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 13 - The Whisky Wedding, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
ANOTHER DAY OF dry weather made the roads much improved between Langholm and Gretna Green as the Darcy coach spirited away Miss Elizabeth Bennet, her uncle’s servant Peter, and Mr. Darcy. The maid in Mr. Darcy’s employ, Fiona shared the bench with Miss Bennet while Peter sat next to Mr. Darcy. Darcy had intended for Peter to ride outside of the carriage but Miss Elizabeth had entreated him to show kindness to the boy who had assisted her after the carriage accident. Loathe to admit it, Fitzwilliam would deny Elizabeth nothing in his power to give. He only wished her request would include his presence in her life from this day forward. With such a mixture of company inside of the carriage, conversation remained stilted though Elizabeth found she enjoyed that very much as her head still pained her at intermittent times.
“There be the milepost, shan’t be too long now to town.” Peter remarked on the familiar milestones he recalled from his journey the morning Miss Elizabeth escaped her aunt’s care.
“Miss Elizabeth, have you had the pleasure of reading the Bard’s Twelfth Night play?” Darcy attempted to begin a conversation on a neutral subject. He hoped Shakespeare might stir Elizabeth’s interests as his cravat felt tighter the closer and closer they drew to Gretna Green. Mr. Darcy abjectly dreaded the activity of turning his heart’s desire over to her aunt.
“In which language, sir?” Elizabeth arched her eyebrow, an expression that made Mr. Darcy utter a short laugh.
“Indeed, how careless of me not to specify.”
“Two summers ago my father and I translated our favorite play of mixups into both Latin and Greek.”
Darcy’s mouth turned down in both corners, impressed. “You are fluent in Latin and Greek?”
Elizabeth began to feel slightly self-conscious, worrying if she boasted too much. Still, it was not a lie to admit such. She nodded and looked out the window.
“Any other languages you claim?” Mr. Darcy teased.
“French.” Elizabeth’s mouth opened in surprise as the farms grew much closer as they neared the village. “And a little Italian.” Turning the tables, Elizabeth put Mr. Darcy in the tough spot of answering a personal question. “Why Twelfth Night? What is it about that play that draws your interest?”
Darcy shrugged and tightened his grip on his walking stick perched vertically between his knees. “My sister, Georgiana, adores the story and I may have been tormented into reciting it with her at Christmastime.”
“Tormented? My, my, I must meet this sister of yours who controls you so brutishly!” Elizabeth laughed to show she was not seriously insulting Mr. Darcy’s sister who she understood to be significantly junior to him in age.
“And you?”
Elizabeth twisted her mouth into a sly sign of mirth. “I suspected you would ask. It is one of my father’s favorites and, I confess, therefore mine. I suppose you might say I find a strength in Viola to not accept her circumstances after her shipwreck and seek her own destiny, even if it is just as a man.” Elizabeth groaned inwardly as her confession spoke too much truth of her current situation, and Mr. Darcy cleared his throat.
As the carriage rolled more slowly, their proximity to Gretna Green began to alarm her as well. She could not expect her Aunt Gardiner would be very pleased with her behavior and as she had no success in locating or hearing any intelligence of either Lydia or Mr. Wickham, her flight from the Three Hammers was indeed nothing more than a dangerous folly.
“Yes, but in the end it was her brother who truly saved her was it not? I hardly see how Viola’s efforts would serve her well if Sebastian had not joined the fray,” Mr. Darcy countered.
“Sebastian arrived to help the mixup, but I am certain eventually Viola’s sex would have come out in due course and Orsino would still be in love with her.”
The carriage took a nasty jolt and Elizabeth’s face paled as white as a specter, making Mr. Darcy quite concerned, but he restrained himself from reaching out to her. Instead, the maid Fiona fussed over Elizabeth raising an eyebrow from Mr. Darcy as to how close the two women had already become in less than a day’s time.
“So you believe that two people in love can overcome any obstacle?” Mr. Darcy asked with as much indifference as he could muster.
“And you do not? I believe a great deal of history can be placed at the feet of lovers unwilling to give up. Scandals, affairs, even my current history, it would appear, is a direct consequence of two people in love,” Elizabeth said bitterly.
Mr. Darcy had nothing more to say as he felt very confused as to how Bingley and Jane factored into Elizabeth’s current predicament. He could hardly credit Elizabeth’s intelligence to think that Mr. Wickham truly loved her sister, Lydia. That man was nothing more than an opportunist, and if he was still with Lydia Bennet wherever they might be holed up, it would be nothing short of a minor miracle. It pained Darcy’s heart to think of the poor soul that was the boisterous young Bennet girl. She was brash and perhaps too bold, but no one could say she would deserve the life she would likely face once Wickham abandoned her. Though he had set his cousin on the task of finding them, Darcy did not offer Elizabeth any hope of success in the mission. There was none to offer.
The carriage wheels slowed for the third time that afternoon, with the sun hanging low and threatening to touch the horizon, the weary travelers realized just how much time had passed since luncheon at Broadmeadow. Mr. Darcy alighted from the carriage first and offered a hand to help Miss Elizabeth, which she gratefully accepted. He wondered if he had somehow offended Elizabeth with his frank discussion, but he had precious little time to inquire. Elizabeth marched straight on up the path through the door of the Three Hammers, forcing the trio of travelers with her to scramble and catch up.
The inn stood nearly deserted as the post chaises had begun running again. Elizabeth’s eyes adjusted from the bright outdoors to the wood paneled interior. She spotted the innkeeper and began to walk towards the man when Mr. Darcy’s longer gait overtook her and he addressed the innkeeper first.
“I would inquire about a traveler you have staying at this inn. Mrs. Gardiner, if you please?” Darcy asked with the air of a man who was not accustomed to being either ignored nor disappointed.
The innkeeper turned a wary eye towards Darcy, recognizing the man as a fancy gentleman, but not one of his acquaintance. “We be a respectable installation here, sir. I do not readily give dark strangers who trespass my door the private information of my guests.”
“I arrived here just two days ago with my aunt, perhaps you remember me?” Elizabeth offered the short innkeeper a flashy smile, hoping the man might remember her custom.
“Ah, the runaway. Been ‘specting you.” He reached down below his counter and produced a thick missive. He plopped the folded parchment on the counter with his hand firmly over it. Darcy, recognizing the man’s need, flicked him a coin from his purse.
“Thank you, sir.” Elizabeth said to Darcy.
Gently, Elizabeth took the letter addressed to her and unfolded the parchment. Mr. Darcy waited stoically next to her as large tears began to fall as Elizabeth read the missive.
As you have left me with nothing more than a mere note, I find an ironic justice in leaving you the same. Imagine my anguish to wake and learn my favorite niece, a young woman trusted to my care, abandoned her family to seek adventure and certain ruin with limited means and a servant? I am appalled at what madness might have possessed you to continue our search on your own, a search I might add, that is entirely worthless now with your flight!
How would I explain your absence, or even be assured you might return? Was I to mount a search for two Bennet women with my children in tow, putting them at further risk in unfamiliar inns and roads? You left me with no protection, Elizabeth, leaving me without a footman.
I have left what resources I might with the Post Master who will see to it you take the post coach back to London, if it be the Lord’s will for you to find this letter safely. You might bring Peter with you, if you can arrange his wages from what manner of funds you hid from me on your person, but do not bother to bring him to our doors. He may consider himself discharged without reference for his role in this mess.
I am deeply ashamed of you, Elizabeth Lucille Bennet. I pray nightly for your return to our family but find little sympathy in my heart for what consequences you might find.
Madeline Gardiner
Chapter 14 - The Whisky Wedding, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
“SHE HAS LEFT me,” Elizabeth sobbed, thrusting the letter from her aunt down to her side. Every word in her aunt’s letter had been true. Elizabeth had made a selfish mistake, risking people she loved best. The only sentiment incorrect was that she had ruined herself worse than she was before with Lydia’s flight. Desperation had driven her mad, and she now understood the motivations of many a heroine in a novel.
Mr. Darcy gently reached out for an opportunity to read it and Elizabeth relented. Pressing her fists to her temples, Elizabeth felt too animated to sit still. She frantically paced the small row between tables as Mr. Darcy read the short missive. Finally, she halted in her pacing and took a breath to restore her comportment.
“Forgive my outburst. I shall inquire with the Post Master and return to my family.” Elizabeth dipped a small curtsy but did not get more than two steps before Mr. Darcy blocked her path.
“Again, you choose strangers? This news of your aunt’s travel plans is . . . distressing.” Darcy paused and looked around for any interested in their affairs, but truly, there was none. The one family and two couples in the common room were too concerned with their own troubles to pay him and Elizabeth any mind. “The coach has already left for the day, look, the room is deserted and tomorrow is Sunday. You shall become stranded.”
Elizabeth blinked. “Not strangers, per se, that is not my choice, sir. But I have said quite plainly I do not wish to burden you for your kindness.”
“And my kindness is my own concern. Come, let us take a table and think clearly.” Mr. Darcy gently led Elizabeth to a table and motioned to the innkeeper for his attentions. “A bottle of wine?”
Elizabeth frowned as another memory came to her mind, this felt familiar.
“Whisky?” she asked, captivated by her own fractured memory of a conversation with Mr. Darcy and a foreign taste her mind recalled by that name.
Mr. Darcy took Elizabeth’s question to be a request. “Belay the wine, your best Scotch if you do not mind.”
The innkeeper left as Elizabeth began to protest about the drink order.
“I am sorry, I spoke out of turn. Wine or tea would have been lovely.”
Darcy cocked his head to one side, finding Elizabeth’s sudden embarrassment endearing. “No apology necessary for a palate of your caliber. I find you to be the best company yet to enjoy a pour.” Darcy’s imagination leapt to evenings in each other’s company in his study or the library at Pemberley, partaking in a glass of whisky and his wife’s company by the fire . . .
“Mr. Darcy?”
Darcy shook his head. “Forgive me, I was not attending.”
“I can see.” Elizabeth mocked him as the innkeeper had hustled to make his sale. Darcy again placed a coin on the table. She waited as he poured them both a drink.
“Remember, sip. Do not gulp,” he teased as he offered her a drink. Elizabeth accepted the glass and then looked to the offending letter lying on the table between them. She sighed.
At Mr. Darcy’s demonstration, Elizabeth lifted her glass and the amber liquid stung her lips just before it began to burn her mouth. The potent alcohol tingled on her tongue as she felt compelled to take an additional sip to remove the effects of the first. As long as she continued to replace one mouthful with another, the effect and nostalgia of the drink warmed her to the core.
“Careful! Tis better to prolong the completion . . . Er, that is not a drink you finish quickly.” Mr. Darcy began to feel exposed as he worried needlessly about his crass language that Elizabeth did not register. Had it been his cousin, the teasing would have been merciless.
“I drank this with you in Canonbie?” Elizabeth began to feel the warmth of the liquid run down her esophagus to her nearly empty belly.
“You do not recall? That is to be expected, I hate to be the one to tell you that the lady doth drink too much.” Darcy flashed Elizabeth a rare smile that revealed the man’s dimples. Elizabeth looked down at her glass and back up through her eyelashes.
“Perhaps it is the whisky’s fault I do not remember much of yesterday afternoon. What a remarkable substance.” Elizabeth marveled at the potency of such a liquid, now understanding her father’s penchant to begin drinking whisky in the afternoon and not ceasing until after dinner.
Darcy nodded and tapped the letter that still sat as an ominous white flag between them of unpalatable surrender. Elizabeth finished her drink and gestured for more. “I am afraid to say that I reserved only one room this evening, but the moon still be high tonight and we could return to Broadmeadow if it pleases you. Come Monday, the Darcy coach will start the journey to take you to London, as I had planned to leave Scotland then as well.”
“So soon? But you just arrived? That is a beastly schedule.” Elizabeth took another sip of her second whisky. She found comfort in the liquid’s abilities to lessen her anger, hurt, and guilt over her aunt’s letter.
Darcy shrugged. “My sister and the Bingleys will be at Pemberley in a few days’ time. It was my aim to see to Broadmeadow’s needs for the coming harvest before entertaining my guests in Derbyshire.”
“Needs like firewood for the coming chill.” Elizabeth offhandedly offered, giggling and drinking again until she reflected on Mr. Darcy’s mention of Derbyshire. If not for Lydia’s debacle, she might have seen the Peak District, and all of its glory, with her aunt and uncle. Perhaps they might have even stopped at Pemberley, it being so close to Lambton, and met Mr. Darcy there.
Mr. Darcy felt confused about the mundane mention of firewood. “Yes, certainly, though my steward and I also reviewed other more critical needs, and made preparations for the spring planting.”
“Mr. Darcy, I hold great admiration for you, sir.” The words tumbled out of Elizabeth’s mouth with such speed, that she hastily took another sip. “What I mean is, I greatly admire your steady and capable management of your estate.” Elizabeth frowned as the tip of her nose began to feel a little numb. “Estates.”
“Miss Elizabeth, I dare not hope at your words, but do you truly admire me?” The doleful chestnut eyes of Fitzwilliam Darcy captivated the attention of Elizabeth Bennet and neither could look away.
“Yes,” she barely managed with a heavy release of breath she had not consciously held. “But it is too late—” she stopped as Mr. Darcy reached into his blue overcoat and produced a closed fist. Extending each long finger in procession, a shiny gold band with a hefty emerald inlaid into the center glistened in the candlelight of their table.
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet, I am embarrassed to offer you another proposal of marriage, but my first was so horrifically done, might we consider it a shadow of another time? I have loved you, madam, since the first night your joy lifted the entire home of Netherfield. I dared not trust my observations the night we met, but watched you most carefully at every chance since then. I would be most honored to have you as my wife. Will you—” he cleared his throat as Elizabeth held her breath, “Will you marry me?”
Elizabeth’s emotions bubbled between utmost elation and dread. “But Mr. Darcy—”
“If your only reservation is your sister’s predicament, know that is no obstacle to me.”
Taking a deep breath and nibbling her bottom lip, Elizabeth nodded.
“Is that a yes? You will marry me?”
“Yes, yes Mr. Darcy, I shall marry you!” Elizabeth shouted, then recalled they were not alone but in a common room of an inn. The Three Hammers in Gretna Green, no less. Elizabeth followed Mr. Darcy’s gaze, after he placed the ring on her finger, to the window.
“If we hurry, the sun has not set.” He stood and helped her up from the table.
“Hurry?”
Mr. Darcy leaned down and whispered into her ear. Elizabeth chuckled as she took the man’s arm, the man who had indeed come to her rescue more than she ever deserved.
Not a half hour later, Peter and Fiona stood to witness the marriage at the blacksmith’s anvil of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. And despite the failure of finding Miss Elizabeth’s aunt, the happy couple had found a way to each other. Having another drink as the carriage was again hitched with horses, they left Gretna Green to return to Broadmeadow. Neither Mr. or Mrs. Darcy wished to pass their first night as husband and wife in a rented room of the Three Hammers.
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 15 - The Whisky Wedding, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
ELIZABETH BENNET’S LEFT nostril twitched in a perturbed fashion. Without opening her eyes, she dreamily attempted to scratch the offending body part with her right hand. But her right hand, attached to her right arm, felt an enormous weight that would not signify in her half-asleep mind. Therefore, the consequence of an itchy nose demanded at least one eyelid to lazily lift and give a blurred glance at her invalid arm.
Intelligence gathered by one eye quickly required the confirmation of a second eye, followed by a squawk of surprise as her entire body pushed and shoved a retreat from the other body inhabiting the bed with her! Groping at the thin sheet to cover her naked form, Elizabeth clamped her mouth shut lest she wake the burly, somewhat hairy, man who had slumbered easily nestled next to her. His back facing her side of the bed, the broad muscular structure of his shoulders and bare back declared her bedmate definitively male. Though not unpleasing to view, she could not allow herself such idiotic indulgences.
Her sleep-sandy eyes blinked furiously; she urgently wished to push the last remaining befuddlement of this disastrous awakening out of her mind so that she might think of a plan. Panic rose with the bile threatening to overcome her senses as Elizabeth tried to think about her needs. Clothing first, most certainly, and then an escape.
Hands shaking, she covered her face to focus as she sat up in the bed and tucked her knees to her chest. A bit of cool, smooth metal brushed against her cheek. Elizabeth removed that palm to hold it out for closer inspection.
“Oh no, no it cannot be,” she whispered.
An emerald stone and gold band she had never seen before silently glimmered as a testament to what her gut already feared. Between the token on her hand, her state of undress, and her proximity to a male of the species, Elizabeth Bennet began to believe she was Elizabeth Bennet no more.
But who was the man she had lost her heart to in Scotland? What tricks and deception had he wrought that she remembered very little aside from coming to the border to search for her sister Lydia?
No, she could remember more than that as her breath became ragged. A dark tumble, pain, and a patch of bright sunlight flooded her mind as she squinted her eyes harder to keep them shut, replaying a nightmare in her mind.
“Mmmm, Elizabeth . . .” The man next to her began to stir, rolling to his stomach, his head turning towards her.
Fearful, Elizabeth scuttled away and fell off the bed with a yelp.
Darcy’s eyes flew open.
“Elizabeth!”
He crawled over the mattress to where his new bride had landed directly upon her backside. Realizing she was not hurt, but mostly surprised, he began to chuckle.
“How did we? Mr. Darcy? Where am I?”
Elizabeth’s questions brought a quick frown from Fitzwilliam Darcy.
“A mean jest, madam. Come back to bed. We did not finish what we began last evening.” He held out a hand and offered her a devilish smile. Elizabeth’s jaw quivered.
“But, but, I would never —” Her eyes darted again to the ring on her finger. “Are you saying we are . . . we have. . .”
“Not yet, Mrs. Darcy. There was the inconvenience of sleepiness on your part. I confess it stung my pride, but I was not surprised at your exhaustion with that much travel in one day for a lady.” Fitzwilliam considered Elizabeth carefully as the woman could not prevent herself from trembling in the mess of bedsheets surrounding her on the floor though the room was not chilled. He sat up and turned away from her, pulling a lawn shirt over his head as he had not removed his breeches last evening.
“So we did not. We did not,” she muttered to herself, over and over, scrambling to reach for her shift and gown on the floor by the foot of the bed, just as a disheveled Darcy stood to walk around it. Elizabeth froze, grasping the bed sheets to cover her front, but as he leaned over her, Darcy could spy her naked back curving elegantly to a part of her he admired very much.
“I would not be such a rogue to ravish my wife while she lay unconscious.” Darcy took a step to help her, but Elizabeth pulled back, rubbing her temple with her left hand as she gripped the clothes with the bedsheets in her right hand close to her chest.
“Are you ill? Why do you not remember?” Fitzwilliam’s voice cracked as he asked his second question.
“I, I do not know. I am trying very hard to recall. We are married? For how long?” Elizabeth began to cry as she looked up at Fitzwilliam and tried to find some memory to hold onto.
Crouching down, the creases around his brown eyes became very soft. “This, this is my fault. You were grievously injured two days ago in a carriage accident. You were searching for your . . .” Darcy swallowed. “You had left your aunt in Gretna Green to search for Miss Lydia.”
Elizabeth nodded, that much she did remember. As well as the screaming and a dead boy in the grass. Another face came to her.
“Peter!”
Mr. Darcy nodded, he reached out his hand but still, Elizabeth drew back.
“You are distressed, madam. I shall send for your maid.” And the doctor, he added privately to himself.
Elizabeth gulped and found her voice. “Thank, thank you very much. I am very sorry that my mind has faltered, Mr. Darcy.”
“Perhaps I should allow you privacy. Forgive me.” Fitzwilliam rose and stepped beyond her to exit his own room and stand in the hallway inappropriately dressed. His man, Callum, jumped to see his master in the hall in such an unkempt state.
“Sir?”
“Mrs. Darcy is indisposed. I should like a bath. Send Fiona to her mistress.” Darcy turned to walk to the bathing room adjoined to his suite that held two doors: one connected to his room and another to the hall. He had the water closets modified for the latest modern developments in all of his homes shortly after he became master. “And send a messenger to Dr. Rowley, tell him I desire his presence as soon as he is available.”
“Yes, sir, right away, sir!” Callum Stewart spun around with the freshly pressed garments for his master still upon his arm. He had planned to discreetly place them in the dressing room, but he did not dare to go into his master’s room if Mrs. Darcy was in there alone. Feeling perplexed, he took a step forward, then back, then exasperated, decided his best way would be back the way he came to order the bath, send Fiona to take care of her charge, and find an errand boy.
This business of a married Mr. Darcy had begun on a very awkward morning for all and Mr. Callum Stewart, with his preference for calmness and peace, did not find he liked it one bit.
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.