The Last To Know: A Darcy and Elizabeth Pride and Prejudice Variation by Rebecca Hartford

Author:Rebecca Hartford [Hartford, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pride and Prejudice & Related Fandoms, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
ISBN: 9798227740816
Goodreads: 45997739
Publisher: ​Rebecca Hartford
Published: 2019-05-22T04:00:00+00:00

That took more than half an hour. By the time Mrs. Bennet recovered enough to tell the girls, Lizzy and Jane had taken to pacing around the room, so impatient were they to find out what had gone on.

‘Oh, Lizzy!’ her mother cried as the girls completed what must have been their twentieth circuit of the room. Though vast, it was not big enough to keep a walker’s interest for very long and Elizabeth had the most frightful sensation of being trapped on a sinking ship.

She spun around and hurried over to their mother.

‘Mama, what is it? Please tell me. You must not worry. As I have told you before, the fortune I have been left offers us a degree of freedom we have not known before. Therefore it cannot be as bad as you think!’

‘But Lizzy, it is worse!’ Mrs. Bennet buried her head in her hands again and Elizabeth wondered if they would ever find out what had gone on. Thankfully, though, it appeared she had finally run out of tears. She sniffed a few times into her monogrammed handkerchief and looked up at her eldest two daughters (the younger girls had long since taken their leave for more tranquil surroundings).

They waited.

Mrs. Bennet sniffed a few more times and blew her nose with the same force and volume as one might have expected from a ship’s horn. ‘Lady Guernsey has written to say…’ The corners of her mouth turned down. ‘Oh, my girls. It is perfectly polite, of course, but one can read between the lines. We are no longer wanted.’

‘No longer wanted? What in the world…’ Elizabeth fell silent as the truth dawned on her. ‘Ah.’

She took the note and found the expansive script had bled and blurred from her mother’s tears.

‘Our voucher to Almack’s has been rescinded. Lady Guernsey says it is due to a terrible oversight which meant we were granted entry when they had already surpassed their member count for the season, but…’ Her face fell.

‘Perhaps it is true,’ Jane whispered. ‘Perhaps it was all an error.’ But even she looked doubtful.

Elizabeth turned and paced away. They had been granted entry as a result of her mother’s approach to Lady Castell, who had been kind and hospitable to them since their arrival on account of the fact that she was the Earl’s godmother. Lady Castell was one of the patronesses of Almack’s and she had not hesitated in allowing them admittance.

Lady Castell was also a formidable woman, who one imagined was not inclined to make mistakes. Thus there had to be another reason for their exclusion from the place after she had granted them vouchers.

‘I hope you are happy, Lizzy,’ Mrs. Bennet snapped. ‘You did not want to go there at all. Your wish has now been granted—we will not be able to go again and no doubt we shall be shunned from polite society when they hear our vouchers have been taken away. Who would wish to associate with a family who has been cast out by Lady Guernsey?’

Lizzy spun around, her mouth dry.

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