A Trip to Pemberley by Meg Osborne

Author:Meg Osborne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Jane Austen Fan Fiction, Mary Bennet, Pride and Prejudice, JAFF, Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth Bennet, Regency Historical Romance
Publisher: Meg Osborne
Published: 2018-06-22T00:00:00+00:00

MARY WAS A LITTLE RELIEVED to have a respite from the gentlemen. Here, surrounded by ladies, and ladies she knew well, she felt rather more at ease than she had in the great Pemberley dining room. At one point, and one point only, she had felt able to relax, and that had been the brief moment when Robert Ashton had engaged her in conversation. He had been just as gentle in his words as she had imagined him to be, and to find him focused entirely on her, caring only for her opinion, her conversation, above all others, had been almost too delightful to bear. It had been but a moment, of course, for soon John Ashton, his brother, had captured her focus, and spoken so raucously and with such ebullience that she had been unable to get a word in, should she have cared to. But no, she did not entirely feel safe in addressing John Aston directly. He possessed, as Mr Wickham had possessed, that certain surety of character, that brash confidence that put Mary so ill at ease. It was as though he were perpetually poised to mock her, and indeed he did laugh, loudly and often, as he told stories too fantastical to be real. He watched her too closely, and his lips were always half-turned in a smile, but not the gentle, encouraging smile of his brother. No, he was like...a cat! Instinctively, Mary flinched, remembering too many swipes she had received as a child from the bad-tempered tabby cat who ruled the kitchen. No, she did not like cats, and she was not quite sure that she liked John Ashton either. I must endeavour to avoid him from now on! She thought, feeling a little melancholy that the evening had not turned out at all the way she might have wished. How was it that, but a few hours ago, she had been so filled with surprise and hope. Surprise: that one of the gentlemen to join the party should be the very gentleman who had so dominated her thoughts and dreams of late. Hope: that fate had somehow sought to weave their paths together, might it be a foretaste of things to come? But now, Providence had played a second trick on her. It was not Robert who sought her out, but John. And Robert himself seemed more content to heckle and drink and behave utterly unlike himself.

Or perhaps, entirely like himself, she mused, her lips drawing down in a frown. For she did not know Robert Ashton at all, and whatever picture she had drawn of him in her imagination was imagination only: there was no truth to it. He was a fiction, a fantasy, a sprite conjured up in the absence of any real companionship. Mary sighed. She was alone, still, and would always be.

“Mary!”

At some point, while Mary wrestled with her thoughts and berated herself for her foolishness, Elizabeth had crept up to join her on the small sofa, quite without her noticing.

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