A Folly of Youth Cover Reveal

A Folly of Youth is coming soon and I have a beautiful cover to show you! First–here’s an excerpt I hope you’ll enjoy. You can preorder A Folly of Youth by clicking HERE! Leave me a comment below and you might just win a copy before you could purchase it!

Small homes and likely even smaller minds. Meryton was every bit as unimpressive as Darcy had always imagined it would be. The undistinguished persons on the street gawked at his carriage as it rolled by, and he fought the urge to snap closed the curtains.

“This seems a pleasant place,” Bingley enthused from beside him. “I daresay Netherfield will be quite agreeable as well, and so near town! It seems we have scarcely set out from London, and here we are!”

“Do not be in too much of a rage to approve of it,” Darcy warned as the carriage slowed. “People are less refined here, and I have myself suffered first-hand from their savagery.”

“Have you?” Bingley gave him a quizzical glance. “How so?”

“Um, no, I mean, not these people, but those like them.”

Bingley may not have believed his hasty demurral but did not demand an explanation. Instead, he grinned, saying, “You have been mysterious about your engagement here.”

Darcy cringed at the word engagement, then spoke tersely to disguise his discomfort. “And mysterious, I shall continue. See there, I think that is Morris come to take you to Netherfield. I should not require more than an hour to complete my task. Shall we meet in that”—he scanned the little town, seeking a suitable tavern for a meal. The only one his eye settled on looked absolutely dreadful, but he supposed it was better than starvation—“place over there?”

“Consider it done,” Bingley replied cheerfully.

“Bingley, pray do give the estate careful consideration. I know you only intend to let the place, but it can still become a headache if—”

“Yes, yes! So you have said the whole way here!” Bingley cried good-naturedly as the door was opened for him. “Do not fear, Darcy, even I cannot lease a house and fall in love with a country girl in the space of an hour.”

Bingley exited then. Darcy watched as his friend hailed the land agent, Mr Morris, who was awaiting him in his own curricle. Bingley clambered aboard, and the two were quickly off.

Bingley was considering Netherfield firstly as a temporary place to entertain his friends and secondly as a more permanent dwelling place. Darcy knew he should have gone with him—Bingley knew nothing of what to look for in either land  or a house—but he had more urgent matters to attend to.

The direction he had been given sent him down a deeply rutted, dusty lane. Fortunately, it was scarcely a mile until he entered the village of Longbourn. It was nothing of distinction, either for good or bad; only a house of middling size and common-looking fields being used as fields often were. Darcy had heard the estate brought in only two thousand a year, and though his glance was cursory, he could readily see many improvements—sadly lacking—that would increase that. Lazy stewardship disgusted him, and it was in plain evidence here.

A housekeeper called Hill brought him in and took his coat and hat. “The master awaits you in his study,” she said, and Darcy nodded.

“Take me to him, then.”

She went towards the back of the house, and he followed her, passing a drawing room that must have contained no less than fifty ladies for all the loud chatter he heard. He wondered if one of the squawking voices belonged to Miss Elizabeth. Was there anything worse than a woman with an unbridled tongue? A house like this one would soon send him mad, he was sure of it.

By contrast, Mr Bennet’s study was quiet and peaceful. Darcy immediately understood its location at the back of the house where it overlooked serene fields and was shielded from the clamour of the drawing room. The study was the first thing Darcy saw that met with any approval from him; Mr Bennet had a genuinely impressive library for a country squire in a backwater like this one.

The gentleman himself was a man in his sixth decade who sat comfortably in styles of two decades past. There was something in his countenance which suggested intelligence, and Darcy hoped it would prove true. It would make things much easier if Bennet could see where the advantages were.

The man did not rise from his desk but merely pointed him towards a chair. “Mr Darcy,” he said by way of greeting. “Good to see you, sir. It has been quite a long time.”

“It has,” Darcy owned. “Above three years. Miss Elizabeth is, I believe, one-and-twenty now?”

“No,” Bennet replied, looking surprised. “Elizabeth is just twenty.”

“She is?”

Bennet nodded.

“Ah.” This was a wrinkle and one for which Darcy was not prepared. “I…I had believed she had reached her majority.”

“I am afraid not.” Bennet stood and came round his desk. He took a seat in a worn-looking companion to Darcy’s chair. Darcy noticed a puff of dust which rose as the man settled in. “Does that matter?”

“I had hoped,” said Darcy stiffly, “to appeal directly to the lady herself, as her guardian has been rather intractable on this matter.”

Bennet chuckled wryly. “So I have. But one day, sir, should you be blessed with children of the fairer sex, you may understand my determination. I do not wish to see my Lizzy made unhappy.”

“Nor do I,” said Darcy, although in truth, he did not much care what sources of happiness Miss Elizabeth Bennet might find. He only knew it was not to be with him. “But perhaps you will allow for felicity of a different hue than might have been considered before.”

Darcy opened his valise and removed a folder which contained the papers his solicitor had drawn up. He handed the folder to Bennet, who took it, albeit with a suspicious look in Darcy’s direction.

“What is this?”

Darcy paused a moment, choosing his words carefully. “I am prepared to offer a considerable sum, as you see,” he said, gesturing towards the pages in Bennet’s hands.

“A sum was offered—and refused—three years ago.”

“I am offering it again,” Darcy replied tightly. “But as my desire to be rid of this problem has increased, so has the money offered.”

Bennet’s eyes fell to the pages. For a man whose cravat was frayed at the edges, Bennet did not seem excited by the monies indicated. He began to read, a tight frown his only expression. Long minutes ticked by. It seemed Bennet wished to memorise the words on the page, rather than simply read them.

At last, Darcy spoke. “Surely your daughter will recognise that her prospects will be advanced by having a fortune.”

“My daughter is a woman with a broken engagement. A long-term engagement,” Bennet said, eyeing Darcy over the tops of his spectacles.

“There is no engagement,” Darcy retorted. “I have never offered for her, nor consented to be betrothed to her. In fact, I have only ever laid eyes on her once!”

“It was not the laying-on of your eyes which led to this predicament, was it?” Bennet replied with mild reproof.

Darcy flushed. “Need I remind you that Miss Bennet is not wholly innocent in the matter? She was in a place where no decent lady ought to have been.”

“She had no idea where she was,” Bennet replied. “She was just sixteen, and had not been in town.”

“A lady of just sixteen should not have been unattended at a ball.”

Bennet’s eyes hardened, but the rest of his face did not change. Darcy was reminded that he needed this man’s signature, and so softened his tone. “If accommodation is given for her age,” he said, “then it must be for mine as well. At that time, I had not been much in town myself since leaving university and the death of my father.”

“A folly of youth for you both, then.”

Hope you’ve enjoyed this little taste! And now–my gorgeous cover designed by James T Egan of Bookfly Design. I love it and hope you will too! Remember to comment–on the excerpt OR on the cover–and you might be chosen to win an ebook copy! You can preorder your copy now–release day is May 8th!