A New Book Is Coming!

As many of you know, I have been doing a series lately of Unusual Tales. It’s still regency England, and still Elizabeth and Darcy,  but someone has a special ability, their world holds unusual secrets, or Fate is overly involved. It has been fun to let my imagination run wild.

The story I’m wrapping up now has something else unusual besides the supernatural – a new narrator! Allow me to introduce Colonel Fitzwilliam in his new role as Storyteller. Don’t worry, he doesn’t steal the show entirely. Narration will alternate between the good colonel, Darcy, and Elizabeth Bennet. Here is a peek at the first chapter in the colonel’s voice. I’d love to know what you think!

Richard Fitzwilliam

Spring, 1806

I have always loved being at Pemberley. Not only is it one of the most beautiful and prosperous estates in England, but I know nowhere more peaceful. I have been spending summers here for as long as I can remember. My own brothers are much older or younger than myself, and when we were children, it was too great a distance to make us playmates.

Thus I became close with my cousin, Fitzwilliam Darcy.

Do not let the name fool you. Though he speaks French well enough, he is English to the core, almost annoyingly so. Pemberley is the seat of his family and his birthright. It is only he and Georgiana, a sister twelve years his junior. They get along well enough, but there is not the closeness that exists between siblings of an age with one another.

That is why he has me. His parents saddled him with a pretentious name and an enormous inheritance. It is my job to see he does not become insufferable. And in all fairness, the name was really my grandfather’s doing. Bernard Fitzwilliam was enormously proud of his family—chiefly their title and wealth. When his eldest daughter Lady Anne wished to marry Andrew Darcy, a lowly landowner with no title and buckets of money, he insisted her legacy be clear to anyone with even a passing interest. Family lore has it that it was in the marriage articles that Lady Anne’s first son be named Fitzwilliam, though having never seen the papers for myself, I could not confirm the veracity of that statement.

However, it does sound like something my grandfather would have done.

That is another thing I love about Pemberley. The lore and the legends. For every bridge there is a tale of elves or faeries, the waterfalls cover hidden caves once used by disgraced nobles, and the gardens are rife with stories of great loves, both won and lost, lilies or rose bushes planted in commemoration.

I will admit the love stories are my favorite. When I was a child, I enjoyed the stories of pirates who hid their treasure on Pemberley land, but when I was old enough to realize how very far we were from the sea, I moved on to truer tales.

It seems that every generation of Darcys had at least one great love amongst them. In 1675, Oliver Darcy famously married the lowly daughter of the local vicar. She had a small dowry and her only connection was a nearly impoverished uncle passing for a gentleman. One would think such a disparate match would be precipitated by great beauty on the lady’s side, but one would be wrong.

Judith Darcy was no great beauty. In truth, she hardly passed for pretty. But she was kind and loving and true. Oliver was famously in love with her and refused to marry anyone else. His parents were the understanding sort—quite shocking when one thinks about it—and supported his choice though everyone advised against the union.

Judith and Oliver were almost obscenely happy. They had eleven children over the course of their forty-year marriage—though thankfully the children stopped coming after their twenty-second anniversary. All the babes survived—another quite shocking fact—and even though she was not the prettiest woman in Derbyshire, Oliver looked at her as if she had hung the moon itself, and all the stars besides.

I have always liked that story. Perhaps because I am a bit like Judith myself. Rather plain, not much money, but an excellent companion nonetheless—at least I like to think of myself as such. I am well connected, but I do not know if it is enough to offset my empty purse.

My cousin Darcy is quite the opposite. He hates company, dislikes talking, and is constantly offending others. But he is handsome and rich, and I will admit he is tall and broad shouldered as well, something the ladies seem to appreciate. I can practically hear their hearts pounding when he walks past them, his eyes avoiding theirs and his nose just a little too high in the air.

This is where I am of use. I have never met a woman I could not talk to, and most men like me as well. I suppose this means I am amiable. Darcy says I am annoying, but I prefer my word.

I wonder if he will be like the men before him. Married to a woman he is wild about, doting on her as if she were a goddess, feeling as if the sun rose and set beneath her skirts. My Uncle Darcy was one such man. When Lady Anne—my father’s sister—was alive, he followed her about like a puppy. My own father was quite disgusted by it and regularly lamented my uncle’s behavior. It was true that if he was in a room with his wife, he would track her movements with his eyes. He did not like to travel for more than a week without her, or he would become sulky and restless. They always shared a chamber, even when it was not the fashion, and they had breakfast in their private sitting room together each morning before separating for the day. He often joined her for tea, and he rarely missed dinner.

In short, he was in love with his wife.

I had thought it a nice way to live, and certainly the best way to be married. My own parents were constantly bickering and sniping at one another, and they would spend months apart, one in Town and the other in the country, only sharing the odd letter. I am still a little amazed they produced seven children together. Though my mother is an attractive woman, even after bearing so many babes and being on the far side of fifty. Perhaps the bickering started later in life. After all, my father had a mistress my mother was embarrassingly aware of. I imagine the day she made that discovery was the same day she had locks installed on all her doors and began spending weeks at a time at her sister’s.

I digress.

Pemberley is, and always has been, a place I feel at home. Fitzwilliam—what an awful name for a child!—is like a brother to me, and Uncle Andrew is the father I wish I’d had. I took to calling Fitzwilliam ‘Fitz’ long ago. Fitzwilliam is too much of a mouthful, and I knew it would become confusing when we got older and people started calling us by our surnames. He doesn’t love the name, but I refuse to call him Darcy while my uncle is alive, and Fitz can bloody well deal with it. Mayhap it will keep him humble.

***

 I have been called to Pemberley, but this time it is not because Fitz wants a hunting companion. My uncle is ill. So ill that he is likely dying, and the family has been called to say their final goodbyes.

When I arrived, there was no black ribbon on the door, and I said a quick prayer of thanks before rushing up the stairs to my uncle’s chamber. Fitz sat on a chair next to the bed, holding my uncle’s hand in his, a vacant expression on his face.

“Fitz,” I whispered. “How does he fare?”

“He is sleeping now, but he occasionally wakes and wants to speak to me. I have taken to holding his hand so he knows I am here.”

He squeezed the hand he was holding and I saw the tremble in his fingers.

“I am sorry. He is too young—it is not right.”

“It is never right.” He ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up at odd angles, and said, “He is happy in a way. He misses my mother dreadfully. Maybe this will allow them to be together again.”

I nodded, unsure how I felt about reuniting with a lost love as a reason to leave one’s children parentless. Uncle Darcy stirred, moaning softly, then he dragged his eyes open and looked at his son. He is so proud of my cousin—even on his deathbed, it is plain as day that he is fair to bursting with familial pride. I cannot blame him—Darcy is a good man, and there are certainly worse sons—and even worse fathers.

Is it awful that I wished for a moment that I was saying goodbye to my father and not my uncle? Uncle Darcy is all that a man should be and I will feel his absence keenly.

“Fitzwilliam,” my uncle rasped. “Listen carefully. Must tell you,” he stopped to breathe heavily, his eyes falling shut again.

“Tell me what, Father? I am listening carefully.”

“It is true,” he whispered.

“What is true?” Fitz was leaning so close their faces were practically touching.

“The stories. The legends.” More labored breathing. “All true.”

He closed his eyes and fell against the pillow, his energy spent.

Fitz turned to me with confusion. “Do you know what he is talking about?”

“No. There are so many legends surrounding Pemberley—they cannot possibly all be true.”

“He must be speaking of something specific, but I know not what.”

My cousin wore the scowl he always employed when he was trying to solve a puzzle. We sat in silence for the next half hour, wondering what my uncle meant.

Finally, he woke again, his eyes clear. “Boys, listen. Heed me.”

“We are listening,” we said.

“The legend is true, my son.”

“What legend?” I asked.

“We are cursed.” He turned to look at me. “You are safe, Richard.” His gaze slid back to his son. “My little Fitzy,” I had not heard that name in over a decade, “find the journals. Behind the Plato.” He swallowed. “In my sitting room.”

Fitz nodded. “I will, Father.”

“You must find her.” Uncle’s eyes were wide now, his voice quiet but vehement. “You must! You will die if you do not.”

Now I was truly intrigued. Was my uncle delusional? I could see the confusion on Fitz’s face, and I knew he was wondering the same thing. What was uncle talking about? What legend? What curse? Who did Fitz need to find and what did any of this have to do with his death?

***********************

So how did Richard do as a narrator?