Today, my latest Jane Austen Fan Fiction story is up for PreOrder for the Kindle release, but it is already available in the print format. In Leave Her Wild, Mr. Darcy has foolishly proposed to Miss Jane Bennet, not realizing the lady is the elder sister of a woman he had met years ago in London, shortly after he had exited his mourning period for his father. The timing of the meeting was all wrong! Darcy was not prepared to marry. And, in truth, Elizabeth was too young at the time ever to have been successful as the mistress of Pemberley. However, that does not stop the “chemistry” between them when they first encounter each other again.
Enjoy this short excerpt from Chapter One, setting up the reason Mr. Darcy has proposed to the wrong Bennet sister.
Darcy stepped down from his coach before Matlock House. It was not often that his uncle summoned Darcy to the estate. After all, Darcy had been master of Pemberley Estate for some six years, but a knot had arrived two days earlier. “Urgent, it had said,” he murmured as he crossed to the entrance to greet the earl’s butler, Mr. Percevale.
“Welcome, sir,” Percevale said with a bow.
“I assume his lordship still requires my attendance,” Darcy said with a smile as he handed off his hat and gloves.
“Yes, sir. I am to show you through to the earl’s study as quickly as you arrived.”
Darcy smiled easily. His uncle always wished to be done with business quickly. “Then lay on, Macduff, and damned be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’”
“Shakespeare. Very good, sir.”
He followed the servant up the wide staircase marked with oak balustrades and trimmed with gold plate—so very stately; yet, also so familiar. How often had he and his cousins, the earl’s sons, run up and down these steps? Perhaps more often than Darcy had at Pemberley, at least, as a child. Classical-styles archways marked recessed areas, which sported statues and suits of armor. “History of the family and this part of England,” he thought.
With a knock and a short wait until a voice called, “Come,” his attendance before the earl was executed with ease, as well as familiarity. Seated in a sturdy wooden chair behind an equally sturdy, as well as formidable, desk sat a man who had crafted Darcy’s future, equally as well as had his father, George Darcy.
His uncle did not look up from the much-crossed letter which rested upon the highly polished mahogany desk.
At length, Matlock sat back and gestured Darcy to a nearby chair. “Good to see you, boy.”
As Darcy was the master of one of the largest estates in England, he no longer considered himself a “boy,” but he made no comment. The man before him was the earl who held both George Darcy’s hand, as well as young Fitzwilliam Darcy’s person, when the Darcy family had lost Lady Anne Darcy. Darcy’s mother had passed from complications associated with multiple efforts at childbirth.
Lady Anne meant to present her husband with another son, but, after a series of miscarriages, she had finally given birth again. Not another son, but a daughter. Darcy’s sister. Georgiana was twelve years Darcy’s junior, and he adored her, but he often found himself the “parent,” rather than Georgiana’s brother. Anyway, Lady Anne had hung on for nearly two years after giving birth to Georgiana, but his mother had never been the same. Weak. Basically bed ridden. No energy. The “light” of Pemberley passed in her sleep before any of them could pronounce a proper farewell, a fact that had haunted both him and his father.
In those first few years after Lady Anne’s death, the Darcys would all have faltered without the steady hand of the Earl of Matlock on each of their shoulders. It was only after the grief had worked its way through various stages that Darcy had considered how the earl, too, was also in mourning and required someone to support him. Lord Matlock had lost his youngest sister. In that manner, Darcy often felt he had failed the man he greatly admired.
“A Darcy,” the earl began without further preamble, “has been at the realm of Pemberley for centuries. From father to son throughout your father’s family’s bloodlines. Even when Pemberley was but a small castle guarding this part of Derbyshire.”
“Should I be prepared to recite a list of ancestors, my lord?” Darcy asked, half in jest and half in confusion, for he was not confident he understood the purpose of his uncle’s statement nor the necessity of this meeting.
“You were always a superior student,” the earl said. “There is no need for your performance. I hold no doubt you could go back to France with a long list of your ancestors. Instead, read this.” The earl handed over the last page of the paper before him.
“What am I holding?” Darcy asked casually, though casualness was no longer part of his state.
“A letter from your Cousin Samuel Darcy’s son by Samuel’s second wife. One Bertram Darcy. Do you recall him?”
Darcy read what the earl had shared with him. “I do not understand. Per the original documents, Pemberley is to pass through my father’s line, not Samuel’s. The only way Samuel and his children inherit is if I do not produce a male heir. And later the continuation of male heirs from my son to his and so forth.”
“This Bertram Darcy assuredly knows that the line of succession passes through you, but he also comprehends that if you do not produce a child to inherit by your thirtieth birthday, Mr. Bertram Darcy may claim one-fourth of Pemberley Estate. He is making his intentions known now, per your father’s will and the original land grant.”
Darcy continued to read and reread the paper he held. “Samuel Darcy produced only daughters by his first wife and only Bertram Darcy by his second. Samuel presented my father with a signed agreement never to claim any of Pemberley. Samuel has been paid an annual annuity in lieu of his claim to the estate, which Samuel uses to finance his archaeological expeditions. This is prime land to which this man aspires, and it sets where we have developed the roads to Lambton and beyond. It would cripple the rest of the estate if we lost that land. Set us back a decade or more.”
“I do not wish to ask, but is there a female who has caught your eye? A quicker than what you would prefer courtship could cut off Bertram Darcy before you must fight him in court. Even if you produced a female child first, you could prove your wife fertile and that an heir was possible. In my opinion, your agreement with Samuel supersedes this claim by Bertram. However, we must remember, if you produce a male heir, then any minor agreements with Samuel Darcy are no longer in effect. Samuel will lose his annual payment if that is so. Perhaps, he has encouraged Bertram. Moreover, one never knows how the courts will rule in such matters, especially with an estate as large as Pemberley. There is some criticism of late in both Houses of Parliament regarding how the estates have paralyzed all of England beyond the aristocracy and the gentry.”
Darcy assuredly had planned to marry. Pemberley would require a mistress, but he had always thought he would wait until he was thirty before he sought a match. He would admit, but only to himself, he wanted a love match, just as had been the one shared by his parents. Lady Anne and George Darcy had held each other in deep affection, and, although their love story ended too soon, George Darcy had never considered remarrying. For his father, no other could have been the mistress of Pemberley House, other than Lady Anne.
“I suppose you are suggesting that I should go to London.”
“At least I was not required to order you to London,” the earl remarked. “You are always quick to recognize a solution.”
“Hopefully, there are a few potential brides taking in the Short Season. I shall send word ahead to Darcy House. Is either the colonel or Lindale in London? I am a miserable failure without someone to open doors.”
“You underestimate yourself, my boy.”
“I am assuredly ill-qualified to recommend myself to strangers,” Darcy argued.
Book Blurb and Purchase Links:
Leave Her Wild: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary
A Mandate from His Uncle
The only reason Fitzwilliam Darcy has come to London for the Short Season is to save his beloved Pemberley. He requires a bride fast. Unfortunately, only a man’s of Darcy’s prideful nature would laggardly think one female is the same as another. Quickly, he realizes he is in love with his betrothed’s hazel-eyed and highly-opinionated sister, and he has proposed to the wrong sister, but propriety demands he must not abandon Miss Jane Bennet.
Sitting on the Shelf
After Lydia’s elopement with Mr. Wickham and the family’s ruin, Elizabeth Bennet understands the need for her sister Jane to marry well, but why must Jane bring home the one man Elizabeth both despises and loves? Elizabeth’s one ball…one dance…had been ruined by the man her sister means to marry. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy’s opinion remains the marker by which she looks upon all others. Can she deny the tender feelings she carries for the gentleman and silence her traitorous heart?
Note: The title comes from a quote from the poet Atticus on Instagram.
Kindle – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DQL8CJ2R
Comment below for a chance to win one of FIVE eBook copies available for the giveaway of Leave Her Wild. Winners will be chosen on Saturday, February 8, with the books delivered on February 10, 2025, when the tale goes live as an eBook on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. Regina will contact the winners by email. Good Luck!
For most of Western history, marriage was a private contract between two families. Until the 16th-century, Christian churches accepted the validity of a marriage on the basis of a couple’s declarations. If two people claimed that they had exchanged marital vows—even without witnesses—the Catholic Church accepted that they were validly married. During the Regency, couples who chose to marry could be joined by several means. Many chose to purchase what was known as an ordinary, common or standard license. Others chose to have what was known as a calling of the banns. 
“There were two kinds of marriage licences that could be issued: the usual was known as a common licence and named one or two parishes where the wedding could take place, within the jurisdiction of the person who issued the license. The clergyman who administered the ceremony had to be associated with the Church of England. He would issue the licence as a cost of a few shillings to a pound, depending upon the wealth of those applying. The license was valid for 15 days. The couple had the option of marrying in either the parish of the bride or that of the groom. They must be a resident of the parish in which they were to marry. (Do you recall Wickham had to wait to marry to Lydia Bennet until he could establish residency. “We were married, you know, at St. Clement’s, because Wickham’s lodgings were in that parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven o’clock.”) Both the groom and the bride had to make sworn statements that no impediments existed that would cancel their marriage vows.
The poor often married without benefit of clergy or ceremony–they just called themselves married and that was that (made divorce a lot easier and possible, too). Needless to say, the Church of England heartily disapproved. The old custom–marriage by cohabitation had been legal before the Hardwick Act of 1753, and there was the even older custom of handfasting–often held with the very poor, particularly since marriage was more about a legal agreement as to the disposition of property and inheritance from a legal alliance. 
Every Woman Dreams... 