Coming Soon ~ The Journey Home To Pemberley

Good morning! I hope you’re having a lovely and relaxing summer, and that you’re ready to party at the 10^th Annual Austen in August, hosted by www.thebookrat.com.

I’m delighted to say that this post (along with the other ones that I’ll share with you later this month) is part of the Austen in August celebration of all the things we love about Jane Austen’s novels and her world. Many thanks, Misty, for the wonderful welcome and the opportunity to take part! So come and join the fun, and have a very Austen summer! (If you’ve read the first excerpt already, you can find the second one here).

August is a great time to go on tours of pleasure, dear ladies and gents, and I hope you have your trunks packed and your carriages ready.

Now, what about Elizabeth’s travels – or Mr Darcy’s? And what about the eventful summer following their sojourn in Kent and his disastrous proposal?

Can you hear a ‘what if…?’ (or maybe several) tiptoeing towards this conversation? If so, then you’re absolutely right:

WHAT IF Mr Gardiner’s business did not get in the way, and Elizabeth could travel all the way to the Lakes with her aunt and uncle?

WHAT IF she and Mr Darcy did not run into each other at Pemberley, but somewhere deep in the Lake Country?

WHAT IF they talked – not a stilted exchange of civilities, but a long, proper, uninterrupted talk?

WHAT IF their long, proper, uninterrupted talk was in the middle of the night, in the smallest room of a secluded Lakeland inn (and Mr Darcy happened to be quite as informally attired as in a certain wet-shirt scene?)

If you’re thinking that Mr Gardiner stormed in and demanded they marry… well, fortunately (or unfortunately) Mr Gardiner was otherwise engaged.

So where did they go from there?

I hope you’ll enjoy finding out. Please join Elizabeth and Mr Darcy on their…

JOURNEY HOME TO PEMBERLEY

PART ONE

PROLOGUE

“Steady on, lad,” Darcy muttered, wishing he were atop one of his own trusted mounts instead of his uncle’s skittish thoroughbred who bridled and snorted, mightily reluctant to push forth through the milky fog – or rather the stream of low-lying clouds descending from the hilltops into the steep valley.

Darcy tightened the reins. They felt slick in his grasp, dampened like everything else by the fine spray blowing in the air, part mist, part light drizzle. He could see very little of the road ahead. Still, the stone walls that bordered it were of some assistance in the matter.

The stallion seemed of a different mind. Either that or he took umbrage at the tightened reins, for he tossed his head again and paused to stamp a forehoof in protest.

“There, now,” Darcy sought to soothe him.

Diffuse light flickered in the grey skies, followed by the steady rumble of a distant roll of thunder. Darcy grimaced. So he would have his promised wet ride after all.

Rain caught up with him sooner than expected. What had begun as a gentle patter turned swiftly into a downpour. Lightning flashed again and again, and the rumble of thunder grew increasingly louder. Bowing his head into the slanting rain and into the wind that threatened to make away with his hat, Darcy felt compelled to own that the innkeeper might have had the right of it: he would have been wiser to take lodgings with the old fellow for the night.

No sooner had he negotiated a sharp bend in the road than the brightest fork of lightning split the skies, startling both horse and rider. With a high-pitched neigh of terror, the stallion shied and reared up, fell back on his fours shuddering uncontrollably, bucked, then reared up again.

The rider’s fast reflexes were not enough to keep him in the saddle. The wet reins slipped from his grasp, and he was thrown off for the first time in upwards of eleven years. He caught the top of the stone wall as he fell, hit the ground with a groan, then remained motionless and silent.

The stallion still snorted and shook, pounding his hooves, then gave yet another shrill neigh and, of his own accord, made an about-turn to clatter apace uphill along the track, back towards the country inn and the remembered sights and scents he had come to associate with comfort and safety. Mercilessly whipped by the cold deluge that kept falling from the skies, the stallion galloped as fast as his legs would carry him – further and further away from the dark valley, from the dreaded spot where the hair-raising flash had struck, and from the deeply unnerving inert shape that lay prostrate in the pouring rain.

CHAPTER 1

Earlier that day…

The wind blew his hair back and sent his cloak billowing behind him as Darcy left the unprepossessing inn where he had found an hour’s rest and modest fare. The low, squat building stood perched close to the summit of the pass, a weather-beaten shelter for the intrepid souls who dared venture over the rough and inhospitable terrain. Few did, if any. Most Lakeland travellers sensibly chose the safer and tamer thoroughfares that kept to the valleys. There was nothing tame about the route across the hills. The road – in truth, little more than a track – snaked in hairpin bends up the steep slope on his left, only to then negotiate the equally treacherous incline down the other side, towards Ullswater.

Darcy was headed in the opposite direction – back to his ancestral home, having spent the best part of a fortnight roaming aimlessly on horseback over a bleak Lake District.

It was a bleak summer, in more ways than one. Of late, the weather had begun to match his state of mind – uniformly dark since April, when a brief interlude at the parsonage in Hunsford had blasted his best hopes. His offer of marriage had met with a refusal. A harsh refusal. Vitriolic. One devil of a way for him to learn that the woman he loved beyond all reason not only did not return his sentiments, but held him in profound contempt. He had expected a favourable answer, tenderly bestowed. Instead, she had sent him away with a host of bitter reproaches ringing in his ears.

A great many days had elapsed before he could relinquish the deep sense of ill-usage and acknowledge that her reproofs were justified.

He sighed. He could see his errors now and the flaws in his character and judgement, but it made no difference. He could not change what had come to pass.

Darcy turned around with somewhat of a start when the heavy door opened noisily behind him. It was the innkeeper – and about time, too, he inwardly grumbled.

“I asked for my horse. He is long in coming,” Darcy observed, rather too brusquely.

“He’s being readied as we speak, sorr. But as I said afore, I reckon ye’d best leave him to his oats an’ take shelter here for the night.”

Darcy gave a quiet snort. No wonder the man was so keen to have his custom – indeed, any custom. The inn was empty, as far as he could tell. Given its exceedingly remote location, that was no wonder either.

He resolved to remunerate the fellow more generously than was warranted for the simple fare and his mount’s comforts, but all he said was, “No need. I will reach Ambleside by nightfall.”

“Mayhap, but ye won’t have an easy ride, an’ ye can be assured of a wet one. That’ll catch up with ye in no time at all,” the innkeeper muttered with a nod towards the ceiling of ominous dark clouds that hung very low over the Ullswater valley, hiding the summits opposite, as though the hills had been severed in half.

Darcy frowned. In all likelihood, the storm clouds would soon descend over the pass into the next valley, obscure the road and slow his progress. He shrugged. Be that as it may. He was in no humour to find himself marooned in a godforsaken country inn.

He had found it hard enough to tolerate being marooned at Ashford, his uncle’s seat some thirty miles away. Very much against his every inclination, he had given in to his cousin Richard’s prodding and travelled there along with his sister, so that they might spend some time with their Fitzwilliam relations, reluctantly acknowledging that he owed her this.

Georgiana deserved better than being cooped up at home with a morose brother, Colonel Fitzwilliam had teasingly observed, and however much he had resented Richard’s words and manner, Darcy could not fail to concede him the point. Georgiana did deserve a vast deal better than months upon months at Pemberley with no society but that of an elderly companion, a lovelorn brother, and the odd caller from neighbouring estates.

Despite his best efforts, she simply would not be persuaded to journey north with their cousin and leave him behind, so Darcy had no option but to shoulder his duty and, for his sister’s sake, countenance conviviality at Ashford for a while.

Three weeks turned out to be more than he could bear. Too much noise there, too much bustle, and far too many people. Far too many queries too – kindly, but decidedly unwelcome – into the cause of his long silences, his dark mien and his altered manner. Was he unwell? Troubled? Weary? Bored? Was there aught amiss at Pemberley?

‘Yes’ was the answer, to all of the above. He was far from well, he was profoundly weary of the bland sameness of daily life, and nothing was right at Pemberley or anywhere else ever since Elizabeth had refused his offer of marriage. But he could not tell them that. He would not even share his burden with his cousin, despite their longstanding closeness and Colonel Fitzwilliam’s overt and covert efforts to loosen his tongue.

Since he would not reveal the truth, Darcy had resorted to shameless dissembling: he claimed that one of the letters sent forth from Pemberley had brought tidings of an urgent matter of business that required his attention. Not a grave cause for concern, he had insisted, just some tedious affair that should be addressed before it grew too tangled.

The same fabrication was dispensed to all, even his dearest cousin and his sister. Richard looked supremely unconvinced and Georgiana doubtful, but they held their peace and let him have his way. Albeit more vocal in their disappointment, the others did likewise.

Thus, at the end of the three intolerable weeks, one of his uncle’s thoroughbreds had thankfully taken him away from Ashford at a gallop. The carriage was left behind. The colonel had undertaken to escort Georgiana home around mid-August, then ride his father’s stallion back to Westmorland. Not that the noble creature would be missed. There were a fair number of thoroughbreds in Lord Malvern’s stables.

Yet, unbeknownst to those concerned, Darcy did not hasten towards Pemberley. For the following fortnight, he was accountable to no one. So he rode deep into the Lake Country instead. The long way back. The scenic route, he had scoffed with a wry twist to his lips, little interest as he could muster for the picturesque just then. What he sought was not rugged beauty but oblivion – or at least a modicum of peace.

It came as no surprise that, several days later, peace still eluded him and oblivion was not to be found. No matter. It was just as he had expected. And now it was high time to put an end to the indulgence. Head home. See to his duties. Live his life without her.

Darcy winced and donned his hat, but there was a firm set to his jaw as he tugged his gloves on. Enough, now. He had no business to loiter in a secluded country inn. He should reach Ambleside by nightfall, and Pemberley by the coming Wednesday. He had dallied in the wilderness for long enough.

* * * *

“He’ll see no further than a yard ahead within the hour,” muttered Simon, the lad who saw to odd jobs about the place and looked after the horses – the innkeeper’s only hired hand ever since Minnie, his scatterbrained and rather slovenly maid, had left his employ to settle in Rydal and marry.

The older man shrugged.

“As mulish as they come, he was. These young bucks, they think they know everything. He’ll come back if he has any sense, or push through an’ get soaked. Just as it pleases him. Told him there’s no crossroads all the way to Ambleside, so by me reckoning he’ll get there if he don’t end up in a ditch.” The innkeeper rubbed his shoulder to ease the pain that had begun to plague him in his old age and darted a wary look at the dark clouds, then glanced down into the valley. “Off wi’ ye, then, me lad. Go within an’ eat yer supper. You’ll have time, but not much to spare.”

“Why’s that, then?” Simon boldly asked, before he peered along the winding road and spotted the yellowish dot, a slowly moving patch of colour. A carriage, by the looks of it, struggling at a snail’s pace up the slope.

He gave a smirk of appreciation. Old Jonas Timms was in his sixties, yet still as keen of eye as any. Well, like as not, this lot won’t be itching to rush forth. By the time they reached the inn, had a warming drink and a bite to eat, they’d be fools to set off again so late in the day and take their chances with the fog and the fading light. So Old Jonas and his missus would have some custom that evening after all.

© Joana Starnes 2019

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Thanks for stopping by to read the first excerpt from The Journey Home To Pemberley. I hope you’d like to find out what happens next, and that you’ll visit to read the following instalments. Also, there’ll be a cover reveal soon, and of course there’ll be Giveaways.