A Season Lost Read online

  A Season Lost

  A Pride & Prejudice Continuation

  Constant Love Book Three

  by Sophie Turner

  © 2018 Sophie Turner

  Revised second edition

  Published in the United States of America

  Based on the characters and original plot from the public domain work, Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen.

  All rights reserved. All original portions of this book may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a review, and not-for-profit derivative works (fanfiction) using brief quotations and original characters.

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note

  Family Trees Through February, 1816

  Gun Deck of HMS Caroline

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  PART TWO

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Journey of HMS Caroline

  Author’s Notes

  With Gratitude

  Mary’s Letter

  David Stanton’s Sermons

  The Weather

  Gothick

  Watercress

  Scarlet Fever

  Quack

  Blue Mass

  The Rosings Inheritance

  Margate and Matlock

  Women Aboard Naval Ships

  Embassy to China

  The Slave Trade and Racism

  Other Naval Matters

  Georgiana’s Taking Part in Shooting

  Founder

  Jane’s and Georgiana’s Births

  Caleb

  Christening a Child

  Childrearing

  London Society

  Poetry

  Further Reading

  About the Author

  For Dad, who’s always been there for me, and taught me one of the most important lessons in life: it’s better to try and fail than to not try at all

  Author’s Note

  Since writing the second book of this series, some readers may be aware that I produced a restored ebook version of the 1813 Egerton first edition of Pride and Prejudice. This involved multiple line-by-line readings of the first edition, a study which has further grounded me in Jane Austen’s grammatical style and spellings.

  In this third instalment, therefore, readers will see some historic spellings that I have chosen to work in – ancles instead of ankles, for example – and that I have also given myself even further leave to break modern rules of grammar and formatting where Austen did so (writing, as she did, in a time before many of these rules were established). Further details on some of the spelling variances, as well as the usual historical notes, can be found after the story.

  Family Trees Through February, 1816

  A printable version of the family trees can be found at sophie-turner-acl.blogspot.com.

  Notes: Because the events of A Constant Love were moved forward one year from when Pride and Prejudice is commonly thought to have occurred, the death of Darcy’s father has been similarly adjusted. Because the families lack an additional courtesy title, George Stanton and Andrew Fitzwilliam take the style Lord [Lastname], and have the precedence of viscounts. Although he has resigned his commission, Colonel Fitzwilliam still has (and uses) the option to be addressed by his military title.

  Gun Deck of HMS Caroline

  A Season Lost

  PART ONE

  February, 1816

  Chapter 1

  There was a morning, at Pemberley, in which Elizabeth Darcy went in to breakfast wearing a cap. It was a fine cap, trimmed with some of the lace her sister Georgiana had purchased for her in Paris, and – so Elizabeth thought – fully appropriate for a married woman who had now borne two heirs for Pemberley.

  Most of their house party had left already: Captain and Mrs. Ramsey, and their brother, Herbert, had gone south to visit family in Salisbury; the Stanton men had returned to their various careers, their wives in consort. Thus Elizabeth found the winter breakfast-room empty, save her husband, who was lingering over his coffee and looked at her with what seemed censure, when she walked in.

  “What is this nonsense?” he asked, rising to walk over to her and, as though to ensure her certainty of precisely what he had labelled nonsense, plucking at the edge of the cap and looking his wife in the eye.

  “It is a cap, Darcy – surely you have seen them.”

  “I have, on matrons.”

  “Is not your wife a matron, after two years of marriage and two children?”

  “She might be such in status, but I had not thought of her as such in looks,” he said, and turned to the footman standing by the sideboard. “Will you have Kelly summoned here at once?”

  “Darcy, do not be severe on her. The cap was my idea. In truth, I had thought myself overdue to begin wearing one.”

  “Why? Why should you frame a beautiful face in anything less than it deserves?” he asked.

  “Well, I suppose I had thought the cap tolerable enough,” was her arch response.

  “You sly woman,” he said. “Do not think that shall prevent me from standing firm on this, though, for I will. I most certainly will.”

  Sarah Kelly appeared then, curtseying deeply and looking with puzzlement between her mistress and master. “Sir? Madam?”

  “I must apologise, Kelly,” Darcy said. “Clearly your wages are not what they should be. I would have expected my wife to bring this to my attention, but it seems instead she has wished to curtail your duties. So let me make clear to you, I shall i
ncrease your pay by ten per cent so long as Mrs. Darcy’s hair is styled to become her countenance as it should be, and she does not appear to the household in some ridiculous cap.”

  “Sir – I’m so sorry – I – ”

  “Kelly, I have already informed Mr. Darcy of how the cap was my idea. Do not worry yourself over it, although I shall take him up on raising your wages by ten per cent.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” said Sarah, awkwardly curtseying, then rushing from the room with a flustered countenance.

  After she had left, Darcy pinched his fingers upon the top of Elizabeth’s head and plucked off the cap, examining it for a moment before he scowled, shook his head, and tucked it away within his waistcoat.

  “Much better,” he said. “Please do not deprive me of my lovely wife again for breakfast. I fear I shall lose my appetite.”

  “Darcy, I suspect you have already eaten.”

  “Perhaps I have, but that is only because I was not faced with my wife attempting to appear as some aged old dowager at the breakfast table.”

  “Are you going to keep it?”

  “Yes. I might consider giving it back to you in thirty years or so.”

  Mrs. Bennet walked in then, and as she was wearing a cap that looked wholly appropriate on a woman with five daughters grown and married, no more could be said on the subject. Had Mrs. Darcy truly wished to wear the cap, she might have set the subject aside to be prosecuted later and done so with all the vigour of argument she possessed, which both she and her husband knew to be considerable. However, as her own feelings on the item mirrored her husband’s more closely than she intended to admit – it had made her feel far older than her three and twenty years of age – it was instead set aside as a subject upon which he might be teased later.

  Or sooner, for suddenly inspired, she said to her mother, “Mama, you are looking very well this morning. Is that a new cap?”

  “Oh, it is, Lizzy – how good of you to notice. Lady Stanton gave me the lace – such a dear girl your sister is, Mr. Darcy, the very soul of generosity – and I’m sure it’s just the most beautiful lace I’ve ever seen. From Paris! To think I should be wearing Parisian lace, well, I tell you, I never would have thought to see the day, as long as that Bonaparte was in power. I do think it becomes my face rather well, don’t you think?”

  “I do, mama – I think it becomes your face very well,” said Elizabeth, glancing to her husband with eyes full of merriment – and victory.

  +++

  Mr. and Mrs. Bennet had joined Jane and Charles Bingley as houseguests of longer duration, for Pemberley’s nursery presently housed all three of the Bennets’s grandchildren – the Bingleys’s daughter, Elizabeth, and the Darcys’s twin sons, James and George. The nursery was, as always, the destination for the women after breaking their fast, and Elizabeth went there after returning briefly to her dressing-room so that Sarah could style her hair. She opened the nursery’s door and very nearly tripped over her young namesake – whom they all called Bess – for the child had become an excellent crawler.

  “Pa!” exclaimed Bess. “Pa! Pa!”

  It had been Elizabeth who realised that when Bess said this, she was asking not for her father, but for the pianoforte, which had always held a fascination for her. Up until recently, a small square pianoforte had been housed in the nursery so that it could be played for her whenever she fussed. Now, however, Bess’s preference was to play for herself by pounding on the keys, and the resulting cacophony had necessitated moving the pianoforte into one of the bedrooms down the hall from the nursery. It appeared Bess wished to go thither.

  “I shall take her,” said Jane, with an apologetic look to them all. She picked up her daughter and left, and a few minutes later, the distant, wholly discordant sound of the pianoforte could be heard.

  “I should not say anything against any of my grandchildren,” said Mrs. Bennet, “but oh how that noise plays on my nerves!”

  “We can have the pianoforte moved farther down the hall if you like, mama,” Elizabeth said.

  “No, no, then poor Jane and Mrs. Padgett will have to carry her even farther when she wishes to play,” said Mrs. Bennet. “I only wish for their sake she was better-behaved, like your boys.”

  “Mama, I suspect when they are older, and Bess is taking proper pianoforte lessons and the boys are as boisterous as young boys can be, you will change your mind about who is better-behaved.”

  “Perhaps,” said Mrs. Bennet, doubtfully. She was sitting and holding James, who, by virtue of being the heir to Pemberley, was her favourite child, and so Elizabeth picked up George. She did not like to think of favourites among her own sons, but she did feel for poor George, who had been born a second son by mere hours.

  The twins were beginning to show small differences in their personalities: both were quiet, but George was the quieter of the two, and although he had been the first to smile, it was James who now smiled more often. Elizabeth tried to avoid thinking about what this would mean for how they would turn out in the future, but it was impossible to do so entirely.

  Sometimes, she allowed her thoughts to trail far ahead to the future, to wondering what sort of career George would prefer as a second son. They had family connexions who might give him a start in either the navy or the army, but as a mother, she could not like the thought of her son choosing a career that might risk his life. The clergy or the law would be much better, Elizabeth thought, and she resolved that George should have every opportunity to spend time around her brother, David Stanton, and perhaps even her uncle Philips – although a boy of George’s birth would be expected to be a barrister, not a small town attorney – in the hopes that he might take an active interest in one of his relations’s careers.

  While Mrs. Bennet thoroughly enjoyed doting on her grandchildren, she also thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the finest rooms of Pemberley, so she might inform everyone in Hertfordshire of how she had done so once she returned. Thus she left the nursery before Jane came back in with Bess, the child having spent a good hour in making her peculiar music. There was no other woman in the world, Elizabeth thought, who could carry a child such as Bess into the room with the sort of maternal serenity that formed Jane’s countenance, and Elizabeth was so moved by this thought as to comment on it:

  “Jane, you have too much patience by half. Or have you gone half-deaf now, thanks to your daughter?”

  Jane smiled. “It does not bother me, Lizzy. I am sure it would not bother you if one of your boys wished to do the same. Bess enjoys it, and I enjoy watching her.”

  Elizabeth’s reaction was part dubiousness, and part belief. The dubiousness was over Jane’s thinking that she would not be bothered if one of her own boys wished to do the same; the belief was that Jane did truly enjoy watching her daughter as she made such noise. She was not sure what was greater – Jane’s capacity for patience or her desire to love – and as much as Elizabeth had always known she could never have Jane’s patience, still she loved her sister for possessing such a virtue.

  +++

  On most days, Elizabeth returned to the nursery numerous times, for she had chosen to wet-nurse her sons herself, and although their nurse, Mrs. Nichols – a widow whose own young son was not yet weaned – could assist in this as needed, Elizabeth preferred it be her that fed them so long as she was available. She felt a little guilty that she did not make herself available at night, but Mrs. Nichols had always assured her it was nothing. Thus Elizabeth, following the last of her feedings for the evening, donned nightgown and dressing gown, then retired to the mistress’s chambers. She walked through her apartment to the master’s bedchamber, and upon her entry into that room, was surprised to find herself immediately taken up in an ardent embrace, an embrace punctuated by a very passionate kiss.

  “My, what is this for?” she asked, gasping, once the kiss had ended.

  “After what happened in January, I feared you might come to misinterpret what I meant at breakfast, about the cap.” He referred
to a brief period of time just before their return to marital relations after Elizabeth had given birth, when she had feared his lack of attention towards her meant he no longer desired her. Elizabeth had been too stung by the rejection to understand the truth: startled by the death of their cousin in childbirth, he had feared getting his wife with child again and losing her in the same manner.

  Darcy continued: “I never meant to censure your beauty, or indicate I felt any less attraction to you – ”

  “I understood you perfectly, my love. You need not explain yourself further.”

  “Thank goodness,” he said, looking very relieved.

  “So this was your attempt to convince me of how you desire me?” she asked.

  He replied that it was.

  “It was a very good attempt. I think you should make another.”

  He did so, kissing her very thoroughly and then grasping at the folds of her nightgown as he said: “You are at your best without any unnecessary adornments, my love, and I would very much like to remove this one, if you are amenable.”

  "Oh yes, I am very amenable.”

  Chapter 2

  Georgiana could rarely recall feeling so uncomfortable as she did now. She was in the study of the London town house of the Earl of Anglesey, which, although it was a decidedly masculine room, would not before have been somewhere she associated with discomfort. And indeed, it was the conversation occurring, rather than any appointment of the room, which was distressing her.

  “Have I taught you nothing?” Lord Anglesey was rather more shouting than saying to his nephew, Georgiana’s husband Matthew. “There is nothing to be gained by cutting an acquaintance – any acquaintance – much less your own father!”

  Georgiana supposed she and Matthew should have expected Lord Anglesey would not react well to their decision to cut the acquaintance of her father-in-law, but she had not thought he would be so vehement. She was not certain whether it would have changed their decision to do so, for her father-in-law had upset her terribly, by accusing her of carelessness in a fall down the stairs which had caused her to lose the baby she had been carrying.