Such Peculiar Providence Read online

  Such Peculiar Providence

  Meg Osborne

  Published by Meg Osborne, 2018.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  SUCH PECULIAR PROVIDENCE

  First edition. March 30, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 Meg Osborne.

  ISBN: 978-1386539360

  Written by Meg Osborne.

  Also by Meg Osborne

  A Convenient Marriage

  A Convenient Marriage Volume 1

  Longbourn's Lark: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

  Three Weeks in Kent: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

  Suitably Wed: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

  A Visit to Scotland: A Pride and Prejudice Variaton

  The Consequence of Haste: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

  A Surprise Engagement: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

  Fate and Fortune

  Too Fond of Stars: A Persuasion Variation

  A Temporary Peace: A Persuasion Variation

  Pathway to Pemberley

  The Collins Conundrum

  The Wickham Wager

  The Darcy Decision

  Three Sisters from Hertfordshire

  A Trip to Pemberley

  An Assembly in Bath

  An Escape from London

  Standalone

  After the Letter: A Persuasion Continuation

  Half the Sum of Attraction: A Persuasion Prequel

  A Very Merry Masquerade: A Pride and Prejudice Variation Novella

  The Other Elizabeth Bennet: A Pride and Prejudice Variation Novella

  In Netherfield Library and Other Stories

  Mr Darcy's Christmas Carol: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

  Such Peculiar Providence

  A Chance at Happiness

  The Colonel's Cousin: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

  Captain Wentworth's Christmas Wish

  Midwinter in Meryton

  Watch for more at Meg Osborne’s site.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also By Meg Osborne

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  Also By Meg Osborne

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Fitzwilliam Darcy squinted in the fading afternoon light, bringing his ledger a little closer in order that he might make out the figures in the column before him. Cursing the lack of light, he gave up, the noise of the rain hammering down on the glass too much of a distraction to bear, at last. A flash of lightning overhead followed almost immediately by a crack of thunder, made him wince, and he had just begun the search for a candle when a sharp knock at the door of his study interrupted him.

  “Yes?” he muttered, rummaging in a drawer for the elusive candles. He would have to insist his staff stocked the study better. Winter was fast approaching, and he could hardly be expected to work without light to see by.

  “Isn’t it terrifyingly bleak outside?”

  Georgiana did not pause to greet him, but skipped straight to the window, hugging her arms around her in delight at the ferocity of the weather.

  “Bleak, yes,” Darcy grunted, grabbing hold of two candles and setting them on his desk. He frowned, lifting them to his eyes for closer inspection. Tallow smelled, but he needed the light, and could not face the exertion of going in search of wax candles and thus delaying his afternoon’s work even further. He had half a dozen letters to answer and something in him rued being dictated to by external forces, even if said force was Mother Nature herself.

  Another flash of lightning briefly illuminated Georgiana’s fascinated features, and she shuddered at the barrage of thunder that accompanied it.

  “I think it incredible!” she said, laying a hand against the glass. When Darcy did not reply straight away, she turned to face him.

  “How can you work at a time like this?” she asked, as he jammed his candles into holders, and set about lighting them.

  “Intermittently, if not effectively,” he muttered, frowning as one of the wicks steadily refused to catch. “It is so blasted dark out, and not yet three o’clock!”

  “It’s marvellous.” Georgiana could not be dissuaded. “Come here, William. Abandon your work for an afternoon. It can wait an hour, surely, and you will not believe the shapes lightning carves across the sky.”

  “I can quite believe it,” he said, stubbornly attending to his ledger once more, albeit in wavering half-light, with both candles now threatening to extinguish themselves at any moment. “I have studied science, after all.”

  “Well, then!” Georgiana puffed out her chest, affecting an attitude of deference. “Might the great professor spare a moment from his hectic daily schedule to explain the intricacies of a storm to us mere mortals who have no such education but are still well able to appreciate its beauty?”

  Darcy paused, his pen hovering over his papers, glancing up in time to see a wicked smile dart across his sister’s lips. Before he could tell what she was about, she skipped up to his table, leaning close to him so that for half a moment he thought she would whisper something in his ear. Instead, she turned her head and blew, extinguishing both candles in quick succession and plunging the room into darkness.

  “Georgiana!” he groaned.

  “William!” she echoed, laughter somewhat detracting from the mimicry. “There, you have no excuses left. Come, take a moment’s rest and look at the storm with me.”

  She took his hand, gently extracting his pen from within his fingers, and tugged him to his feet, leading him over to the wide window.

  “You are too old to manhandle me so,” he grumbled. “And to be so utterly enthralled at something so simple as a thunderstorm.”

  “And you are too young to be so world-weary!” she exclaimed. “Cynicism is unbecoming, and if I must manhandle you in order to force you to rest then be assured I shall do it even when I am ninety.”

  Her enthusiasm was contagious, and despite his best efforts to remain aloof, he found his own heart racing as the purple lightning forked through the sky. The thunder, which rolled ferociously over their heads, caused both bother and sister to flinch, to catch one another’s eyes and then to laugh at their ability to be so unsettled by nature.

  “It is a long time since I have seen a storm this brutal!” Darcy said, his brow furrowing in concern as he thought of his tenants, and the effect on his land such a display might have. There would be trees downed, for certain, and the way the rain pummelled the ground would mean a good deal of work in salvaging the gardens...

  “Stop!” Georgiana commanded, snapping her fingers before his face and causing him to start, and look at her in confusion.

  “You were worried about your work again, I could tell. For a quarter-hour, brother, please, just stand here and admire the beauty of nature. Do not worry about its impact on the world of Pemberley. That will be a concern for the future. For
now, we need only watch, and marvel.”

  Obediently, Darcy turned his gaze back towards the window, frowning as another ferocious clap of thunder caused his sister to shriek and take a step closer to him.

  “Can such a fearful thing be beautiful?” he asked, not expecting a serious answer or any answer at all from his giggling sister.

  “How can you say it is not?” she demanded, poking him in the side. “Everything cannot be managed or contained, brother. I know you cannot bear anything in your life to fall outside of its designated categories, but I will not be so easily constrained. I wish to feel alive, while I am alive, and if that means feeling fear as well as delight, then I welcome it.”

  She tossed her head, enthralled in the merits of her speech, and a wicked gleam sparkled in her eyes.

  “In fact, I rather wish to be out in the storm, rather than merely watching from behind the safety of a pane of glass. Can you not just imagine the feel of the rain pelting down on us from above? The thrill of the electricity in the air?”

  “I can well imagine the cold that would follow such an adventure,” Darcy remarked, drily. He reached out quickly and turned the lock on the window, pocketing the key before his flighty sister got any ideas. “If you wish to enjoy the storm then enjoy it we may, but we shall do so from indoors and thus retain our dignity and our health.”

  The tiniest grin tugged at the corner of his mouth and was enough to push Georgiana into a fit of laughter, and brother and sister both turned to watch the dying of the storm as it rolled south.

  “LIZZY, WHAT ARE WE going to do?”

  Jane’s voice was but a whisper so that Elizabeth Bennet scarcely heard her sister over the noise of the rain that barrelled against the glass. They were sitting in the window of their parlour at Longbourn, she and Jane, making the most of what meagre light the stormy afternoon provided.

  “I don’t see what we can do!” Lizzy replied, glancing back at her father’s ledger and trying desperately to make sense of it. “Mr Collins has given us less than a month to leave, he will not relent and allow us any longer.”

  Jane cleared her throat, and Lizzy whipped her gaze up to answer her sister’s question before she raised it.

  “No, I forbid it, Jane. I do not care what hints that man has dropped, you shall not concede to marry him simply that we might keep our house!”

  “But, Lizzy -”

  “You are just good enough to do it, too, and sacrifice your whole future happiness so that Mama’s worries might be appeased.” She reached a hand out to her sister’s and squeezed it in silent encouragement. “He is a stranger to us, this Collins, and from what little interaction we have had I hardly think we shall be friends.” She slid the short note the heretofore unknown Mr Collins had sent, upon hearing of Mr Bennet’s sad and sudden demise, and re-read it, although it seemed as if its contents were burned forevermore into her brain. Mrs and the Miss Bennets, you must forgive my writing to you unbidden and at such an unfortunate time as this. You will no doubt be aware of my recent correspondence with your father, my cousin, with regards to my inheriting Longbourn after his death. How could either of us dream it would come so soon...? Hot tears burned at Lizzy’s eyes and she laid the letter down again, not caring to read any more of Mr Collins obsequious condolences or his “generous” offer to permit mother and daughters to remain until month’s end while they made arrangements for their future living. What a pity I am unmarried, for propriety might otherwise permit us all to remain together if I could but find a wife amongst the five of you. I wager that is the hope your father had in mind, and, had he but lived, it might easily have been achieved. How different our meeting might have been, in that case... Lizzy severely doubted Mr Bennet’s intent had ever been to marry one of his daughters to such a man, although she did not doubt Mrs Bennet’s own ideas might have turned that way, had she known of it.

  “We are fortunate Mama is unaware of his veiled offer,” she said, at last, daring to risk a smile at her sister. “She would think it a very sensible one indeed, I don’t doubt, and turn matchmaker in an instant!”

  “It would give her something to think about, other than her loss,” Jane commented, with a sigh. Mrs Bennet had taken to her bed upon hearing of her husband’s death, and remained there ever since, weeping and wailing fitfully, which despair increased with her knowledge that they were to be turned out of their home upon Mr Collins’ forecasted arrival. Elizabeth had received his letter and been bidden to read it aloud, for Mrs Bennet’s eyes were too weak with crying to manage reading a thing herself. This had allowed Elizabeth a moment of careful abridgement, for her eyes travelled the note’s content faster than her lips recited it, and she was able to prune away the suggestion that they might remain if only one lady would consent to marry their father’s cousin.

  “He really might be very nice,” Jane continued.

  Lizzy snorted.

  “Nice? And what spirit of good luck has lately visited this family to permit such a change in our fortunes? No, Jane. I remain convinced he is old and mean and likely ugly to boot.” She shuddered. “Or else why would he seek to make such a suggestion in the first place? He is clearly incapable of securing a spouse on his own merits and must resort to blackmail.”

  “Lizzy,” Jane said, patiently. “None of us girls has secured a spouse on our own merits, so be careful how quickly you judge.”

  “That is on account of there being no suitable young gentlemen hereabouts!” Elizabeth declared. She sighed, shoving her papers aside, and leaned her head into her hands. “If only there were! You might marry one of those, and win both happiness and a home, and then at least one of us would be taken care of.”

  “It is a pity,” Jane said, sadly. “But I hardly feel like socialising at present. The Meryton assembly is but a few weeks away, but I cannot even begin to imagine attending.” She smiled. “I can hardly begin to imagine missing it, either, or bearing Lydia and Kitty’s wails at passing up a dance, though they are in mourning, so perhaps it is all for the best that we shall not be here to see it.”

  Pieces of a puzzle began to fit together in Elizabeth’s mind, and she sat upright, her face radiant with what felt like hope, for the first time in this long, bleak week of tragedy and change.

  “Jane, you genius! Of course, we cannot stay here. I did not fully appreciate until now what that meant for us.”

  Jane frowned, confused at her sister’s apparent enthusiasm, and oblivious as to the details of her plan.

  “We must leave Hertfordshire,” Lizzy said. “Well, who knows where we might end up? The entirety of England is open to us!”

  She turned to her father’s bookshelves, and lifted down an atlas, flipping it open to a picture of Great Britain and tracing the familiar and unfamiliar names with her finger. “We might go north, Jane. Even as far as the Lakes! Would you not adore to walk in Windermere? Or perhaps elsewhere in the Peak District. You know Aunt Gardiner grew up there, and I am sure she would recommend us a modest home -”

  “Aunt Gardiner,” Jane said, leaning forward and tapping the very centre of the map. “That is some sense at last. It is our only option, really. We must go to stay with them in London, and then we can decide where best to go.” Jane frowned. “Perhaps we might take a small house in town, although I dare say economy will dictate it will not be in a very fashionable part...”

  Lizzy’s heart sank. To be cramped in a house all together, in the midst of the hustle and bustle of London? The Bennet purse was considerably lighter than she had expected, and although Lizzy knew little of finances she knew their meagre income would not stretch to a very large house.

  “Why so glum, dear?” Jane asked, considerably encouraged by this new plan of action. “Think how well the girls will enjoy removing to London! And Aunt and Uncle Gardiner will help us, of course they will!”

  Lizzy felt a strange flicker of irritation that her self-appointed role as family caregiver and decision-maker, in her father’s absence, must now be surrendered
once more to a gentleman, although she was fond of Uncle Gardiner and trusted him to make wise decisions on his sister’s family’s behalf.

  “You must write at once!” Jane said, finding a clean sheet of paper and thrusting it towards her sister. “I will go and tell Mama what we have decided. Do not worry, Lizzy dear! All will be well.”

  Elizabeth’s heart sank as Jane hurried to her feet, energised by this new decision. She knew it was the wisest course of action open to them and was not disinterested in the thought of staying, however briefly, in London. The busyness of the town would prove a perfect panacea to the dead weight of grief that had made even simple chores impossible these past days, and slowed her wits so that she almost feared to use them. She cast her eyes back to the map once more, imagining, fleetingly, acres of green grass edged with smoky blue hills rising in the distance. How she would prefer the country to the town! The same could not be said of her sisters, though, and for them, Lizzy would sacrifice her own happiness. She cared as much for the family’s survival as did her sister, and at least in London there would be no chance of Jane’s resolve weakening and her agreeing to marry this wretched Mr Collins if only to keep a roof over their heads. Why, there would be many more eligible young gentlemen in London. Perhaps Lizzy might engineer for Jane to fall in love with one of those!

  This notion soothed her ruffled feathers, and, drawing a shaky breath she began to write to her uncle explaining their intent to visit and the imminent arrival that necessitated their speedy removal to London. I suppose if life is to change, it might as well change completely...

  Chapter Two

  “We must find somewhere cheaper to live,” Elizabeth sighed, as she and Jane stepped into the sanctuary of a tea shop.

  “Cheap?” Jane’s question was barely a whisper, but her meaning was clear.

  “Inexpensive,” Lizzy clarified. They found a table and sat down, and for once, Elizabeth was glad of the low rumbles of conversation that bounced around the quiet tea house. These ladies were all far too preoccupied with their own concerns, their own small dramas, to take any notice of the two less than elegant young ladies who had just entered. Elizabeth dabbed fruitlessly at a patch of water that had successfully penetrated her pelisse and left a darkening damp patch on the dress underneath. Jane still looked a usual radiant self, of course. It was as if the rain had not even touched her, a slight rosy tinge to her cheeks giving the only clue that the climate was anything less than temperate.