1 11

Big Elizabeth and Darcy E-BOOK Bundle

Big Elizabeth and Darcy E-BOOK Bundle

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1955+ 5-Star Amazon Ratings

This Bundle is NOT AVAILABLE ANYWHERE ELSE

Binge-read your way through these standalone Pride and Prejudice variations. They'll make you laugh, cry, smile widely, and stay awake long after bedtime.

Pride and Prejudice variations offer the joy of revisiting a beloved and familiar world and characters. Each book explores how Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship might unfold if something important was changed. Thousands of readers have already fallen in love with these unique ‘what-if’ stories—now it’s your turn.

Paperbacks (and of course the e-books as well) are available from Amazon

SCENE FROM COLONEL DARCY

After Elizabeth's family locked her up to force her to marry a man she hated:

“Stand so I can dress you, Ma’am.”

“Why? Why am I being sent down?”

The woman scowled at Elizabeth. “They want you to speak to the gentleman.”

She had no intention of seeing Sir Clement again. 

But Elizabeth had grown ugly and wild looking.

Maybe her appearance — or smell — would put him off. Or she could scratch him with her fingernails.

Elizabeth selected the dirtiest dress. The one she had spilled barely warm soup over after the windows had been boarded up.

Elizabeth stumbled down the stairs. She was led to the study. She tensed her arms with anticipation. She would claw Sir Clement.

They had trapped her in a dark room, but she was not beaten.

She touched Georgiana’s letters for reassurance.

A tall, thin gentleman stood next to the desk. 

He stared at her with a powerful intensity.

He was deeply tanned and a large scar dominated the left side of his face. It extended from the bottom of his ear into the edge of his hairline. Elizabeth’s hand would barely cover it. Half his eyebrow was missing.

It was a pity, for otherwise he had a very handsome face. Then he said in a strained voice, “Lizzy.”

Her eyes widened. 

It was Fitzwilliam.

Like the missing pieces of a puzzle falling into place, she recognized him, though he was ten pounds lighter and there was some change that went far deeper than his face. 

She impulsively threw her arms around him.

He staggered and held her close. “Fitzwilliam, Fitzwilliam. Oh. Oh. You are here. Here. At last. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“My ship only came this morning.” There was a smile in his familiar strange voice. He kissed her on the forehead. “I am here.”

“You came to rescue me? I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. I can’t go back in there. No. No. No—”

“Shhh. It will be well. You won’t. I swear.” He awkwardly brushed his hand over her cheek, wiping away her tears. “You don’t have to return.”

“How?”

He didn’t quite meet her eyes. “Your mother…agreed to let me marry you. W-would you be willing?”

She stared at him in surprise. This must be the only way for her to escape, and Fitzwilliam Darcy was sacrificing himself to marry a girl he’d not seen for five years, and who had become shockingly ugly in that room.

Though she felt guilty, she tightened her arms around him, “Yes. Yes. Oh, yes.”

AN EXCERPT FROM MR. BENNET'S DAUGHTER

The night was dark, the sun long since set, though in this long hot summer, the days set late.

Crickets chirped outside.

A young woman of barely eighteen, almost a girl, stood over the cradle where her second daughter, born only a month before, slept.

This young woman, by the name of Frances Bennet, née Gardiner, had been found the day preceding in an act of amorous, conjugal congress with her father’s law clerk, Mr. Yates, a man who was decidedly not her husband.

This event was the result of the passions, craven, carnal and foolish, of a variety of persons. You see, Frances Gardiner had been allowed to enter society by her eager mother when she was only fifteen.

Her mother was the sole daughter of a substantial tenant farmer, whose income acquired from labor gave him money enough to give his daughter what was accounted by the standards of this class just below the gentry as a fine rural education. However, in education, breeding and manners, Mrs. Gardiner belonged to a class of people decidedly beneath the family of the successful country lawyer she married.

This capable, upwardly marrying woman looked on her daughter with satisfaction as she grew older, for Miss Frances Gardiner was a young girl of unusual beauty, striking blonde features, and a winsome smile. Mrs. Gardiner had been determined from the first time that it struck her that it was not just a mother’s fond conceit that placed her daughter as being above the normal course of good looks, that her daughter would continue the ascent of the family into yet higher ranks.

Opportunity came when Mr. Bennet, the master of Longbourn, fortuitously died, and his studious, scholarly son returned from his continuing sojourn at the university to take up his place as the master of the estate.

The new Mr. Bennet was a handsome, fine looking young man of six and twenty, who if he did not have the robust body of a sportsman, dressed smartly, had intelligent eyes, and an extremely clever bent in conversation. 

Despite his fine education in matters of science, rhetoric, and classical literature, Mr. Bennet was woefully uneducated in the ways of women. For many years, Mr. Bennet had lived mostly as a monk, subsisting upon the ample feasts of learning and the scraps of poorly cooked food available in the university dining halls, and he lived amongst other men for whom likewise friendly and amiable conversation with the fairer sex was little more than a myth.

When Mr. Bennet had the almost unwanted burden of the estate and its (almost compensatory) income with which he might purchase books placed upon him, he determined that though he did not enjoy balls, nor the round of social obligations, that he would put forth the effort necessary to establish his position in the neighborhood. 

Mrs. Gardiner had determined that her oldest daughter must enter society whilst Mr. Bennet yet remained unattached. She had obsessed about Longbourn and the chance that Mr. Bennet’s unattached state represented since the day she had heard the welcome news of his father’s death.

For the week prior to this ball, which like every young girl about to go to her first ball, Frances Gardiner eagerly awaited, her mother stuffed her ears full of exhortations to be pretty for Mr. Bennet, to think about what he would like, and to play the part of the perfect wife for him.

During the week previous to this ball, Mrs. Gardiner made Miss Gardiner stand before her and practice saying, with the sweetest and most appealing eyes, “Mr. Bennet, I am just an ignorant girl, but I want to learn about these matters you care so much about. Tell me about your favorite poets and scientists.”

And then she made Miss Gardiner to also practice saying, while placing a shy hand upon the arm, “Mr. Bennet, normally such topics would bore me, but you make them sound so completely interesting. I do dearly wish to hear more from you.”

Miss Gardiner thought that her mother’s scheme was decidedly excessive, but she was a mostly dutiful daughter, who rolled her eyes, and exclaimed, “Heavens, what a tiresome bore you are, Mama!”, but she practiced the simpering voice and innocent and appealing expression when ordered to. And she was not opposed to the idea of pursuing Mr. Bennet. While she had not seen the fine landowner from close up, Mr. Bennet made a trim and respectable figure on his horse when he rode through town and he was one of only three gentlemen who regularly passed through Meryton who had the use of a handsome coach and four.

The night of the fateful ball, as soon as they had walked to the assembly hall from the ample two-storied timber and frame house several blocks down the street in the town which served both as her husband’s law offices and their living quarters, Mrs. Gardiner firmly pinched the cheeks of her daughter to bring a cheery red blush to them. Then they entered the stuffy room.

For his part, Mr. Bennet was instantly fascinated by the pretty and angelic Miss Gardiner. Mr. Bingley many years later would describe her daughter Jane, who had much the same features, in the same way as Mr. Bennet thought of the mother the first time he saw her as a young woman.

A perfect angel, and a more beautiful girl he had never seen.

Miss Gardiner made the practiced question, as they stood across from each other in the line, waiting for the dance to start. “Mr. Bennet, I have heard you are such a clever scholar, but I know nothing about such matters,” she said looking him into the eyes in a way she had never looked into the eyes of any other man, and seductively biting her lips as she had practiced for her mother, “I am just an ignorant girl.” She looked down innocently, as if confessing a shameful secret. “I want to know more about these matters that you are said to care so much about.”

There was a moment of confusion for Mr. Bennet. His heart thumped wildly with an attraction he was not used to feeling. His entire mind and body oriented towards impressing this girl. He asked, almost stutteringly, which scholarly matters the pretty Miss Gardiner would care to hear about, but, he added honestly, he feared the girl would find them all very dull indeed.

Miss Gardiner at this point was unprepared, for Mrs. Gardiner had in truth no more notion of what scholarly matters interested Mr. Bennet than she did as to the nature of the civilizations that were hypothesized to live on the dark side of the moon, or even whether the moon was, as had been conjectured by the occasional wag, made of cheese.

However, the young woman improvised, and she smiled encouragingly at Mr. Bennet. “Oh, tell me what matter you care most about, for I am sure that shall be the most interesting. I promise not to find it in the slightest dull. I do.”

It would have taken a sterner sort of man than Mr. Bennet to avoid this trap.

Mr. Darcy would not have been taken in, but Mr. Darcy’s position in society had pressed him deeper into society from a younger age, and his father and mother had both taken pains to ensure he was no stranger to the dangers posed by unworthy women wishing to wed the Darcy name.

Mr. Bennet had no such training, and he had spent the prior ten years, as already stated, in a mostly monkish state surrounded by books and young men as obsessed with argument, debate, and a clever turn of phrase as he was.

As for Miss Gardiner, she did feel the matter of this courtship strange. There was a sense of unreality to it, and though she liked Mr. Bennet, she felt nothing like the love that appeared in the circulating library novels she liked to read.

But he was handsome, he was wealthy, and he was devoted to her.

The thought of not marrying him crossed her mind, but to refuse a gentleman whose attentions raised her status amongst her peers so much, and further to refuse a gentleman who she had been so thoroughly trained by her mother to pursue, was beyond the abilities of our fifteen-year-old Miss Gardiner.

Thus after a courtship lasting a little more than a month, the passionately infatuated Mr. Bennet asked Francis Gardiner if she would make him the happiest man in England, etc, etc. And she accepted his hand, to her mother's deep, profound, and tragically impermanent delight.

Three weeks later, merely two weeks after Miss Gardiner’s sixteenth birthday, the happy couple was wed.

For Mr. Bennet the gleam rubbed off his prize quickly.

It was possible for a young girl never spending more than two, or at the most three, hours of time in Mr. Bennet’s company — periods that would be broken up by other concerns — to keep up the pretense that she enjoyed listening to Mr. Bennet’s stream of rambling about the matters of philosophy and science that he enjoyed speaking upon — rambling that at the time of his marriage he was entirely convinced his wife loved to hear.

It was an entirely different matter for her to keep up the pretense of interest when she would wake up during the honeymoon next to him in bed, and he would expect her to want to listen to him.

Mr. Bennet was deeply enthused by the married state at first, and as he felt in his heart a great affection for what he had been led to expect Miss Gardiner’s character was, it took him most of a whole three months before he fully admitted to himself that his wife truly cared nothing about the matters he had enjoyed speaking to her about during their courtship.

As for Mrs. Bennet, she wanted affection. She wanted excitement. She wanted to continue to explore the world and see what it was like. She was just an eager and enthusiastic girl.

And Mr. Bennet gave her none of the attention, affection, or amusement a young girl needed.

Mr. Bennet had truly hoped that his wife would grow into a useful companion, like the men he knew in Oxford, but sweeter, softer, and more awed by his cleverness, the way she had pretended to be during their courtship.

When this did not happen Mr. Bennet grew sarcastic, and he made fun of Mrs. Bennet’s childish enthusiasms, he made fun of how she worried about the way her friends saw her, he made fun of her when she displayed her ample ignorance, and he made fun of her when she trusted the physicians that Mr. Bennet, correctly, knew to be quacks during her pregnancy.

Had matters been left to their own course, Mr. Bennet’s treatment of Mrs. Bennet would in time have grown softer, kinder, and even affectionate, though always he would have remained dismissive of her. But as it happened, matters were not left to their own course.

Mrs. Bennet, later Mrs. Yates, would never forget the day she entered her father’s office in Meryton a few months after her confinement for the birth of her daughter Jane. She was disoriented for a moment in the dark, stuffy, musty interior after the beating of the midday summer sun outside. And then she found herself suddenly eye to eye with Mr. Yates, her father’s new clerk.

Frederick Yates was only nineteen, just two years older than Mrs. Bennet, and he was not by general accounting so handsome as Mr. Bennet. He wore a plain heavy broadcloth wool coat that had been patched in a few places, and which did not have the fine sheen of Mr. Bennet’s coats, or the signs of the meticulous care that their servants gave to their clothes. He had ruddy cheeks, and he had a small popped pimple on his left cheek.

And, Mr. Yates had a twinkle in his eye when he looked at Mrs. Bennet. He always had that twinkle for her.

There was something about the smiles, and the encouragement to talk about her interests, and her cares and worries that was a balm to the soul of a lonely young girl who was in truth deeply hurt by the contempt of her husband, and the way she could ask for no sympathy from any of her friends, all of whom were convinced she was the happiest woman imaginable with a husband who was both handsome and rich.

  • Purchase the E-Books/Audiobooks Instantly
  • Receive Download Link via Email
  • Send to Any Preferred E-Reader and Enjoy!

FAQ: HOW WILL I GET MY BOOK

E-Books and audiobooks will be delivered instantly via a direct download link from my website, and you will also receive a backup email from our delivery partner Bookfunnel.

The ebooks will be delivered as both an epub and a pdf file, while you will have access to the mp3 files for audiobooks (or able to listen in the bookfunnel app for a seamless experience).

Make sure you check your promotions and spam folders if you do not receive an email within a minute.

FAQ: HOW WILL I BE ABLE TO READ MY BOOK

You will be able to read the ebooks on any Ebook Reader (Kindle, Nook or Kobo) and on your computer, tablet or phone. The email from Bookfunnel with the download link will include easy to follow instructions for entering the book into the Kindle library.

The Audiobook can be listened to through the bookfunnel app, or you can use the mp3 files to listen with most media players or audiobook apps.

Audible unfortunately is a closed system, and you cannot import audiobooks you purchase elsewhere into the app to listen on it. If it is essential to you to listen on Audible, you should purchase the books directly from Amazon, though I will note, the prices there should be higher while my royalties are substantially lower.

FAQ: 30 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE

Digital sales have a 30 day window to ask for a refund.

I honestly would feel bad about making money by selling books to people who end up hating them. So if you decide it was a mistake to buy my books, use the contact form to tell me your name, your order number and I'll then send you your money back.

It would be nice, but definitely not required to say something about what you were hoping to get from the books that you didn't, so I can improve how I write my descriptions to better target people who will actually like the books (though honestly the only refund requests I've so far gotten have been along the lines of 'oops, I already own most of these books').

Give it a couple of days to see the 'refund issued' email, and according to Shopify's own FAQ it can take up to ten days for the money on an issued refund to actually get back to your card.

$39.99 USD
$59.90 USD $39.99 USD
Sale Sold out
Taxes included.
Pick Your Bundle!

What readers are saying:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️"His Elizabeth is very witty and vivacious and his Darcy is always a proud ass but loveable." - Goodreads Reviewer

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️"Sometimes I find Darcy's character in Mr. Underwood's books infuriating; I guess it is because, as a man, the author is more versed in men's psychology, and therefore his descriptions are more to the point. This is why I keep going back to his books." - Amazon Review

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️"I can't express how much I enjoy reading the main characters converse with one another. Dialogue is a beautiful thing, and being able to go along for the ride as Darcy and Elizabeth navigate, and build on their relationship is a plus." - Goodreads Reviewer

How it Works:

Once you purchase, the books will be delivered to the email address you provide via BookFunnel. Simply download the books to your preferred E-Reader, phone, or tablet...and enjoy!

You can binge read for days. These are full length novels, between 65,000 and 125,000 words, and the 10-book bundle has a total of 890,000 words to sink into.

~*~Excerpt from Mr. Darcy and Mr. Collins's Widow ~*~

Longbourn 1807

Elizabeth stared at the door.

Her husband must have returned. Elizabeth rehearsed a final time how she would grovel; he enjoyed it when she begged on her knees.

Elizabeth had created a list of things she would intensely hate. Mr. Collins was fair. If she was sufficiently punished he would not do anything to hurt her family.

Elizabeth’s pulse pounded as she walked to the door.

Mrs. Hill stood there, her countenance grave. “What—what is it!” Elizabeth cried.

The housekeeper searched Elizabeth’s face. “Mr. Collins is dead.”

The body lay on the parlor couch, the head tilted at a grotesque angle which showed his broken neck. The skin was chalky white in the flickering candlelight. Elizabeth’s stomach heaved and she clapped her hand over her mouth.

His fat, toad-like face looked unusually ugly. He was the way he should have been born: Dead. Elizabeth touched the frozen forehead. It was real.

Relief flooded Elizabeth. She felt weak in her knees and couldn’t stop her smile as she collapsed onto the chair. Lydia was safe. Jane, Mary, and Kitty were safe. They all were. He’d not hurt anyone ever again. She could visit Charlotte freely. She could read novels and take solitary walks once more.

It would be terribly improper if she appeared happy, and the forms should be observed. Elizabeth attempted to be serious. “How did it happen?” Elizabeth asked with far too much smile in her tone.

The stable master had gone out to look for the master after Mr. Collins’s horse wandered home alone. The broken remains of his earthly dwelling place were found two hundred yards down the road from the manor house.

The apothecary and several local gentlemen, among them her Uncle Phillips, noisily arrived and woke the rest of the household. When she entered the room, Mrs. Bennet threw herself on the body of her son-in-law with sincere tears.

Elizabeth would never forgive her mother.

Soon the rest of the neighborhood arrived, and the house became quite crowded. Everyone was all that was kind and sympathetic to the family, but no one grieved. Mr. Collins had not been well-liked; most had noticed there was something amiss in his treatment of Elizabeth, and his manners did not create fondness. Only Mrs. Bennet wept.

When Charlotte Lucas arrived wearing a hastily thrown on morning gown and a heavy woolen shawl, Elizabeth flashed her friend a half smile. Sitting next to his body and attempting to appear sad was the oddest experience Elizabeth had ever had. Charlotte ordered Jane to keep company with Mrs. Bennet, then dragged Elizabeth to an empty room. Lydia came with them, and when the three were alone Charlotte embraced Elizabeth and said fervently, “The Lord has been kind.”

Elizabeth smiled widely as she whispered back through happy tears, “He has indeed.”

Books Included in this Bundle

 The first five books with * next to them are the ones in the 5-book bundle option.
  • *Mr. Darcy and Mr. Collins's Widow (Has Audiobook): Elizabeth is haunted by memories of an abusive past marriage.
  • *A Compromised Compromise (Has Audiobook): Darcy caught Elizabeth when she tripped, and they passionately kissed during the Netherfield ball.
  • *Mr. Bennet's Daughter: When Elizabeth was a baby, Mrs. Bennet fled with her lover and Jane, leaving Elizabeth to be raised by Mr. Bennet.
  • *Colonel Darcy (Has Audiobook): Elizabeth and Darcy were childhood friends. Years of war in India leaves Darcy emotionally and physically scarred.
  • *Writerly Ambitions: After a scandal banished her to London, Elizabeth became a novelist. Mr. Darcy has a list of traits the perfect wife will have.
  • A Dishonorable Offer: Raised by a scandalous uncle, Darcy struggles with honor. Mr. Bennet died, and the surviving Bennets are very poor.
  • Too Gentlemanly (Has Audiobook): Years of isolation after Georgiana had Wickham's illegitimate daughter make Darcy even ruder. Elizabeth likes his honesty, though.
  • Escaping Shadows: Darcy is crushed with guilt after his sister Georgiana elopes with Wickham. And married to such a man, Georgiana is in terrible danger.
  • Friendship and Forgiveness (Has Audiobook): Elizabeth and Caroline Bingley are best friends. Elizabeth wants to help her with the man she loves, but Mr. Darcy is clearly not interested in Miss Bingley.
  • Disability and Determination (Has Audiobook): An illness had robbed Mr. Darcy of the use of his legs, but he refused to think of himself as a cripple.
Additional Books in the 15-book Bundle
  • The Netherfield Fire: When Elizabeth ran upstairs to rescue a servant as Netherfield Park burned down, Darcy rescued her from the flames.
  • The Missing Prince: In a fantasy version of Regency England, Elizabeth had a mysterious magical connection with a man who cannot even remember his own name. Years before the head of the Darcy house mysteriously dissapeared.
  • Reader I Married Him: Elizabeth is hired as a governess by the widowed Mr. Darcy.
  • Elizabeth's Refuge: After bashing her lecherous employer's head with a vase, Elizabeth flees to safety with Darcy.
  • The Return (Has Audiobook): Mr. Bingley ignored Darcy's advice and married Jane immediately. And then Elizabeth and Darcy argue during the wedding breakfast.

    • EXCERPT FROM A COMPROMISED COMPROMISE

    After Elizabeth and Darcy were forced to become engaged when they kissed during the Netherfield Ball:

    Elizabeth looked up at Darcy. Part of her mind wanted her to stand stiffly and speak to him in a businesslike manner, showing that she was not presently ruled by the passion that had ruled them both the previous night.

    Instead she looked up demurely through her eyelashes and smiled in what she hoped was a seductive manner. She bit her lower lip, like the heroine in a novel she had read recently constantly did.

    Darcy groaned and looked away. “Do not look at me like that, madam.”

    “Like what?” Elizabeth said grinningly, now brave. She came closer to him, so close that she could smell his rich scent again. When he looked at her once more, she bit her lower lip once more. “What did you want us to discourse upon?”

    He groaned again.

    “Well, Mr. Darcy?” She grinned and leaned her head up towards him.

    He shook himself and stepped away. But she could tell from how his eyes lingered on her lips, and occasionally dipped to her other attributes, that it was not an easy choice for him. “We must talk about practical matters. Yes. Practical matters.”

    “Of course.” Elizabeth grinned, and bit her lip once more, enjoying the effect that gesture had on Mr. Darcy’s attention. “Practical matters.”

    “Stop looking at me like that!” She had never seen him so flustered. “You’ll not trick me again. You have so arranged that you have a rich husband. Your trap succeeded, but I shall not give you any great sum of pin money. You will receive the minimum suitable to your place as Mrs. Darcy.”

    Elizabeth gasped and stepped away, her hand flying to her mouth. All thought of seducing the still odious man fled. She had planned for them to be discovered? He had been the one to kiss her! Elizabeth spoke coldly. “I do not know what you are speaking of.”

    “Do not pretend to be innocent.”

    The harsh tone of his voice dampened, though it did not quench, the ardent fire that burned in Elizabeth’s belly. “You odious man. You ungentlemanlike kisser and insulter of women. You think I trapped you!”

    “Yes, Madam. You trapped me. It was no accident that right at the moment when we were kissing your mother opened the door with witnesses.”

    Elizabeth growled.

    “Well?”

    “You are being ridiculous. It was a coincidence.”

    “Just admit the truth. You intended to use my passion for you to trap me into marriage.”

    “Passion? I had no idea you had the slightest attachment to me before last night. You had once claimed me to be too unhandsome to tempt you.”

    “You should not listen to the conversations of other people.”

    “And you should not have sneeringly insulted on a public dance floor the entirety of my neighborhood. And then kissed me.”

    Elizabeth threw back the accusation.

    She panted. Like she had when she angrily argued with Darcy last night. Odious, odious man. He was wrong. So wrong. With such fine thin lips. She wanted to shout at him and kiss him at the same time. Hopefully he was feeling the same thing. The kissing part at least.

    He was.

    She could now read that dark look in his eyes. And then he seemed to actually hear what she had accused him of at last and he grimaced. “Yes. Last night was not the only failure of my honor and self-control. I ought to have made a better pretence of politeness to the neighborhood. I was wrong to fail in that.”

    “You shouldn’t have thought you were above us at all.”

    “I am above your neighborhood. You now shall be above them too. I shall expect you also to behave as though you are above them once we marry. You should keep distance from those who are no longer worthy of your attention, and—”

    “What? You want me to treat my neighbors, the people I have grown up with, as though they are—”

    “As though they are of little consequence in the world. Which they are. You can shower them with condescension, but—”

    “Lord! If I wanted to listen to this, I would have married Mr. Collins.”

    That silenced him. Good. Odious man. She didn’t even want to kiss him again anymore.

    Yes, yes you do.

    Darcy stepped closer to her. So close she could smell his cologne and the spicy scent of his breath. He was big and well proportioned, and she loved… uh admired… uh lustfully beheld his Grecian (whatever that meant, but it sounded decidedly handsome) profile, and his strong chin.

    “Elizabeth — we can call each other by our Christian names as we are to marry. I just want…”

    His breath caught. Her breath caught.

    Their faces were only inches apart, and they felt closer. She could just reach her hand forward and touch his lips. She could just lean her face up, and he could just lower his lips to hers and kiss her.

    Please.

    READ A SCENE FROM WRITERLY AMBITIONS

    Where had Miss Bennet gone?

    She was not in the room at all.

    The last time he had glanced towards Miss Bennet, the gentleman who she’d been in conversation with had been that disgusting Mr. Reed.

    Something in Darcy’s stomach lurched anxiously. Was she well? Had she been frightened by him? There was some animus between them, he could tell that from Mr. Reed’s conversation.

    This is none of your business.

    But Darcy, for reasons he could not explain to himself, suddenly did not care that it was none of his business.

    He walked around the edge of the room, thinking. He remembered clearly where she had been seated when she talked to Mr. Reed, and close by that nook was one of the doors to the balconies, left open to keep the room cool.

    To Darcy’s relief when he walked by that door he saw Miss Bennet standing safely on the balcony, looking forlornly out towards the stars. Her vibrant countenance was barely discernible in the thin darkness. The sun had long since set. He looked at Miss Bennet for an inappropriately long moment. He wanted to say something to her, but they were not even introduced yet, and he could tell she wished some sort of solitude. She also had every appearance of distress, like when Georgiana would flee from balls out of shyness, and require his presence to comfort her, during her first season.

    Miss Bennet tensely gripped the iron railing.

    Darcy sighed, and he was about to walk away, to leave her to her privacy.

    But Miss Bennet, drawn by the noise he made, turned to look at him through the door, and their eyes caught. She was pale and her eyes were too wide and too intent. There was a fringe of sweat around her hair. And instead of a smile, like she’d shown other times when she caught him glancing towards her, her lips trembled.

    Darcy walked up to Miss Bennet. “I… I apologize for introducing myself, Miss Bennet. But… are you well?”

    He could see that she was not.

     *****

    When the tall, handsome and wealthy Mr. Darcy asked her if she was well, for a long moment our heroine could not reply through the tightness that clutched her throat.

    They stared at each other. His face was deeply concerned, but slowly that worried expression turned into a frown as second after fateful second passed, without a solitary word between the two strangers to the neighborhood, caught on this high balcony together.

    “I apologize, Miss Bennet, for intruding.” He bowed his fine head and turned to go.

    “No! Wait!”

    Elizabeth did not know why she shouted out. She did not want to be alone. She did not want him, the shy man whose eyes she had met so many times during the whole course of the night, to leave now that he had brought himself to speak to her.

    Were this a novel, rather than her real life, Mr. Darcy would be very much the sort of man to be the hero.

    Mr. Darcy paused and he stepped next to her on the balcony, he leaned his elbows on the iron railing, and he said in a low pitched calming voice that vibrated, “Miss Bennet, I can see you are not well. Is there aught I might help you with — even if merely a little conversation to distract yourself from your troubles?”

    “I feel as though I can scarce breathe, and the walls enclose me, and as though I may die any moment.” The words came out in a rush, and a tight unpleasant feeling in her chest clenched. “This is worse than I have ever felt before.”

    Mr. Darcy looked almost relieved when she said that. “Does your heart race, and do you feel perhaps… distant from yourself, numb?”

    Elizabeth nodded.

    “Breathe, just breathe deeply. One breath after another. Miss Bennet, I know exactly what you experience now, and I promise, it shall pass.” He kept speaking in a low, comforting voice, the bass rumble seemed to vibrate in Elizabeth’s chest. He spoke like he would to calm a spooked horse, and if Elizabeth had been that horse, she would have settled down quickly. “There is no threat here. No one is your enemy, no one—”

    Elizabeth laughed wetly. “I thank you. Oh, god, my throat — I have enemies here. That is true.”

    He was silent for a moment. “I spoke thoughtlessly — you must recover so that you can comfortably despise them. Breathe deeply. This sensation will pass. It will pass. I promise you, it shall pass.”

    A deep shuddering breath. And then another. Elizabeth closed her eyes. Then when Mr. Darcy paused for a moment she spoke aloud, “You have felt this? What — oh I do not know what to call it. This strange terrified numbness.”

    “My sister — she is deeply shy, and she often had when younger such episodes when placed in the company of too many persons.”

    “Hahahaha.” Elizabeth shook her head and shuddered. “Such episodes. Am I now to fear every ball I enter — since the moment I came in the door.”

    “Was that why you left the hall, when we all arrived?”

    Elizabeth looked a little blankly at him.

    Mr. Darcy smiled wryly. “When you overheard my rudeness.”

    “Oh!” Elizabeth laughed again, still nervously, but with more ease. She felt better. Whether it was because this fine gentleman had distracted her, or that he made her breathe deeply and calmly, or maybe simply because Mr. Darcy was a calm presence. A man who did not, yet, despise her.

    The feeling was passing.

    In truth, few people despised her, though Mr. Reed certainly did, in that case the feeling was entirely mutual, and not worth concerning herself with. Really.

    That lump in her throat was going away, and the sense of being unmoored, like a shift adrift on dark and stormy seas, was no longer there.

    More deep breaths.

    Elizabeth almost smiled to Mr. Darcy. “That! No need to apologize. Your friend Mr. Bingley, he told me you made the decision to be entirely sensible about the matter of romance, and that you will only marry a woman who meets the most demanding requirements — I do not, so no reason for me to feel rejected or embarrassed by it. Nothing of the sort — I do not. I really do not. I am not out here for you. That is not it. They don’t despise me anymore — I shouldn’t feel like this. You though might despise me — we do not even know each other and, and, and, and — oh, God. It is returning.”

    She spoke faster and faster as she talked. Her words tumbling out one after the other.

    Mr. Darcy put his hand on her shoulder. “Breathe deeply, Miss Bennet. Breathe deep. I promise you, you are well. There is nothing to fear.”

    “There is always them to fear. And I hate them too — all of them. No I don’t! But I sometimes have hateful thoughts. They laughed at me. They pretended to be my friends — God. That was years ago. I did not think it affected me so still. So many years since. Oh… have you been told? I normally pretend no concern.”

    “Just breathe, Miss Bennet. Deep slow breaths.”

    She took several such breaths.  “I did not tell your friend Bingley. Lord! I hate this feeling in my stomach.”

    She pressed her hand against the railing of the balcony, rubbing it over the twisted pattern again and again until her palm hurt.

    “Miss Bennet, breathe. What is past is past, and you deserve a happy future no matter what sins your past may contain.”

    Elizabeth laughed hollowly. He’d heard, and decided to adopt the role of the friendly moralist, as opposed to the unfriendly moralist. “No?” she said in a sarcastic tone. “You claim I still deserve to be happy? How kind of you.”

    Mr. Darcy shrugged.

    Elizabeth squeezed her fists again. “I do not mean to be rude — I hardly know what I say.”

    “I assure you, that dalliance of yours with Mr. Wickham in the distant past, that is not a matter upon which I judge you — is that memory why you feel such anxiety?”

    “I am not anxious — oh Lord! I am. It was here — they all laughed. At me. Mr. Reed made them to laugh again, and again. I was thrown away, my dearest friends cut me. Why did I come here again?”

    Mr. Darcy pressed his comforting hand on her arm. He left it there this time. “Miss Bennet, if I… should I…” He then muttered under his breath, “It does not matter now.”

    “What does not matter?”

    “It would be the rankest hypocrisy for me to judge you, especially over a matter with Mr. Wickham. What he induced you to do those years before—”

    “You assume those stories are true,” Elizabeth said, a little hotly. Anger, or annoyance, that was better than the distant strange detachment she had felt. “You do not even know me.”

    “I do not,” he agreed.

    Elizabeth looked at the ground. She breathed slowly through her nose. She would say nothing further and let him believe what he wished — defending her honor had no point. Others thought what they would. They always did. She had sworn long ago to never defend herself, and she had been treated the better for pretending to accept the guilt, and hold her head high anyways.

    Mr. Darcy’s presence made her feel calmer. More at ease, and safe somehow, even though she knew it was ridiculous, and she did not know this man. Despite that she felt an insane instinct which shouted: You can depend upon him.

    “Mr. Wickham — will you swear to never speak of what I shall tell you? Never to another soul.”

    “If this is such a secret matter, why dare share it with me? A fallen woman, whose morals clearly are such that she cannot be trusted.” But while Elizabeth spoke in a self-mocking tone, she could tell that her panic was receding again — partially replaced by her decided curiosity about whatever crimes Wicky had gotten himself up to with Mr. Darcy — she now recalled the name and the connection. Wickham had despised Darcy, who had been his godfather’s son.

    Being despised by Wicky spoke very well of Mr. Darcy’s character.

    “I trust you.” He spoke with a complete conviction. “I cannot say why. I cannot say wherefore. But no matter what your past may have been, I trust you completely. There is some instinct in me which says when I look at you, when I see you trembling here, on this balcony — when I know how you have suffered — Oh, I cannot explain it. But I trust you. I may be a fool, I may hurt those dearest to me, but Miss Bennet, I trust you.”

    $39.99 USD
    $59.90 USD $39.99 USD
    Sale Sold out
    Taxes included.
    View full details

Other Bundles

Customer Reviews

Based on 5 reviews
80%
(4)
20%
(1)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
K
Katherine Berkowitz
Whole bundle

I am really enjoying these books! It's been interesting, seeing how your writing style has evolved over the years. Also, although I've had a Kindle Unlimited subscription for several years, the only title that I recall reading is Mr. Bennet's Daughter (I have to admit that the typo in the e-pub file name bugs me!).
I have about three books left; I started Escaping Shadows today. The stories have been unique and the interactions with my least favorite characters have been sparse.
I will definitely re-read all of these titles. Thank you!

A
Alexandra Dogaru
Amazing!

Many of the stories in this bundle I have already read on the fanfiction site. I liked them so much, I couldn't miss the opportunity to have them in the published version, of course.
I am looking forward to discovering the books I haven't already and rereading the others.
I love Timothy's writing style, his ability to present the story in a way which makes you unable to put the book down before you've finished it.
I usually do not like books that are very angsty... But there are some that I would read again and again. One of them is Colonel Darcy. Oh, the heartbreak! But such beautiful plot!
I 10000% recommend his stories. They are simply art!

M
Mary Thoennes

Enjoy Mr Underwoods new takes on the P&P characters

L
Linda Franklin
Great group

As always, Timothy Underwood's Pride and Prejudice variations are unique, well written and well edited, and totally enjoyable.

C
Cheryl Kepler
Great sale on terrific stories

I own all these books and have read and reread every one of them many times. Excellent plots, witty dialogue, good characterization, and very Austenesque writing.