mother, but come Monday your son shall be a married man.” Graham Hamilton spoke as calmly as he could beside his mother’s sickbed. Duchess Aileena Hamilton debated with him in the most lucid manner he had witnessed in two years, but as his own man, he had no intention of suddenly becoming a young whelp dependent upon her permission to live his life.
“Yes, yes you shall be married to an English woman! She is amiable and downright stubborn, perhaps stubborn enough to make it in this family. But there are differences, Graemie, between her kind and ours. Are the walls of Blaylock to be torn down, the tapestries now done in an English style befitting an elegant lass?”
Graham coughed to hide his laughter and choked for a moment as he tried to simultaneously breathe and swallow. Once he recovered, to his mother’s amusement, he shook his head slowly.
“The tapestries are lost, Mother, they burned in the fire. I tarried to Edinburgh so I might arrange builders and artisans for the rebuilding when you arrived here.”
The memory of the great lady remained spotty, though her pride refused to admit such a state of feebleness. Aileena Hamilton gasped at the intelligence her son conveyed. Graham frowned, this was not the first time he had spoken to his mother about the tragedy last summer, but it remained painfully obvious there would be lasting effects from the manner in which she lived in a perpetual drugged state. In fact, as weak as she had been after Amelia’s death, this handicapped version of his mother stood almost too difficult to bear. Not because she wouldn’t make genuine efforts to appear unaffected, but because of his own guilt in being so instrumental in the months of monitoring that kept her in such a docile demeanor.
“I am sorry, but I have told you many times. . .” Graham tried to gain his mother’s attentions again as she turned away. He patted her arm and she responded to the physical touch, staring down at his gloved hands.
“Your hands . . .”
“Injured in the fire.”
“And now?” Aileena Hamilton narrowed her eyes at the thin leather gloves her son wore that were both distinguished looking, yet also drew attention to the fact that his hands were disfigured.
“They do not pain me any longer and Jane has asked me to wear the gloves less often.”
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Chapter 11 (cont'd) - A January for Jane, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
The elder Hamilton sniffed at another mention of the name Jane.
“You must come to accept her, Mother.”
“I do not. I shall not.” Aileena Hamilton crossed her arms over her chest. The pouting reflected her previous protest over feeling well enough to leave her room, but yet her son ordered her to remain in bed.
“Come, come, what shall you gain from such rejection? My marriage is a time for rejoicing, and Robin—”
“That child who wails incessantly? I cannot believe you are taking on the utterly ridiculous position of a cuckold before you are even wed!”
Graham bit back a sharp rejoinder and took a moment before answering so that he might not agitate her further. “The babe is not of Jane’s womb.”
“Did you actually see this other sister?”
Graham nodded. He did not wish to discuss the matter further for both the sake of his own memories and to avoid triggering his mother’s despair over the loss of her own daughter.
“But people say—”
“That the Duchess Hamilton is mad and locked up in her castle whilst the Duke plays in London.” Graham attacked his mother’s senses as his patience came to an end.
Horrified, the Duchess Hamilton pulled away from her son and made a great fuss to lay down in the bed. She stared at the wall and bit down on her lower lip to keep from crying. She squinted her eyes shut and inhaled deeply as Graham’s voice became conciliatory.
“Mother, I am a beast. But my point is that you cannot punish my young family because the gossip mongers flap their lips.” Graham sighed, feeling a surge of comfort flicker in his heart at voicing the reality of his family out loud. There dwelled the truth; Robin and Jane were the beginnings of his line in the great Hamilton clan, the world be damned!
“I have a ward. Other families take on the unfortunate, and once I am married to Jane, he will be my nephew. Nothing improper can be made of an aunt and uncle taking in their orphaned family member.”
“Do not wrap your sinful living in a cloak of decency. You were not at Gododdin with me day in and day out, you were here. How many months did you try yer bonnie lass out? You’re enamored now with her and the child, but after spring comes autumn and a barren winter. You will tire of her. Just as your father tired of me.”
WHAT A DEAL!
A kiss at the Netherfield Ball . . .
Three Dates with Mr. Darcy is a bundle of: An exclusive story, Much to Conceal, a novella that imagines what if Elizabeth confessed to Jane in London that Mr. Darcy proposed in Kent?
A Winter Wrong, the first novella in the Seasons of Serendipity series that imagines what if Mr. Bennet died at the very beginning of Pride and Prejudice?
By Consequence of Marriage, the first novel in the Moralities of Marriage series that wonders what if Mr. Darcy never saved his sister Georgiana from Wickham’s clutches?
Elizabeth Ann West’s Pride and Prejudice variations have enthralled more than 100,000 readers in over 90 countries! A proud member of the Jane Austen Fan Fiction community since the mid-2000s, she hopes you will join her in being happily Darcy addicted!
Chapter 11(cont'd) - A January for Jane, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
These stinging nettles of his mother’s life came in a rush from the mouth of Aileena Hamilton. Graham Hamilton remained seated at a loss for words. He could not contradict his mother’s notions about his father. Nay, even his brother hastened to follow his father in his womanizing ways. But that his mother thought him as bad as those two? That was a thought that hurt the most.
“I have seen to your welfare for over two years as they abandoned you. And now you say I am the same as father and Augustus? I suppose I too am a great disappointment.” Graham stood up from his chair and paused but a moment beside his mother. She gingerly changed her position, but he was already walking toward the door.
“Graemie . . . I did not mean . . . Please do not go!”
The distinguished Earl of Bolton bowed to his mother. “I must see to the work of rebuilding Blaylock. Rest Mother, for by Monday I expect you to be well enough to attend my nuptials.”
Graham left his mother before she could renew her objections over his plans to marry Jane. Tempted by the knowledge that his lady lay resting just down the hall, Graham shook his head and continued his progress to the stairs. If Robin and Jane both slept, he would take to the study and continue his letters and obligations to the bank. Rebuilding Blaylock House would not be inexpensive and he held no choice but to take a mortgage against the land for additional funds.
That was another truth he dared not share with his mother. They were her family’s ancestral lands he gambled with, but there remained no alternative. He would not beg his father for funds, not that his father would be willing to comply. It still rankled the Duke that such a large estate remained coyly out of the marriage settlement and passed to his second son upon the death of Aileena Hamilton’s father, the 5th Earl of Bolton, Graham Leslie.
You’ve been reading A January for Jane
Hiding at Mr. Darcy’s Scottish estate with her orphaned, illegitimate nephew, Jane Bennet begins to fall for Graham Hamilton. Homeless from the fire destroying Blaylock House, Mr. Hamilton has stayed at Starvet House since the Darcys left for London, and is everything a gentleman ought to be. But as his own feelings begin to consume him, he has to break through Jane’s unwillingness to experience any happiness for herself. This bonus novella in the Seasons of Serendipity series explores the love story of Jane Bennet and her Scottish lord!
A sweet, short, romantic read for fans of Jane Austen Fan Fiction!
A January for Jane, Seasons of Serendipity Bride a Pride and Prejudice novella variation series
Release Date: August 22, 2016
94 pages in print.
+ 23 additional Pride & Prejudice variations are available at these fine retailers . . .
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.