In Jane Austen’s classic Pride & Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet never expects to see Mr. Darcy again after his disastrous proposal in Hunsford. But what if family business required him to stay at Rosings after giving her his letter? Coming face to face with Mr. Darcy only days later could give Elizabeth a new chance to understand him… or a chance for even more misunderstandings.O
THE PEMBERLEY VARIATIONS by Abigail Reynolds is a series of novels exploring the roads not taken in Pride & Prejudice.
Genre: FICTION / Romance / GeneralBy Force of Instinct has sold over 30,000 copies in English and is considered a classic of the Pride & Prejudice Variation genre. Other books in the same series have been sold to traditional French and Italian publishers and have performed well.
There were several minutes before the service was to begin, and Elizabeth was for the first time grateful for Lady Catherine's propensity to dominate the conversation, as it relieved her of the burden of finding something to say. As she attended to her ladyship, though, she began to despise herself for her cowardice. She forced her eyes up to Darcy's face, only to meet his implacably cold gaze.
That she had expected scorn and anger did not lessen the distress Elizabeth felt on seeing it on his face. She held his gaze only briefly before taking the excuse of Lady Catherine's ongoing discourse to look away. She thought of how he had said that his good opinion, once lost, was lost forever. How he must be congratulating himself for his near escape from a woman of so little perception and judgment! she thought, humbled by her fall from grace, surprised that the thought of his disapproval troubled her.
When she chanced to raise her eyes to his face again, unable to resist the painful impulse of curiosity, she found him looking on no object but the ground. It was with the greatest of relief that she heard Lady Catherine pronounce that it was time for the service to begin.
Elizabeth was grateful that she was seated behind Mr. Darcy, where she need not fear his incisive gaze. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. How he must regret those words, those sentiments which had led to his harsh and unfair castigation at her hands! In addition to blindness and prejudice, she was also obliged to claim cruelty and short-temperedness among her many faults.
