Release Day “Inspiration” and another Deplorable Date

I am delighted to announce, Inspiration is now available at all major booksellers!

This is another book I didn’t intend to write, but you guys inspired me to see it past the short story stage through to a full novella! To thank you guys for your support I’ve got another part posted below, and a giveaway. Leave a comment to enter!

His muse desires her; she detests him. How will his soul survive?

Gentleman artist Fitzwilliam Darcy had never been able to express himself in words, but with his brushes and paints, he expresses what few men ever could. When his flighty muse abandons him, though, he finds himself staring at blank canvases in a world that has turned bland and cold and grey.

Worried for his friend, Charles Bingley invites Darcy to join him in Hertfordshire, in hopes the picturesque countryside might tempt Darcy’s muse to return. The scheme works only too well. His muse returns, with a vengeance, fixated upon the one young woman in the county who utterly detests him.

Will his selfish disdain for the feelings of others drive her and his muse away or can he find a way to please this woman with the power to bring color and feeling back into his world?

Find it HERE.

Since our theme this month is Deplorable Dates, it is fitting that the final bit I’ll post  features what might considered a date gone rather wrong!

Part 6

Darcy presented himself at the drawing room a quarter of an hour prior to their guests appointed arrival. The room was stiff and formal and largely purple, as it ever was, but the air crackled, electric in anticipation of the awaited company. Unfortunately, Aunt Catherine immediately seized upon he and Fitzwilliam for conversation.

Fitzwilliam handled it with aplomb, wandering away at the first opportunity to create a cozy cluster of chairs to draw their guests’ companionship to himself. Blast and botheration—did he realize what he was doing? He must—his posture gloated on his triumph and that Darcy could voice no complaint on it.

Their guests arrived, but only one mattered. She curtsied, greeted Aunt Catherine and proceeded to join Fitzwilliam with her friend Mrs. Collins. Mr. Collins, naturally, waited upon his patroness.

What joy! Darcy’s muse chittered something vengeful sounding in his ear—suggesting that perhaps he deserved this torment.

“You are on time tonight, I see Mr. Collins.” Did Aunt Catherine really need to state the obvious?

The vicar bowed, a glow of sweat simmering on his forehead. “Yes, your Ladyship. You have indeed impressed upon me—”

“And your guest, did you find she was apt to be timely?” Aunt Catherine stared at Miss Elizabeth with a most peculiar, narrow-eyed look.

Mr. Collins sat in the stiff, polished chair nearest Aunt Catherine. “Yes, yes. She was most timely—”

“I am pleased to hear her mother has properly attended to those things.”

Darcy hid his snort in a bout of coughing. If only Aunt Catherine knew Mrs. Bennet, she would never mistake good training having come from her. She was a dreadful influence on her daughters. It was a great credit to Miss Bennet and Miss Elizabeth that they were nothing like their mother at all.

Darcy’s gaze wandered to the other side of the room. While their characters were utterly unalike, mother and daughter shared physical similarities. The lines of their jaws in particular favored one another. The shape of her cheeks and eyes were also similar. And their ears shared the same graceful curves and swirls. She had very attractive ears.

At some point in his sojourn to Hertfordshire, someone had mentioned that Mrs. Bennet had been a great beauty in her youth, and that was how she had got her husband. Her daughters were said to continue the line of family beauty. That was essentially correct, but to limit Miss Elizabeth’s appearance in such a way was nearly criminal. Her beauty was hardly so ordinary.

Miss Elizabeth laughed—a lovely, light, lyrical sound—at something Fitzwilliam said. How vexing that he should be in conversation with her while Darcy could not. It did not help at all that Miss Elizabeth should smile and her eyes twinkle so over her merriment in Fitzwilliam’s presence. Darcy’s left hand balled into a fist.

“What is that you are saying, Fitzwilliam? What is it you are talking of? What are you telling Miss Bennet? Let me hear what it is.” Aunt Catherine rapped her knuckles on the arm of her chair to punctuate her demands.

“We are speaking of music, Madam.” He glanced over his shoulder at her.

“Of music! Then pray speak aloud.” She waved her boney hand, directing all attention towards herself as she eased back into her seat. “It is of all subjects my delight. I must have my share in the conversation, if you are speaking of music. There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully. How does Georgiana get on, Darcy?”

Darcy jumped. Aunt Catherine so rarely gave anyone else entry into the conversation, his mind went blank.

“Darcy?” And now she took offence at his lack of ready words. Delightful.

“I … uh … she is doing very well. She takes great joy in the instrument. I find her at practice many hours during the day. There is a new pianoforte being made ready for her even now. I believe it will bring her great pleasure to play on a superior instrument. Her music teachers have all reported that she is indeed a true proficient.” It probably was not appropriate to bait his aunt so, but who could help themselves?

Fitzwilliam snorted into his hand.

“I am very glad to hear such a good account of her,” Aunt Catherine favored him with a small glower, “and pray tell her from me, that she cannot expect to excel, if she does not practice a great deal.”

Darcy gritted his teeth and drew two deep breaths before responding. “I assure you, Madam, that she does not need such advice. She practices very constantly.” It would be decidedly impolite as he had already mentioned the scope of her practice.

“So much the better.” She braced her elbows on the arms of her chair and pulled herself up very straight—a monarch issuing a decree. “It cannot be done too much; and when I next write to her, I shall charge her not to neglect it on any account. I often tell young ladies, that no excellence in music is to be acquired, without constant practice. I have told Miss Bennet …”

She had dared talk to Miss Bennet? No doubt insulted her, giving his muse more offense for him to atone for.

“… several times, that she will never play really well, unless she practices more; and though Mrs. Collins has no instrument, she is very welcome, as I have often told her, to come to Rosings every day, and play on the pianoforte in Mrs. Jenkinson’s room. She would be in nobody’s way, you know, in that part of the house.”

Darcy winced and covered his face with his hand. Even if Aunt Catherine had not given prior offence, she was making the most of the opportunity now.  Thankfully a squadron of maids brought in refreshments and Aunt Catherine was distracted, telling them precisely how to accomplish each task.

When coffee was over, Colonel Fitzwilliam reminded Miss Elizabeth of her promise to play for them. She sat down directly at the instrument, a picture of grace in each movement.

If there were ever an opportunity for him to move, it would be now. But how?

Fitzwilliam drew a chair near the pianoforte. Aunt Catherine listened to half a song, and then talked, far too loudly, to Darcy. Enough of her rudeness!

He walked away from her and quite deliberately to the pianoforte, stationing himself so as to command a full view of Elizabeth’s astonishing countenance.

No, she was not a proficient musician, barely tolerable she would be considered in some circles. Her posture, according to Georgiana’s music masters was sloppy and her hand position unacceptable. Still, she seemed to possess a muse of her own that lit her eyes and sweetened her voice as she played and sang for them.

Somehow, in some way utterly unexpected, one muse spoke to another and together they took flight, soaring above the confines of the floor, somewhere near the high ceiling above them. Dizzying, breathtaking, enchanting—

—and devastating as her music came to an abrupt halt.

She looked up at him, eyes full of lively fire. “You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me? But I will not be alarmed, though your sister does play so well. There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.”

What state had he come to her in? Aching and empty, longing to be filled? Repentant and resolute to make reparations for his past wrongs? What did she think of him? “I shall not say that you are mistaken, because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you. I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know, that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are not your own.”

Elizabeth laughed heartily.

The muses laughed with her.

Oh, how well that sounded! Surely that should count in his favor.

She turned to Fitzwilliam, color high in her cheeks. “Your cousin will give you a very pretty notion of me, and teach you not to believe a word I say. I am particularly unlucky in meeting with a person so well able to expose my real character, in a part of the world where I had hoped to pass myself off with some degree of credit. Indeed, Mr. Darcy, it is very ungenerous in you to mention all that you knew to my disadvantage in Hertfordshire—and, give me leave to say, very impolitic too—for it is provoking me to retaliate, and such things may come out, as will shock your relations to hear.”

“I am not afraid of you.” It was her distain that he feared, not her teasing smiles and glittering eyes.

How difficult, profoundly difficult it was to tell what she was seeing in him right now. Damn it all! Why could he not read her easily? Why should others have that gifting and not he?

“Pray let me hear what you have to accuse him of.” Fitzwilliam leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I should like to know how he behaves among strangers.” He winked at Darcy.

“You shall hear then—but prepare yourself for something very dreadful. The first time of my ever seeing him in Hertfordshire, you must know, was at a ball—and at this ball, what do you think he did? He danced only four dances! I am sorry to pain you—but so it was. He danced only four dances, though gentlemen were scarce; and, to my certain knowledge, more than one young lady was sitting down in want of a partner. Mr. Darcy, you cannot deny the fact.”

She had been one of those young-ladies—that was bad enough—but that she should have also heard his unkind remarks as well! It was only just and fair that he should feel the sting of that now as much as she had then. No wonder his muse had been so profoundly offended. Was it telling that he had forgotten the incident? “I had not, at that time, the honor of knowing any lady in the assembly beyond my own party.”

“True; and nobody can ever be introduced in a ball room.” Her eyes held him with such just accusation he could not look away.

He nodded very slowly, accepting the charges against him.

At last she looked aside. “Well, Colonel Fitzwilliam, what do I play next? My fingers wait your orders.”

“Perhaps,” Darcy cleared his throat softly, “I should have judged better and sought an introduction, but I am ill-qualified to recommend myself to strangers.”

“Shall we ask your cousin the reason of this?” Her eyes flared with fresh fury. “Shall we ask him why a man of sense and education, and who has lived in the world, is ill-qualified to recommend himself to strangers?”

“I can answer your question without applying to him.” Fitzwilliam leaned back and crossed one leg over the other, his chair creaking softly. “It is because he will not give himself the trouble.”

Darcy held his breath to keep from muttering. It was so good of Fitzwilliam to be such a staunch supporter, now that he was under such prosecution—just though it may be. “I certainly have not the talent which some people possess, of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.”

“My fingers,” Elizabeth’s eye brow arched, just so, “do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women’s do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault—because I would not take the trouble of practicing. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman’s of superior execution. The fault is mine and mine alone.”

Darcy forced a smile and nodded. “You are perfectly right. You have employed your time much better. No one admitted to the privilege of hearing you, can think anything wanting. We neither of us perform to strangers.”

She seemed to start at the notion that they were anything alike. That look of wonder and confusion in her eyes! If only he could get to his notebook quickly, lest he forget it. The little crease between her brows that appeared when she was thinking formed. Was she now considering their similarities?

How well compatible might two such people be? Would it not be very pleasing to have such a companion for his future life? His heart hammered staccato against his ribs.

“What are you talking of now? I must have my share in the conversation!” Aunt Catherine’s shrill tones raised the hair on the back of his neck.

Miss Elizabeth immediately began playing, her muse taking his for a whirl about the room once again. Was it possible he had been forgiven? Could it be procured so easy, simply to allow her to tease against his foibles?

Aunt Catherine approached, and, listened for a few minutes. “Miss Bennet would not play at all amiss, if she practiced more, and could have the advantage of a London master. She has a very good notion of fingering, though her taste is not equal to Anne’s. Anne would have been a delightful performer, had her health allowed her to learn.” Her tone warned, scolded him of the duty she believed he owed her.

Miss Elizabeth looked at him. Could she tell he did not agree with Aunt Catherine’s continued litany of instructions on style, execution and taste? Did she detect Aunt Catherine’s real meaning? Oh, how Miss Elizabeth received the diatribe with all the forbearance of civility, even—at the request of Fitzwilliam—remaining at the instrument till her ladyship’s carriage was ready to take them all home.

As he watched her disappear into the carriage, a stabbing ache lodged in his chest. Watching her depart was indeed a dreadful thing.

There had to be some way to make it stop.

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