Elizabeth B

Story: THE TALK

Characters: Charles Bingley, Edward Gardiner

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‘Er,’ says Mr Gardiner, looking at Bingley as if he’d grown horns and a tail. ‘Well.’

He pulls out his handkerchief and scrubs at his face, still red and sweaty from the torment of two minutes ago.

‘Sir?’ Bingley sends him an enquiring look, blinking mild brown eyes. He looks, Mr Gardiner decides, rather like a bull. A pleasant, docile bull, but one which might nevertheless cause a great deal of trouble in a chinashop.

He pours two large brandies. A pity, he thinks, that he didn’t consider this earlier.

Then he begins to talk, while Bingley turns white, then grey, then green. They gulp down the brandy.

‘I, er - well, sir, I, er, I am not entirely, er, that is, I . . .’

Mr Gardiner eyes Bingley’s half-nauseated, half-embarrassed face, and girds his loins.

So to speak.

‘Perhaps,’ he says delicately, ‘you have a certain degree of - what might be termed, er, specialised knowledge. Perhaps, even, you have no desire to speak more on the subject.’

‘No, sir, I do not,’ Bingley replies, wagging his head violently. ‘Please.’

Mr Gardiner heaves a great sigh. Then he holds out the decanter. ‘Good man,’ he says, clapping his future nephew on the shoulder. ‘More brandy?’

Story: SEASON OF COURTSHIP

Characters: Fitzwilliam Darcy, Elizabeth Bennet

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Darcy has a plan for their first kiss. It will have to be the perfect moment, of course: they will be talking, as they always do now, and the sun shining, and when she is on higher ground, he will convince her to give him her hat, and say - well, he shouldn’t plan the exact words too far ahead of time, but he will say something, and finally kiss her.

October in Hertfordshire is not renowned for its balmy weather. This particular day is cool and blustery, and though it isn’t raining when they set out, Darcy brings his umbrella just in case. Soon they are huddling together underneath it, talking, and he has already given up on this particular day, and -

‘Fitzwilliam?’ says Elizabeth, with a half-familiar mischievous look, and then she lifts her lips and kisses him.

Utterly astonished, he loses his balance and hits his head - hard - against a tree behind him. Yet Darcy feels nothing but their mouths pressing against one another, gloved hands clasping across the chaste distance. His umbrella falls, unnoticed - a gust of wind blows Elizabeth’s hat away - and the reasonable English drizzle turns into a torrential downpour.

‘I love you,’ says Elizabeth, her eyes shining up at him.

Darcy wishes all his plans could fail this well.

( Chapter Thirteen )

( Chapter Twelve )

( Chapter Ten )

( Chapter Eleven )

( Chapter Seven )

( Chapter Eight )

( Chapter Nine )

( Chapter Four )

( Chapter Five )

( Chapter Six )

A/N: Well, I wanted to write a sequel to P&P (like everybody and their pet dog), but kept on getting hung up on the gap between engaged!E&D and married!E&D. So instead I wrote a short sequelish thing covering the period of the engagement.

ETA: I've revised Courtship to fit within my present canon, which is quite different from what can be found in my older stuff.

( Chapter One )

( Chapter Two )

( Chapter Three )