Austenland by Shannon Hale

Author:Shannon Hale [Hale, Shannon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-12-05T02:00:00+00:00

Juan Inskeep, AGE TWENTY-FIVE

Gay.

day 9

AFTER BREAKFAST, THE GENTLEMEN WENT shooting, Aunt Saffronia was busy with the mute servants, and Miss Heartwright was still at the cottage, leaving Jane and Miss Charming alone in the morning room. They stared at the brown- flecked wallpaper.

“I’m so bored. This isn’t what Mrs. Wattlesbrook promised me yesterday.” “We could play whist,” Jane said. “Whist in the morning, whist in the evening, ain’t we got fun?”

The wallpaper hadn’t changed. Jane kept an eye on it all the same.

“I mean, is this what you expected?” asked Miss Charming.

Jane glanced at the lamp, wondering if Mrs. Wattlesbrook had it bugged. “I am

Jane Erstwhile, niece of Lady Templeton, visiting from America,” she said

robotically.

“Well, I can’t take another minute. I’m going to go find that Miss Heartwreck and see what she thinks.”

Jane’s gaze jumped from wall to window, and she watched for hints of the men out in the fields, wondering if Captain East thought her pretty, if Colonel Andrews liked her better than Miss Charming.

Stop it, she told herself.

And then she thought about Mr. Nobley last night, his odd outburst, his insistence on dancing with her, and then his abrupt withdrawal after one dance. He truly was exasperating. But, she considered, he irritated in a very useful way. The dream of Mr. Darcy was tangling in the unpleasant reality of Mr. Nobley. As she gave herself pause to breathe in that idea, the truth felt as obliterating as her no Santa Claus discovery at age eight. There is no Mr. Darcy. Or more likely, Mr. Darcy would actually be a boring, pompous pinhead.

Wait a minute, why was she always so worried about the Austen gentlemen, anyway? What about the Austen heroine? Even poor Fanny Price leaned back, held her ground, and waited for her Edmond to come eventually to her. And Elizabeth Bennet— wonderful Elizabeth! Remember how quickly she learned her lesson after Wickham and laughed it off? Remember how easily she let the disappointment of Colonel Fitzwilliam slip off her shoulders? Jane was shocked to recognize in her old self more of the anxious, marriage-obsessed Mrs. Bennet than the lively Elizabeth. With her father’s estate entailed away, marriage was not a convenience for Elizabeth—it was life and death. And even so, she managed to laugh and spin and wait to fall really in love. So. Jane couldn’t give up men. Martin had proved that. But she could fling off her binding intensity, live out the dream now, and return to the world whole and Darcy-free.

She was ready to start right now. The morning room clock ticked. Nothing moved outside the window. She scratched her neck and sighed.

Chased by restlessness and anxious for action of any kind, Jane ran up to her bedroom to check her e-mail on her cell phone. Matilda barged in to clean, so Jane tucked her phone into her bodice and stole down to the library. From a seat near a window in the corner, she was hidden from the rest of the room and the sight line of the corridor.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
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.