Dear all,
Thank you all for commenting and giving so many insight too on your experience on horse races and also with the book.
Please send me your email address, where you want to get your ebook, to myvicesandweaknesess(at)gmail(dot)com then I will pass them to Regina.
Best wishes for all of you,
Ana
Dear all,
Welcome Regina Jeffers for the first time at My Vices and Weaknesses. You may have read some of her books as she has been writing for a long time. However, today she is telling us a lot about her latest published novel: Elizabeth Bennet’s Gallant Suitor. She has also shared an excertp where Darcy and C0lonel Fitzwilliam are pretty smitten 😀
Let´s start with a bit of history as it is something relevant on this excerpt and story.
Steeplechase has its origins in an equine event in 18th-century Ireland, as riders would race from town to town using church steeples — at the time the most visible point in each town — as starting and ending points (hence the name steeplechase). Riders would have to surmount the various obstacles of the Irish countryside: stone walls, fences, ditches, streams, etc.
As the name might suggest, that very first race took place in 1752 between two steeples in rural county Cork in the south of Ireland. These types of races are often called “point-to-point” races. At that time, church steeples were among the tallest buildings in the landscape. Two men, Cornelius O’Callaghan and Edmund Blake, made a bet between them, to race from Saint John’s Church in Buttevant to Saint Mary’s Church in Doneraile, which was approximately 4 miles. However, it was 4 miles across the countryside, crossing rivers and streams and walls, etc. Although we do not know the winner’s name, he was to earn a prize of 600 gallons of port.
In 1839, the British Grand National race at Aintree was established, a race that is still run today over roughly the same distance of around 4 miles.
In my newest Austen-inspired story, Elizabeth Bennet’s Gallant Suitor, Bingley has taken Netherfield for the customary reasons of a “gentleman” owning an estate, but he is also developing a line of thoroughbreds (his real passion, not farming). He has had some hard times, of late, of which you must read the story to know something of their nature, for they are essential to the plot, but he has a chance to turn things around if his Arabian mare can win a race designed for fillies. In the scene below, Darcy and Elizabeth are attending the race. Earlier, they have instructed Bingley’s rider on how to approach the race.
Other Sources:
Elizabeth Bennet will not tolerate her dearest sister Jane being coerced into marriage. Yet, how she will prevent the “inevitable”? Jane, after all, has proven to be the granddaughter of Sir Wesley Belwood, a tyrannical baronet, who means to have his say in Jane’s marriage in order to preserve the family bloodlines. When Colonel Fitzwilliam appears at Stepton Abbey as the prospective groom, Elizabeth must join forces with the colonel’s cousin, a very handsome gentleman named Mr. Darcy, to prevent the unwanted betrothal.
Lacking in fortune and unconventionally handsome, Elizabeth Bennet is willing to risk everything so her beloved sister may have a happily ever after, even if Elizabeth must thwart all of Sir Wesley’s plans, as well as those of Mr. Darcy.
Fitzwilliam Darcy meant to flirt with the newly named Miss Belwood himself to prevent the girl’s marriage to his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, but one glance to Miss Elizabeth Bennet has Darcy considering everything but his cousin’s fate. Miss Elizabeth thought him a wastrel, but when incidents throw them together, they must combine forces to fight for love for the colonel, for Jane, and maybe, even for themselves.
Excerpt from Chapter Seventeen
He was about to go looking for Fitzwilliam himself when his cousin turned the corner with Miss Mary on his arm. Yet, Darcy’s gaze looked beyond the pair to the two women who followed his cousin, specifically to Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Like it or not, his breathing hitched higher in anticipation of being in the lady’s company again.
However, before his cousin and the ladies reached him, he heard his name and turned to view Miss Bingley’s approach, along with Mr. Waverley. “Darcy, darling,” she cooed when the pair stepped before him. She caught his arm and rose up on her toes as if to kiss his cheek. Immediately, he stepped back and nearly took a tumble off the viewing stands. Yet, another’s hand grasped his firmly, and he quickly righted himself. “Thank you,” he said before realizing whose hand he still held, for a familiar “zing” slid up his arm, identifying the owner. Rather than release Miss Elizabeth’s hand immediately, he brought it to rest on his arm. “I thought perhaps you had become lost, my dear,” he said as he tugged her closer.
“The journey from the abbey took longer than we expected. The roads were quite crowded,” she explained.
“As long as you and your family arrived safely, I am well satisfied,” he declared without looking to Miss Bingley, whose irritation seemed to seep off her skin and fill the air with a foul odor.
As if Miss Elizabeth understood his purpose, she assured, “Mr. Farrin is a most excellent coachman. Thank you for the use of your carriage.”
“My pleasure,” he said and meant it. Unable to avoid Miss Bingley further, he said to Elizabeth, “Forgive me for my poor manners. You are, I understand, previously acquainted with Miss Bingley, but permit me to provide you the acquaintance of her betrothed, Mr. Waverley. Waverley, I imagine you know my cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam.”
Waverley bowed and Fitzwilliam simply nodded. From the look on his cousin’s face, the colonel did not approve of Waverley’s wayward eye as the man took in the figure of each of the Bennet sisters, including Miss Mary, whose fuller figure appeared to catch Waverley’s attention. Darcy nearly had forgotten to finish the introduction when Waverley also eyed Miss Elizabeth with a lecherous look.
“Waverley,” he said a bit louder to draw the man’s attention from the Bennet sisters. “These lovely ladies are Miss Elizabeth, Miss Mary, and Miss Katherine Bennet. They are cousin to the Fitzwilliam family, and, therefore, to me,” he said in warning tones. “In fact, we expect Lord Matlock to join us later. Fitzwilliam’s brother Lindale already makes up one of our party. He travels in a separate coach.” Having dropped enough names to steer Waverley away from the ladies, Darcy said, “As I know Bingley likely arranged for you to watch the race with him, we will wish your family the best for today. Thank you for stopping to greet us.”
“Naturally,” Miss Bingley said, with some sharpness in her tone as he returned her hand to Waverley’s arm. “Perhaps we will have time to converse later.”
“Perhaps,” he said cryptically.
With the lady’s departure, they all released a collective sigh of relief. Darcy glanced to Miss Elizabeth to note a smile of amusement upon her lips. “You possess my gratitude for keeping me from harm, my dear,” he said with a lift of his eyebrows in challenge.
Without guile, Miss Kitty said, “I thought Miss Bingley meant to kiss you, Mr. Darcy. Such would have been something, would it not?” She glanced to her sisters before adding, “A true lady would never be so bold.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Such is the reason I stepped away from her.”
Kitty meant to comment further, but Elizabeth diverted her attention. “Assist me in keeping an eye out for Lord Lindale’s party and for Papa.”
“Papa despises London because of how crowded it is. I am surprised he would agree to stop in St Albans,” Kitty observed.
“I believe he and Lord Matlock will travel together. Naturally, his lordship will want to speak to the colonel and Lord Lindale before they all travel to Stepton,” Elizabeth explained.
“Papa will also travel to Stepton, will he not?” Miss Kitty began to understand. “Does such mean we will be returning to Longbourn later this evening?”
“I imagine it will be tomorrow,” Elizabeth disclosed, and Darcy knew dismay equal to the one marking her younger sister’s features. He had always known the actual date of their parting, but the idea did not please him as well as he thought it would.
He was quick to say, “In addition to the race and the theatre groups we saw previously, I understand a gypsy troupe has set up beyond the city grounds. What say to a dancing bear and a man supposedly as wide as he is tall?”
The girl said in amazement, “I have never seen either, nor have I viewed a real-life gypsy.”
“The race will last less than an hour. We will have the remainder of the day to enjoy the entertainments,” he assured.
“Thank you, Mr. Darcy,” she said with a large smile, which reminded him the girl was likely Georgiana’s age. Her enthusiasm was more understandable in those terms.
Elizabeth instructed, “We should claim a place to watch the race. This crowd will be enormous and likely quite rowdy.”
“You three will remain between the colonel and me,” Darcy explained. “Keep your reticules in a pocket, and, if possible, tie it to your wrist. People will take advantage of the unsuspecting and those not aware of their surroundings.”
Miss Katherine’s eyes grew in size, but, ironically, neither Miss Elizabeth’s nor Miss Mary’s appeared frightened. “Prepared,” Miss Mary announced, as she noted the string about her wrist, and the colonel declared, “Such is my sensible lady,” although Darcy was certain his cousin wished to say something more personal of the young woman.
They moved around on the narrow viewing stands to sit in close proximity. When Miss Katherine turned to speak to Miss Mary and the colonel, Miss Elizabeth softly asked, “Did you encounter trouble last evening?”
“It was nothing,” he said in order to protect her, but the lady’s frown deepened in disapproval.
“From the beginning of our acquaintance, sir, we have each spoken from our heart, whether what we said was ‘yea’ or ‘nay.’ I would prefer you did not attempt to protect me now,” she argued. She removed her hand from his arm and meant to stand to leave.
Darcy caught her hand to prevent her from leaving his side. “I shot a man who meant to kill Fitzwilliam,” he rasped. The idea of what occurred still troubled him.
She settled again immediately and caught his hand in her two. Leaning closer, she said, “Tell me. If you do not speak of your terror, it will eat at your conscience.”
He nodded his head and turned so the others could not hear him. Perhaps if he took her advice, the nightmare from last evening would no longer trouble him. “A man broke into the stable. Fitzwilliam confronted him. Meanwhile, I was to the side and in the shadows.”
She caressed the back of his hand, and it was as if he could feel the warmth of her hand through the gloves they both shared. “Your actions were necessary.”
“I know,” he said with a gentle smile. It felt good to have someone to comfort him. It seemed since his father’s death, everyone looked to him for support, and being “strong” all the time, in his opinion, became old quick.
“Did you kill him?” she asked in concern.
Darcy chuckled. “The colonel says I closed my eyes, but I swear I did not respond as he described. I am certain I squinted to see better.”
Miss Elizabeth bit her lip in an attempt to keep from bursting into laughter, and soon, he, too, was suppressing his desire to laugh aloud. “I shot him in the arm, and he is in the local gaol,” he managed to say through several snickers.
“About what are you two talking?” Miss Kitty asked with a frown.
Miss Elizabeth giggled, and Darcy thought it was the most delightful sound he had ever heard. Here he was laughing at himself and how upset he had been, first, actually to have shot another person, and, secondly, to be upset with his cousin teasing him. He never laughed at himself: His parents often told him he was always too serious.
Miss Elizabeth explained, “Just how hard it is to hit a target with one’s eyes closed.”
“I do not understand,” Miss Katherine said.
Miss Elizabeth presented the girl a quick one-arm hug about her shoulders. “Neither do we, my pet,” she said. “We are simply enjoying the day and being together.”
Miss Kitty still looked puzzled, but she turned her attention to the paddock. “Look,” she pointed. “Is that not Toby speaking to Mr. Bingley? I did not know Toby was working for Mr. Bingley now.”
Not wishing others to know of their manipulation, Miss Elizabeth quieted her sister. “Toby is only assisting Mr. Bingley until Papa returns.”
“Why is he and Bingley’s T wearing crimson and gold?” she asked. “See the blanket on the horse and the shirt Toby wears.”
Darcy leaned around Miss Elizabeth to speak to the girl. “Mr. Bingley has registered his horse with The Jockey Club. Those are the colors associated with the registration. See all Bingley’s men have an armband of the same color, and, earlier, we noted Mr. Bingley wore a gold and red waistcoat under his jacket.”
When Miss Kitty turned to repeat some of what he had just shared to Miss Mary, Miss Elizabeth asked, “Is Toby too young? The other riders appear much older than he is.”
“The other riders did not have the care, the expertise, and the encouragement of Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” he assured privately. “The boy will become a man today.”
Miss Kitty made a totally unrelated observation. “Jane and Lydia and his lordship will miss the race if they do not arrive soon.”
The colonel said in a deadpan manner, “I constantly tell Lindale only Brummell spends more time before a mirror than does he. I have all this regalia to deal with and still manage to be on my second plate at the morning table before my brother makes a showing.”
All three women smothered their laughter behind their gloved hands, but quickly swallowed their mirth when Toby strode across the paddock to where Bingley’s T stood in majestic glory.
“He looks as if he is eager to begin the race,” Miss Mary noted.
One of Mr. Bingley’s grooms caught Toby’s bent knee and tossed the youth into the saddle, where Toby caught the reins from another groom’s hand and tapped Bingley’s T’s sides with his heels to set the horse in motion. Proudly, both the horse and rider moved together in perfect rhythm toward the starting line. Both held their heads high. It was truly a sight to see, and the crowd took note.
Two men dressed in bright red hunting coats stood on opposite sides of the track. Stretched between them, they held a long red ribbon, marking the starting line. Faster than expected, twenty-one fillies claimed places behind the ribbon. Some danced in place in anticipation of the start. Others stood perfectly still. Bingley’s T was one of the latter.
“Is she not magnificent?” Miss Elizabeth whispered.
Instead of the greyish-white Arabian pawing the earth, Darcy studied the myriad of emotions crossing the lady’s countenance. “Yes, truly magnificent,” he said on a poorly disguised sigh.
The moment all the horses had reached the supposed line, the two men dropped the ribbon, which was followed by an echoing “Hi-ya!” filling the air. Toby, as if in a well-practiced dance move mimicked by the rest of the field, brought his knees up higher, leaned forward over Bingley’s T’s neck, and pushed his weight into the stirrups to set the horse in motion.
A shout from the crowd announced the race had begun.
What do you think? First of all, you may know by now that I really enjoy when something like this is done to Miss Bingley. However, there is more! Darcy and Elizabeth, Colonel and Mary *sigh* I am interested in knowing how all of this has come to happen after reading the blurb, aren´t you?
Why not buying the book? I have ust bought it! It is free to read on Kindle Unlimited and below you have some links:
Amazon UK Amazon US Amazon CA Amazon DE BookBub
Regina Jeffers has two ebook copies of Elizabeth Bennet’s Gallant Suitor available for two winners from the people who comment on this post. Good luck!
The giveaway is worldwide and it finishes on the 11th of October.
Hello!
How are you? I hope you are well and you enjoy what I am showing you today together with an author who has visited not long ago: Bronwen Chisholm.
What would be better than to share another JAFF/Austenesque book on the anniversary of Jane Austen’s birthday??
If you recall, a couple of months ago, Bronwen introduce us to the firs book on her Defying Propriety Series: As A Proper Lady Would (you can check that post here). Today she is sharing more insight on her second book of the series: Son of an Earl.
Hi everyone! I am so excited to be back visiting you here at My Vices and Weaknesses. The second novel in my Defying Propriety Series, Son of an Earl, is now available for pre-order. Here is the cover along with the blurbs for both the series and this book.
SERIES
We are formed by experiences of our childhood. Family and friends influence our character. Decisions, wise and foolish, direct our path. Through chance encounters and early introductions, our beloved Pride and Prejudice characters come together on a slightly different path which may, to some, defy propriety.
All the books in this series are sweet, clean romances.
SON OF AN EARL
Ashton Fitzwilliam, Viscount Grayson and cousin to Fitzwilliam Darcy, has always known what was expected of him. As the eldest son of an earl, he must marry a lady from the first circles of society, preferably one whose father will be a new ally to the current earl. He never anticipated meeting an intriguing American lady with a secret or two she is determined to keep hidden from the disapproving haut ton.
What do you think? What about this American lady? I have only read a couple of JAFF books where there is an American lady but they always make it interesting because they have different ways of seeing the world and sometimes, as it may happen in this book, the ton does not approve of their ways. Moreover, I am eager to know more about Viscount Grayson, would he be more like his brother the Colonel or more like his cousin? Even if he knows what is expected of him, is he a bit of a rake or is he a proper gentleman?
Let me (re)introduce you to Bronwen Chisholm before she shares more with us.
Bronwen Chisholm has released eight Pride and Prejudice variations since 2014. She takes great pleasure in searching for potential “plot twists” and finding the way back to a happy ending.
Her love of writing has led her to several writing groups, and she is currently serving as the vice president of the Riverside Writers and organizes the Riverside Young Writers.
For more information, visit her at www.bronwenchisholm.com
As you may have read before, I like to share deleted scenes when the authors are showing us more of their books. However, today it may be even more interesting as we have two deleted letters! Yes, from the Viscount and the American lady. Let’s read what Bronwen has to show us:
I have shared some excerpts and a character interview at prior stops on my blog tour, but today I thought I would share something that didn’t make it into the book. Many times when I write, there are scenes I must delete because they do not efficiently move the story forward. This book did not have any of them. What it did have was letters that were mentioned but never shown. Now, I cannot share all of their contents as it would just give away far too much information, but I will share what I can.
1. In this first one, poor Ashton becomes a bit frustrated at one point and his closest friends are nowhere around. Darcy is at Pemberley following the death of his father, bogged down with the weight of his responsibilities, and Ashton does not want to burden him. Instead, he writes to his brother who is currently stationed on the continent.
Matlock House
London
4 May 1806
Philip,
I am most displeased with your absence at the moment, brother. Though most of London society remains unchanged and uninspiring, there is a lady residing with the Carlisles who has disturbed my equilibrium. I have assured my mother it is nothing more than an infatuation, but I cannot drive her from my mind, or my dreams. Since you are on the continent and Darcy remains at Pemberley, I am forced to put my thoughts on paper that I might purge myself of them once and for all.
The lady is an American, from Virginia to be precise. She has ebony hair, a healthy complexion, and haunting grey eyes which brighten with lightning bolts whenever she is perturbed. She is petite with a pleasing figure, but she rarely speaks above a whisper. That is, unless she responds with emotion, in which case her voice is firm and a bit commanding. However, a look from a Carlisle immediately sees her eyes upon the ground and her voice returned to the blasted whisper once more. It is the most frustrating thing!
Mother has revealed what she knows of the lady on the promise I will cease approaching the woman to learn more of her. (She truly is the most mysterious lady I have ever encountered.) . . . They sent her to England to find a husband as she was being pursued by an unwanted suitor. Her appearance is so striking, I can understand a poor bloke experiencing such an infatuation, but to be so obtuse as to pursue a lady who does not return your sentiments that the woman must flee the country? It is a bit extreme.
Now, for the most rancorous part. Lord Carlisle is forwarding a match for the young lady with Croome, of all people. Croome! He is repulsive! And he plans on carrying the lady to his forgotten estate in Cornwall and leaving her there. Burying this beauty away from society to bare his children, while he waltzes about London enjoying his depraved amusements. It disgusts me! The lady deserves far better. I can only imagine your thoughts were you here. No! I cannot imagine, which is what further frustrates me. What I would not give for your biting sarcasm or, perhaps, military stratagems at the moment. Without them, I fear I shall never see her again.
Forgive me, for losing my head for the moment. Write it up as me missing my little brother and hoping you are well. Return to us soon and in one piece, Philip.
Your exasperated brother,
Ashton
2. The second letter is from his mysterious lady to her mother back in America.
London
20 May 1806
Dearest Mamma,
How I miss you and Papa and Tom and Arthur. London is nothing like what you described, at least not for me. Perhaps your memories were sweetened by distance. More likely, your happy memories stem from your time with your parents, friends, and meeting Papa. I am in a city of strangers, hosted by one of the coldest, most jealous ladies I have ever met. Oh Mamma, how could you call her friend? Lady Carlisle is nothing like what you described.
Her husband has found a man for me to marry. My skin crawls when he touches my hand. Mr. Croome flatters me, while eyeing the bosom of every passing lady, but the Carlisles believe I am unworthy of better. They have gone so far as to warn off the only man who has caused my pulse to race and my heart to hope because he is a peer.
Oh Mamma, if you could only meet him, but I know it will never be. Lord Grayson, Ashton Fitzwilliam. He is all I ever dreamed a gentleman could be. For some reason, he continues to make attempts to speak to me, though I have followed Lady Carlisle’s directions regarding the proper way to address him, limiting my conversation to meaningless nothings, and speaking in a demur manner. I hate the version of me she is creating. I refuse to believe you behaved in this manner.
I miss you more than words can say. I have only received one letter since arriving and am hoping all is well with you, Papa, and my brothers. I detest being so far from you. However did you manage when you left England for Virginia? You never saw your parents again. I shall be miserable for the rest of my life if I am forced to marry Mr. Croome and never see you.
Now that I have thoroughly released my feelings, I shall dry my eyes and begin again on the letter I will truly send. To tell you of my misery will only bring the same to you. Perhaps misery loves company, but I refuse to allow you to be plagued by thoughts of my unhappiness when there is nothing you can do to change it.
Our poor couple. Both are hurting without the support of those they love near to encourage or commiserate. And worse, they cannot turn to one another––for now, at least.
What do you think? They are pretty desperate and obsessed with the other. Will this love defeat the Carlisles and anyone else that goes against them? I hope there is a HEA but I am not sure how it will happen. Philip? I believe that’s the first time I have seen that name for the Colonel, would he be back on time to see his brother and share his sarcasm?
I hope you have enjoyed everything that Bronwen Chisholm has shared so far with us, but as she has said about the other stops, go and check the other blogs and enjoy what you will discover!
Would you like to buy the book? You can check it here:
Amazon UK Amazon CA Amazon US Amazon ES Amazon DE
Last but not least, Bronwen is sharing one more thing with you all:
Now, a GIVEAWAY! Just make a comment on this blog and Ana will pick 1 lucky winner to receive an ebook copy of Son of an Earl. Good luck! I can’t wait to read your comments.
Hello to all of you! How are you? How is everything going?
I am still doing less reading that I wanted but maybe in a week or so I may have more time. Today, I want to introduce you to Bronwen Chisholm. I have reviewed one of her books previously but she is today with us! Let’s see what she has for us.
Bronwen Chisholm began her writing career working on suspense romance, but finally became a published author with her Pride and Prejudice variations. She takes great pleasure in searching for potential “plot twists” and finding the way back to a happy ending.
Her love of writing has led her to several writing groups, and she is currently serving as the vice president of the Riverside Writers and organizes the Riverside Young Writers.
For more information, visit her at www.bronwenchisholm.com.
Hello Readers! I am so pleased to be here to share my latest book with you. Missing Jane is a low angst, sweet clean novella. So, without further ado, here is the blurb and an excerpt.
Mr. Bennet is dead; his daughters “scattered to the winds,” according to Mrs. Bennet.
And the eldest Miss Bennet? No one really knows.
Poor Mr. Bingley is led to believe she is no more, but her sister swears she is alive.
Can Mr. Darcy and his friend find her and, in turn, their own happily ever afters?
Darcy stood on the stoop of the Gardiners’ home in Cheapside. He had wrestled with himself all night. His cousin was still away, and therefore he had no one to speak to regarding what he had learned in Meryton. Instead, he had risen with the sun and made his way to Cheapside, where he questioned anyone he met until he located Elizabeth’s relations. He folded his hands behind his back as he waited for the door to open and wondered if Elizabeth would refuse to see him. He could not fault her if she did, but at least he would have tried.
The door opened and a young maid greeted him. He gave her his card and asked if the family was home.
“Mr. Gardiner is at his warehouse and the missus is inside with her youngest, who is ill. Miss Bennet has taken the older children to the park.” Darcy thanked her and instructed her not to disturb her mistress as he simply wished to leave his condolences.
He approached the young boy holding his horse and was about to mount when he glanced towards the park. Could he come this far and forego the chance to at least see her? Shaking his head, he quickly mounted, tossed the lad a coin, and rode to the park.
At first, he did not see her. He was about to admit defeat when her laugh arrested his progress. It rang through the air once more. Though it still held the same musical quality, the pure joy he remembered in Hertfordshire was missing. Darcy’s breath caught in his chest when he turned and saw the sun dancing off her auburn curls as she attempted to retrieve her bonnet from a young boy.
Darcy dismounted and crossed to them, removing his beaver while he approached her from behind. It was clear they were playing a game, and he could not suppress a smile as he thought of how she might have been with their children one day. “May I be of assistance, miss? Has this ruffian assaulted you?”
Elizabeth stiffened, startled by his voice. “Forgive me, Mr. Darcy. I was entertaining my cousins.” She blushed as she curtseyed, and Darcy was lost to her again.
“I saw.” Her gaze fell to the ground, and he shuffled his feet. “I had stopped at your uncle’s home and was told you were here. I have been to Meryton.” He paused, waiting for her to lift her gaze to him, but she continued her study of the path where they stood. “Please accept my condolences.”
She nodded and returned her attention to her cousins, who had continued their game.
“I did not know until Bingley returned to Netherfield Park.”
“Mr. Bingley returned to Netherfield?” She regarded him with an incredulous stare.
Darcy nodded. “A week ago.”
She shook her head and laughed bitterly.
“I never . . .” he began, but the expression on her face stopped him. Warnings shot from her eyes. He lowered his gaze, unable to meet hers. “I cannot imagine what you are feeling, losing your favourite sister so close on the heels of your father.”
“Jane is not dead!” she said between clenched teeth.
Darcy blinked repeatedly as he lifted his head. He did not believe she was one who could deny the loss of a loved one. It did not seem like her. “I do not understand. I was under the impression—“
“Who have you spoken to regarding my sister?”
“Bingley. He spoke to Mrs. Collins. I also saw your mother in Meryton.” He ran his fingers along the brim of his beaver.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “We are searching for her.”
“Searching?”
She sighed as she walked towards her cousins, who were beginning to wander away. He followed. “There was an accident. The carriage rolled. The servant who was travelling with Jane was found and said my sister had gone for help.”
“How long has it been?”
Elizabeth hesitated, but finally replied in a strained voice, “It has been just over a fortnight since she left London.”
Darcy slowly shook his head. “That is not what Bingley was told. He is devastated, thinking she has passed.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “There is a chance Miss Bennet is well and you simply have not been told.”
Elizabeth’s eyes beseeched him. “My uncle is doing all he can to learn what may have happened to her, but we are unable to leave London at this time, and his means are limited.”
Her eyes conveyed all her fears, and he fought the urge to draw her into his arms to comfort her. Swallowing hard, he softly replied, “Elizabeth, do not lose hope.”
She looked at him quizzically and he allowed his gaze to become more intense.
“I know I have never given up.” He bowed over her hand, before returning to his horse and mounting it. Their eyes met again just before he left, and he prayed he did not imagine the admiration he saw there.
This book has been such a joy to write. New characters and a new locale have been fun to explore. The Kindle version of Missing Jane is available HERE. I hope you will pick it up and love it as much as I do.
And now, a GIVEAWAY! Just make a comment on this blog and Ana will pick 1 lucky winner to receive an ebook copy of Missing Jane. Good luck! I can’t wait to read your comments.
What do you think? How intense that excerpt is, right? At least I have read it with a heart full of fear for Jane and that struggle that Darcy has and that last bit of hope when he is leaving.
What on Earth has happened to Jane? Where is she? Is she really dead or is she lost somewhere? Poor Mr. Bingley too!
Do you want to know more about Missing Jane? Check the other stops on the blog tour:
1st of July Austen Authors
6th of July From Pemberley to Milton
8th of July Diary of an Eccentric
9th of July More Agreeably Engaged
10th of July Babblings of a bookworm
11th of July My Vices and Weaknesses
13th of July Austenesque Reviews
14th of July Interests of a Jane Austen girl
15th of July Laughing with Lizzie
25th of July My Love for Jane Austen
As Bronwen has mentioned, she is giving 1 ebook copy and I will choose 1 winner from the comments on this post. The giveaway is open until the 14th of July at 23:59 CEST. The winner will be announced on the 15th of July, Good luck to everyone!
Dear all,
It is always a pleasure to share the news of Don Jacobson’s latest writing, and this time he is bringing something else, it is not the “usual” Darcy and Elizabeth story, it goes beyond the cannon and I believe it may make us see them differently, with a new perspective. I wish you a great time reading In Plain Sight.
Here you have the blurb and see what Don is hinting:
“At the end of the day when we are each of us lyin’ flat on our backs, lookin’ at the ceiling, and the vicar is whisperin’ in our ear, the greatest comfort we shall ’ave is to know that we loved well and were well loved in return.”
When Fitzwilliam Darcy’s father slides into an early grave, his son is forced to take on Pemberley’s mantle. Brandy numbs his pain, but Darcy’s worst inclinations run wild. After tragedy rips everything away, he spends years finding his way back: a man redeemed by a woman’s loving understanding.
Elizabeth Bennet is afflicted with a common Regency ailment: observing the world about her but not seeing those beneath her notice. Then a clarifying act shatters the propriety that has denied her heart the transcendent love she craves.
In Plain Sight explores Jane Austen’s eternal love story by flipping social roles on their heads. From their first encounter, Elizabeth Bennet and the convict known as “Smith” must overcome their prejudices and break through their pride. Only then can they share the treasure hidden in plain sight.
*****
Don Jacobson has created a moving tale that reimagines one of the most beloved romances ever! He carries the themes of pride, prejudice, and forgiveness through the text beautifully. An original tale laced with historical details. You’ll love it!
Elaine Owen, author of Duty Demands
What do you think? I know it is not much but, how do you see Elizabeth? and Darcy and his inclinations? If you are confused you can blame this amazing writer.
Let me (re)introduce you to Don Jacobson:
Don Jacobson has written professionally for forty years. His output has ranged from news and features to advertising, television, and radio. His work has been nominated for Emmys and other awards. He has previously published five books, all non-fiction. In 2016, he began publishing The Bennet Wardrobe Series—
The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey (2016)
Henry Fitzwilliam’s War (2016)
The Exile: Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque (2017)
Lizzy Bennet Meets the Countess (2017)
The Exile: The Countess Visits Longbourn (2018)
The Avenger: Thomas Bennet and a Father’s Lament (2018)
The Pilgrim: Lydia Bennet and a Soldier’s Portion (2019)
Jacobson is also part of the collective effort behind the publication of the upcoming North and South anthology, Falling for Mr. Thornton: Tales of North and South, released in 2019.
Other Austenesque Variations include the paired books “Of Fortune’s Reversal” (2016) and “The Maid and The Footman” (2016). Lessers and Betters (2018) offers readers the paired novellas in one volume to allow a better appreciation of the “Upstairs-Downstairs” mentality that drives the stories.
Jacobson holds an advanced degree in History with a specialty in American Foreign Relations. As a college instructor, Don teaches United States History, World History, the History of Western Civilization, and Research Writing. He is a member of the Austen Authors Collective and JASNA. He lives in Las Vegas, NV with his wife, Pam.
I think that it is worth reading what Don has to shared with us about this “different” approach to our beloved couple. I put the inverted commas on different because I believe that we are kind of used to having the same pattern even with variations. However, I am really looking forward to read In Plain Sight and learn more about these characters and how they can see their real world.
I wish to thank Ana for hosting me today. I look forward to engaging with each of you.
Classic Canon has Darcy’s head so high in the clouds of his status that he barely condescends to see those clustered around his feet. Canon also has Elizabeth reacting with impertinence and asperity against the man’s haughty nature and arrogance. That dynamic tension has been present for 200 years.
When I ventured to write my first novel which was Elizabeth/Darcy-centric, I resolved to create a work that would offer readers a fresh approach to the quandary that is the Eternal Binary. I am convinced that one of the reasons that I avoided ODC novels (in spite of Lory Lilian and Joana Starnes urging me to do otherwise) was that I was unwilling to compose another story that relied on plot devices used a dozen times over in JAFF.
Then, sometime in the middle of last year as I was writing The Pilgrim: Lydia Bennet and a Soldier’s Portion, something clicked. It may have been Lydia Wickham acting contrary to her nature Canonically memorialized as well as scorched across the pages of a thousand variations pushed out since about 2010. That sense of our core characters acting differently, assuming new guises, sent a glimmer into the darker corners of my mind where it muttered (and gibbered?) through the end of the Lydia book and the composition of my North and South story, Cinders and Smoke.
At some point in early-October, I turned to the idea that was to become In Plain Sight. Making the Lydia alterations my starting point, I asked myself ‘What must Darcy do to lose his pride and begin to appreciate the people around him if Elizabeth’s Hunsford rejection was not the cause?’ After considerable mulling, my search for a satisfying plot path hit a brick wall. I could not see a way that Fitzwilliam Darcy, master of Pemberley, could set aside his pride and become a fully dimensional person. And, there it was—right in the center of my problem. He could not as long as he was master of Pemberley. That man could only respond to the Hunsford disaster: the denial of his most cherished wish. I needed to have him become another, an inversion of the character with whom we are so familiar., in order to allow him to grow in the manner I would like to write.
Now, I am not a particularly religious man. Even though my books are replete with Christian and Eastern mystic references, these are artifacts of a Swedish Lutheran childhood. That said, our Nineteenth Century characters are people of faith and not Nietzsche’s children, and, thus, allusions to religion and faith are relevant.
As I began to look at inverting Darcy, I was reminded of the story of the Prodigal Son. By the time of George Darcy’s death, Fitzwilliam Darcy has risen to the top of the heap. He was in possession of his birthright at the age of twenty-three. How could this man learn what he needed to learn in order to become worthy of Elizabeth’s love? If Darcy was at the pinnacle, who would be at the absolute (white man’s) social nadir? Like the biblical young man, he would have to lose it all, to be stripped down to his barest essentials.
He would be convicted and relegated to toil, hidden in plain sight, from all of those who would have condescended to know him before.
Once I hit upon that solution, much more moved into position. Now that Darcy was invisible to everybody except the men to whom he was chained, how could he interact with Elizabeth? That forced me to consider the person of Miss Elizabeth Rose Bennet. As a gentleman’s daughter, what did she know and who did she see? Canonical readers and fans of #Austenesque works tend to pigeonhole Elizabeth as somewhat saintly and most certain without fault—except for her nasty proclivity to mimic certain Derbyshire gents in jumping to conclusions.
Yet, would not the daughter of Longbourn be equally susceptible to classism? While she is not of the first circles, are we to assume that those attitudes of superiority did not percolate downward toward the sparrows from the eagles? This gave me a mobilizer for Elizabeth and Smith’s relationship. She was in her own, as well as society’s eyes, so far above the convict as the master of Pemberley was above the second daughter of a modest country gentleman.
Now, Elizabeth had to learn that labels do not make the man. Does Collins become an exemplar of saintly rectitude simply because he is ordained? Much as Lydia discovered that the color of uniform does not define the valor of the man wearing it, so too will Lizzy Bennet find that checkered shirts and canvas pantaloons do not determine the inner qualities of the person before her.
In Plain Sight is, I believe, an honest work. It offers up our hero and heroine in a new light. It moves them through an unfamiliar word growing from the whole cloth of the great work. The novel tells the love story in a way that will be seen as unusual and stepping beyond the norm.
What are your thoughts? Both Don and I would like you to share your ideas, your opinions, your comments to his explanation and, if you keep reading below, to this excerpt where Elizabeth starts seeing…
Excerpt from Chapter 16, In Plain Sight
In the parlor of the Longbourn Dower House where Elizabeth Bennet watches over the unconscious foundling carried there by Mr. Fitzwilliam.
…
The past few days had been ones of harsh reality for Elizabeth Bennet. She had yet to fully appreciate what she had seen and felt.
Have I been so sheltered as not to understand the cruelties—both petty and great—that surround me? Upon what is my world built? Is it the sands of propriety or the sound stone of wide-opened eyes?
First the flogging of that poor boy.
Then came Mary’s betrothal when none of her sisters had even imagined that she harbored the ability to own such tender feelings.
Mr. Collins’s pique at being denied the £300 from Longbourn’s living showed me another side of placing the control of church offices into the hands of those who see themselves as betters. For their own purposes—to maintain their power—they would manipulate others of weaker spirit, unctuous men like my cousin, men who should only pay fealty to the Heavenly Father. Instead, they bow and scrape before unscrupulous men, moneychangers all, who prey on the fear and blindness of those for whom they are supposedly responsible. If I hear William Collins say the word ‘patroness’ one more time…
And now this poor fellow—Mr. Smith according to Mr. Fitzwilliam—lies with one foot in the grave. He was not condemned to the gibbet by a Red Judge. Yet, here he now rests: sentenced and punished by those not wearing robes of authority. But for what reason?
He rose against the cruelty of the barnyard, living that which we have been taught every Sunday. Did that warrant his death? Or is there a darker reason?
If it had not been for the long figure stretched out before her, Lizzy would have pulled on her pelisse, soiled or not, and launched herself into a pilgrimage across Longbourn’s fields toward Lucas Lodge. She needed Charlotte’s advice right now.
There was something about this man, something that led known—and unknown—bits of her body to warm and tingle in manners that were neither uncomfortable nor unwelcome. Her diet of novels that inspired romantic visions did not blind her to what was happening. Charlotte could help her sort this since Jane yet traveled.
She was attracted to this man, a convict, someone so far outside of her sphere and so wholly unsuitable to be the object of her ruminations as to be toxic to her wellbeing. Yet, there was a nobility about him that shone forth and led her to believe, to pray, that there was more to his tale than that which people would claim after seeing him labor under the watch of armed guards. Lizzy appreciated that he was a fine figure of a man and hoped to learn more. She was frustrated by his continued insensibility.
After Mary’s revelations, Elizabeth had decided to look beyond first impressions. That she had condemned her sister as being bedeviled by a poverty of spirit because Mary affected a dowdy façade was to her shame.
Now, she chose to look beneath, to peel back the layers of a person and seek the golden kernel hidden within. However, she could not ignore the fact that a lack of appearance and gentle behavior—her cousin Collins being a prime example—did predispose her to dislike persons who inflicted themselves upon her when she did not desire them.
Here before her was an early test of her new resolve.
Elizabeth could not believe that Smith was a common criminal. He was anything but ordinary. That bare minute in front of the Netherfield barn had shown Lizzy that he knew how a gentleman carried himself—or at least how she imagined a sophisticated man-about-town would seem: acting neither as rake nor rattle. He had stepped forward to end the outrage rather than holding back with the other convicts, content to bay like a pack of hounds when the Master of the Hunt held high the fox’s torn carcass.
Dependence upon appearance as the sole basis for ascribing character could lead to misunderstanding and prejudice. After all, was that not the case with King Richard III who was portrayed as a hunchback by the Bard, contrary to recorded history? The audiences in the pit easily understood that Henry Tudor, clear-eyed and upright, had earned the right to rule in place of the deformed usurper.
But Lizzy knew that she had little choice except to consider physical manifestations as the freshly wound ormolu clock chimed its way through the quarters while she sat there. She consoled herself with the thought that the poor man could barely speak when conscious, let alone engage in revealing conversation. Thus, she would have to use that which she could observe. Yet, her examinations of men as they slept were rightly limited to her father when she came upon him in his library after he had imbibed one too many brandies.
Even though she had never inspected any other men, she had, oddly, tried to sketch William Collins after he had brushed the crumbs from his black waistcoat and climbed the stairs to his chamber. Did he wash away the sweat of the day before he slid on his nightshirt?
Huffing slightly, she tried to expunge from her thoughts the repellant image of her cousin abed fast asleep. Even in repose, she shuddered; Collins’s inherent nature shone through, illuminating all in a greasy light that was roiled with his obsequious comments.
On the contrary, Lizzy felt that she could see a well-bred refinement shaping Smith’s somnolent features. While his closed eyes were marred by the black-and-blue of his beating, Smith’s aquiline nose—swollen—dropped from a broad forehead to end above his cracked and broken lips. Even these, when the swelling was ignored, may have been found gracing a likeness of an ermine-clad noble in a great house’s gallery.
Yet, Elizabeth Bennet had not been brought into the manor house only in the past week. She had become the family’s skeptic, especially as Meryton was changing with the influx of commerce in the form of Watson’s Mill, the Canal, and tradesmen attracted by the wartime economy. Her private mission was to protect her sisters’ virtues. She had never feared that Mary or Jane would have compromised bedrock principles, so Kitty and Lydia were her unwitting charges. To prepare herself, Lizzy had watched the militia officers stationed on the parade grounds above the Mimram. She had learned that an easy appearance coupled with gentle manners and a glib tongue could certainly hide a deficiency of honor and a wastrel’s inclinations. Too many of the town’s young women had been dispatched to “visit their widowed aunts in the country” for Lizzy to accept a redcoat’s blandishments toward herself, Kitty, and Lydia.
She contemplated the conundrum known as William Smith as he snored softly in his drug-induced torpor.
Yes, a judge had sentenced him to toil as punishment. However, she could not believe that he had fallen as the result of a terrible character defect. Likely, his perdition came about because of remarkable circumstances that overwhelmed engrained probity.
After all, even though he was nearly comatose when she discovered him, had he not urged her to abandon him by the roadside as anything less would have been a violation of propriety? This was surely a sign of a refined temperament. His simple act of defending a friend convinced Elizabeth that he had redeeming qualities that were the strakes atop oaken ribs that made up the man called Smith.
Papa once had counseled her—referring to the Biblical admonition—that one can never build a house upon a foundation made of sand. Men and women needed secure stone footings to build upright lives.
William Smith had shown underpinnings redolent of unshakable principles. Soon Elizabeth would discover whether his edifice was mansion or shanty.
Is it not very interesting? I know it is maybe a very simple idea what I am going to say but for me reading this excerpt and “putting myself” on her place, I just thought about the English expression of “the penny dropped“. What do you think? Let us know.
Do not forget that this post is included in a blog tour with awesome stops, go, check them and enjoy!
June 17 Diary of an Eccentric
June 18 Interests of a Jane Austen Girl
June 19 Austenesque Reviews
June 20 Donadee’s Corner
June 22 From Pemberley to Milton
June 23 My Vices and Weaknesses
June 24 Savvy Verse & Wit
June 25 So Little Time…
June 26 Babblings of a Bookworm
Are you interested on buying In Plain Sight? Here are a few options:
Amazon US Amazon UK Amazon CA Amazon DE
Meryton Press is giving away 8 eBooks for 8 winners of In Plain Sight by Don Jacobson. Click the link below and follow instructions.
Happy New Year 2019!
What a great way of starting the year I have: introducing The Avenger: Thomas Bennet and a Father’s Lament by Don Jacobson!
You may be asking yourself, why is it a great way of starting the year? Apart from the obvious part of this being a book from an author that I really enjoy… it is also one of my New Year’s resolutions to read The Bennet Wardrobe series. I have read two of them so far and I want to read them all (even the ones I have already read). Don Jacobson has created an amazing world where Pride and Prejudice‘s characters originally created by Jane Austen have a new level of adventures. Just for you to have an idea, you could read my review of The Exile: Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque.
Today Don is sharing a lot of information about the wardrobe and how it works. Moreover, he is giving us a bonus, we have a big part of Chapter 23 waiting for us to enjoy (just keep reading after the giveaway).
Let me (re)introduce you to the author, Don Jacobson:
Don Jacobson has written professionally for forty years. His output has ranged from news and features to advertising, television and radio. His work has been nominated for Emmys and other awards. He has previously published five books, all non-fiction. In 2016, he published the first volume of The Bennet Wardrobe Series—The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey, novel that grew from two earlier novellas. The Exile is the second volume of The Bennet Wardrobe Series. Other JAFF P&P Variations include the paired books “Of Fortune’s Reversal” and“The Maid and The Footman”.
Jacobson holds an advanced degree in History with a specialty in American Foreign Relations. As a college instructor, Don teaches United States History, World History, the History of Western Civilization and Research Writing.
He is a member of JASNA-Puget Sound. Likewise, Don is a member of the Austen Authors collective (see the internet, Facebook and Twitter).
He lives in the Seattle, WA area with his wife and co-author, Pam, a woman Ms. Austen would have been hard-pressed to categorize, and their rather assertive four-and-twenty pound cat, Bear. Besides thoroughly immersing himself in the JAFF world, Don also enjoys cooking; dining out, fine wine and well-aged Scotch whiskey.
His other passion is cycling. Most days from April through October will find him “putting in the miles” around the Seattle area (yes, there are hills). He has ridden several “centuries” (100 mile days). Don is especially proud that he successfully completed the AIDS Ride—Midwest (500 miles from Minneapolis to Chicago) and the Make-A-Wish Miracle Ride (300 miles from Traverse City, MI to Brooklyn, MI).
You can follow and contact Don through different ways:
Don Jacobson’s Amazon Author’s Page
Goodreads Author’s Page (with blog)
Author Website (with blog)
Twitter (@AustenesqueAuth)
Blurb
Bennet looked at his wife’s swollen lips, softly bruised from several deeply loving kisses, and her flushed complexion, as alluring when gracing the countenance of a woman of four-and-forty as that of a girl of nine-and-ten. He was one of the lucky few to have fallen in love with the same woman at both ages.
Thomas Bennet, Master of Longbourn, had always counted himself amongst the few educated gentlemen of his acquaintance. But, he had to travel over 120 years into the future to discover how little he knew about the woman sharing his life.
Once again, the amazing Bennet Wardrobe proved to be the schoolmaster. Tom Bennet’s lesson? Mrs. Bennet had been formed especially for him. Yet, t’would be the good lady herself who taught him the power of the Fifth and Sixth Loves: Redemption and Forgiveness.
Fanny Bennet also would uncover deep wells of courage and inspiration as she stood by her man’s side in the bleak years after World War II. Together they would lead their descendants in pursuit of the beast who had wronged every member of the Five Families.
The Bennet Wardrobeseries stands alone…
The Avenger takes us on a new journey through The Bennet Wardrobe– an alternate universe rising from Don Jacobson’s vivid imagination and based upon the immortal Pride and Prejudice. The Avenger is another important step leading to the culmination of this enchanting trip: one that has drawn us into its reality to travel side-by-side with richly sketched characters. Each book has left us wanting more.
The Bennet Wardrobe series stands alone as a unique result of originality focused on beloved characters as they move—and grow—through surprising plotlines.
Lory Lilian, author of Rainy Days
Interview: Of things Wardrobe and Avenger
Thank you very much, Don for visiting us today. Readers, I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I have. I have learnt a lot about the Wardrobe and its functioning and I find very interesting the idea of solipcism.
Why the Wardrobe as a device to create a story arc in the Pride & Prejudice Universe?
Many #Austenesque writers have sought to carry on the ODC story by offering the younger sisters their own storylines. Epilogues usually place Mr. Bennet in the bowels of the Pemberley Library. Mrs. Bennet is rarely mentioned—and is often suddenly dispatched with a bout of apoplexy.
I felt that there needed to be a different possibility… that each of these characters could enjoy fulfilling lives once they had overcome the inner demons holding them back. Could they have done that by staying on the Regency timeline? Perhaps.
However, something tickled my brain—perhaps it was my adolescent fascination with science fiction mixing with my much more adult appreciation of the Canon—that placed the Wardrobe up in front of me. Now my protagonists could be immersed in different timeframes beyond the Regency to learn that which they needed to learn in order to realize their potentials.
I adhere to the idea—solipcism—posited by the great speculative fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein: that through the act of writing fiction, the reality in which that fiction exists is created. Thus, the writings of Jane Austen created a universe in which Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet…or Thomas and Fanny Bennet…are as real as you and I. In addition, I have used my author’s prerogative to make them aware of their context, often through the device of tasking historical characters to play a part in advancing the plot or providing needed exposition.
What is the Wardrobe and how does it work?
The Bennet Wardrobe was created by the master cabinetmaker Grinling Gibbons, one of those historical personages previously mentioned, in the early 1690s for the first Bennet to own Longbourn Estate in Meryton, Mr. Christopher Bennet. This Bennet had earned his fortune with the Honorable East India Company (HEIC).
Gibbons, a friend of Isaac Newton’s and a follow student of the universe, had divined a way to create a mystical transport device/system (similar to C.S. Lewis’ Wardrobe, J.K. Rowling’s Flue Network or Dr. Who’s TARDIS). He took those ideas and incorporated them into the Bennet Wardrobe. The Wardrobe was capable of transporting the user—who must be a Bennet bloodline descendent—to a time in the future where the Wardrobe itself is present. Then the user can return to the exact same moment in the present.
Can the Bennet user go to any time and place in the future they wish?
No. The Wardrobe is driven by an intelligence/understanding that employs what the users need to learn to grow into the best versions of themselves…not what they want…as the determinant for the where/whenfor the solution of the request.
What controls the Wardrobe?
Gibbons discerned a series of “Rules of the Wardrobe” that appeared to be inviolable.
Chief amongst these, after the bloodline requirement, were that travel could only be accomplished to the future. No travel to the past prior to that instant was possible.
The second critical rule was that all trips needed to be round trips. Thus, while a user could travel to the future, the user’s next use of the Wardrobe would result in a return to the where/whenfrom which the user departed.
How does the Wardrobe play a role in the Sixth volume of the series?
In The Avenger: Thomas Bennet and a Father’s Lament, the Wardrobe is used twice.
Before I move on with this response, I must note that The Wardrobe is a plot device. The Bennet Wardrobe stories and novels are a chronicle of the Bennet Family of Meryton… and how they are afforded the opportunity to redeem themselves, to grow beyond the plot devices established by Miss Austen. Thus, you will not see the Bennets flitting around time and space. T’would be distracting.
However, the first time the Wardrobe is employed…three years after the double wedding…Thomas Bennet is responding to his wife’s frequently voiced desire to see Kitty. The fourth daughter, at least according to Mr. Bennet, had been dispatched to a seminary in Cornwall to make reparations for her role in the Lydia affair in December 1811.
Bennet discovers… and he would not learn this epigram until later as his youngest had yet to utter the words… that The Wardrobe has a particularly nasty sense of humor. He had desired to bring his wife (suitably drugged with laudanum) to a where/when—the future (see both Volumes of The Exile)—for a brief conference with their darling girl. Sadly, the Wardrobe decided to send Thomas Bennet to a time and place…and a situation…where he could lift himself up from being the indolent father.
You have mentioned that Bennets are transported to times where they can ‘become the best versions of themselves.’ What does this mean?
This is my formulation of what I have determined to be The Fifth Love(moving beyond C.S. Lewis’ Four Loves). Exagoras Agapis is the love which redeems. I see the Fifth Love as an active force…unlike The Four Loves which describe states of being…driving persons to rectify their shortcomings so as to become worthy of the object of their affections.
For all my conversations about “secondary characters,” the first example of redemptive love is found in Pride and Prejudice itself. After Hunsford and Darcy’s letter, both Darcy and Elizabeth undergo tectonic changes in their personalities, outlooks, ad behaviors. All of these shifts are examples of Exagoras Agapis, two centuries before I articulated it.
However, t’is Mrs. Bennet… as she herself begins the final assault on the heights of her flighty personality construct in Book Two of The Avenger… who offers an introduction to the love which redeems.
Chapter XV (August 1947)
On the slopes of Oakham Mount
©2018 by Don Jacobson. All rights reserved. Reproduction—either mechanical or electronic—without the written consent of the copyright holder is prohibited.
[Here Mrs. Bennet, while in conversation with her husband, uses self-hypnosis to reach out to her Inner Guide, a being with whom she had not conversed since shortly after her marriage to Bennet in early 1789.]
Her eyes drifted shut as she slid down through the layers of noise that had impeded her mentalitée until she arrived at a space so familiarly quiet that an ineffable sense of peace flooded over her. T’was then that she felt the other…one particularly familiar in her ancient comfort yet having not been called upon for decades.
Is it you? I thought you had abandoned me.
>could not rise past lace, children, confusion, anger, fear
Why now?
The form/not form/color/arc shot throughout the vault, as if rejoicing in its liberation. In its passage, a calming smoothed the matte surface that was the slate of her inner being.
>exagoras agapis[i]
Exagoras agapis? What is that? From where did it come?
>the love that redeems
>given you by the Bennet, grasped by your soul
>the desire to be the better version of self
But why now?
>Founder needs you, your strength. but I cannot…
>too new…draw closer for help
At this, a great china-blue strand whipped across the field. With dread, Fanny observed a night black blade drop and cleave it in twain. One portion shriveled and vanished, the other floated, unanchored.
>take it
As the viable strand passed into her possession, she was surrounded by dunes covered with carpets of roses…of all colors. The sound of the sea swished in her core, and she sensed another approaching, sweeping down from behind the crest of the sandy mounds. Then all sound was cast in the richest of green hues.
>mother Gardiner-Bennet
Do I know you?
>i am of yours…not the Countess, but her guide…here for moment.
Are you suggesting that you are “neither Kitty nor Kate” but are like mine, but hers?
>yes…ask…
Where is my girl?
>…not here…gone out, above plane…ask
What happened to her?
>blackness…around…suddenness…noise…pressure…release
What???
><indistinct> winter rose
The flower? There are no roses that bloom in winter.
>truth…browned canes…waiting pruning…even now…black flower.
>rosa chinensis will triumph…ask
Rosa Chinensis like what I introduced from Mama’s garden into Longbourn’s?
>…Gardiner is mother bush from which all Bennet roses bloom…
>…Founder cannot succeed without the rosa merytonensis…
>…help him, mama…ma…ma………..ma….
A great wind arose and swept the emerald filament off into infinity…and silence resumed.
A tear slid down from beneath a closed lid as Mrs. Bennet realized that, for all the abuse and disquiet she had absorbed over four-and-ten years in the wilderness, she was the missing link.
From Chapter XVI
…
Squaring her shoulders, she spoke in a low, but firm voice, “You saw me just now. You may have thought I was not attending to that which you were saying. I assure you that I was…on one level.
“However, most of my senses were elsewhere. T’is akin to a trance, I imagine. I fall into it when I clear away all distractions and carefully focus my eyes on something like the leaves above us or the upper corner of a room where two walls and the ceiling meet. That permits me to separate myself from my cares and concerns, something I wish I had done these four-and-ten years past.
“As my concentration deepens, my eyes eventually drift shut, the outside world vanishes, and, with my mind clear, I find myself able to commune with…with…oh, I do not know with what or whom. T’is a force, a power, a being. I have always called her my Guide.
“We have conversations. I ask her questions, and she helps me find true solutions to my problems where, in my consciousness, I would seek to derive emotional comfort from false or partial solutions. These invariably lead to nowhere.
“Consider the ultimate false solution.
“I forced you to bow to my demand that each of our beloved girls come outwhen she reached five-and-ten. I wanted each to steal a march on other young ladies in her cohort; to attract the attention of a marriageable man and secure her…my…future.
“While the first four avoided disaster, we now know what my need to protect the girls from the entail led to with the fifth. Lydia will enjoy none of the perquisites relished by our other girls who waited until after their twentieth year to wed.”
Fanny had once again clambered off the fallen tree trunk, so comfortable for her long-legged husband, but a bit elevated for a woman who barely troubled five feet when measured in her satin dance slippers. She stood facing Bennet and made her case with hard-edged hand gestures and broad arm sweeps as if the bowl of Oakham’s slope rising above was home to benches filled with eager students. From time to time her sky-blue eyes would settle on Tom’s hazel orbs and her voice dropped as she sought to drive home her points.
“False solutions, Tom, are the path to ruin,” she continued. “I know.
“T’is not that I had forgotten about my Guide or what I could accomplish with her aid, but rather I was so disturbed after…after…well…the babe…that I could not have settled myself long enough to seek her out.
“I became more and more like my sister; concerned about fripperies and gossip and not on our family. Would that I could have modeled my comportment after Edward.”
How did you enjoy the interview and the excerpts? I believe Don has treated us with so much information and so much insight in the Bennet Wardrobe that some of you may want to go right now and buy this book (or the whole series):
Amazon US Amazon UK Amazon CA Bookdepository
Blog Tour Schedule
Visit the previous posts to enjoy much more about The Avenger:
28th Dec. 2018 Babblings of a Bookworm; Guest Post, Excerpt, Giveaway
29th Dec. Interests of a Jane Austen Girl; Review, Giveaway
30th Dec. My Love for Jane Austen; Guest Post, Giveaway
2nd Jan. 2019 More Agreeably Engaged; Character Interview, Giveaway
3rd Jan. My Vices and Weaknesses; Author Interview, Giveaway
4th Jan. So Little Time…; Guest Post, Giveaway
5th Jan. My life journey; Review, Excerpt Giveaway
8th Jan. Diary of an Eccentric; Guest Post, Giveaway
9th Jan. From Pemberley to Milton; Excerpt, Giveaway
Time To Give Away
Don is giving away 4 eBooks of The Avenger: Thomas Bennet and a Father’s Lament
Click on the link below to participate on this giveaway. This book, like its series, is worth it!
BONUS
Chapter XXIII
The “New” Carlton Club, St. James Street, London, September 1, 1947
Liebermann’s assertion about Bennet Eyes sent Detachment Anubis scrambling as this was the first real clue they had uncovered besides the murderer’s rank and service branch. A trusted forensic artist had been sent over for an impromptu Deauville vacation—something about which her husband and children were justifiably thrilled. Liebermann sat with her, much to Madame Liebermann’s displeasure, for two whole days until an accurate sketch of the subject was generated.
Now Anubis had the first item that could be tacked upon the wall in a meeting room, given over to their exclusive use, deep beneath Lincoln’s Inn. Over the following years, hundreds of documents, photographs, and other scraps, culled from a thousand different sources, would find their way onto the beige panels in that subterranean keep. More would be posted and then removed. But the pencil sketch with hazel green eyes remained, the paper gradually yellowing with age.
Still, a portrait of this nature did nothing to bring to light the identity of the culprit. Only Liebermann could pick him out of a crowd, but chances were microscopic that the two would ever be in the same place at the same time. Thus, Bennet had resolved to place the Sergeant where he would do the most good.
To that end, Bennet had prevailed upon the Earl to break through the bureaucratic logjam that was modern government to enable Anubis to insert Liebermann into the bowels of the captured SS Archives consolidated in the suburbs of Nuremberg. There, the sergeant would soon be able to flip through hundreds of thousands of documents collected from the remains of Himmler’s headquarters in Berlin and satellite complexes across Hitler’s Festung Europa that had been captured either whole or in part. Much was duplicated and nearly all was on paper. The process of microfilming the trove had barely begun and was anticipated to take years.
However, there was a chance that Liebermann would find his man’s photo attached to a personnel record. However, Bennet assumed that the Sergeant’s patience would fail long before achieving positive results. Yet, try they must for all earlier efforts had generated nothing.
The Earl resolved to pull two specific levers to execute Bennet’s wishes.
The first was to employ Lizzy Schiller’s wartime service with General Clay. He gambled that the High Commissioner of the Military Government (US) would respond to an appeal directly delivered by his former driver to allow a demobilized German subaltern into the closely held archives, usually available only to the Nuremburg Tribunal attorneys. Using Lizzy as his emissary likely would guarantee the High Commissioner would consent to a meeting, however brief. Clay knew Lizzy’s background and connections from his earlier history with the young lady. And, knowing what he did of Matlock’s other role, Clay would instantly accept a verbal message from Mrs. Schiller.
Lizzy’s maid pulled the young matron’s WREN uniform from storage and brushed it, all the while wondering if birthing a young heir for the Schiller line would have rendered the question of the outfit ever fitting again asked and answered. However, Mrs. Schiller’s daily rambles across the hillsides flowing down from the Peak toward her mother’s seat at the rose-colored sandstone mansion in Derbyshire proved to be the deciding factor. With one or two minor adjustments to the rich blue skirt to accommodate Lizzy’s now-womanly hips, the outfit settled onto her frame as if it had not been put aside since May 1945.
Lizzy and Alois boarded an American DC-3 at RAF Biggin Hill, and the aircraft soared toward occupied Germany. Operation Anubis came to life as soon as the transport’s wheels left the ground.
The Earl, however, refused to place all his eggs in the figurative single basket. That was the purpose of this session in the bastion of British Conservative Party politics. This was his second pressure point.
The Earl had been warmly greeted by the Carlton’s gatekeepers. However, they balked at admitting the stranger who accompanied him. While Matlock was long seen as apolitical by the Club’s staff, his more unusual activities had left him with an after-image, an aura that was more soiled than pristine; nothing confirmed, of course. The sense of his being involved in a world that would normally be eschewed by the more proper gentlemen who inhabited the paneled rooms overlooking St. James Street imbued attendants with a sense of caution that precluded admitting any unknown persons accompanying the Earl. The staff, therefore, sought to refuse admittance to Bennet.
M, in his guise as Matlock, had an ace up his sleeve. However, as Thomas Fitzwilliam was an eminently honorable man, he would have found that metaphor to be distasteful. In truth, the capital card had been face-down—and un-played—on the table for more than a century…literally from the first day of the Club in 1832.
“Now, Henderson, I do appreciate that you have taken it upon yourself to uphold the Club’s standards. However, I assure you that Mr. Bennet has the same right to be here as I do,” Matlock vowed.
The employee was unfazed.
“I am sorry, my Lord. I do not recognize the gentleman, and, while you vouch for his bona fides, I am not comfortable in seeing him enter here as he may be tainted with unsavory associations. You understand, sir, that I must protect the reputation of the Club,” the man respectfully replied.
Throughout this, Bennet watched, bemused, his grandson, a peer of the realm, doing battle with a banty rooster decked out in the finest livery and determined to protect his coop.
Shaking his head, the Earl let drop a hammer, one that carried little meaning to the attendant beyond shifting the discussion to a level far above his pay grade, “Please send for Managing Director Matthews. Advise that he needs must bring the Club’s membership roster found in his safe. There is but one.”
Henderson picked up a telephone receiver from behind his podium and briefly spoke into it conveying the Earl’s instructions.
Within five minutes, a compact man bustled down the grand staircase. In his arms he cradled a large volume.
Striding across the lobby, he motioned the Earl and Bennet over to a large table flanking the wall adjacent to the entrance. Taking a moment to arrange the leather-bound book on the slab, he turned to the two men. Brief introductions were made. The Earl then took over the conversation.
“Matthews: do you accept me at my word that the gentleman accompanying me is a certain Mr. Thomas Michael Bennet of Meryton, Hertfordshire?”
The official assured him that he would never presume to question the veracity of any statement made by the Earl of Matlock.
Fitzwilliam continued, “Excellent. Then I repeat my assertion made to Henderson. Mr. Bennet has every right to enter the halls of the Carlton Club either by my side or without me—in fact his right to be here long predates mine.”
A look of outrage at the idea that someone who had not been vetted by the Membership Committee entering the sacred precincts reshaped Matthews features. He chose a milder tack, though, when he demurred by saying, “I have never heard of Mr. Bennet, and I have been associated with the Club since your father’s day.”
The Earl glared and uttered an imprecation under his breath before firmly sticking a pin in the supercilious attitude with which he had been met, “Then look in your roster, man…”
Had the Earl finally slipped a cog, Matthews wondered? As the Carlton’s Managing Director, part of his remit was to know every active member and have at least a passing awareness of those who had stepped away from Westminster’s fray and had permanently retreated to their country homes. To his mind, this gentleman from Hertfordshire—more likely a forger from Prague given the number of words the man had not uttered—resembled nobody Matthews knew. He did bear an uncanny resemblance to Matlock. Perhaps, Matthews mused, the Earl had taken to travelling with a body double: someone destined to take a bullet otherwise intended for him? In any event, this person was not Carlton caliber, of that Matthews was sure.
Matthews opened the great roster with exaggerated movements indicating that he truly believed that he had been dragged from his office on a fool’s errand. He turned toward the back of the book which drew an exasperated sigh from Matlock.
“No, Matthews…the front of the book. Look at the first two pages.”
Matthews shrugged, perhaps suggesting that aristocrats, particularly those of the older families, had been known to become increasingly eccentric in their middle years. He knew that those first two pages contained the names of the Carlton’s founding members who had met at the Thatched Coffee House in the aftermath of the Great Reform Act of 1832. While there were some legacy members who had descended from the Originals, their names were entered later in the book. But, he turned to the front of the ledger and dutifully ran his well-manicured forefinger down the columns of member names and their sponsors.
And, there on the second page, about halfway down he discovered something quite shocking.
Thos. M. Bennet of Longbourn, Meryton, Hertshire
by Lord Matlock, Genl. Sir Richard Fitzwilliam KCB
“And, Matthews, if you check your records, this member, number 93, has regularly paid his dues for 115 years,” the Earl growled, “but, I do not expect you to question the plausibility of such as this. Rather, I insist that you cease any further interference and that you admit Mr. Bennet immediately. He has a meeting with the Member for Woodford.[i]
“You will now forget his antecedents. Know that if he wishes to dine here or entertain, his charges will be handled in the usual manner, unless, of course, you would prefer that he frequent his other club—the Reform.”
***
“Officious bureaucrat,” groused Matlock as he and Bennet left the puzzled manager and amused doorman behind as they climbed the great staircase to the member’s lounge that stretched across the St. James’ front of the structure.
Bennet chuckled and laid a comforting hand on his grandson’s shoulder, “Now, Tom, you will give yourself an apoplexy if you let every little thing set your teeth on edge. I was finding the sparring match between you and Mr. Matthews to be quite amusing.
“He reminded me of my cousin Coll…”
The Earl cut him off snapping, “Nobody mentions that man’s name in the hearing of any of the Five Families.”
Astonished at the reproof, Bennet backtracked, “That I did not know. You will have to explain the reasoning behind this injunction sometime.
“What I had planned to say was that Matthews had many of the more irritating qualities that my…cousin…exhibited minus the oleaginous bowing and scraping for which he was legend.
“Now, before we walk in, please tell me something about the man we are to meet.”
A thumbnail of one of the century’s dominant political figures followed and occupied the remainder of their passage across the vast wood-paneled room, their footsteps muffled by the deep pile of exquisite carpeting. The room itself was nearly deserted as members were still making their way back to the capital with the completion of their vacation journeys and the end of the house party season. Individual members consoled themselves in their loneliness with copies of the day’s broadsheets and early afternoon bracers of whiskey or brandy.
However, one small grouping in the pre-eminent position of the room’s geography—adjacent to the great fireplace, cold now—drew Matlock and Bennet to it. There they saw a roly-poly figure of a man, his bald pate shining in the sunlight streaming through the great windows that occupied one long wall. Occupied with a tall whiskey and soda and an equally imposing cigar upon which he puffed from time-to-time, the gentleman was surrounded by two acolytes who relaxed in the great man’s presence, comfortably laughing as he offered some trenchant commentary. The younger men, solely from their manner, impressed Bennet not as lackeys but rather as lessers in the orbit of one who was the first amongst equals.
Winston Churchill, out of office for two years, was now in his 73rd year and continued as leader of the Conservative Party. His health had recovered from the vicissitudes of his wartime service, and he once again relished the rough and tumble of parliamentary politics. Churchill regularly heaped unique levels of scorn upon the Labour government headed by Clement Atlee, continuing his thirty-year battle against the dangers of Socialism first launched in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. Already he had begun to feel the pain of having outlived many of his contemporaries who had already succumbed to upper class lifestyles dominated by cigars, drink, and rich food. Thus, he had necessarily surrounded himself with men twenty to thirty years his junior: good men, but of a different generation without personal memories of late 19th Century global forces that had shaped Churchill’s life and worldview. Two of those, R.A. Butler and Brendan Bracken, sat by him now.[ii]
The former premier espied Matlock and his guest crossing the floor in his direction. He waited until the pair had pulled to a halt in front of his station before he curtly dismissed the other two gentlemen saying, “Rab, Brendan…leave us.”
To their credit, neither man, so familiar each was with Churchill’s behavior, bridled at their man’s brusque manner. They simply rose and, unintroduced, nodded to the Earl and Bennet before departing.
The Leader of the Opposition gazed upwards from his leather wingback. He had known Matlock for decades, both as a young man before his elevation upon his father’s death as well as his wartime M, having swept the previous master of British intelligence out the door with the rest of the appeasers. Churchill’s interest was arrested, though, by the remarkable resemblance between the two men in front of him. Oh, there were differences. Matlock seemed a softer, newer version—Fitzwilliamed, it seemed, on top of another stock—of the other fellow; the latter had apparently sprung from an earlier graft upon their common family tree. However, dismissing superficial differences, the two men were clearly related. The most distinctive variance was to be found in their eyes, similar in their unique cast, something which was held in common by every member of the Five Families, but different in color. The Earl’s were his father’s steel grey. The other gentleman’s eyes were hazel.
Churchill, turning his penetrating gaze directly upon Bennet, drank in a vision of the male version of someone he had last encountered in early 1940. As was frequently his wont when he turned something over in his capacious mind, muttered in sotto voce, “So, you would have me meet a Mr. Bennet of Hertfordshire. Is he the same Bennet written about by Miss Austen, I wonder? I recall talking with Holmes about his belief that Pride and Prejudice was a work of non-fiction published as a romantic novel.
“This fellow does look like a former Miss Bennet who, with her husband the Earl, dined with Clemmie and I at Selkirk when we abandoned Sunny and Consuelo at Blenheim and dashed off to the Peaks in ’07.”[iii]
Then he subsided into himself, content for the moment to await the opening gambit of the Earl of Matlock whom he knew to be as crafty and cagey as any man on the planet. He motioned the two to take up the seats recently emptied by Butler and Bracken. However, M surprised his old employer with something thoroughly unexpected, a remarkable amount of candor.
“Winston…I sent you some information on Mr. Bennet when I requested this meeting. I can tell you little beyond that which you already know about him. I will offer that he has travelled an unimaginable distance to be here today. I trust that you will allow me to leave you in the dark concerning Bennet’s background, although I am certain that you may have already arrived at some conclusions that you may wish to discuss with Lindemann.[iv]
“Beyond some intentional smudging around the edges, I want to apprise you of the true reason we are here today.
“Bennet and I need your help in convincing Atlee to allow one of our people free rein in the SS archives collected at Nuremburg.
“I have asked Bennet’s help in tracking down the SS colonel who orchestrated the death of my mother, my son, his wife, and their two children along with over a dozen other innocents since the end of the war. Mr. Bennet has a peculiar and equally strong interest, akin to my own, in bringing this monster to justice; his obsession is one which would do our friends in Palestine credit.
“We have created a special detachment in MI6—limited to only a few trusted persons, taking a page from Holmes’ pursuit of Moriarty—that will strain neither the resources of the agency nor the black portions of the broader budget. Instead, the Five Families, as this is predominantly their concern, will bear the cost…and I advise you that we are prepared to beggar our treasuries to catch this creature.
“We have already eliminated the actual trigger men in an operation at the end of last month. Now we pursue their leader, a man who has wreaked so much havoc upon our families,” Matlock explained.
Churchill blinked as he digested the aristocrat’s presentation. He already had determined that he would intercede with the Prime Minister, but, in his own way, he needed to glean a nugget of something which the Earl had intentionally left unsaid. He would get the measure of Thomas Bennet and then gracefully subside having had his entertainment.
He tried to pin Bennet using his fiercest glare before launching his assault.
“Now, Mr. Thomas Bennet of Hertfordshire, tell me why you must send someone to crawl through Himmler’s sewer?” Churchill aggressively demanded.
Bennet sat back for a moment. The politician’s manner reminded him of his brother Gardiner when the man had begun a complicated negotiation and was seeking to put his opposite number on his back foot. However, Thomas Bennet, MA, Cambridge, ’82, had not wasted his time in the halls of academe. He knew how to deal with examination boards made up of older men with calcified minds.
Churchill, surely a descendant of Queen Anne’s great captain John Churchill, was not a victim of the worst of all sins, an unexamined mind. He would not be a push-over and would never respect a man who could not join in battle on the same level. An audacious move would be the only path forward.
Bennet, thus, exposed his Queen.
Surprising his host, Bennet turned to the Earl and addressed him as his subordinate, “Tom, I must ask you to rise and stand post over us to ensure that none may overhear. I am invoking our new rule.”
Surprising Churchill, the Earl, long known in some circles to be Britain’s most powerful non-member of Government, simply nodded and rose to his feet in a manner identical to that recently exhibited by two members of the Conservative Shadow Cabinet. He moved off a few paces and faced the room, beginning a metronomic scan that took in every person within fifty feet.
Then Bennet addressed his interrogator, his Hertfordshire “r’s” rolling off the back of his tongue, making his speech sound even more archaic in a London so recently overrun by Americans and their multitude of accents reshaping and coloring their version of the King’s English.
“Mr. Churchill, I think you are taken with the extraordinary circumstances of a commoner such as I who would presume to order about an Earl, let alone the head of the British Secret Services. I assure you that young Tom would normally have bridled at such cavalier treatment by one so beneath his station.
“Matlock has assured me that you are a man used to keeping confidences of the greatest sort. And, thus, I will offer you a taste of Mankind’s greatest secret. Prior to this, the treasure has been revealed to only two others who were not at the very least married into the Bennet Family or one of its branches.
“You may have learned of the abduction of Miss Catherine Bennet who later became Lady Fitzwilliam, the Countess of Matlock. The young Earl, Henry was his name…”
Churchill briefly interrupted, “He was one of my dearest friends as was his wife Lady Kate.”
Bennet continued after a beat, “Ah yes, Lady Kate. In any event, the 11thEarl consulted with Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson as he searched for her. To meet the detective’s unusual demand for complete transparency, this Earl told him the secret.
“The information I share could shake the foundation of nations if transmitted into the wrong hands. However, we have determined that we must eschew the old ways and include those who would help us in our time of need.
“This explains why you see before you a man born in 1760 seeking vengeance for his murdered daughter and asking for your help.”
A waiter was quickly summoned to refresh Churchill’s drink and to offer Bennet and the Earl their choice of libation. Bennet smiled and chose to indulge himself in one of his favorite drinks—vintage port—in this case a generous snifter of 1931 Quinta do Noval Nacional. After all, he assumed that he was a rich as Croesus and would have ample metal to cover his drinks bill. Then two cigars appeared, duplicating the generous tube sported by Churchill.
In a deepening blue haze, the Edwardian politician and the Regency gentleman leaned toward one another and suspended the rest of the world for a while.
…
Angel Comes to the Devil’s Keep by Regina Jeffers
No, it is not a Pride and Prejudice variation or any variation related to Jane Austen. Carry on reading! Do not stop just because you may think that “you just want JAFF” because Regina has written a great book. Very strong characters and a plot that does not allow you to stop reading.
Love at first sight, just sight actually! Accidents, reputation and honour that needs to be protected, intrigue, murders, stubbornness…
Angelica is an American whose parents are British. Angel comes back to his father’s country to follow the wish her mother had for her: to come out in England. Her manners are not exactly what the ton looks for but she is still a novelty and that is good for gossip at least.
Angelica is determined to pleased his father and look for a good match until she sees his “Lucifer”… in her dreams or not…
A carriage accident occurs and she has to pretend that a gentleman is her husband because she has rescued him. This man eventually has only Angel as the only real part of his life because he has lost his memory during the accident and he sees her as his “Angel” even after he is recovered by his family and Angelica is back to his father’s protection.
However, destiny is vicious and the ton’s invitations cannot be forsake, so Angel goes with his father to the Devil’s Keep where her “husband” is.
Nope, I have not forgotten to mention anyone 😀 you will have to read about him. I am pretty sure that you will like him as much as I do. However, Angel is the character that I have loved the most due to her strength and determination to help everybody and if needed she will sacrifice herself, or her heart to protect others.
Follow Regina or check her books on the links below. I have read quite a few and I recommend you to read her, you will not be disappointing.
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Good morning or good afternoon or even good night for some of you! Yes, I am back after only a week 🙂 I am trying to behave and do not keep you out of the loop. That is why today I am very happy to present Sharon Lathan with her latest book Darcy and Elizabeth: Hope of the Future. It is her second book on her Prequel Saga, our loved protagonists, Elizabeth and Darcy are getting married, aren’t they? …
Blurb of Darcy and Elizabeth: Hope of the Future (Darcy Saga Prequel Book #2)
Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet will soon be joined in Holy Matrimony!
The initial month of their Season of Courtship has passed. Together, the lovers strengthened their bond through honest communication, as they dealt with adversity, jealousy, and distrust. Ever growing in mutual love and understanding, a dramatic confrontation broke through the final barriers.
Now their Hope of the Future “happily ever after” is assured!
As long as Lady Catherine can be stopped in her scheme to interfere, that is. Or, will Mrs. Bennet’s bad advice ruin future marital felicity? Might increasing liberation lead to overwhelming passions that cannot be controlled, with catastrophe a result?
Continue the journey began in Darcy and Elizabeth: A Season of Courtship. Delight in their flourishing romance, ride along on their escapades in London, and be a witness at the wedding of the century.
The miraculous design of how Two Shall Become One begins before the sacred vows.
After this blurb, can you not wait to buy the book? Print or ebook? You could buy both formats here, and also the first book of the saga Darcy and Elizabeth: A Season of Courtship.
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Apart from introducing the book and give you a “male” excerpt for you to enjoy, Sharon has done a guest post where you will find a lot of information about weddings during the Regency. I have learnt a lot, I must admit that I knew maybe half of the facts presented. I would recommend you to read this post but also visit the different posts where her book is being promoted because she has great information to share with all of us.
Let me introduce you to Sharon Lathan in case she may be a new author to you, although she has been written great novels for a long time now:
Sharon Lathan is the best-selling author of The Darcy Saga sequel series to Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice. Her first novel, Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Two Shall Become One, was published in 2009. Sharon’s series of “happily ever after” for the Darcys now totals nine full-length novels and one Christmas themed novella.
Darcy & Elizabeth: A Season of Courtship and Darcy & Elizabeth: Hope of the Future complete the “prequel to the sequel” duo recounting the betrothal months before the Darcy Saga began.
Sharon is a native Californian relocated in 2013 to the green hills of Kentucky, where she resides with her husband of over thirty years. Retired from a thirty-year profession as a registered nurse in Neonatal Intensive Care, Sharon is pursuing her dream as a full-time writer.
Sharon is a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, JASNA Louisville, the Romance Writers of America (RWA), the Beau Monde chapter of the RWA, and serves as the website manager and on the board of the Louisville Romance Writers chapter of the RWA.
Sharon is the co-creator of Austen Authors, a group blog for authors of Austenesque literary fiction. Visit at: www.AustenAuthors.com
Connect with Sharon at the following places:
Website/blog: www.SharonLathanAuthor.com Facebook at Sharon Lathan, Novelist Twitter @SharonLathan Pinterest SharonLathan62
After introducing her, let’s read what Sharon is sharing with us, not only a very “funny” excerpt but also, as mentioned above, interesting information about weddings.
First and foremost, I must thank Ana for hosting me on her blog today. It is a pleasure to be here sharing a bit of wedding history and my latest novel with the My Vices and Weaknesses readers. Darcy and Elizabeth: Hope of the Future is the second book in the two-volume Darcy Saga Prequel Duo, which began with Darcy and Elizabeth: A Season of Courtship. These two novels perfectly fit with my Darcy Saga Sequel to Pride and Prejudice, the series now including nine lengthy novels and one novella.
Regency Wedding Preparations
To understand wedding preparation during the Regency, you must start by erasing everything you envision as part of a modern-day wedding. English weddings prior to the Victorian Era were small, understated events. The primary purpose of the ceremony was the religious solidification of the marriage contract. For the most part, everything was approached with this serious aspect foremost.
The simplicity factor was one reason why the time between proposal to marriage could be very short. For most couples, the two weeks waiting for the three readings of the Banns was plenty of time. A longer courtship period would likely be the result of concerns such as ensuring a house to live in, financial security, and similar practicalities rather than needing time to plan the ceremony itself.
Unless a special license was procured—this was quite rare—or one was of a faith other than the Anglican Church, the wedding procedure was standardised. Couples with extreme wealth and social importance might have a glitzier arrangement and grander celebration, but never the ostentatious affairs we have today.
Location and Timing of the Wedding: An Anglican wedding could take place on any day of the week, but ALL weddings took place in the parish chapel where at least one of the two persons lived. Per Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753, weddings were required to take place during the canonical hours of 8 AM to noon.
Since most members of the ton could claim the fashionable London districts of Mayfair, Grosvenor, and St. James as their residence, the vast majority of Regency weddings took place at Saint George’s Church in Hanover Square. Established in 1725, thousands of weddings were conducted at St. George’s—1063 in 1816 alone!
Wedding Guests: Invitations were handwritten by the bride—if they were sent at all—and depending on her creativity, the invitation may be fancy, but more often it was a basic letter giving the facts.
It was unusual for anyone outside the immediate family and closest friends to attend the ceremony. If family members lived further away they would be notified and an invitation extended, and in special circumstances time may be allowed for travel, but this was not the expectation and no one thought it wrong if they chose not to come. The only essential attendees were the clergyman, parish clerk to ensure formal logging in the register, and two official witnesses.
Local citizens often waited outside the church, ready to cheer and congratulate the newlyweds. It was common for these folks to form a processional behind the couple, shouting well-wishes all the way back to their house.
Bride’s Attendants: A bride was typically assisted by one or two female attendants, perhaps a few more if she was of higher society. These attendants could be married or unmarried and helped the bride in various ways—penning invitations, getting dressed, making the bouquet—and one was designated the official witness for the parish registry.
The term “bridesmaid”—or more commonly “bridemaid” without the S—was in use since the 1500s. “Maid of Honor” was akin to “lady in waiting” so more specifically referred to royal attendants. The use of “maid of honor” in relation to a bridal attendant was a late 19th century, American addition. The term “matron of honor” to specify a married attendant is an Americanism not seen until after 1900.
Groom’s Attendants: Historically, the groomsmen were “blade knights” who served as protectors of the bride and guards for the couple during their vulnerable hours preceding and following the ceremony. We see this same tradition today in military weddings where a sword wielding “honor guard” form the saber arch for the couple to walk through.
Such fears were gone by the civilised Regency. Instead, the enlisted groomsmen were close friends who lent a hand as necessary. With the ceremony being a quiet event, the groom having little to do beyond show up on time, and a bachelor party or extensive reception speech unheard of, groom attendants had minimal stated duties. The number varied, and probably was very small, but as with the bride, one man was designated as the “best man” to stand with the groom and serve as the official witness.
After reading this, I know that I would have been one of these local citizens waiting for Mr and Mrs Fitzwilliam Darcy to leave the church together with Mr and Mrs Charles Bingley J Enjoy the excerpt of a really appealing book.
Excerpt from Darcy and Elizabeth: Hope of the Future
By the time Darcy, Richard, and Georgiana returned to Netherfield, the Hursts and Caroline Bingley had arrived.
“Terrific,” Darcy muttered grumpily upon espying the familiar coach in the drive. It was a sentiment of which neither Colonel Fitzwilliam nor Miss Darcy could disagree.
As per the agenda for the final days and evenings, the brides and grooms would honor tradition by not seeing each other after sundown on the eve of the wedding, meaning they would dine apart. For tonight, however, Mr. Bingley had offered to host at Netherfield. It was the sensible choice, presuming the likelihood of some of their families arriving that day. As it turned out, everyone arrived that day. It was, for all intents, a prewedding reception.
When the dust finally cleared, and the last visitor had departed with the rest retired to their guest quarters, the grooms and Richard Fitzwilliam met in Bingley’s private sitting room.
“Well, that went swimmingly, I’d say.” Richard handed a brandy to Darcy, who grunted, then took a large swallow.
“As swimmingly as in a river of piranhas.”
“Oh, it wasn’t that bad—maybe sharks, or stinging eels, but not piranha level.”
Bingley smiled at Richard’s humor but looked a bit dyspeptic and also gulped at his brandy. “We may as well accept it, Darcy. After all, we will be family in two days so these gatherings, while hopefully rare, will happen from time to time.”
Now it was Darcy’s turn to look ill.
“Does Mr. Hurst ever smile?” Richard blurted in a tone of sincere curiosity.
“Sometimes, I think.” Bingley frowned, then shrugged. “Can’t recall to be honest.”
“Huh. Well, here is to family.” Richard lifted his glass. “Got to love them, for better or worse, sickness and in health, richer or poorer… Wait, that is for spouses. What are the rules for family again?”
“That is the real tragedy. One has no choice in the matter and is stuck with them,” Darcy grumbled.
“Yes, well, cheer up, Cousin. You have me! That is a stupendous blessing from the Almighty. And soon you shall have Bingley here. We make up for a dozen Mr. Hursts or Mrs. Bennets.”
“I suppose I will have to give you that,” Darcy admitted grudgingly, and then he laughed.
Richard joined in, but Bingley was quiet, eyes faintly troubled and a frown creasing his brows.
“What is it, Charles?”
“Was Caroline…” Bingley paused. “That is, did she do or say anything I am unaware of?”
Richard shook his head, but it was Darcy who spoke. “Surprisingly, no. In fact, I don’t think she said much at all. She sat with Mrs. Hurst the whole night. I know she never approached Elizabeth, at least when we were all together. I was watching. I think the time away did her good, truly I do. But really, what does it matter for the present? We should put all this aside and focus on what is important. The reason we are gathered here in the first place.”
“Here! Here!” Richard raised his glass, but only halfway. Staring at Darcy with a comically confused expression, he asked, “And why was that again?”
Time to Give Away
You cannot miss the great giveaway that Sharon is doing with us today. She is giving:
What do you need to do to participate? As usual, share your opinion with us about what you have read. What do you think about the excerpt? Did you know the info about the weddings? Were you surprised about any of it? Please comment on this post and please, write your email and specify if you are participating on the US part of the giveaway or if you are participating on the international.
This time for an extra entry, you could share this post with some friends and if a friend of yours leaves a comment and indicates that he/she has found the post through you, you get an extra entry (maximum of three friends to be counted).
The giveaway will be open the 14th of September and I would like to post the winners during the following weekend. All the entries before 12pm (CET) will be counted. Good luck!
So far I have only read two of Melanie Schertz‘s books, although I have a few more waiting on my kindle waiting for me to read but I would need days of 40 hours! Apart from With Pen in Hand, I have read Darcy’s Continental Escape and I really liked it. I have liked With Pen in Hand, however, it is too sugary for me. Spoiler below 😉
Elizabeth and Darcy end up together and obviously that’s great but I was missing more misunderstandings between them, I missed a bit of difficulty for them to get together.
The book relates how Elizabeth saves her family after a fire destroyed almost all Longbourn. Elizabeth is in London and writes books and earns a lot of money that she sends home for repairs and she provides a good education for her younger sisters. Every single member of her family is extremely proud and thankful and Elizabeth, keeping her name under a pseudonym. Elizabeth, with the help of his uncle Gardiner, earns even more money with investments. Elizabeth and the Gardiners move to a bigger house in a “better” place of London.
Everything goes smooth apart from an initial “pride and prejudice” moment between them but it passes very quick. The book is like a walk in the clouds, that is nice, but maybe too much. We cannot forget about Wickham, he appears and he is indeed mean and despicable but everything is resolved quickly and our protagonists carry on with their story.
It is a pleasant read with really nice scenes, I will recommend the ones about giving bottles of Port in exchange of dances or Darcy fainting… you need to read to understand!
If you want to discover more about Melanie Schertz, follow her on Facebook or Twitter.
To buy any of her numerous JAFF books, you could go to Amazon UK or Amazon US.
(cover picture from Amazon UK)
Love is in the air!! Love is all around!! John Paul John and Wet Wet Wet’s songs’ titles totally reflect this book. This book is about love and not only the love between Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. There is a lot of love to share!
I received a Advance Reader Copy in exchange of an honest review. I got the book some time ago but I made the mistake of not passing the file to my kindle and it was still waiting on my email. Fortunately, I found it, read it and I had a great time 🙂
When Elizabeth refuses to marry Mr. Collins, her dad decides that it will be wise to send Elizabeth to London with Jane… for his peace of mind.
There she encounters Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam during a shopping outing with Jane and their aunts. Destiny comes to show that they actually know each other but maybe not in person as Darcy does businesses with Mr. Gardiner as well as Richard’s father, Lord Matlock. Mr. Gardiner is well esteemed and respected and he has a extremely important role on Mr. Bingley’s success…
Meetings come along and I will just point out that the encounters are lovely and endearing not only for the sparks but also for the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner’s offspring. There is a little gentleman who takes care of “his Lizzy” and does not allow anyone to approach her. Mr. Darcy has a powerful rival or adversary that he needs to prove his worth to in order to “be allowed” to court her.
However, although the vast majority of the book is about happiness, love, teasing, friendship and family, we need a baddie, and who will be a “better baddie” in this story than the scoundrel and blackguard of George Wickham?? He is despicable, I cannot even start describing his role in this story!! Even if the “length” of his part is not very long, it is more than enough!!
Back to a happy note, I mentioned teasing, happiness, family, love and friendship because you will find a lot from the very beginning. It is quite refreshing to read Richard and Charles teasing Darcy and Darcy not being all serious, he starts from the very beginning to be a bit more open and later on the book he can be fun with answers to comment. What we can see is three male friends who even share a laugh or can talk a bit about their hearts. In addition there are some stories about the eldest Bennet sisters when growing up and being a handful, always within reason but not letting others, mainly boys, to underestimate them.
I will just recommend you to read this charming book where love is essential and friendship and family are key.
I will leave you with a couple of teasers:
“Why Mr. Darcy, ” she said, colour staining her cheeks, “are you flirting with me, sir?”
“I believe I am, Miss Elizabeth.”
Follow Leenie Brown on different media: Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads or Pinterest.
If you want to read this lovely book or any other novel or novella by Leenie Brown, you could go to Amazon UK or Amazon US.
(cover picture from her website)
my vices and weaknesses 