Engaged in an Elopement (Pride and Prejudice “What if?” Variations #11)

Chapter 1 1066-1651

Their progenitor, étienne de Arci, rode beneath Duke William’s banner across the Channel and was granted lands in the north for his loyalty.

The hills were wild, the tenants few, and the weather unforgiving—but étienne had not crossed the sea for comfort.

He came for permanence. For land. For a name to last longer than the battle cry that won it.

étienne tightened his grip on the reins, guiding his horse toward the crest of the ridge.

The fog clung to the edges of the trees like breath held too long.

Below his legs, his mount’s flanks steamed in the damp air, and each hoofbeat sounded dull on the soft, churned earth.

Below him, the land rolled out like a great, slumbering beast—untamed, bristling with heather and smoke.

The Norman banners had stopped flying at the horizon. The dead had already been counted.

And William, their Duke—now their King—had begun to grant rewards.

étienne pushed back the hood of his cloak. His hair was damp with sweat and mist, his mail-shirt stained dark with the grime of two battles and one hard march. Behind him, half a dozen of his men waited, their silence thick with expectation.

He exhaled through his nose, staring at the rise of land beyond the far field. It was not yet called anything. Not Pemberley. Not Darcy land or Derbyshire, meaning deer farm. Just another tangle of wooded hill and rocky stream that William had marked on the map with his dagger.

But it would be his. By right of blood and blade.

“Thou hast done well, de Arci,” William had said that morning, his voice rasping from days of shouting commands and sleeping rough.

“Thou didst hold the left line when Breteuil faltered. Men speak thy name with respect now. And more importantly”—here the Duke had grinned— “they do not speak ill of it.”

étienne had bowed low, though his back ached. “I am thine, my lord.”

“And now, thou art England’s.” William handed him the scrap of vellum with a smear of wax upon it. A deed, of sorts. A promise. “Ride west. Take the ridge and the lands beyond it. Build thy house and hold it. Thou shalt need strong men in the North when winter comes.”

And now he stood at the edge of it.

His land.

He dismounted slowly, his boots sinking into the damp turf. With one hand, he drew his sword—not in readiness, but reverence. He knelt in the earth, the blade point-down before him, both palms resting upon the pommel.

“In nomine Patris,” he whispered, lifting his right hand to his brow, his fingers resting there for a brief, reverent moment before moving downward to his chest, “et Filii,” and then across, first to one shoulder and then the other, “et Spiritus Sancti.”

He remained prone, allowing the prayer to sink into the earth and rise to the sky. The wind stirred around him. The horses stamped. A raven called once and then was gone.

“This land shall be honest. This land shall be mine.”

He looked over his shoulder at the men behind him. Two had served his father. One bore a bandage around his head. The youngest cradled a dented helmet in his arms like a child. They waited for his word, still following him days after the fighting had ended.

“We build here,” étienne said. “A house. A holding. A future.”

“What shall we call it, milord?” asked the boy with the helmet.

étienne glanced again at the hills. “We shall name it later. For now… we survive the winter.”

A few men laughed, low and short. One muttered a prayer. Another crossed himself.

As they began to make camp in the lee of the ridge, étienne cleaned his blade with a patch of wool and slipped it back into its sheath.

He did not know then that he would live to see thirty more winters, or that his name would shift from de Arci to D’Arcy to Darcy, made softer by generations of English mouths.

He could not have guessed that his bloodline would hold this land not for a decade, but for centuries.

But he knew this: the earth beneath his knees had been paid for with the last breath of a Saxon. And he would see it turned to wheat and timber and fire.

For his sons, and their sons after them, and their sons.

He turned back toward the land.

And he began.

∞∞∞

Spring 1534 — London, Court of Whitehall

The hall smelled of damp wool and fear.

Thomas D’Arcy stood with the other landowners, each of them clutching the same parchment, each of them faced with the same choice. It was treason now to believe what their fathers had believed.

Treason to kneel where they had always knelt in worship.

Treason to call the Pope head of the Church.

And standing proudly before them, resplendent in new robes of scarlet and ermine, was Sir Reginald Fitzwilliam, smiling like a cat caught in the cream.

Henry’s latest toadying favorite, D’Arcy thought with disgust.

Fitzwilliam’s estate, Matlock, was separated from D’Arcy’s lands by a river and a long-standing distaste.

The Fitzwilliams had been new men once, rising quickly under the Plantagenets, and faster still now under the Tudors.

Where the D’Arcys traced their name to Normandy and their roots to conquest, the Fitzwilliams traced theirs to the King’s bastard and their wealth to flattery.

And today, flattery had won.

Sir Reginald had knelt before the King that morning and received a barony.

Sir Reginald Fitzwilliam, Baron of Matlock.

The crowd had cheered. Cromwell had smiled.

And Thomas D’Arcy had stood in silence, the oath in his hand, burning through the wax like poison.

He read it again. “We do acknowledge His Majesty’s full authority, as Supreme Head of the Church of England…”

He could feel the words seeping into him like rot.

“We do renounce all foreign powers and potentates…”

That meant the Pope. Rome. His church.

His soul.

He looked at the men to either side of him. One was sweating so profusely that his collar had darkened with damp. Another held his paper so tightly the parchment was tearing at the edges. Their fathers had fought for Henry VII. Their grandfathers had died at Bosworth for Lancaster or York.

And now they were to unmake their faith with a stroke of the quill.

"Well, D'Arcy?" came a voice behind him, silken and smug.

Sir Reginald.

Thomas turned slightly, enough to see the man’s smug expression and the chain of new office gleaming on his breast. His beard was waxed to a sharp point. His eyes, cold and amused.

"You seem pensive. Surely His Majesty's wisdom does not trouble you."

Thomas inclined his head. "His Majesty’s wisdom is not mine to question."

"Ah, very wise. Very safe. But come—let us be men of the world, you and I." He gestured with one gloved hand toward the line of peers signing their names at the long oak table. "No one will remember who signed first or last. Only who refused."

He leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper. "And those men will burn."

Thomas said nothing.

He could feel the oath trembling in his hand.

Sir Reginald clapped him once on the shoulder and moved on, offering congratulations to another man who had just scratched his name with trembling fingers.

did not move.

The parchment lay before him, the ink still wet from the last signature, the quill waiting in the stand as though it had all the patience in the world.

Lord…

The prayer came unbidden, not spoken aloud, but rising from somewhere deeper than thought.

What would You have me do?

His hand hovered just above the table.

If I sign—if I acknowledge this—if I set aside what I have been taught is true…

His throat tightened.

Am I forsaking You?

For a moment, there was nothing. Only the distant murmur of voices, the faint scratch of quills, the steady, indifferent passing of time.

Then he heard something, felt something.

Not a voice.

Not words.

But something else.

A quieting. A stillness that settled over his mind and eased the frantic edge of his thoughts.

He had read the scriptures. He knew them.

Was not Christ Himself brought before earthly authority?

Were not the apostles commanded, threatened, driven to choose between survival and defiance?

Persecution had not always worn the face of open violence. Sometimes it came in subtler forms.

In oaths.

In signatures.

In the quiet yielding of a moment that might preserve a life for greater trials yet to come.

His breath steadied.

You know my heart, he thought, more firmly now. You know what I believe.

The fear did not vanish, but it no longer ruled him.

He reached for the pen.

He signed.

There was no other choice.

He did it quickly, with no flourish, and let the pen fall as if it scalded him.

When he stepped back, a footman took the paper and handed it off to a clerk. Another parchment was pushed into his hands. The next oath. The next lie.

Outside the chamber, the spring wind bit through his cloak. He did not care.

Whitehall's stone walls loomed behind him as he mounted his horse. The city was bustling with the sounds of triumph—bells ringing, carriages passing, the noise of Londoners congratulating themselves on their King’s latest act of divine defiance.

Thomas D’Arcy rode north, into silence. And his first night back at Pemberley, Thomas knelt alone at the side of his bed.

The hearth in his chambers was cold, but the crucifix in his hand felt warm with memory.

He whispered the old prayers—the Credo, the Ave Maria, the Pater Noster—and as the Latin slipped from his lips, he felt for a moment that he still belonged to something older than kings.

A fortnight later, a letter arrived.

To my good neighbor Thomas, it read, I hope this finds you in health. I write to ask whether your family will attend the Easter feast at Matlock this year. It is to be a grand affair. I shall be honored in my new capacity, and would see old friends in the audience…

It was signed, in a florid hand:

Baron Fitzwilliam of Matlock.

Thomas folded the paper and laid it in the fire.

∞∞∞

Winter 1584 — Pemberley, Derbyshire

The hearthstones were lifted by lamplight, not daylight.