Any Excuse for a Pressie!

Any excuse will do, right?

So I think I’ll blame Mr Darcy’s shirt 😛

(Photo by kind permission of Mihaela Hercaud)

Mihaela and I came across it last Sunday at Jane Austen’s House, and at first I was quite blasé, thinking it was just another copy. But no, this time it was the real deal. A very thoughtful gentleman offered to take a few pictures of us, and later I went back and snap-snap-snapped photos of THE shirt from every angle (as you do),  but sadly at no point did Mr Darcy materialise into it… Oh, well… Thank goodness for good old YouTube:

So, while we’re on the subject of Mr Darcy being ‘a little less formally attired,’ I’d like to share an old excerpt from a scene where he was not dressed to the nines either.

THE JOURNEY HOME FROM PEMBERLEY

(Chapter 4)

Elizabeth awoke to the cosy sensation of her head resting on a warm cushion – not at all soft, but pleasantly warm. She could not tell what had awakened her. Nor could she tell where she was. In a very dark room lit only by what seemed to be the glow of embers, she noted when her eyelids fluttered up ever so briefly, only to drop again, conquered by fatigue and the comfortable darkness.

The scrape of wood on wood and the thud of a log settling in the grate amid the hiss of flying sparks came to suggest that a similar noise might have awakened her; so, satisfied with the answer to one question, she idly pondered on the other. Still, she did not open her eyes, nor raise her head from the warm cushion – not even when it occurred to her to wonder why she was sleeping in that strange position, almost as if she were half out of bed. The rhythmic sounds underneath her ear were a puzzle too. She might have easily taken them for heartbeats, Elizabeth mused, only to be distracted by something rough and prickly grazing her forehead. The next sensation was a great deal more pleasant – delectable, in fact. Rather like soft lips on her brow.

It was only then that realisation hit at last, and she sat bolt upright with a gasp and a violent start. She instantly discovered she was not the only one who had been brought so abruptly to her senses – or rather, that her sharp movement must have jolted Mr Darcy out of sleep – when she heard him rasp, “What the deuce? Who goes there?”

Elizabeth swallowed hard, and was compelled to give him the sole fitting answer – which could only be the truth.

“Sh-sh. All is well. ‘Tis I – Elizabeth,” she whispered.

She could not speculate what his response would be. She lacked the time to reflect on that and, dulled by sleep, her wits were sluggish. But she could not have anticipated his reply anyway. It came in the form of an odd sound, half sigh and half snort, followed by a gruff, “Do not toy with me, woman. I am in no fit state to put up with it.”

The sheer absurdity of his singular remark – and indeed the absurdity of their situation – got the better of her, and Elizabeth could not suppress a chuckle.

“Probably not,” she concurred, mild amusement in her tones, and at that the dark shape beside her suddenly shuffled up, and she heard Mr Darcy rasp again:

“Your voice! Who are you?”

She did not repeat her answer, but only said, “We need some light,” both because it was true and because he had given her enough reason to believe that the sound of her voice would serve as sufficient confirmation of her identity.

She could not remember if there was a tinderbox at hand, nor spare candles for that matter, to replace the one that had burned out, so she left her seat to cautiously make her way around the foot of the bed towards the other side and stoke the fire instead.

She could not tell where the log basket was either, but she crouched by the fireside and felt around until she found it, and likewise the bellows. It was easy work to add a few logs and coax the bellows into doing its office. Air hissed out, making the embers glow, and before long new flames leapt up, illuminating the small room – and her countenance.

“Good God! It is you!” Mr Darcy whispered.

She glanced towards him then, and their eyes met. The fresh wave of self-consciousness did not catch her unawares when she felt it surge within – she was prepared for it. She had imagined she was likewise prepared for what Mr Darcy’s first look of recognition would convey: shock, no doubt, and very likely his own self-consciousness and profound discomfort.

She learnt her error in one astounding second – when wild joy flared in his eyes instead. Pure, unadulterated joy radiated from impossibly dark eyes to spread over his countenance and brighten it like a flash of lightning.

(Copyright © 2019 Joana Starnes)

If you haven’t read the rest of the story, today you can download it FOR FREE! Just follow the link below. Amazon promotions are set to run on US Pacific time, so the book will be free from the start of today (PDT) until 11.59 PM (PDT). Thanks for stopping by, and have a lovely summer!