To Mark the Occasion

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Elizabeth had always enjoyed her birthday, but this year was an exception.

The trip to the Lake District, planned as a gift from her aunt and uncle, had been curtailed—first delayed when her uncle was obliged to settle a matter at his warehouses, which meant they had travelled no farther than Derbyshire, and ended altogether with her sister’s scandalous elopement with that reprobate, George Wickham.

The first disappointment had not seemed so great; indeed, it had brought her once more into Mr Darcy’s company, this time with both of their former prejudices set aside.

For a few brief days she had almost dared to hope.

But all ended in misery when news of her sister’s disgrace reached her—and worse still, Mr Darcy knew of it, arriving only moments after she had read the letter.

She would never forget how he slipped away without a word, leaving her in her family’s private sitting room at the inn as soon as her aunt and uncle returned.

True, he had offered sympathy and what assistance he could before their arrival, yet his silence thereafter spoke plainly enough: he meant to sever every connexion between them.

And yet—oh, cruel irony!—at that very moment she had realised he was the man most suited to her.

With so many heavy thoughts weighing on her, Elizabeth wandered the paths around Longbourn, keeping to the gardens that bordered the park.

Despite it being summer, the air was still cool and the gravel crunched beneath her shoes as she paced restlessly along the walk.

She had little comfort in the company of others; only the tenants had offered her family any real sympathy, and neither she nor her sisters dared venture into Meryton, knowing full well what their reception there would be.

She pressed a hand to her brow, her steps quickening along the path, and muttered to herself, “How blind I have been. How wilfully blind! I believed Wickham—every word of his lies—never questioning the impropriety of his confiding such a tale to a stranger. I mocked Mr Darcy’s warning, wilfully choosing not to understand it, and allowed myself to be convinced of his supposed cruelty.

Instead of weighing matters with care, I gave way to resentment, pride, folly—even vanity.

Two proposals I have received—two—and although both were poorly delivered and unwelcome at the time, I thought myself above marrying for material concerns.

Above the notion of marrying without love.

I trusted too much in my ability to judge others. ”

Scoffing at her own folly, she continued bitterly, “And now—now when fate might have offered me a chance to correct my misjudgments, now that I know what happiness might have been mine—the loss is unbearable. All my fault. My blindness, my refusal to see, kept me silent when I ought to have spoken. Had I revealed Wickham’s lies to everyone upon my return from Kent—had I at least told Papa—might he have acted differently?

Perhaps Lydia would not have heeded me, but I did not even try.

And so I have thrown away every chance of happiness.

Never again will Mr Darcy consider me. Not even friendship remains, should we ever meet again.

With one sister disgraced, the rest of us are ruined. None of us will ever wed. None.”

If only Mama could have been kept quiet, Elizabeth thought, her mind shifting from her own failings to the wider circumstances.

Perhaps then the scandal might have been contained.

But no—her mother had taken to her bed, wailing so loudly that the entire household knew of Lydia’s ruin within the hour.

And the servants, though some exercised discretion, were not all so cautious.

Between their whispers and Aunt Philips’s inability to hold her tongue, the whole of Meryton had learnt of Lydia’s disgrace long before Elizabeth returned home with the Gardiners.

Her heart ached now for the peace she had known at Pemberley.

How delightful Miss Darcy had been! Elizabeth found herself wishing she had been her sister, rather than Lydia.

And Mr Darcy himself—he had been everything proper and civil, and surprisingly warm, considering what had passed between them in the spring.

She could almost believe he had come that morning in Lambton to renew his addresses.

Almost. But it had not been so, and it never would be.

Even if Lydia were found and compelled to marry Wickham, what man of Darcy’s integrity would ever again consider attaching himself to a family that had shown itself so careless, so foolish, so blind?

And was she not the blindest of them all?

These sour recollections kept her company as she walked, and before she realised it, she had walked farther and longer than she intended.

Having circled the park, she was nearing the lane by which any visitors would have come.

To her surprise, the sound of hooves struck the packed earth, and she looked up.

“Good morning, miss,” a young man called from horseback. “I am looking for Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”

“I am she,” Elizabeth replied, startled that he should be seeking her.

The lad, for he could not have been more than sixteen, swung a leg over and dropped lightly from the saddle.

Unfastening the latch on one of the saddlebags, he drew out a small parcel wrapped in brown paper.

Her name was written carefully upon the outside, though there was nothing to indicate the sender.

However, she was fairly familiar with the handwriting, having studied it frequently since leaving Kent in April.

“Here you are, miss,” he said pleasantly.

“Thank you,” Elizabeth murmured, staring down at the parcel in her hand.

Almost as quickly as he had arrived, the lad vaulted back into the saddle and rode away, leaving Elizabeth watching after him. She had half a mind to ask him to stop at the house for a meal and a few coins, but her surprise was so great that the thought only formed once he was already gone.

Not waiting to open the package, Elizabeth carefully found the edges of the paper and removed its wrapping.

Inside, she found a volume of Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake.

It was a book she had read before, and one which, most recently, she had discussed in detail with Mr Darcy.

At Pemberley they had spoken of the work, for the first time a real conversation with an exchange of ideas, not one intended, at least on Elizabeth’s part, to show off their own superior understanding.

Opening it, she found an inscription: William Shakespeare, Sonnet 123.

She was startled to see those words—even more so to realise that she was again certain they were written in Mr Darcy’s hand.

That he should write to her at all astonished Elizabeth, and more so that he would go to the trouble of sending a book with words inscribed inside.

Without that, he could have reasonably denied the gift, but he had written an inscription identifying the gift as coming from him was astonishing.

Turning towards the house, she resolved to look up Shakespeare’s sonnet to see what it contained.

As she did so, the book shifted in her hands, and a folded sheet slipped free.

Bending quickly, she retrieved it. Happy Birthday, Elizabeth, it read, and once again she was certain the hand was Mr Darcy’s.

Her heart quickened, and she longed to be safely indoors, but before she had gone far, the sound of wheels reached her ears.

Looking back, she saw her family’s carriage approaching, her father visible even at a distance.

She stepped aside as the vehicle slowed, sparing her a cloud of dust. Mr Bennet leant towards the window and raised a hand in greeting, yet Elizabeth, watching his face, felt a chill.

That expression—grave, weary—did not speak of good news.

The book was forgotten in the urgency of her father’s return.

Elizabeth hurried into the house and straight to her room, where she exchanged her dusty gown for a clean one and set the precious volume upon the table beside her bed.

She cast it a lingering glance, longing to learn the secret of “Sonnet 123,” even as she prayed that her father’s sombre countenance spoke only of fatigue—and not of some fresh misfortune.

“Ahh, Lizzy, how good it is to see you,” her father said when she met him at the bottom of the stairs.

It appeared she had not been the only one in need of fresh clothing.

Leading the way to the drawing room, she found her sisters gathered there with the teapot.

Their mother, Elizabeth supposed, was still in her chamber; her father, drawing the same conclusion, sat down heavily.

“Your mother keeps to her room,” Mr Bennet observed drily. “When another of our daughters runs away, then it shall be my turn. I will retire to my chamber, make myself as troublesome as possible, and call for port instead of my salts—with only my books to keep me company.”

“Papa,” Jane chided softly. “Mama is very upset and will remain so until Lydia is found. You know she does not bear distress well, and she is most agitated that Lydia was taken from the colonel’s household in this manner.”

“She was not taken away,” Mr Bennet snapped, his voice edged with scorn.

“She chose to abandon the protection of Colonel Forster and her family and to run off with Lieutenant Wickham. That he had other designs may have been hidden from her, but what did Lydia care for that? She has cast herself away upon a scoundrel who might well be hanged for desertion in time of war. Do you not see? She is lost to us. Entirely lost. And should she be found, she can never come home again.”

“It has scarcely been a week,” Elizabeth said quietly. “Are you and my uncle so certain she will not be recovered?”