Page 1 of Old Boots (Pride and Prejudice Variations #3)

CHAPTER ONE

T he day began with the arrival of a lazy sun that rendered everything it touched slightly golden, and the October air was crisp and comfortable.

Since a gentleman is obliged to wear a waistcoat under a well-tailored coat, a snugly tied cravat, not to mention breeches, stockings, and tall, close-fitting boots, I was grateful for such cool weather after the stifling days of summer.

I had travelled a great deal in the hotter months and was feeling weary beyond my years, a consequence, I supposed, of the monotony of going from one place to another with very little variation in scenery.

This time, I travelled up from London to visit my friend Charles Bingley, who was considering acquiring a middling-sized estate in Hertfordshire.

He was a scatterbrain, but a likeable one, and I consented to go because I knew he would need a great deal of help managing a piece of land, even a leased one.

I yawned, rested my temple on my knuckles, and turned my sluggish attention to a smattering of cottages that went by in a blur.

The terrain then spread out before me, and more out of habit than interest, I made note of the crops, the general state of the fields, and the occasional woods and water.

The land in the southern counties is too generous to demand much of its farmers, and as a result, no one did more than a passable job of cultivation.

All these things I abstractly considered while staring at a stream, running parallel to the road.

The water was swollen and the current roiling, making it look more like a river in flood, and I presumed the area had recently had heavy rain.

A landed man will always think about drainage when looking at a stream, and I was in the midst of wondering whether Netherfield Park was muddy or dry, when with only half my attention, I began to notice a lady up ahead.

She stood on the embankment, balanced only by one hand grasping a tree limb as she stretched precariously over the frothing water.

She was staring intently into the current, and such was the tautness and intensity of her pose that the rest of my attention snapped into focus.

I struggled from a slouch into an upright position and began pounding on the roof of my carriage. As the wheels stopped, I jumped to the road, yet before I took one step towards the woman to ascertain what was needed, she dropped like a stone into the water below her!

I confess, I blinked twice to assure myself I was in my right mind, but a bonnet floating downstream on the fast-moving water caused me to shout with surprise and break into a run. In a flash, I was on the bank, frantically scanning upstream for any sign of the lady.

I spotted her instantly, not ten yards away but moving quickly, and after one second of anguish for my boots, I, too, plunged waist deep into freezing water.

With her back to me, the woman was submerged chest-high and struggling to stay upright, judging from the splashing all around her.

With grim determination to make quick work of rescuing her, I crashed through the ice-cold current, grasped her by the waist, and dragged her towards the bank.

I had heard that a drowning person can sometimes fight his rescuer, but I was surprised by the force of resistance with which my effort was rewarded.

“Let me go!” she bawled, and then, while flailing wildly against me, she spluttered, “You are making this harder!”

With a surprising degree of strength, she lunged away from me, and when I once again had a crushing hold around her waist, I became vaguely aware that we were not alone. She was clinging to something that thrashed and flailed for its life.

But before I could fully grasp this development, my foot slipped as we wrestled, and I stumbled, pulling us completely under water in a tangled mass. By some feat of superhuman strength, I found a foothold, righted myself, thrust us to the surface, and hauled myself, the lady, and?—

“A dog?” I spat in disgust as I landed us, panting, gasping, and coughing in a heap in the mud midway up the bank.

“Take your arm off me, sir,” the woman cried hotly, and when I loosened my grip, she struggled to her knees and then stood upright, dripping head to toe. “I cannot believe,” she said, her chest heaving, “that you plunged me all the way under water. I am lucky not to be dead!”

By this time, I, too, had scrambled to my feet. My temper was equally exercised, and I replied with ill-disguised irritation. “You are lucky I intervened, otherwise you certainly would be dead!”

She huffed, looking me over head to foot. She obviously had more to say to me, but she still had not regained sufficient wind to argue. She turned her ire onto the soggy lump at her feet.

“You stupid, ignorant creature!” she said, wagging her finger above his head.

The filthy hound looked up hopefully and thumped his bedraggled tail at her in encouragement.

“Look what you have done. I could not be more ashamed of you.” The animal’s ears folded back on his head, his tongue lolled out, and he looked lovingly at his accuser.

“We should not be standing in this wind,” I said irritably, forcing my teeth not to chatter in my head. I called to my footman, who stood with his mouth agape on the grass above my head. “Come, Becket, bear a hand.”

He pulled me up the muddy ledge. In turn, I reached back and pulled the young lady up towards the grass, and once she topped the bank, I made towards my carriage with her hand still in mine.

She pulled back, causing me to have to turn to see what was amiss.

“I live just down that road,” she said, pulling her hand out of my grip, “not more than a mile.”

“You are joking. You do not mean to walk. You are soaked to the skin.”

She lifted her chin and assumed a posture I did not much like. “I should warm up if I walk briskly.”

My knees were beginning to shake, and I had no patience for the kind of pettish opposition that required I beg to be of assistance.

“Get in that coach!” I roared, pointing sharply towards the open door, which was now only a few yards away .

To my consternation, the lady did not meekly obey, but the hound jumped to his feet and disappeared inside my carriage’s darkened interior. I had not intended to take the animal up, thinking he could run behind the horses, and it seemed the young lady agreed with me.

“Bandit, come here. Come down at once!” she demanded.

He peeked out the door and wagged his tail, but otherwise, he would not budge even after repeated commands. After a minute of this futile urging, the lady glared at me, and with very little grace and even less gratitude, she let Becket hand her up.

In much the same spirit, I followed her, and within a few minutes, my coach was turned around and tooling with unnecessary briskness down the road.

Our haste I took to be testimony of my coachman’s disapproval of such a feckless purpose as ferrying a dog.

I found myself in perfect sympathy with him, still rather upended by the realisation I had ruined my boots for such a stupid cause.

“Bandit?” I observed with heavy sarcasm.

“If you are about to remark that every boy between here and Scotland names his large, unmannered hound Bandit, I would be forced to agree,” she said, swiping in annoyance at the strand of wet hair stuck to her cheek. I handed her a carriage rug and draped another over my lap as she spoke .

As if to purposely annoy me, the lady took the rug, and rather than making use of it herself, tucked it up around the dog at her feet.

“There, you worthless animal,” she said sternly. “Jane will give you a tremendous scold just as soon as you have warmed up in the kitchen.”

I looked askance at the source of the unpleasant odour in my coach.

He was what could be loosely referred to as a hound but of such mixed parentage as to make him obscure in his features.

Clearly, he was of a stupid disposition which rendered him delighted to be yelled at, thrilled to be chased with someone’s half-chewed slipper in his mouth, prone to running out in front of horses in pursuit of squirrels, cats, and blowing leaves, and otherwise being a blight on the entire canine species. She should have let him drown.

“I am Fitzwilliam Darcy,” I said abruptly, in lieu of blurting out my opinion.

“I am visiting Mr Bingley at Netherfield Park for some weeks.” I could not help the note of antipathy in my voice even as I attempted to be polite, but in my defence, I had every right to be annoyed to be in Hertfordshire.

“We had heard the estate might be leased,” the lady said disinterestedly as she looked out the window. “I am Elizabeth Bennet. My father’s estate is just there, if you would signal your coachman.”

This tepid reply was as much as I would get in response to my overture of civility because Bandit had recovered enough to stand.

And since he looked like he would shake himself dry, she commanded, “Sit down, you brute!” before looking up at me, her eyes awash with satisfaction. “I am afraid your coach will forevermore smell of wet dog,” she said, the implication being that I would have been better off letting her walk home.

I could not but agree.

The lady, apparently the daughter of a gentleman, had all the address and refinement of an angry matron who bullied schoolboys for a living.

I could hardly say such a thing aloud, so I gave her a generous view of the back of my head by pretending interest in the passing hedges.

Soon we rolled to a stop outside a manor house constructed in the Tudor style of aged, golden-coloured stone.

“You will forgive me if I do not call,” I said coldly. “I am not suitably presentable at the moment to meet your family.”

Miss Bennet—Elizabeth was it? No matter. The lady looked at me with both brows raised. “You will at least step out and explain to my father why I have been sitting alone in a closed coach with you, sir.”

I blushed to be told my duty as a gentleman, a sensation of abashed heat in my cheeks I had not felt since I was sixteen.

As I followed her out into the stiff breeze that turned my fingers to ice, I was met by a contingent of persons standing wide-eyed on the steps.

A tall, slight, elderly gentleman stepped forward with a frown of perplexity on his face.

Behind him stood an elegant blonde lady, and behind her, a small knot of persons I took to be servants.

All eyes being upon me, I bowed, opened my mouth to speak, and was promptly interrupted.

“Your dog chased a squirrel down the riverbank and fell in, Jane. Would you believe it? It appears the idiot does not know how to swim,” Miss Elizabeth said crossly. “Bandit! Come here, you ignoramus. Get out of that coach this instant.”

The dog obeyed and gleefully shook himself as he had surely been longing to do for the last five minutes. All eyes, having swung momentarily to the dog, then went back to me.

“This is Mr Darcy, Papa. He—” She seemed to be biting back the urge to say something perfectly vile about my assistance, when her sister came forward.

“Mr Darcy,” she said with a curtsey, “I thank you very much for lending your aid to my sister. Will you not come in and have something hot to drink?”

“No, he will not,” Miss Elizabeth snapped. By this time, her lips were blue and she, too, was visibly shaking. “He is soaked to the skin and would rather be anywhere else than paying a call on us.” She offered me a scant curtsey, which had all the deference of a shrug, and marched into the house.

I bowed, and said, “Mr Bennet.”

He bowed and replied, “Mr Darcy,” and with that, I was greatly relieved to be on my way from the place.