Mr. Darcy and the Enchanted Library: A Pride and Prejudice Variation by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Magical Austen Press

Darcy stared at the field of flowers. Thousands upon thousands stretched across the field, and they were to find just the right one? No, there were perhaps a dozen, but how were they to know which ones were real? Were the rest false in some way?

He took a cautious step and touched a flower. It felt authentic. The petals were soft, the leaves firm. It did not feel like the silk flowers he had seen ladies wear on their hats. But perhaps the fae had more realistic artificial flowers?

Elizabeth gasped, and he turned to see. She bent low over one of the flowers, examining it closely. “I think I know what he meant!” she said excitedly. “They have six petals!”

He looked at a nearby flower, puzzled. “Yes, they do.” But what did that mean?

“Scarlet pimpernels have only five!”

He shook his head, bemused. “Are you certain?” He had seen the flowers before of course, mostly on trips to his Scottish estate, but he had never considered the number of petals before.

“Yes. I think these flowers are the false ones, and the true flowers have five petals.”

“But . . . is it possible that these are not scarlet pimpernels at all, but some other flower of the Fae Realm?” He thought back. “I do not recall the fae giving them a name.”

“That in itself may have been a clue,” she said thoughtfully. “But, look. Do you see the shape of this leaf? It has many veins that branch off a single thicker vein. My father has a book called the Genera Plantarum, and it describes plants as one of two types. Plants with leaves like this are dicotyledons, which have petals in multiples of four or five. It should not have six petals. These are wrong.”

Darcy was not sure he followed, but he believed her. Not for the first time, Darcy thought the Library had chosen well. Elizabeth loved to learn more than anybody else he knew.

The petals were wrong, therefore the plants were wrong. They were not true scarlet pimpernels.

“So all we need to do is to scour this field for a flower with five petals?” He shaded his eyes as he looked across the field.

Miss Elizabeth drooped. “An impossible task. Or, rather, it is possible, but we do not have much time. We must find it quickly.”

Darcy blanched. Georgiana! What if, after all of this, they returned to Pemberley to find they were too late?

They could not be too late.

Elizabeth’s movements were jerky, frantic, as she looked from one flower to another, and Darcy felt a sudden sympathy for her. They had to hurry, but the task was best accomplished with a clear mind and a cool head.

He spoke softly as he began, his eyes moving quickly from flower to flower. “I am rather good at this.” It might sound like boasting, but he also felt comfort in reminding himself of the fact that this was something he could do. “When I was a child, my nurse told me that

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