Netherfield Bluebells

Title: Netherfield Bluebells
Author: ExcentrykeMuse
Fandom(s): Pride & Prejudice / Twilight Saga / (Bridgerton)
Pairings: Bella/Darcy, Bingley/Jane, Mr. Collins/Undecided
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5.5k
Warnings: social strata, no vampires, Bella Swan was born in the Regency Era, Elizabeth bashing, I just like Mr. Collins, Jane is vapid
Prompt: for Rebecca who wanted Darcy/Bella! Enjoy!

Netherfield Bluebells

“Good God, man! I hate to see you standing about in such a stupid manner!”

Bella looked over and saw Mr. Bingley speaking with a man she believed to be Mr. Darcy of Pemberley.  Elizabeth was sitting near her and she, too, had looked over. 

“Come, now, I must have you dance.”

Bella glanced away.  Darcy would undoubtedly dance with Elizabeth.  She had beautiful blonde hair and pretty blue eyes.  He would be a fool not to.  Mr. Darcy did not strike her as a fool. 

“You have been dancing with the only handsome girl in the room,” Darcy answered, clearly referencing Jane, the eldest of the Bennet daughters.

The two stood for a moment and Bella noticed that Bingley was now regarding Elizabeth and, perhaps, her.  “Look.  There is one of her sisters.  I daresay she is very pretty, too.  Let me introduce you.”

Bella was now looking toward the dancing and certainly not regarding the two gentlemen.  She was sure that Elizabeth was looking over.  She was coy like that. 

“Not the sister,” Darcy decided, and Bella was surprised.  Elizabeth was next to Jane in age and beauty.  “Who is the other one?” he asked.  The other what?

“I daresay I do not know.  Give me but one moment.”

At this, Bella glanced at Elizabeth and saw that she was unhappy.  She was now full out regarding Mr. Darcy who was decidedly not looking at her.  Elizabeth turned to her and walked over and gave Bella an insincere smile. 

“Bells.”

“Lizzie,” she turned to her and smiled at her slightly.  “I see you are not dancing.  Surely one of the Lucas boys will oblige you.”

She looked out toward the dancers and Bella noticed that the dance was changing. 

“You never dance at an Assembly.  I don’t even know why you come.”  This was said acerbically.  Elizabeth did have a bit of a mean streak to her. 

Bella, however, was not listening.  She was looking at Mr. Bingley who was leading Jane Bennet over to Mr. Darcy, who was certainly regarding her and Elizabeth.  If he didn’t want to dance with Elizabeth—could Darcy possibly want to dance with shy, dark Isabella Swan?

“You should join the crush,” Bella suggested to Elizabeth, “or you will certainly sit out another dance.  There is a dearth of partners tonight.”

Laughing, Elizabeth looked over at Darcy who was now bowing to Jane.  “Perhaps Mr. Bingley will ask me a second time.”

Perhaps not, Bella thought uncharitably to herself.  He was all politeness, but his smiles were only for Jane Bennet.

The three of them were now coming over and Elizabeth was unfortunately still with her, having not taken the hint. 

Curtseying, she waited as Jane made the introductions.

“And this is Miss Isabella Swan.  She is the owner of Netherfield and the daughter of the late Sir Charles Swan, baronet,” Jane explained. 

“We are your tenants!” Bingley said delightedly, taking her hand.  “But you do not reside there.”

“No,” she answered.  “My guardian is Mr. Bennet until I turn twenty-one or marry, whichever should come first.”  Her dark eyes flitted over to Mr. Darcy.  “I hope you are enjoying the house.”

“Undoubtedly,” Bingley answered.  He, too, looked toward Darcy.

“Miss Swan,” Darcy began, “I was wondering if you would care for the next dance.”

“Isabella does not dance,” Elizabeth answered for her, causing Bella to uncharacteristically grind her teeth.  “She’s famous for it!”  It was clear Elizabeth was angling for her dance.

“I’m sure I can make—”

“And the music is starting up,” Elizabeth now added.

Darcy stared at Elizabeth a long moment but held his hand out to Bella, who placed her much smaller hand in his.

As he led her away, she murmured, “I’m afraid what Elizabeth said is true, I am rarely in the habit of dancing.”

“I am pleased you have made this one of the occasions,” he answered as he led her to the set.

She stood opposite him and curtseyed low before she entered the dance, moving her arms to the left as she stepped to the right, then angling the other way, turning in place, before she stepped out into the center of the line and changed places with Darcy.  Her eyes flitted to the room around her and she saw Elizabeth glaring daggers with her, but she supposed it couldn’t be helped.  She had caught the one man who had ever tickled Elizabeth’s fancy.

It was Elizabeth’s bad luck.

It was not as if Darcy had proposed marriage.  He had only asked for a dance.

She turned again to Darcy and his hand brushed hers and her dark eyes flashed up to his verdant gaze.  Her breath caught in her throat.  Darcy really was unusually handsome. 

When the dance finished, he walked her off of the floor and toward the refreshment table.  “Can I interest you in a glass of punch?” he asked her.

“Lemonade,” she answered.  She never liked punch. It was too strong for her.

He smiled at her and placed her in a seat and went to go fetch her the lemonade. 

Kitty came and sat down next to her, breathless.  “You danced!” she exclaimed before she was claimed by another partner.

Darcy was again soon by her side and she accepted the lemonade with a smile. 

He took the seat that had been vacated by Kitty and seemed a little lost for words as if he had never fetched a lady lemonade before.

“Have—Have you ever been to Hertfordshire before?” she asked.

“No,” he answered.  “My estate is in Derbyshire.”

She nodded, having never been to Derbyshire before. 

“Have you been long with the Bennets?”

“Two years,” she answered.  “I can still ride the fields of Netherfield when I’m homesick.  The estates abut.”

“Indeed.  You have your horse then?”

She looked over at him and saw that he was regarding her again.  “Yes.  Mr. Bennet keeps her for me.  It is not an ideal situation,” she hesitated.

“The Bennets have several daughters,” he posited.

“Yes, five.”  She took another sip of her lemonade.  “The magistrate thought it was best.”  Leaving the rest unspoken, she looked up to see that Bingley was dancing with Jane again.

“You are quite a bit younger than Miss Bennet,” Mr. Darcy suggested.

“I am of an age with Catherine, the fourth daughter,” Bella agreed with a small smile.  “It is quite something to have six young ladies out in society.  Quite—loud,” she decided.  He took the lemonade from her hand and set it on a table behind them.  “May I have the next dance, Miss Swan?”

She gave him a small smile.  “You are quite lucky I did not step on your toes the last time.”

“I daresay my toes will forgive you,” he murmured, leaning toward her and whispering in her ear.

Blushing, she gave him her hand.

Mrs. Bennet was quite in her element when they arrived home at Longbourne that night.  “Then he stood up with Miss Lucas, which displeased me quite greatly,” she told her assembled room when speaking with her husband, “but then nothing would please him more than to stand up with our Jane again!”

Jane was sitting in a window seat, staring out at the moonlight.  She was quite the loveliest of the Bennet sisters at one and twenty, but quite the simplest.  She was happy with her roses and her dish of tea, and had nary a thought for anything else.

“And then!  What do you think he did next?”

“No more, Madam!” Mr. Bennet cried.  “Would he have sprained his ankle in the first dance!”

“And Mr. Darcy!” Mrs. Bennet effused, “his companion.  So elegant!  So cultured!  Worth twice as much as Bingley with an estate in Derbyshire.  Nothing pleased him more than dancing with our Miss Swan—not once but twice!  And he fetched her a lemonade and her shawl—and he asked if he could call upon you, Mr. Bennet!”

“Most disagreeable,” Elizabeth murmured just loud enough for Bella to hear.

“Hush now,” Mrs. Bennet chided her second eldest daughter.  “Just because he set his cap at Miss Swan does not mean we should not encourage him.  We have six young ladies under this roof and I should like to see all of them married.  Miss Swan is the daughter of a baronet.  It is only right she should capture the attention of a man worth at least ten thousand a year.”

“Ten thousand a year, Miss Swan?” Mr. Bennet asked, “and an estate in Derbyshire?”  He looked up from a book and his blue eyes glimmered in humor.  “I had always feared a second son would be your lot since you had your own estate, but perhaps I was wrong.”  He got up and went up and kissed Elizabeth’s forehead.  “Jealousy is not a good look on you, my dear.”

Bella climbed up the stairs not half an hour later and went to her own room.

Jane and Elizabeth shared a room as did Kitty and Lydia.  Mary had a tiny little room in the eaves.  Bella as the daughter of a baronet had a well apportioned room to herself with a vanity and two trunks for her dresses.  There were two windows looking out at the backgarden.

Elizabeth was waiting for her.

“Why couldn’t you let me have Mr. Darcy?” she demanded, tears in her eyes.  “You knew I wanted him.”

“Lizzie—”

“No, Bells, you’re only seventeen.  The Dowager Viscountess Bridgerton is giving you a season in London next year.  You have an estate.  You have everything.  I barely have a thousand pounds to my name.  Why couldn’t you just let me have him?”

Bella sighed and went over to her bed, practically collapsing on it.  “He didn’t want you, Lizzie.”

“How do you know that?” she demanded, pointing to herself.  “You don’t know that!  I am just as pretty as Jane and Mr. Darcy said Jane was the handsomest girl in the room!”

“Yes, but when Mr. Bingley offered to introduce you, he didn’t want you,” Bella whispered carefully, looking down at her hands.  “He-He wanted me.  They had to go get Jane to introduce them.”  She hadn’t been with the other Bennet sisters when the original introductions had been made.

Elizabeth wasn’t done, however.  “He was mine!”

“If you say so.”

“You took him—”

“I took no one,” Bella sighed.

“If you had only walked away when you should have, he would have danced with me—”

“What is going on here, girls?” Mrs. Bennet asked from the doorway.

Elizabeth and Bella looked up and saw Mrs. Bennet in her nightclothes and curlers, her blonde curls framing her face. 

“I will not have my girls quarrelling.  What is this all about?”

Elizabeth stood up from where she had been leaning over Bella and then pointed at her.  “She stole Mr. Darcy from me, Mama.”

Mrs. Bennet looked at her daughter in disappointment.  “I watched the introduction quite closely.  Mr. Darcy was introduced to the both of you and offered his hand to Isabella.  If he had wanted to dance with you, Elizabeth, he would have asked you.  Isabella doesn’t know how to entice a man.  She doesn’t use whiles.  She didn’t steal anyone from you, let alone Mr. Darcy.”  She motioned to her daughter.  “Enough of this jealousy.  Come to bed and let Jane speak about Mr. Bingley.  Be supportive of your sisters and if you can’t be supportive of Miss Swan, you will be silent.”

Elizabeth begrudgingly came over to her and then exited, glaring at Bella one last time.

Bella was glad to see her ladies’ maid.  She was soon in her bed, mind wistfully blank.

The next morning was awkward at breakfast.  The Bennet ladies were to go to Lucas Lodge to go over the events of the night before with the Lucas Household, but Bella preferred to go out riding.  She’d let Elizabeth complain about how she had stolen Mr. Darcy to her heart’s content.

Her horse was a chestnut mare that was five years old.  Her father, Sir Charles Swan, had bred the mare for her, and she was named Ladybelle after Bella.

She was the only lady of the household to have a horse.  Jane sometimes liked to ride and would take one of the farm horses, but none of the other daughters rode.

Getting on the back of Ladybelle, Bella rode toward Netherfield, her hair free of bindings and her bonnet tied to the saddle despite the lack of propriety.

Noticing another rider, she looked up and slowed down to a trot in the heather fields until she came upon Mr. Darcy.

“Well met,” Darcy greeted, taking her in with a smile.  “I was hoping I would see you today.”

“Am I so predictable?” she asked lightly, patting down her horse.

“Your love of Netherfield and her surrounding meadows was palpable,” he answered, looking around them.  “I thought the spirit might move you to go riding this morning.”  He glanced behind her.  “But you are unaccompanied.”

“None of the Bennet daughters have horses,” she answered, loosening the reins in her hands.  “Besides, they’ve all gone to Lucas Lodge to discuss last night’s revelries.”

He nodded and considered.  “Would you care to walk, Miss Swan?”

She looked around them, at the fields of flowers sprawling before them, and nodded.  Waiting for him to dismount, she unhooked her leg from the saddle and slid into his arms.  They walked for several minutes, leading their horses, neither saying anything, until they came to a patch of bluebells.

“These are my favorite,” she told him, leaning down and letting go of her horse’s reins, picking a few. 

Before she knew it, she was lying in a sea of bluebells and Mr. Darcy was sitting beside her, taking off her riding glove and running his fingers against the palm of her hand.  She breathed in at the sensation and he looked over at her before continuing his ministrations. 

“How did you come to be at the Bennets’?” he asked after several long minutes.

“It was an accident,” she admitted.  “My godfather was Billy Black.  He has an estate in Cornwall.  Jake, his son, is now there.  Mr. Bennet does not allow us to correspond even though he is like a brother to me.”

“And where is Billy Black?” Darcy inquired.

“He and father were hunting here at Netherfield.  There was an accident.  Billy’s gun went off and he shot Charlie—father—in the back.  He’s in prison for manslaughter.  The magistrate determined that I should be placed with the Bennets.  I was only fifteen.  I think Jake is married now.  I wasn’t allowed to go to the wedding.”  She sighed as Darcy’s finger continued to run along the palm of her hand. 

“It must be difficult to lose all your friends.”

“If I gave you a letter, would you send it to him?  I would let you read it, of course.”

Darcy paused.  “It would be ill advised for me to go against Mr. Bennet—”

“Of course,” she murmured, “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“But for you I would make an exception,” he agreed, “if I could read it first and read his reply to make certain he is a man of honor.”

“Yes,” she agreed, leaning over to face him, a smile on her face.  “I should very much like that.”

“Then consider it done.”  He smiled, changing the contours of his entire face.

He escorted her back to Longbourne and called on Mr. Bennet as was appropriate of her suitor.  She waited in the parlor, sipping tea and embroidering a handkerchief. 

Elizabeth was acerbic when she returned to Longbourne and learned that Darcy had been there.  Staring at Bella accusingly, she took her seat in the parlor and picked up her sewing, jerking at the thread harshly.

Bella ignored Elizabeth.

She didn’t tell her that she met Darcy several times on horseback or that she lay with him in a field of bluebells.  It would certainly compromise her reputation and she would not be forced into a marriage when she certainly did not feel ready for one.

They all met again at Lucas Lodge. 

Bingley was once again engaging Jane Bennet in conversation.  Darcy was initially speaking to Miss Bingley, but he soon abandoned her for Bella’s hushed words.

When Lydia called for dancing, Bella blushed.

“You must forgive Lydia,” she told Mr. Darcy.  “There are so few occasions for dancing, that Lydia must make her own.”

“She is surely full young to be out.”

“She is not yet sixteen,” Bella agreed.  “But then again, I am only two years older.”

“But with age comes maturity.”

“A disinclination to dance is not necessarily maturity,” she argued, “merely a disinclination.”

Lydia approached Jane and Mr. Bingley, asking them to join the set.  When they did not join, she began to come up to Bella and Darcy.

“Bells!” she cried.

“Lydia,” Bella answered sweetly.  “You know the Assembly was the exception and not the rule.  Perhaps later if Mr. Darcy should ask me.”

She retreated to go find Mariah Lucas, and Darcy turned to Bella.  “Bells?”

Blushing, she looked him resolutely in the eyes.  “My Christian name is ‘Isabella’.”

“I see.  And the Bennet sisters call you ‘Bells’?”

“I have always been called ‘Bells,’” she answered, “ever since I was a small child.  ‘Bella’ on occasion.”

“’My Bella,’” Darcy murmured as he leaned toward her and she looked up at him and smiled.

“And what is your Christian name?  All I know is that you are ‘Darcy’.”

“Fitzwilliam,” he answered, “but only my sister calls me that now.”

Her eyes brightened up.  “You have a sister.”

“A younger sister.  Georgiana.  She is but sixteen years old and I have guardianship of her with my cousin, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam.  She plays the pianoforte very well.”

“Where is she now?”

“Bath with her companion, Mrs. Ainsley.”

“An excellent place,” Bella told him.  “I have longed to see Bath.  Charlie always said he would take me when I was older, but circumstances intervened to make that not possible.”  She bit her lip and looked away.  “The Bennets do not travel.”

“You should have a London season when you are of age,” Darcy stated firmly.

She looked up at him and gave him a timid smile.  “The Dowager Viscountess Bridgerton is giving me one next July when I am eighteen.  I am to come out with her eldest daughter, Daphne.  The late Viscount was friends with my father.  I sometimes wish the magistrate had placed me with the Ninth Viscount Bridgerton but he was only four and twenty and had four sisters and three brothers under his charge and the magistrate felt that someone more experienced in the care of young ladies and more local to Netherfield was preferable.”  She worried her lip again, looking out at the assembled personages.  “If I do not marry during the season, the Dowager Viscountess has promised to appeal the decision.”

“I know Bridgerton,” Darcy told her, looking down at her adoringly.  “We went to Cambridge together.  We were not close, but I shall write him and tell him that I have met you.  You are in contact with the Bridgertons?”

“I write Eloise, the second daughter, and the Dowager Viscountess,” she confirmed.

“I will be sure to give the Viscount a progress report as I’m sure he’d like an outside opinion.”  He lightly touched the back of her hand.  “I’m certain you will make a splendid debutante, Miss Swan.”

The music started up and Elizabeth was moving toward them.

Bella glanced over and whispered, “Elizabeth wants a dance.”

He looked over, startled.  Turning back to Bella, he asked, “Shall we repair to the refreshments table?”

“Yes,” Bella agreed, and she was escorted away from Elizabeth.

Three days later Bella lay in the bluebells and took out a letter from her reticule.  “It is all there,” she told Darcy, “my letter to Jacob Black.”

He took it and unfolded the letter and began to read it.  “You knew the bride, Jessica Stanley?”

“Peripherally,” Bella agreed.  “She would have made a lovely bride in yellows.”

Continuing to read, he moved onto the second page and then read the margins before folding it up and putting it in his breast pocket.  “It will go out in the morning post.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.  Sighing, she leaned back and closed her eyes as Darcy took her left hand and began to trace the lines of it.

Caroline Bingley invited Bella to tea when the gentlemen were to dine with the officers and she got caught out in the rain.  She was wrapped up in velvet shawls and spent the night and even saw Mr. Darcy at breakfast, but was quite well enough the next day to ride back to Longbourne, Darcy kissing the back of her hand.

With the autumn air came the militia and with it one Mr. Wickham.  The Netherfield party could not be present for Mrs. Philips’ card party so both Jane and Bella were unattended.  There was a handsome young officer named Wickham who at first attended Elizabeth but by the second half of the evening began to speak to Bella.

“I hear, Madam, you are the owner of Netherfield,” he opened with.

“I am afraid it is already rented,” she answered with a small smile, smelling a fortune hunter a mile away.

“No, no, nothing like that,” he promised as he took a drink of his coffee.  “It is only that I heard that Mr. Darcy of Pemberley is in residence.”

“Oh?” she asked.  “Do you know the gentleman?”

“Quite intimately.  His father, Old Mr. Darcy, was my godfather.”

“Then you grew up near Pemberley,” she offered.  “I wonder why you have a profession and are not a landed gentleman.  Very peculiar.”  Returning her attention to her cards, as they were playing piquet, she did not really care for his answer.

“I have a sad history.  A very sad history.”

Bella didn’t even glance at him.  “I cannot say I am sorry for you, sir, for I do not even know you.”  She played her card.  “I fear I am tired of the game. I shall go play another.”  She stood and chose another table.

Elizabeth was livid at her that evening.  “First you steal Mr. Darcy and now you steal Mr. Wickham!”

“I spoke to him for all of five minutes and he was interested in my fortune.  You do not want a fortune hunter, do you?”  She threw her shawl down on the bed.  “What do you want from me, Lizzie?”

“I want you to stop getting in my way!”

“I am not getting in your way,” Bella insisted.  “You are simply uninteresting!”

Elizabeth stood there and then screamed, leaving the room and slamming the door behind her.  Her ladies’ maid came in not two minutes later, a little shell shocked, but Bella ushered her in and let her take down her hair.

“Wickham,” Darcy spat.  “He is a fortune hunter.”

“He wanted to know about Netherfield, and then wanted to reel me in with his sad, sad history, whatever that is.”

“That,” Darcy told her, “is the fact that he wasted the inheritance my father gave him in a matter of months and I refuse to give him any more money.”

“Really?” Bella asked, dislodging her hand from his fingers and sitting up on her elbow, looking over at him.  “What did he spend it on?”

“The gambling table and loose women.  What men of his ilk usually spend money on.”  He looked over at her with his solid green eyes and gazed at her adoringly.  “I would not see you fall victim to him.”

“No,” she agreed, leaning back down into the bluebells. 

Of course, Mr. Wickham was not quiet.  He mentioned his sad, sad history to others, but Mr. Darcy was so well regarded as the suitor to Miss Isabella Swan of Netherfield that few people believed him.

Wickham came to Longbourne with a few other officers to try to speak to Bella, but she ignored him for the most part or went riding off in the general direction of Netherfield.  Wickham, sadly, did not have a horse.

“Do you not think you should listen to Wickham?” Elizabeth asked Bella one night when Alice was brushing out her hair.

“Listen to Wickham?  Whyever should I do that?  He’s only interested in my inheritance.”  She looked at Elizabeth in the mirror.

“He seems very personable to me, Bells.”

“You only like him because he doesn’t like Darcy,” Bella pointed out.  “Enjoy his smiles if you must, but don’t play the go between.  I shall not like you for it.”

“Darcy only wants to marry the daughter of a Baronet.”

“And my father only wanted to marry the daughter of a Viscount,” Bella shot back, thinking of her mother Renée who had no fortune but a place in society.  It had not been a love match and had ended with Renée dying in childbirth in the summer cottage as she could not stand the sight of Charlie.  “It’s how the world works.”  She wrenched her hair from Alice’s grip and turned around in her seat to shoot a look at Elizabeth.  “At least I know he liked me for my looks before he knew who I was.”

Elizabeth sneered back.  “If you say so.”

“I do say so, Lizzie Bennet,” she shot back.

They were still not speaking the next morning when Mr. Bennet announced they were to have a guest the next morning.  Bella vaguely wondered who it could be.  She sat in place of honor at Mr. Bennet’s right hand with Jane at his left, the daughter’s then descending according to age.

Lizzie asked Jane for the salt which was right next to Bella.

Bella picked it up and handed it to Jane.

Jane, confused, passed it across the table to Lizzie, who was sitting to Bella’s left.

It was rather an interesting game of musical chairs.

Mr. Bennet looked at them oddly.

It turned out the guest was Mr. Bennet’s cousin, Mr. Collins, who was to inherit Longbourne.

Bella was fortunate.  Netherfield was not entailed from the female line and the baronetcy went into arears after Charlie’s death.  She did not have to deal with a cousin trying to marry her for the privilege of calling Netherfield his country seat.

Mr. Collins looked very much like the Bennets.  He had blond curls and sky blue eyes.

He wanted to walk into Meryton with the Bennets and Bella decided to go riding on her horse toward Netherfield, but not before she heard Mr. Collins invite Elizabeth to walk with him.  Ah.  It seemed Mrs. Bennet warned him that Jane would very soon be engaged.  Elizabeth was, after all, next in age and beauty, though not in temperament.

At least Elizabeth couldn’t accuse Bella of stealing Mr. Collins.

Mr. Collins had come to Longbourne with the express desire to marry a Bennet daughter—and Bella was not a Bennet daughter.

She lay in the bluebells and explained the situation to Darcy, her head lying in his lap as he ran his fingers through her windswept hair.

“He did not ask to walk with Jane?” Darcy checked, confusion in his voice.

“Well, it is assumed,” Bella began, her voice drifting off.

“Ah, Bingley,” Darcy finished.  “He has fallen in love, but he has fallen in love before.  There is nothing peculiar in her regard for him.”

Her eyes fluttered open and she took him in.  “You cannot be serious, Darcy.  The whole of Meryton’s expectations have been raised.  It would be as if you did not eventually propose to me.”

His mouth thinned out to a line. 

She blinked up at him and sat up carefully.  “You do mean to propose to me, Darcy,” she checked.  “Perhaps after I am presented to the Queen—”

He reached up quickly and cradled her cheek in his hand.  “I intend for there to be an understanding long before then,” he promised her.  “You have nothing to fear.  No, I was thinking of Bingley and Miss Bennet.”

“Is it so terrible?” she asked.

“Perhaps not if she cared for him.”

“It is true she cares for her roses most in the world,” Bella agreed, “but that is just how Janes is.”  She looked up at Darcy.  “Netherfield has some wonderful rose gardens.”

“Yes, dearest,” he agreed gently, leaning forward and kissing her temple before he guided her back down so that her head was once again resting in his lap.  “Think of something else, darling, such as how we shall go to Bath for our honeymoon.”

“Shall that be before or after the season?”

“What do you think, my dear?” he asked her sincerely.  “I would not wish to deprive you the opportunity to be universally admired, but you are shy in company.”

When she rode home she found that the house was deserted.  It seemed like the Bennet ladies had gone out and had left Mr. Collins alone to his sermons.

“Where did everyone go?”

“The Lucas cow is calving,” he explained, looking up with a small smile.  “I believe Miss Catherine and Miss Lydia are comparing ribbons upstairs as there is to be a Netherfield Ball sometime in the future and Miss Mary—” he hesitated.  “I believe she remained here as well.”

“Ah,” she agreed, leaving the door wide open and ringing the bell for tea.  “I shall just go and make myself presentable, but do order us tea, Mr. Collins.”

When she came down not fifteen minutes later it was to find Mr. Collins with the tea set and she sat down next to him.  She had considered for several minutes in her room and thought over all of Elizabeth’s accusations of her.  She had not stolen Darcy or Wickham from her, but she could steal Mr. Collins if she wanted to.  It might be for the best.  It would leave Elizabeth in the house, but Lady Catherine de Bourg was Darcy’s aunt, and did she want to see Elizabeth every Easter when they went to Kent?  Didn’t she have a right to be a little selfish after all the abuse Elizabeth heaped upon her?  And was Elizabeth even suited to being a clergyman’s wife?  Did she even want Mr. Collins?  She seemed unhappy when he asked her to walk into Meryton.

“Mr. Collins, you are a man of the church, are you not?”

“Yes, Miss Swan.  My noble patroness is none other than Lady Catherine de Bourg.”

“I do not wish to meddle,” she told him carefully, picking up the teapot and swishing the water inside.  “It is only, I do not see Elizabeth as a clergyman’s wife.  My father, Sir Charles Swan, appointed the rector here in Meryton.”

“Indeed, Miss Swan.”

“Miss Mary is very devoted to Fordyce’s Sermons,” she suggested.  “Miss Lydia is much too young and too silly.  I think Miss Catherine has hidden depths if you get her away from her sisters, but that is only supposition on my part.  Do you take my meaning, Mr. Collins?”

He paused and accepted the dish of tea she handed to him.  “I see that I do, Miss Swan.  Miss Mary or perhaps even Miss Catherine.”

“Miss Mary is the surer bet,” she confirmed.  “Miss Catherine is younger and prettier.  Possibly sillier.”

When they all sat down to dinner, Mr. Collins seemed to be regarding the younger sisters, and he even asked Miss Mary which of Fordyce’s sermons she should like him to read after supper.

Elizabeth seemed relieved.

The invitation to the Netherfield Ball came swiftly and included Mr. Collins.  Elizabeth wondered if he should accept.  “Would your bishop approve?”

Bella thought this was putting it on a little thick.

“Mr. Bingley is a man of sober living.  I do not think my bishop would disapprove and even Lady Catherine has complimented me on my lightness of foot.  Miss Mary—the first two dances!”

She curtseyed.  Bella was uncertain if she had ever seen Mary dance.

“Miss Catherine, the second?”

He secured Elizabeth for the third, Jane for the fourth, Lydia for the fifth, and Bella for the seventh as he was leaving the Supper Dance for his favorite, or so Bella supposed.

“I have meddled with Mr. Collins,” Bella confessed to Mr. Darcy as he handed over Jacob Black’s response.  “I did not want to see Elizabeth Bennet as his wife.”

“Who did you choose for him?” Darcy asked gently. 

“Mary probably with the possibility of Catherine, though I said she was probably silly.  He’s deciding between the two of them.”

“You do not like Elizabeth.”

“We have never been friends.  She’s been enraged with jealousy since you asked me to dance.”

“Well,” he murmured, running a hand down the side of her face.  “I beg the first two and a private conversation for the supper dance.  Bingley asks for the second two and the last dance, though I think I shall claim the privilege of the final two as I shall not dance with you the supper dance.”

Her heart skipped a beat.  A bluebell brushed against her fingers.  “You shall have to fight a duel,” she suggested.

“Yes, perhaps,” he agreed, leaning down to kiss her.

The End.