Chapter 4
While Jane and Elizabeth were enjoying a Season in London, Lydia was contemplating her own future.
She would be thirteen that coming summer and she must decide if she wished for a mark.
Kitty and Jane’s marks had come in before their birthdays, and Elizabeth had had a ceremony followed by the most elaborate mark anyone had ever seen.
Mary had chosen not to get marked, though she refused to explain her reasons to anyone, vexing girl.
Now Lydia must choose for herself. She did not wish to be the only Bennet sister without a mark along with Mary.
She was nothing like Mary. Her solemn elder sister had no desire to marry, or not one that she would admit to, anyway, and Lydia did wish for a husband.
Preferably a dashing one in a red coat. She thought she should get the mark so there would be no confusion over whom she should wed, and she had heard that marked women were happier in their marriages and she intended to be very jolly indeed.
But she was more than a little hurt that she was not already marked.
Whoever he was, he clearly did not wish for the assurance she did.
He was content to go about the world, doing whatever it was he did all day, not knowing a thing about his soul mate.
His own soul mate! It was insulting, and a part of her did not wish to get marked at all.
That would show him to ignore Lydia Bennet!
Let him marry some ugly little bore of a girl while she danced at all the parties and never lacked a partner.
Except…most of the gentlemen she knew were marked. So were the wealthy tenants, and the handful of officers she had met in her life. If they were marked, would they be interested in her at all? Would they even dance with her?
It was a difficult decision to make, likely the most important choice of her entire life. What was she to do?
In the end, it was Maria Lucas who decided it. Maria’s birthday was in April while Lydia’s was in August. Maria chose to receive a mark in her ceremony, and by the end of July, she had three beautiful butterflies flying over her left arm. They were small and delicate and brightly colored.
Lydia was terribly jealous.
When her thirteenth birthday came about and she stood before the vicar and was asked if she would like to receive a mark, her answer was a resounding, “Yes!”
Her voice echoed off the stone and more than one person had to hide their snicker, but she could not stop smiling. Her mark would be just as nice as Maria’s. She knew it.
Derbyshire, Spring 1809
Georgiana Darcy was the only daughter of a wealthy landowner and a titled mother. She did not rebel. She did not do anything less than what was expected of her. She did not go against the grain or fight the powers that be. She accepted. She acquiesced. She was a lady through and through.
And she was thoroughly miserable.
Her thirteenth birthday had just come and gone and like the weak little child she was, she had allowed her family’s opinions on soul marks to sway her decision. She had wished for a mark. A person designed to suit her perfectly sounded magical to her. Why would anyone not want such a thing?
But the Fitzwilliam family did not receive marks.
Not anymore. No one had received a mark on their thirteenth birthday since 1755, and she could not be the first to break the new tradition.
The Darcy family was more divided, but the Darcys of Pemberley—the Darcys that mattered—did not receive marks.
Her father had not been marked. His father before him had not been marked.
Her brother had not wished to be marked, but when he was twenty, a mark had appeared on his right arm and shoulder.
It had not been his choice and he had been livid.
He complained about it bitterly, cursing the mark and the person who had forced it on him.
He did not always know Georgiana could hear him, of course.
He likely would have modulated his tone if he had known she was nearby, but she had heard him just the same.
He was horrified at receiving a mark and she pitied the woman who put it there.
Georgiana was certain her brother would be a terrible beast the day he met her.
She did not wish a man to feel that way about her.
She did not wish for someone to curse her name and her very existence.
And yet, she could not help but think it was a surer way to happiness than any other she had seen.
She knew many couples in the Ton—her aunt and uncle Davies, Lord and Lady Matlock, her cousin Jeffrey Fitzwilliam and his wife Minerva.
None of them were happy. Not with each other, anyhow.
Her aunt Davies—her father’s younger sister—was happy when she was shopping and she doted on her three children, but she did not seem to care one way or the other about her husband.
Lady Matlock found joy as a hostess as she had a mind for politics, but she and Lord Matlock had no great passion between them.
They were friends, or at least they appeared to be, but they had separate chambers in their homes, and they spent months at a time apart—and had for as long as Georgiana could remember.
Her cousin Jeffrey had only been married a short while.
He was perfectly polite to his wife, but poor Minerva nearly jumped each time he spoke to her.
Georgiana did not know what to make of it, nor her cousin’s slightly exasperated looks and frustrated sighs, but she knew these were not the signs of a happy union.
She wished better for herself.
She wanted something more. More than politeness. More than friendship. Something more complete. She did not wish her husband to feel exasperated with her as her cousin did with his wife. Nor did she wish to be like her aunts and not even notice when her husband was in another county.
But she could not go against her entire family. No one had even asked her if she wished to receive a mark, so against marking were they. Her brother was pitied for his mark. The family would look at it and shake their heads, tutting under their breath.
Fitzwilliam would sigh and close his eyes, likely mentally counting to ten (a trick he had taught her to employ when dealing with uncomfortable situations) and then tell them that there was nothing to be done for it now and that he was not an object of pity. Then he would change the subject.
Georgiana imagined his own upset and conflicted feelings led him to disregard her choice in the matter.
Perhaps she should have brought the subject up herself.
Just because no one had asked her what she wished to do did not mean they would be unwilling to speak with her about it.
But she was afraid to upset anyone, so she remained silent.
Then her ceremony came and when the vicar asked if she would like to receive a mark, she had barely drawn breath before he was moving along to the next portion of the ceremony, so sure was he of her answer.
She had whispered a quiet “no” when he was halfway through the next sentence, simply so she could feel as if she were participating in her own ceremony.
But she regretted it.
She should have said yes. She should have said it loud enough to echo through the nave and shock her family. She wished she was waking up each morning to check herself for a mark, happily speculating on what it would be, not filled with regret and sadness.
She was a rich girl. A rich girl with excellent connections and only one brother. He was as yet unmarried and the estate was not entailed on the male line, therefore she was his heir.
The granddaughter of an earl with thirty-thousand pounds who may one day inherit the largest estate in Derbyshire was no small prize.
She had learned that in school, if nothing else.
Many men would do a great deal to possess what she had.
To possess her. They would be charming and kind, feigning interest in all her pursuits and worming their way into her heart.
They would feign affection. They would feign love.
And she would never know what was real and what was an act to acquire that which she possessed.
Would he show his true colors the day after the wedding?
Or would he continue the charade for a few more months or perhaps until her first child was born?
She had heard a great many stories from the girls at school, and she had watched Minerva in her miserable marriage.
She did not wish for such a fate. And yet, without a mark, how could she be certain a gentleman was truly interested in her and not her thirty-thousand pounds?
How could she ever trust enough to fall in love?
She was a coward who could not state her own wishes in a church, in front of her family who cared about her.
What had she thought would happen? They would hardly have interrupted the ceremony and stopped her.
The blessing would have been over before they had realized what was happening.
She could have spoken with the vicar privately—he had known her since her birth.
He had christened her! He would have understood.
But she was a weakling who could not speak for herself, and now she had lost her chance at a soulmate. She was a wretched creature.
Lydia was terribly disappointed. She had hoped for something beautiful and vibrant.
Instead, she had received a plain green ivy.
It began at the outside of her left hip and snaked its way up her ribs, ending at the side of her breast. Her mother said she could not understand why her daughters did not have their marks on their arms like everybody else, but Lydia did not mind the location.
It was the plainness of the image that bothered her.
She supposed the color was nice and the way it curved was delicate enough, but it was not what she had wanted. It had been two months since her birthday and the ivy had already completed itself. Jane’s image had taken at least twice as long!
And what was worse, her mark gave no indication of the sort of man it matched her with.
What did ivy mean? Did he have an interest in plants?
Was he a botanist? Or had the unthinkable happened and she had matched with a gardener?
To make matters worse, there did not appear to be any sort of name on the vine.
She thought the letters might come through later—she had never heard of a mark without at least initials, if not a name—but waiting for them was more than a little distressing.
Alas, six months after her mark first appeared, and four months since it had completed, there was still no name. What was she to do?