I know… it’s been a spell. But! We I need to get back into this series so I can write more episodes in it, so a posting we will go! Happy Reading!
XOXOXO Elizabeth Ann West
Chapter 4 - A Summer Shame, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
The summer humidity punished all who remained indoors. Most mornings, both Kitty and Georgiana escaped to the cool shade of Winslow’s Woods as soon as they were able. The two trooped their way to the well-worn path Kitty knew from the times she accompanied Elizabeth on her walks.
Slung over Kitty’s shoulder rested the hand-sewn bag Georgiana presented as a birthday gift. For her stories, the younger lady had explained. Along the way, the two friends laughed and congratulated themselves on once again rising for the day before Mrs. Bennet.
“Please do not mistake me, Kitty. I am touched your mother would extend an invitation to me. It is certainly more appealing than a summer of lessons; I cannot believe my brother agreed!”
Kitty bit her lip, knowing Wickham was still running to ground in London, she didn’t want to tell Georgiana she was probably in Meryton for her own safety. Jane had given Kitty explicit instructions never to mention Lydia or Mr. Wickham to Georgiana but never gave a reason why. Still, the most mischievous Bennet sister didn’t wish to hurt her friend. “If we have to discuss lace trims one more time or go to the modiste so you can describe what they’re wearing in London, I might scream!”
Georgiana giggled as she leaped over the babbling brook which divided the Longbourn lands from the old Winslow estate, playing a light game of hopscotch with the stones. Her daringness to use her longer legs to skip some of the usual stones served her ill as one foot missed and went right into the brook with a splash. Kitty called out, worried Georgiana was hurt, but the younger Darcy merely lifted her soggy shoe and frowned. “I always hated these shoes, but please, let’s stay here until they dry?”
Kitty nodded. She reached out for a steadying hand from Georgiana as she followed, not skipping steps. Carrying her manuscript, the last thing she desired was to have an aquatic accident.
The girls found the flattish stones they used as an impromptu seating area. Kitty wasted no time in pulling out her journal, ink, and quill. Georgiana accepted the pen knife and extra quill to start mending it for Kitty when the present one dulled. “What do you think we should have happened to the evil Mr. Boggins? I thought a horse accident, but how about a house fire?”
Georgiana wrinkled her nose, “A fire is too tragic. Can’t he be accused of a crime and thrown in jail?”
Kitty sat, thoughtful for a moment and began scribbling. Georgiana leaned to peer over her shoulder and read as the words were scratched. “Ooh, he’s accused of starting a fire. Brilliant!”
The girls worked on the story for over an hour when Georgiana had a serious question to ask. “Kitty, what if your husband doesn’t like your writing? What will you do?”
Without stopping, Catherine Bennet confessed a truth she had not told any of her sisters. “I do not plan to wed.”
Shocked, Georgiana had never considered not getting married. It was a future as certain for her as the sun rising tomorrow. “I see, you’re jesting with me. Of course, you will get married.” Georgiana reached down to pluck a wild bloom from the forest floor. A small gap in the canopy above allowed for a patch of weeds and flowers to line just where the deeper buried rocks covered in slippery moss started.
“No, I shall not.” Kitty finished her last sentence and blew on the ink. Satisfied it was dry, she glanced up at the high sun and reasoned they would be missed soon. “I cannot think of a single marriage that is happy, can you? Why should I marry when I will have more than enough means to survive and can continue my writing?”
“But—” A twig snap caught the immediate attention of both girls and Mr. Collins, leading a pack of sniffing dogs, came thundering out of the bushes.
“Confound it! You’re not the stag.”
Both ladies jumped from the rocks, and Georgiana giggled as Mr. Collins’ hounds began to sniff her feet. They tickled her ankles.
“What are you two doing out here, Cousin Catherine? This is not your land any longer; you should not be flitting about doing, doing, what is it you are up to? I ought to march you back home to your mother this instant!” Mr. Collins yelling started the dogs off in a barking frenzy and this made Georgiana take a step back.
Kitty put her hands on her hips and glared right back at her cousin. The same cousin that threw them out of their family home in the dead of winter after the sudden death of her father. “Miss Darcy and I are not on your property. I am quite educated on the boundaries of my family’s ancestral lands, though it appears you, sir, are not. You are hunting on land which does not belong to you.”
Collins looked around him, then shook his head and began to pale. “Miss Darcy, you say, as in niece of the supreme Lady Catherine de Bourgh?”
Georgiana curtsied, and Collins licked his lips which made Kitty uneasy. “We will be going now, Mr. Collins. Send my regard to Mrs. Collins.” Kitty curtsied and after shoving her journal into her bag, linked arms with Georgiana and started in the opposite direction away from Mr. Collins, further into the woods.
“Kitty,” Georgiana whispered, “we’re going the wrong way.”
“I know,” she whispered back, “but I don’t want to go past Mr. Collins. We will head this way and turn left, finding the main road.”
The girls marched for a half hour towards what Kitty thought should be the main road; only no such road produced itself. The forest became darker and darker as the trees intensified in thickness. After an hour, Georgiana started to worry.
“Kitty, I think we are lost. Shouldn’t we turn back?”
Unnerved, but stubborn, Kitty was adamant they would find the main road. She cast an eye over her shoulder to tell Georgiana they must keep going when she lost her footing and tumbled over a fallen log.
“Kitty!”
“Owwww. I’m alright; I’m alright” Kitty spat out the bits of detritus that had stuck to her lips when her face had hit the dirt. “Help me up?” She reached a hand up for Georgiana and instead, pulled the girl right down into the dirt with her.
Georgiana screamed, and Kitty took a fistful of leaves and threw it on top of Georgiana’s lavender gown. “What! Why ever did you do that for?”
“Because the first rule of sisterhood is you never go home with only one of you dirty and unkempt. Mama will never punish both of us.”
Georgiana squealed as Kitty picked up another handful of dirt to help her new sister play the part most convincingly. Georgiana, not to be left out of the fun, grabbed a handful of loose soil. The sound of a horse made them both hush, and from their forest floor vantage, they saw a clearing ahead where a carriage walked by.
“The road!” Georgiana exclaimed as she jumped to her feet. She turned to gape at Kitty, still filthy on the ground, then down at her frock. “My brother would kill me if he caught me in public in such a state!”
“Well, I suppose we better not tell him!” Kitty said, lifting herself up and getting a head start on Georgiana. With no other choice, the youngest of the Darcy clan followed her guide and couldn’t help but smile. She had no idea how angry Mrs. Bennet was going to be, but at long last, she had a sister—even if it meant getting filthy to find one!
Chapter 4(cont'd) - A Summer Shame, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
The evening of the Courtney Ball, Jane’s nerves about seeing Mr. Bingley again for the first time after his accidental tripping over Lady Matlock’s oriental had mostly subsided. Until the carriage door opened and the elder Fitzwilliam brother, Viscount Ashbourne, handed her down in a golden gown that mimicked the glow of the sun on a hot summer day. Even her fan matched the creamy hue, and Jane Bennet had to admit she felt more like an ornament than a human being.
The room was a crush of people. In a few days, the Ton of London would retire to their country estates in preparations for the hunting season. Using a trick from Elizabeth, Jane tilted her chin up but focused her eyes on the footwear of everyone so she carried herself in a regal manner, without actually making eye contact with any. With an inward chuckle, she wondered if it was Lady Matlock who had taught her sister the trick, originally.
“Miss Bennet, you appear most lovely.” Lord Bergamote bowed deeply over Jane’s hand, and she gave the slightest curtsy in return. Something about the man still made her uneasy from when she had met him at Easter time.
“Lord Bergamote, it is a pleasure to see such familiar company this evening.”
“I hope you will save a dance for me. Perhaps the third set?”
Jane gave a hollow laugh. “The third set, you do not ask for the first?”
The dashing Frenchman winked at her, forcing Jane to hide her annoyance. “A beauty such as yourself must be spoken for . . .” He tried to gaze into her eyes, but Jane squeezed the arm of the Lord Ashbourne for assistance.
“Indeed she is, Alphonse, indeed she is.” Lord Ashbourne bellowed, a younger version of the Earl’s bombastic voice when he grew irritated. Robert Fitzwilliam whisked Jane away from Lord Bergamote as she realized she had not accepted the man’s offer. She cast off this worry and followed the Viscount to dance the first set.
Lady Matlock had implored her this was the crucial moment, the moment in which London Society would judge who was spurned and who did the spurning. If Jane showed any sign of discomfort, concern, or worry, the Ton would judge she was cast aside by Bingley, which would be social suicide. It was all a ruse, of course. Just as Jane and Robert moved to line up in the first set, at the last moment, Lord Ashbourne bowed low to an approaching man.
“Your Grace, may I present Miss Jane Bennet of Hertfordshire?”
The mysterious man bowed and gave Jane a warm smile before introducing himself. “Augustus Hamilton, Marquess of Haddington.”
Jane’s cheeks flushed as she accepted the son of a Duke’s hand as the music began to play. The twirls and spins came easily to her. She noticed many of the ladies with a prime location to observe the dancing couples were whispering furtively behind their fans.
“It would appear you’ve been enlisted in the Matlock army as well, sir.” Jane teased as the couples grew closer to promenade down the line.
The marquess laughed. “I heard you Bennet girls are saucy. But as the Fitzwilliams, Darcys, and Hamiltons have all been close allies for generations, I take the compliment.”
Jane tried to puzzle out the connection, and at the beginning of the second movement, she asked where Haddington was located.
“It’s a town built on my ancestor’s holdings in eastern Scotland, madam.”
Suddenly, Jane realized where she had heard Haddington before; it was the town on all of her letters from Elizabeth! “Oh, perhaps you’ve seen my sister and her husband, Mr. Darcy?”
The marquess shook his head as they separated for a moment to complete the dance. When they returned to applaud the musicians, he bowed, and Jane took stock of his person. His chin was a firm sort, shown as exceptionally masculine in contrast to his silky black curls neatly tied behind him. Jane noticed he was of a large build, but did not appear to particularly broad. He was in every way the opposite of the fair-haired Mr. Bingley, and Jane found herself bemused by her mild attraction to the kind man who would dance with a stranger to save a reputation.
As Lord Haddington escorted Jane back towards his distant cousin, he explained he was unfortunately in London with his father to learn the politics of the seat he would one day inherit. “The experience has been an eye-opening one, and I can’t say I’m eager to rush home to the sheep and rolling fields,” he said, with a laugh expecting Miss Bennet to agree with him.
Instead, she frowned. “London does have its charms, but I do so miss the quiet of my home county. I-I do enjoy the delights of a dance, though.” She added the last part as she realized her honesty would likely be seen as rather rude to this complete stranger.
“I believe most ladies do.” The Marquess bowed over her hand and gave it to the Colonel who was waiting most anxiously for his turn.
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 4(cont'd) - A Summer Shame, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
The peace was short lived as Mr. Bingley weaved his way through the crowds to request a dance. With a stern face and a slight feeling of guilt, Jane did as she was instructed and ignored him entirely, giving him the cut direct. Nearby patrons laughed at Mr. Bingley’s hopeless faux pas, and the Colonel happily escorted Jane to the dance floor after making a slight glance to ensure Mary was in safe hands with his brother.
Jane teased the Colonel about losing a button on his red coat and was so convincing in her tale; she made the young man inspect his person during the set. When he realized he had been had, he gave biting words back to Miss Bennet. “I knew not to underestimate you, Private. I do believe you are having a modicum of fun.”
While the ballroom was hardly full of families she grew up with, Jane began to relax, feeling at ease in the protection of the Fitzwilliams. The practice through the week in preparation for the slings and arrows of society had put her nerves on edge, but when she allowed herself to feel happy, she found the emotion swept over her quickly.
Desperately thirsty, Jane asked the Colonel if they might visit the punch bowl before she danced the third set with Lord Ashbourne to make up for his stolen first set. She could see Mary was already at the bowl with Miss Bingley, showing signs of discomfort in the conversation.
Setting her shoulders back, Jane approached the punch bowl where she accepted the shallow compliments of her once would-be sister-in-law. Before she could form a polite response, the devilish Bergamote appeared from behind Jane to request his dance. So flustered by having to change her dance plans yet again, Jane gave the Viscount a look of regret but knew the older Fitzwilliam son danced only for ceremony. He had no interest in Jane, and she could not claim such desire on her part, either, no matter how many times Lady Matlock sat the two of them next to each other over dinner.
Her second dance with a relative stranger, Jane stuck with the approved topics of the size of the ball and how it compared or contrasted to other balls this Season. She heard the commotion before looking over to the punch bowl, nearly missing her step. Craning her neck despite the turns and handoffs, Jane could see Mary, upset, with a dark red stain down her ivory gown and Miss Bingley offering the most play-acted apologies Jane had ever witnessed. Anger at Caroline humiliating another one of her sisters festered in Jane’s mind and she wholly ignored Lord Bergamote’s question about her family’s connection to the Bingleys.
When the music ended, Jane watched as Mary was taken under the Colonel’s arm to return to Matlock House as her dress was beyond ruin. The smug look on Caroline’s face seared into Jane’s mind. Without thinking it through, Jane turned to Lord Bergamote and told an absolute truth.
“My aunt’s husband assisted Mr. Bingley with the lease of an estate in my home county last summer. Mr. Bingley sold the last of his family’s factories and was looking to purchase. Unfortunately, he struggled to manage and my sister’s husband, Mr. Darcy, intervened to keep the property afloat.” Satisfied Lord Bergamote’s ears were not the only to hear how inexplicably close the Bingleys were to trade, though Caroline and Louisa had always attempted to hide it, Jane excused herself and walked to the older Fitzwilliam brother on her own.
“I do believe I am feeling a touch faint. Should we follow Mary and Richard?” she asked sweetly, and Robert Fitzwilliam did not need to be asked twice. Giving a quick nod to his red-faced mother standing across the room, trapped in a conversation with one of the Earl’s friends, Robert and Jane made their escape.
You’ve been reading A Summer Shame
A Summer Shame Book 3 of the Seasons of Serendipity
a Pride and Prejudice novella variation series
Release Date: November 23, 2014
33,000 words, ~162 pages in print.
The third novella in the Seasons of Serendipity sees the Bennet sisters divided by countries, not counties. Still struggling to find family stability after the death of Mr. Bennet, Elizabeth joined with her new husband, Fitzwilliam Darcy, converts her honeymoon in Scotland into a mission of hiding Lydia’s scandal. Jane Bennet, under the wing of Lady Matlock, learns that taking on the mantle of family champion comes with tight corset strings attached. Saving face in soirees with the Ton, Jane must fend off the talons of society’s climber and discovers she has a much deeper decision to make about her own future.
A Summer Shame is the third book in a series planned to chronicle 4 years of the Darcy-Bennet-Fitzwilliam families. Death, marriage, changing fortunes, and politics test Jane Austen’s wonderful characters in an alternate universe where the girls have not the protection of their father.
“I could not put this novel down! This book has a refreshing storyline that is interesting, amusing, surprising, and vivid.” – Amazon.com 5-star review on A Summer Shame
+ 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.
I love all the serendipity series..thank