release-Happiest Couple in the World

Good morning! It’s release day for The Happiest Couple in the World and I have another excerpt for you to (I hope) enjoy! You can get a copy here: https://geni.us/HappiestCouple

It is available in ebook and in KU or in a paperback.

The other excerpts I posted are at these links:

Excerpt #1: https://austenvariations.com/cover-reveal-for-the-happiest-couple-in-the-world/

Excerpt #2: https://austenvariations.com/new-book-excerpt-the-happiest-couple-in-the-world/

An Excerpt from Chapter 4: His Abhorrence

Elizabeth could never forget the sacrifice that Darcy had made for her, back in 1812, before they were married, back when he knew not if his efforts would ever yield him his heart’s desire. He had contrived to assist a man he loathed—a man who had so injured dear Georgiana—and see him settled with her sister. Lydia, the silliest and most imprudent of all her sisters, had courted scandal and had been rewarded accordingly. However, she and Elizabeth and indeed all of the Bennets were saved from absolute ruination by Darcy. So far did he go that he actually served as witness to Mr and Mrs Wickham’s marriage, had signed his name to vouchsafe for them, provided them their living—he had seen to it all.

She still remembered how it felt to comprehend what he had done. To know that he had done it for her, that he loved her still—it had been heady and humbling and heart-warming all at once. 

Now was the time for her to return the favour. Could she do for him that which made her very heart revolt against her? Could she act contrary to all she felt if it would bring them peace? What if this could be her gift to him? She would still give him a child, only in an unusual way.

She twisted and turned it over, examined it from every side over the course of the two days until he returned. It sickened her and filled her with fear; but she could see no other solution. 

She did her best to smile and be friendly when he returned, behaving for all the world as if she thought he had been at Pemberley and had only just returned. “And how did you find things in Derbyshire?” she asked cheerfully, taking hearty bites of beef. She had ordered a very sturdy menu that night and wanted to eat enthusiastically before him.

“Everything was as expected,” he said; and that was that. Privately Elizabeth wondered if he had ever even gone to Derbyshire, but it did not matter now. She rattled on while he ate, reminding herself to eat until she felt her stomach swollen against the bottom of her stays. 

“It is good to see you in such spirits,” he said when dinner was finished. “It seems that it has been too long since I have seen you thus.”

“Yes, well…” Elizabeth swallowed. “I have done a great deal of thinking while you were gone.” 

“Have you?” 

Their butler, Danforth, entered with Darcy’s port then, and Elizabeth fell silent, waiting while he poured her husband his drink. Her heartbeat began to crescendo wildly as she watched Danforth pour with what seemed to be excessive deliberation, but at last it was done. 

“Danforth, will you see that we are not disturbed?” Elizabeth asked. If the butler was surprised, he did not show it. He merely nodded and quit the room, closing the door behind him with a firm thud and click.

Her request had raised Darcy’s concern, and he regarded her with a furrowed brow. “Do you wish to speak to me of something particular?” 

“I do.” Her mouth suddenly dry, she swallowed. “So… next week I will be six-and-twenty. It is… I confess it feels like something of a difficult age. Youth is behind me, and yet I feel just the same as I ever did.” 

He smiled blandly. “You are in every way just as youthful and beautiful as you were the day I met you.” 

“The day you met me, you said I was not handsome enough to tempt you,” she reminded him. “But never mind that. My point is that everyone else my age is married, many of them with children, and those who are not have resigned themselves to spinsterhood.” 

His smile slipped into trepidation. This subject never ended well for them. He took a careful sip of his port while he arranged his thoughts. “Elizabeth, we have a happy marriage and a beautiful home. We have not been blessed with children, it is true, but I believe in due time—” 

“In due time? If it has not happened now, it is not likely, and in any case—” She paused a moment and cleared her throat. “In any case, I do not see much chance of a conception whilst my husband refuses to come to my bed.” 

Darcy went pale, and he set his glass onto the table with exceeding care. He looked at her steadily, and his tone was grave and excessively reasonable when he at last spoke. “The doctors said you should not conceive another child. He believed that—”

“No, the doctors said I could not. That is quite different from should not, and in any case, no one is in agreement. One doctor tells us this, and this midwife says that, and it’s all a jumble.”

“It is not a risk I am willing to take,” he said firmly.

“And is yours the only opinion worthy of consideration?” 

“You have no idea what it was like,” he retorted. “How near death you came. I would much rather live without children than live without you.” 

“You do live without me!” Elizabeth cried out and then immediately hushed to a tone less loud, though still impassioned. “Our marriage is coming apart. You do not share my bed, you kiss me only if I ask you to, we scarcely speak to one another, we do not laugh together… You just went to Pemberley and did not even me ask if I wished to accompany you.”

She paused and then, looking at him straight on, asked, “Unless, of course, you did not even go to Derbyshire?” 

His eyes flashed towards her, dangerously dark. “I beg your pardon?” 

“Perhaps you were in London the entire time.” 

“Do not be ridiculous.” 

“Perhaps you should tell Caroline Slaghorne not to be ridiculous when she is telling everyone she saw you at your club when I thought you in Derbyshire.” Elizabeth paused and added more softly, “She and all the rest of the gossips have seen that something is amiss between us and very much enjoy discussing it amongst themselves.” 

His eyes had gone nearly black. He stared at the table linens as if they held some solution to this tangle. “I did, in fact, go to Derbyshire, but yes, I returned earlier than planned.” 

“And stayed at your club?”

He nodded, not meeting her eye.

“Why did you not come home?” She cursed herself for asking a question she did not wish to know the answer to and for asking it in such a plaintive way.

He ran one hand over his mouth. “Because I hate this too.” 

Though he said nothing that Elizabeth did not also feel, it stung deeply. They sat in silence, considering it. “There is an ever-widening breach between us. We need something to bridge that if there is any hope of us finding one another again.” 

“I will try harder,” he said by rote. “Perhaps, once the—”

“No.” Elizabeth stopped him immediately. “That is not what I mean. We are in need of something far beyond the usual measures by now. We cannot leave this room with nothing but vague promises of walks and talks to remedy things.” 

Finally, he looked at her. He reached for her hand, and she slid it into his grasp, feeling comfort in the warm familiarity of his touch. He sighed. “I want you to know that I would do anything to set us back on course.”

“I would too,” she said, imbuing as much meaning as she could into the words. “Absolutely anything at all.” 

“If only there was something we could do that we have not already tried,” Darcy said regretfully. 

“If we had a child, or hope of one,” Elizabeth began slowly, “I would no longer feel like the mistake you made.” 

“I have never thought of you as a mistake. Not once.”

“No?” she asked quickly. “You cannot tell me you do not have some regret. With each and every crestfallen look I see on your countenance, my disappointment in myself increases accordingly.” 

“I am not disappointed in you,” he said, with such earnestness that she nearly believed him. 

“Well, you should be,” she replied softly. “It is my chief duty, as the wife of a great man, to produce his heir, and in that I have failed. I have disappointed myself, and I should think you a simpleton if you thought otherwise.” 

He made no reply to that but squeezed her hand reassuringly. 

“If there was a child, you would no longer look disappointed, and I could live without the never-ending strain for giving you a child. We would not have the fears of Pemberley going to your cousins.” With a deep breath, she said, “I have grown up watching what happened in a marriage that was marked by my mother’s inability to give my father an heir. I do not want that for us.” 

“It would never happen that way for us.” 

“It already is,” Elizabeth insisted. “You have slipped back into disdaining me, and I feel it.” 

He let go of her hand and ran his own hand over his face. “What could we do that we have not already done? You have taken the waters of nearly every health spa England has to offer. We have consulted midwives and physicians, bishops and clever women—I know not what else we might do.”

“I have a suggestion.” Elizabeth’s heartbeat sounded like thunder in her ears. This was it; once she said it, there was no going back. “But it will require some… some discomfort on the part of us both.” 

“Oh?” His brow wrinkled. “What is it?”

Ugh I know, how cruel that I should end it here! But you can read it for free if you have KU and I hope you will!!

https://geni.us/HappiestCouple