The Resurrection of Fitzwilliam Darcy (Pride and Prejudice Variation)

Prologue

Unfortunately, Fitzwilliam Darcy was long dead.

He was not “dead and gone,” two words which were often linked together. It was more like “dead and hovering,” because his bruised soul sort of hovered above his little chunk of the world, completely bewildered by a very important question:

Why did nobody realise that he had died? Or, at least, that something was very, very wrong?

His lifeless husk of a body was still busy doing all the things: getting up in the morning, dressing in riding clothes, and after his ride submitting to his valet for a comprehensive cleaning/grooming/dressing routine.

Then his empty body went on with daily routines: eating meals, meeting with his steward, dealing with correspondence, and (minimally) interacting with his much younger sister.

And nobody seemed to realise that there was anything deficient with the simulacrum that went through all those motions of his former life.

Not one person asked, “Are you well, sir?” or “Is something wrong, Brother?”

Obviously, nobody was going to ask, “Are you dead, sir?” because that soulless body was so capable of following routines and even fulfilling demands. But…surely he had been more lifelike, before…surely he had sometimes met with friends and laughed at nonsense and smiled at his sister.

Before…there was a time before—it felt like a long time ago—when he had thought himself to be an honourable man, a gentleman.

However, a certain young lady had blasted those pretensions.

Her words had seemed overly harsh at first, and he had scribbled a vigorous defence and, against all propriety, put his letter directly into her hand, begging her to read it.

That had been his last act before his soul detached from his body and began to hover.

—Before he had begun to hover and wonder why nobody was scratching their heads over the changes that had occurred. Was he always truly as taciturn and solemn—nay, as silent and grim—as he now observed from his outside perspective?

Then, after an eternity of hovering and wondering, something happened.

Something that caused his soul to suck right back into his body, where it belonged.

The something that happened was another encounter with Miss Elizabeth Bennet.