Love Lasts Longest: Alternate Short Tales of Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen Reimaginings Book 4) by Rose Fairbanks
Author:Rose Fairbanks [Fairbanks, Rose]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Rose Fairbanks
Published: 2015-09-24T00:00:00+00:00
The End
Presenting Miss Darcy
I wrote this for my daughterâs first birthday. She is called Annie after her paternal grandmother, so it seemed fitting to imagine her as a Darcy child.
May 30, 1840
Pemberley, Derbyshire
A hush fell over the drawing room as the couple entered. Elizabeth Darcyâs conversation ceased as she glanced across the room and made eye contact with her husband. He gave her a soft smile, but it did not reach his eyes, which clearly belied his sadness to her.
As the room watched, mother and father of the bride walked across the room to the newlyweds. Fitzwilliam Darcy took his eldest daughterâs hand, not the one with the ring on it that symbolised she was now under anotherâs care, and raised it to his lips. Finally, his daughterâs eyes were drawn away from her spouseâs and met his own. She gave him a full, radiant smile. Elizabethâs smile. It offered him a modicum of cheer.
Having gained the notice of the lovers, Darcy turned to face the crowd and make his announcement. âMay I presentâ¦â In the short pause, three and twenty years of memories flashed. âMr. and Mrs. Edward Moore.â
Applause rang through the room. Elizabeth placed her arm on Darcyâs, and they began to lead the assembled crowd to the dining-parlour for the wedding breakfast. Darcy said little during the breakfast, and on the occasions he met Elizabethâs eyes from across the table, he smiled a little at the memories he knew they shared of their daughter.
*****
May 26, 1818
Elizabethâs labour with her second child was very short but intense. She had been ill much of the pregnancy. She was never very weak, but she had frequent bouts of fever, nausea, and back pain. The midwife assured the nervous parents that all was well, that Elizabethâs complaints were not unusual at all, but it did little to ease the anxiety they felt but did not verbalise. Perhaps it was because she was the second child herself that Elizabeth worried excessively over the transition from one child to two. Between her illness, the usual pains, and her nerves, Elizabeth slept little of the pregnancy and had never been so thankful for Pemberleyâs library than during those months.
The pains felt differently than they had with her firstborn, Teddy. At first she was certain it was just the onset of her illness again, but before too many hours, it was clear that she was in labourâand something was not quite right.
Neither Darcy nor Elizabeth could truly remember much of that day, only that it ended in joy. Elizabethâs maid had alerted the housekeeper when the pains began, and eventually Darcy was retrieved from his estate affairs. While they awaited the midwife, Elizabethâs illness attacked. In an instant, she was shivering with a high fever, and her belly was cramping acutely. Darcy refused to leave his ill wife and acknowledged that he had never prayed so fervently in his life. When the midwife finally arrived, Elizabeth could only register the look of terror in her eyes as the entire room was silent with a palpable sense of fear and dread.
Download
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
Anthologies | Short Stories |
The Tidewater Tales by John Barth(12395)
Kathy Andrews Collection by Kathy Andrews(11326)
Tell Tale: Stories by Jeffrey Archer(8681)
This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz(6440)
The Mistress Wife by Lynne Graham(6241)
The Last Wish (The Witcher Book 1) by Andrzej Sapkowski(5216)
Dancing After Hours by Andre Dubus(5113)
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen(4095)
Maps In A Mirror by Orson Scott Card(3719)
The Secret Wife by Lynne Graham(3660)
Be in a Treehouse by Pete Nelson(3648)
Tangled by Emma Chase(3567)
Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges(3366)
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros(3228)
Girls Who Bite by Delilah Devlin(3048)
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R R Martin(3026)
You Lost Him at Hello by Jess McCann(2859)
MatchUp by Lee Child(2693)
Once Upon a Wedding by Kait Nolan(2611)
