Caroline Bingley’s Grand Plan (Pride and Prejudice Happily Ever Afters)

Chapter One

Caroline Bingley fell in love on her seventeenth birthday, and it changed everything.

She was standing on a spit of beach in Scarborough far enough along from the main town that she was unlikely to see anyone else.

The wind was up and it dragged at her hair and hurt her eyes, but she didn’t care.

The tears fell regardless, and the sting of the salt wore away the raw edges of her pain.

Caroline had returned from a three-month stint at finishing school in London that morning, and the physical release of being out of that viper pit was almost painful.

She had been taunted mercilessly by the other girls.

She was too tall. She wore the wrong gowns.

She lacked proper grace or the right style of coiffure.

But the majority of their venom was reserved for her accent and her background.

She was a daughter of trade, and it mattered little that her father—the wealthy owner of dozens of textile mills across the north of England—was richer and perhaps more influential than the papas of her classmates.

They were gentry. She would never be one of them and right now, she never wanted to be.

She swiped fiercely at her eyes and pushed back the dark hair that had long since escaped its pins and fallen across her face.

The worst of it was that she had begged to go.

She had been so certain that a place at the most exclusive seminary in the country would transform her, that she would return no longer the gawky, awkward Caro Bingley who often said the wrong thing, but a polished young lady capable of attracting a fine gentleman and fulfilling her father's dearest wish—to see his family welcomed among the landed classes.

Today was meant to be her victorious homecoming.

She was meant to sweep into the drawing room, her father’s eyes bright with tears and pride and her siblings Louisa and Charles struck dumb by her transformation.

Instead, she had entered with her eyes lowered, cheeks ablaze with the shame that surrounded her time in the capital.

"Now then, Caroline," her father had said in the gruff Yorkshire accent formed on the fishing docks of the town where they now occupied the grandest house overlooking the bay. "Has tha' learned what tha' must? Will tha' do thy old papa proud when tha' comes out?"

She had muttered some reply and escaped at once to her room, where she changed into her oldest, drabbest gown. All at once, she had been desperate to be out of the echoey mansion and to feel the clean salt air of the coast against her skin.

What was she to do? She was not enough. Not nearly good or clever or pretty enough.

She could never mix in the circles that she needed to in order to achieve what she must and please her family.

Her elder brother, Charles, had completed his studies at Eton and was now at Cambridge.

He had spent years among the sons of gentlemen and possessed such an affable, good-natured manner that people could not help but warm to him.

Her elder sister, Louisa, was fair and pretty, with the same easy warmth and none of Caroline's uncertainty.

She expected to live a full, happy life and had never thought to doubt that she would.

Caroline herself was tall and slender, dark like her mother who had died many years previously.

Her features were sharp and angular compared to Charles’ and Louisa’s gentle good looks and their carefree personalities were so opposite to her own that she sometimes wondered how they could be related.

Her brain was always busy. She worried about everything and could never turn off that voice inside her that told her she would undoubtedly fail.

"A pretty lady like you ought not to be crying alone on the beach."

Caroline whipped around, her eyes blazing with the humiliation of having been discovered in such a state. "Leave me alone," she hissed.

"Whoa, whoa. I am sorry, miss." The young man stood behind her lifted both hands, taking a step back. "I did not mean to startle you. I only wished to be certain you were quite well."

His voice caught her off guard. It carried some of the long, broad vowels of Yorkshire, but it was softened by another accent she could not immediately place. Something warmer. Mediterranean, perhaps. Spanish or Italian.

His clothes were those of a working man: loose, roughly woven brown trousers tucked into sturdy boots, a dark, serviceable waistcoat and a coat that had seen better days.

His white shirt—or what once had been a white shirt—stood open at the throat, revealing a scattering of dark hair against skin browned by the sun.

He was tall and long-limbed, the slight awkwardness of boyhood still apparent, but with wide shoulders that gave the promise of the man he would become.

But it was his face that stopped her dead.

He had high, finely cut cheekbones and a proud, straight nose which might have appeared severe on another man, but lent him an almost noble bearing.

He reminded her absurdly of a Roman statue brought suddenly to life.

It was his eyes, however, that held her.

They were not quite brown, but amber, ringed with a deeper shade around the iris.

He regarded her with such kindness, and such unfeigned concern, that the last of her composure deserted her.

A fresh wave of misery rose within her, and more tears began to fall.

He hurried towards her. "Miss, please. May I fetch something for your comfort, or call someone? Have you a maid or companion nearby?" He glanced anxiously along the empty shore.

"I am quite well," she managed, though the words were broken by ragged sobs.

He came a little closer and gently took her hand, leading her towards a broad, flat rock sheltered beneath the jagged cliff.

He said nothing as she sat, but kept hold of her hand until her breathing began to steady.

His fingers were rough yet warm against hers, and something of his quiet composure seemed to flow into her.

Before long, the worst of the storm had passed. Caroline sat in silence for a few moments, watching the restless sea curl and break against the shore. "Thank you, sir," she said at last in a small voice.

The words seemed to break some spell between them.

He released her hand, but his fingers remained close to hers on the smooth plane of the rock, and after a moment he began to talk.

At first, it was only to fill the silence.

He asked whether she had always lived in Scarborough and if she often walked so far from the town.

Then, somehow, he began to ask about her family and her time in London, about what she wanted for herself once she came out.

Caroline answered more than she intended, about her birthday and her disappointment and her fears for the future.

There was something about him that made it difficult to hold herself apart and he listened without interruption as she spoke.

In return, he told her that his name was Thomas Parodi.

His father was an Italian cabinetmaker who had come to London as a young man in search of work and there met Thomas' mother, the daughter of a Yorkshire clergyman.

Her family had not approved of the match, though her father had softened after Thomas was born and taken charge of much of his schooling.

Thomas had therefore received a thorough education while spending the rest of his time in his father's workshop.

The family had moved north when he was still a baby and now, at eighteen, he worked beside his father making cabinets and tables for some of the finest houses in Scarborough.

He spoke proudly of the work and of his father's skill, but when Caroline asked whether he meant to take over the workshop one day, he shook his head.

"No," he said, and his whole face changed. His eyes brightened and the last awkward traces of boyhood seemed to fall away from him. "I mean to become a physician."

Caroline looked at him in surprise. "A physician?" she repeated stupidly, unable to match the image of this striking boy in worn clothes with that of a sombre black-clad physician.

"There is a physician here in Scarborough, Dr Lawson, who has taken an interest in me. My father made several pieces for his house and I asked him so many questions when we delivered them that he lent me a book to quiet me and discovered that it had quite the opposite effect."

"He has allowed me to study with him ever since," Thomas continued. "He says that if I continue to apply myself over the coming year, he will sponsor me to study medicine in Edinburgh."

"And you believe he will?"

"I mean to give him no reason not to."

She looked at him then, really looked at him. She saw the determination in his face, the kindness in his eyes and the firm set of his jaw, and, all at once, fell hopelessly, irrevocably in love.

Over the next weeks, Thomas and Caroline met almost every day on that wild stretch of beach beyond the town.

They made no arrangements and exchanged no promises, yet each appeared at the same hour as on that first morning, and before long their conversations came as easily as though they had known one another for years.

The biting chill of winter gradually gave way to the softer days of early spring, and one bright morning, when the sea lay flat as a millpond and the gulls wheeled lazily overhead, Thomas kissed her.

It was so gentle that she felt it scarcely more than the brush of a butterfly against her lips, and the sweetness of it brought tears to her eyes.

He drew back only far enough to look at her, his expression uncertain. "Forgive me. I ought not to have done that."

"No," Caroline said, tightening her fingers around his before he could release her. "You ought not to apologise."

For a moment, he simply looked at her, then took both her hands in his.

"I love you, Caroline. I have loved you almost from the first day we met, though I knew well enough how foolish it was and tried more than once to persuade myself that I could be content with your friendship.

I cannot. I know I have little to offer you now beyond hopes and plans, but I mean to go to Edinburgh and work until I have made something of myself.

I cannot promise how long it will take, only that I will return when I am able to support you properly and ask your father for your hand. "

Caroline could scarcely breathe. "And if it takes years?"

"Then it will take years, and I shall spend them becoming the sort of man who may stand before your family without shame. I do not expect you to wait for me if your feelings change, but mine will not. Of that, at least, I am certain."

She smiled through her tears and tightened her hold on his hands. "My feelings will not change either. I will wait for you, Thomas, however long it takes."

Something in his face softened, and for one suspended moment, the sounds of the shore and the cries of the gulls faded away. All that remained was the two of them, looking into each other's eyes and seeing their own hopes and fears reflected back towards themselves.

"Loving you is easy," he said quietly. "It is everything that must come before I may marry you that will be difficult."