The Darcy List

Chapter 1

‘What are men to rocks and mountains?’

It is a truth universally acknowledged, though rarely admitted, that returning home – divorced and back in your childhood bedroom – is not a fresh start.

I was back in the English countryside, standing in a muddy lane with a rescue dog and no particularly convincing plan for what came next.

The countryside looked exactly as I had left it: a moody grey sky and rain-soaked fields.

The sort of quiet view that you grow up with without ever really noticing it.

Three weeks earlier I had packed up my life in California, leaving behind a dream that had looked perfect from the outside. Appearances, I had discovered, could be deeply misleading.

Beside me, Rocky suddenly froze in the middle of the lane, ears pricked, tail up, staring across the hedge as if he had just discovered a previously undocumented species.

‘They’re sheep,’ I told him.

Rocky remained unconvinced.

My phone buzzed. Alice.

I almost ignored it. Alice sent a lot of messages: articles about toddler sleep routines, photos of Ollie’s latest masterpiece in crayon. But the image attached to the message stopped me halfway down the lane. Bookclub choice, Alice had written beneath it.

I clicked on it.

A book cover filled the screen. The creased paperback was so instantly familiar that for a moment I forgot where I was. The artful script title and the coffee stain blooming in the top right corner like a badge of honour.

Pride and Prejudice.

Our copy. The one we had practically worn out, passing it back and forth between us.

Incoming video call. Alice’s face appeared on screen. ‘Wait for it…’ she said, grinning.

Before I could ask what she was doing, she slid her hand between the pages and pulled out a folded piece of lined paper. Yellowed now, the edges softened with age. My stomach tightened.

‘Look what I found.’ She unfolded it slowly and held it up to the camera.

Across the top, in my thick, overconfident handwriting:

The Darcy List – by Florence Elliot and Alice Winters

Rocky gave a low, interested woof at a sheep that had wandered closer, but I barely registered it. I was staring at the screen like it was a time machine.

I laughed out loud.

‘Oh God.’

‘You remember it then,’ said Alice.

‘Unfortunately.’

Rocky nudged my leg impatiently. I beamed at the screen. ‘How old were we?’

‘Sixteen,’ she said. ‘Peak romantic delusion.’ She tilted the page so the writing came into view. ‘Ready?’

‘I’m not sure I am.’

She cleared her throat theatrically. ‘Number one: really fit in all ways – tall, devastatingly good-looking.’

I groaned. ‘Oh no.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘It gets worse.’

For a moment I wasn’t standing in a muddy lane in the English countryside with a rescue dog and a phone in my hand.

I was back in my bedroom. Sixteen years old. Rain hammering against the windows.

Alice and I were in full literary swoon mode.

Our English teacher had set it as our term text.

The boys in the class had moaned loudly about bonnets and long sentences, while we had raced each other to the library and spent three days inhaling every word.

We had drunk in Elizabeth’s wit, the uncomfortable thrill of awkward balls, biting sarcasm, and long, smouldering looks. But mostly, we had fallen for him.

Fitzwilliam Darcy.

‘Right.’ I planted my mug of instant coffee down with purpose. ‘We need to make a list.’

‘A revision list?’ groaned Alice.

‘A Darcy list,’ I clarified. ‘The official criteria for the perfect man.’

She perked up immediately, eyes gleaming. ‘Okay. But no one around here is making the cut.’

‘That’s exactly why we need the list,’ I said, tearing a page from my school notebook and smoothing it over the carpet. ‘So we don’t accidentally marry the wrong man.’

‘Fine. Tall,’ said Alice. ‘Devastatingly good-looking. That’s non-negotiable.’

‘Obviously,’ I noted. ‘And sporty. Has to be able to do stuff. You know. Like… rowing.’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘God no. Bit intense. What about fencing?’

‘Fencing? Are we in 1790?’

‘Then how about galloping on a horse?’

‘Galloping is essential. Or, at least drive a cool car instead,’ I added, scribbling furiously.

We paused, both slightly breathless, high on teenage hope and Jane Austen.

By the time the rain had softened to a moody drizzle, we had completed our manifesto:

The Darcy List – by Florence Elliot and Alice Winters

Really fit in all ways – tall, devastatingly good-looking

Can dance in a cool way

Can gallop on a horse but doesn’t necessarily have to really know how to do that. He can be good at driving a car instead, a cool sports car

Is rich and lives somewhere like Pemberley

Isn’t a big flirt, only looks at the one he loves

Has one or more good mates who are cool so you can go out as a crowd and have fun

Is smart and witty

Is like the smouldering Darcy at the end of the book, not the one at the beginning when he was being a complete, aloof tosser

We sat in silence, in the kind of quiet only found between best friends who are having a moment where they have discovered something truly life-changing and bonding.

‘We’re never showing this to anyone,’ I said.

‘Never,’ Alice agreed, picking up the page. Folding it into four, she tucked it inside the book. ‘For the record. Just in case we forget,’ she said.

I nodded. As if we ever could.