Leap into Love – D&E Excerpt by Shannon Winslow

With Valentine’s Day, love is in the air. And it’s a Leap Year besides! So we’re celebrating all this month with romantic excerpts and special giveaways!

Today it’s my turn, and I have a romantic ‘Darcy and Elizabeth’ chapter from The Darcys of Pemberley, my first (and still most popular) novel.  Even if you’ve read this P&P sequel before, I hope you will enjoy revisiting it.

Set up: This book begins approximately one year after the end of Pride and Prejudice. It opens with the news of Mr. Collins’s untimely death (sorry?), which happened when he choked on a mouthful of mutton – an important detail that is referred to later. The funeral services have just concluded, and now, here is chapter 2:

~~ 2 ~~

Both for those who had traveled far and for the young widow, it had been an arduous day, as the strain on more than one drawn face attested. Excepting the Lucases, who planned to stay on with their daughter at the parsonage a fortnight, most of the other parties were lodged in town. So, by mid-afternoon, carriages were ordered and people began taking leave to return to London.

The Bingleys intended to stay a few days with Mr. Bingley’s sister and her husband, the Hursts, in Grosvenor Street. The Bennets went to the Gardiners, Mrs. Bennet’s brother and his family, in a less fashionable part of town. Although they may have hoped for a different invitation, none had been forthcoming from the Darcys. The suddenness of their trip south from Derbyshire at the news of Mr. Collins’s death had given no time to properly prepare the townhouse for guests. At least that was the formal reason given. In truth, the easy-tempered Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner could more cheerfully abide the unbridled tongue of Mrs. Bennet than could some of her nearer relations.

Therefore, with all their friends parceled out elsewhere, Mr. and Mrs. Darcy enjoyed the happy prospect of having their home quite to themselves. In companionable silence they rode back to London, Elizabeth’s contemplative mood for the moment matching her husband’s taciturn tendencies.

How little she had understood his reserved nature when they first met. She blushed now to remember how she censured him for pride and arrogance – not wholly undeserved – whilst her own conduct was equally at fault. What if they had never overcome those early misunderstandings? It could so easily have happened. No doubt most men would have walked away for good upon being so soundly refused. Elizabeth shuddered at the very idea.

“What is it?” Darcy asked. “Are you cold?”

“A little,” she answered, accepting his interpretation. “Autumn is upon us, and the evening air has taken a decided chill.”

In response, Darcy settled a rug over their laps and his arm about her shoulders. “There, is that better?”

“Oh, yes. In fact, had I anticipated such an agreeable solution, I should have discovered myself to be cold a good deal sooner.”

Elizabeth observed her husband’s look of quiet satisfaction. Later, when the carriage wheels exchanged the rutted dirt of country roads for the clatter of cobblestones, he voiced what they were both thinking.

“Not much farther now; we shall soon be home,” he said, squeezing her arm.

Elizabeth’s mind drifted back to the first time she had seen their London house, which had been on their wedding day. Although usually self-assured, on that occasion she became increasingly discomposed as they drew ever nearer, her apprehension arising as much from her new position as mistress of such a grand house as from the prospect of what awaited her in the marriage bed. She needn’t have worried on either account; her husband managed everything for her comfort.

A fine supper had been prepared that evening for the master and his bride, to which they did not do justice. The delicately roasted quail had gone nearly untouched; the parsley potatoes failed to hold their interest; they drank their wine but hardly tasted it. The cook was not to blame, nor was she much offended that the couple’s appetites were so thoroughly engaged elsewhere. Ultimately, Mr. and Mrs. Darcy abandoned their dinner and moved to the bedchamber for the much-anticipated main course of the evening, which turned out more to their liking.

Now, Elizabeth experienced far different sentiments as they entered their affluent neighborhood. Confidence engendered by familiarity had replaced her former anxiety. Although both she and her husband preferred to spend most of the year in the country, at Pemberley, they returned to London every so often for business or social concerns.

The obligation to introduce Mr. Darcy’s younger sister into society added one more reason for coming to town. Miss Georgiana, now seventeen, had been under the guardianship of her brother since the deaths of their parents several years prior. Always careful with his charge, Darcy learnt to be even more protective after a nearly disastrous brush with a fortune hunter – the same Mr. Wickham who was now, unhappily, his brother-in-law on Elizabeth’s side.

Although he took every reasonable precaution, the danger remained, and he would not be completely easy until his responsibility for his sister was fully discharged by seeing her respectably married and settled. Still waters often ran deep, and it had occurred to him that Georgiana’s tranquil exterior might be concealing more trouble brewing just below the surface.

Darcy pushed that recurring thought from his mind as the carriage began to slow upon approach to the house. “Do you wish to do any shopping or take in an entertainment while we are in town?” he asked his wife. “We might find some amusement at one of the assembly rooms, should you have a mind to go out.”

“I do have a little shopping if convenient. I really ought to visit the milliner, and Georgiana asked me to look out for some new piano music.” Elizabeth paused and smiled coyly. “As for entertainment, husband, you know that I prefer the amusements you provide above all others.”

Taking her words as an invitation, he snatched his wife into his arms. He would have given her a little “amusement” right then and there, had not the footman opened the door prematurely. “Confound it,” Darcy muttered under his breath, loosening his hold.

With a laugh, Elizabeth made good her escape; she slipped from her husband’s grasp, out of the carriage, and up the steps into the house. There, she knew, she would be perfectly safe, since Darcy took meticulous care to preserve his dignified demeanor in front of the servants. This fact made him an irresistibly easy target for her sport, the brunt of which he bore tolerably well. He would simply bide his time, content in the knowledge that he would receive his recompense later when they were alone, which was the most amusing part of the game.

With his self-control firmly reestablished, Mr. Darcy continued the conversation with his wife in the hall as if there had been no interruption.

“If it would suit you, you can dispatch your shopping tomorrow whilst I tend to some business at the solicitor’s office. And what do you say to having a few friends over Wednesday? Not a large group, possibly just the Applewhites and the Heywoods. Would you like that?”

“An excellent notion! I long to see our friends again, and a small group is best, I think, with the house not being fully-staffed at present. I shall speak to Cook and send our cards round in the morning.”

They shared a simple supper before retiring for the night. Unlike many others of their class, the Darcys never considered separate bedchambers. Their time alone together was precious to them, and, with servants always about, there were few other places where they could enjoy that luxury. In their private sanctuary, Darcy relaxed his stately persona, and Elizabeth felt free to lavish affection on him in ways more explicit than permitted in public.

From the time they met, there existed no shortage of heat between them, although it had at first been misdirected into confrontation. After their marriage, that fire naturally channeled into more satisfying pursuits. Darcy certainly expected to find this aspect of married life rewarding. Elizabeth had been less confident going in, considering the warning hints and ambiguous information she received on the topic from her mother. Yet, resolving to keep an open mind, she had been gratified, and not a little surprised, to discover that her own extensive investigation into the matter reached such a happy conclusion.

On this night, however, weary as they were from the exertions of the day, the couple shared only the intimacy of each other’s thoughts as they lay in mutual embrace. Darcy cradled his wife within the curve of his arm and took pleasure in meditating on the perfection of her face by firelight. As he did so, he noticed the little furrow between her eyebrows that crept in whenever she was worried or sad.

“Your cousin’s death has upset you more than you anticipated,” he ventured.

“It is only that I cannot help thinking about the uncertainty of life when a person who is young and healthy can drop dead without warning. I picture us growing old together, Darcy, but who is to say? It frightens me to apprehend that this tragedy could just as easily have happened to us rather than to the Collinses.” Gazing into his dark eyes, Elizabeth pleaded, “Promise you will never leave me; I know that I could not bear it.”

“You should not upset yourself by dwelling on such gloomy reflections, my love,” Darcy urged, drawing Elizabeth closer and stroking her hair. “Here, with you, I shall always be, so far as it is within my control. We must trust to God for the rest.”

In the silence that followed, Elizabeth pondered his assurances.

Then, with an arch look, Darcy added, “I can at least ease your mind by promising you this. I shall always be scrupulously careful to cut my mutton into very small pieces to avoid your cousin’s fate.”

Elizabeth drew back in affected horror at her husband’s irreverent remark. “For shame, Mr. Darcy! How can you be so unfeeling?” she chastised, punctuating her words with a blow to his ribs.

Darcy prudently protected himself from further assault by pinning her hands to the bed with his own and swinging a leg over her, lest she next try to kick him. These reasonable countermeasures left the two in an interesting position. As the tussle escalated, both parties soon forgot they had imagined themselves to be tired, and Mr. Darcy collected his “recompense” that night after all.

Hope you enjoyed this romantic excerpt from The Darcys of Pemberley! That’s as racy as it gets, btw. I prefer to leave something to the imagination, and I’m quite sure your imaginations are up to the job!

Thank you for reading, and Happy Belated Valentine’s Day!