Coming Soon! A Folly of Youth

Hey there P&P fans! It feels like it’s been a very long time since my last release but I hope it’ll be worth the wait! The reveal will be here on April 12 and release day is May 8 and you can preorder it here!

Special thanks to ❤️ Jeannette Kleman❤️ and ❤️ Paige Hale❤️ who both donated to the Austen Variations fundraiser for the Ukraine! You will find both ladies making a cameo appearance in this book 🙂 Thanks again ladies and sorry for the delay! #writersblock #itstheworst

I’ve also been trying to build up my bookbub following so if you are on the platform, I would love it if you followed me!

An Excerpt from A Folly of Youth

The door to Darcy’s breakfast room was opened, and Viscount Saye, Fitzwilliam’s elder brother and Darcy’s cousin, strolled in. He gave a little salute.

“You are awake early,” Fitzwilliam observed. “It is not even gone noon yet!”

“There is no one more unhappy about that than I,” Saye replied. “Town is altogether too dull for words! The thought of one more ballroom makes me wish to gouge out my eyes just for something to do. I daresay that is how a man knows it is time to marry.!”

“Oh no.” Fitzwilliam shook his head with mock disgust. “If you and Darcy marry, who shall I have to go about town with?”

Saye helped himself to coffee and waved off Darcy’s man, who had come to offer a plate. One brow raised, he asked, “Are you getting married, Darcy?”

“Certainly not.”

“He is violently in love with Lady Cassandra Millington,” Fitzwilliam informed his brother.

“She will do very well for you,” Saye opined. “I do not particularly find short women appealing, but—”

“She is not so short,” Fitzwilliam said. “She just seems short when she is dancing with Darcy.”

“I danced the Chamberlain with her at Devonshire House, and during the allemande, I could scarcely get under her arms!”

“Perhaps it is only her arms that are short,” Fitzwilliam suggested. “Nevertheless, Darcy was about to tell me why he is unable to properly make love to the lady.”

Darcy had sipped at his coffee throughout their banter. Then, knowing he would surely amaze them both, he said, “Because I am already engaged.”

It had the expected effect. His cousins fell silent and stared at him with mouths agape. To further heighten their curiosity, he added, “To a woman I met at a Cyprian’s ball.”

Saye was the first to recover, chuckling and shaking one finger at him. “I say, that is the advantage of being known as a taciturn, rather pokerish fellow; your jokes are rare and therefore sure to amuse.”

“It is not a joke,” Darcy said quietly.

“When have you ever attended a Cyprian’s ball?” Fitzwilliam laughed heartily. “You are no more engaged than I am.”

Darcy’s grave silence made his cousin less sure of himself, and thus did Fitzwilliam add, “Surely not?”

“I overstate the matter. No, I am not engaged but neither am I completely free,” Darcy replied quietly. His coffee was a tad too bitter—or perhaps the words were—and he reached for some sugar to add into it, slowly stirring it in. “There was a young lady involved—”

“Cyprian’s balls do generally involve young women,” Saye said. “Being a Cyprian is no game for the aged dame, to be sure.”

“A gently bred lady, not a Cyprian,” said Darcy sternly. More ruefully, he added, “Alas, I discovered that too late.”

His cousins both laughed heartily, with Saye then asking, “Who is she?”

“No one that anyone would or should know,” Darcy replied dismissively.

“From your looks, I think it a fair guess to say there is a diverting tale to be told, and I, for one, am determined to hear every word of it.” Saye pulled a flask from his pocket and poured a generous dollop into his coffee. He wiggled it towards the other men, offering it to them. Fitzwilliam declined, but Darcy nodded, and Saye poured generously.

“Her name is Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” said Darcy. “And it happened three years ago.”

“Three years!” Fitzwilliam exclaimed. “Was it some sort of a scheme?”

“Not truly. I had gone to one of the balls at Wyatt House thinking it was just the usual sort of ball–” Darcy began.

“The ball was usual, but the persons involved were not,” Fitzwilliam supplied in high humour. “Lady Wyatt is–”

“Neither a lady nor a Wyatt,” Saye finished. “And well-known for the wildness of her gatherings!”

“Well-known to me now, but back then, I had no idea who Lady Wyatt was nor any comprehension of the goings-on at her balls,” Darcy admitted. “I was there with George Wickham, not knowing what I was getting myself into. We were not so much at odds then. He had been dissolute at university, of course, but he seemed to be settling down a bit, and back then, I still thought him capable of becoming, in manners, a gentleman. So I went with him.”

“He likely had some plan afoot to set you up and get money from you, even back then,” Fitzwilliam said.

“Likely so,” Darcy agreed. “After all, how many times has he done something similar in our younger years? But I knew what the party was about almost as soon as we arrived and was on the point of leaving when…when I saw her.”

His cousins fell silent. This was not a part Darcy had ever acknowledged to anyone. In truth, he hardly ever admitted to himself that he had not been blameless that night. Even in his own mind, he had perpetuated the fiction that she was some seductress and he a hapless man of means…but it had not quite been so. She was a pretty young lady, and he was a healthy young man, and a pull of attraction had rushed through him with a force that almost left him breathless. No, he had not been blameless, but neither was he guilty in the way everyone had supposed.

“On your way out but then arrested in your steps by a raven-haired beauty?” Saye asked. “Or blonde?”

Darcy ignored the question. “It was not her beauty. It was…she has uncommonly fine eyes. Intelligent. And her figure…I have always been fond of light, athletic-looking women as you know. But what arrested me, in truth, was her youth. She was clearly gently bred and not as old as she said she was, and then Haslewood came by, and I realised if I did not act to get her out of there—”

“You were trying to rescue her?” Fitzwilliam raised his brows, looking as severe as a man can while indulging in a heaping forkful of eggs.

“Yes, I was,” Darcy said firmly. “She wore a certain necklace  I believed indicated she was…available and…new. I could see immediately  she did not belong there. I could not see Haslewood or his ilk taking her and robbing her of her innocence.”

“He would have had her in a back room before she had any idea of what he was about,” Saye said.

“I do not care how much land he has, Haslewood is no gentleman,” said Fitzwilliam.

“They pay a premium for virgins at Lady Wyatt’s parties,” Saye informed them all gravely.

“And a virgin she was, and still is,” Darcy said firmly. “Or if she is not, it is nothing to my reproach. In any case, I took her out to dance and made sure I was seen kissing her…I marked her, so to speak. My intentions were honourable—I thought maybe I might help her find her a position somewhere, something respectable…and then her uncle came in.”

“While you were kissing her?” Saye gave a low whistle. “Bad timing there.”

“Wrong place, wrong time,” Fitzwilliam agreed sagely through another bite of his eggs. “But who is the uncle? Anyone of consequence?”

“No one in the entire family is anyone of consequence,” Darcy said with a frustrated huff. “And yet, the uncle proved shrewd, and far angrier than the lady’s father who did not seem to wish to bestir himself for the matter.”

“Surely a thousand pounds or so could have made this go away,” Saye opined. “They insisted you propose to her?”

“I refused to propose. It was nothing more than a kiss!” Darcy drummed his fingers on the table. “But then the uncle brought in his own solicitors who were clever enough to start making noises about a breach of promise suit—”

Fitzwilliam protested at once. “Breach of promise? Surely your solicitor—”

Darcy rubbed his head. “This was shortly after Seward had died rather suddenly, and I hired that Makepeace fellow who proved rather useless in this and several other matters. I was too embarrassed and too certain I could sort it out on my own–I did not even consult my uncle at that time–and instead found myself amid a horrid tangle that has persisted, it seems, endlessly. I have at last sought Lord Matlock’s aid–but even he has seen little avenue for a clean escape.”

“A terrible rum business,” Fitzwilliam said warmly while shaking his head.

“It was but here we are.” Darcy drummed his fingers on the table. “However, I am determined it will not stand. I am determined to force Bennets hand, to make him sign away any right to take me before the courts. All this for a kiss meant to save his daughter from ruination!”