Darcy & Elizabeth: Nights and Days at Pemberley

by Linda Berdoll

Overview

Mr. and Mrs. Darcy have an exceedingly passionate marriage in this continuing saga of one of the most exciting, intriguing couples in the Jane Austen Literature.

As the Darcy's raise their babies, enjoy their conjugal felicity and manage the great estate of Pemberley, the beloved characters from Jane Austen's original are joined by Linda Berdoll's imaginative new creations for a compelling, sexy and epic story guaranteed to keep you turning the pages and gasping with delight.

What people are saying about Mr. Darcy Takes A Wife, the bestselling Pride and Prejudice sequel.

"A breezy, satisfying romance." —Chicago Tribune

"While there have been other Pride and Prejudice sequels, this one, with its rich character development, has been the most enjoyable." —Library Journal

"Wild, bawdy and utterly enjoyable sequel." —Booklist

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781402205637
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	05/01/2006
Series:	Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife Series , #2
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.12(d)

About the Author

Researching her bestselling novels Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife and Darcy & Elizabeth, author Linda Berdoll was surprised and delighted by the euphemisms she turned up—most of them of an insulting nature. Berdoll compiled them here to entertain and enlighten. She lives on a pecan farm in Del Valle, Texas, with her husband.

Read an Excerpt

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove,
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.
—John Donne

The inestimable Jane Austen had penned only six books when she died in 1817 at age forty-one. Pride and Prejudice, her third work, was published in 1813 and has been judged by many to be the finest novel in the English language. The story of the courtship of the beautiful and spirited Elizabeth Bennet and the handsome but haughty Mr. Darcy is as brilliant as it is brief.

As remarkable a writer as she was, Miss Austen wrote only of what a respectable unmarried woman in Regency society would be privy to. Therefore, Pride and Prejudice concludes with the nuptials. Regrettably, in ending her story upon the very cusp of what undoubtedly would be a marriage of unrivalled passion, she has gifted many of her readers with an unfortunate case of literary coitus interruptus.

This hunger has spawned a prolificacy of sequels—most attempting to replicate the original in restraint, if not wit. Readers of sequels seem to fall into two categories—those who are longing to learn what Darcy might have whispered into Lizzy's ear in their nuptial chamber, and those who fall into a swoon at the notion of such heresy.

If you, dear reader, happen to fall into the latter category, we offer this caution before you read further: Hang onto your bonnet, you're in for a bumpy ride.

As our story recommences, all should be bliss within the Darcy household. At long last, Lizzy has birthed an heir and Darcy is again by her side. Motherhood, however, has not only rendered her busy and distracted, childbirth itself has left her temporarily "indisposed."Although Darcy's heart aches for what his Lizzy has endured, it is not the throbbing of his heart that is most troubling to his serenity—it is the palpable pain in his loins...

Chapter 1: New Pleasures Proved

To all the world the month of June in the year of our Lord, 1815 would come to be known as the season of Waterloo. To the members of the Darcy household, it would be called that, but not remembered as such. Far too many other events of greater personal importance to them had transpired to remember it so simply.

Although France was the conquered, England paid a harsh price for its victory. The county of Derbyshire was not immune to that heavy toll. So vast were the repercussions, they were felt even within the usually impenetrable walls of Pemberley. Lives were lost, marriages brought about, and babies born all in the space of a few months.

Having weathered these many woes within the bosom of her very own family, Elizabeth Darcy felt exquisitely compensated by the two babes nestled in her arms. Indeed, that her husband had survived war, quarantine, brigands, and pestilence and returned to her whole was all she desired.What wiles he employed and whose auspices he availed himself of as he trekked through the battlefields and drawing rooms of France to accomplish his mission of rescuing his sister was of no importance to her.

Of even less concern was that the emissary he chose to send word to her of his progress was a woman with whom he had once shared uncommon intimacy. Indeed, when at last he had returned to his wife's waiting arms, all question of his connexion with that beautiful woman was forgot. At least at first, but not for long.

Of even less importance was whether George Wickham was actually dead and buried or was gallivanting about the Continent.

Whilst Wickham's fate remained unknown, there were other vexations. What with Mrs. Darcy labouring to withstand a growing curiosity (approaching to eclipse the Alps in dimension) as to just what went on between her husband and his fetching French emissary, and Mr.Darcy labouring with equal vigour to withstand a desire for his nursing wife aroused to a similar degree, a dance of uncommon peculiarity commenced.

It extended well into the next year.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. New Pleasures Proved

Chapter 2. Mr. Darcy's Dilemma

Chapter 3. Intrusion into the Master's Bed-Chamber

Chapter 4. The Master of Pemberley Is Displeased

Chapter 5. Seduction of the Willing

Chapter 6. What Lengths Love Knows

Chapter 7. Connubial Contemplation

Chapter 8. Denial and Dedication

Chapter 9. Mr. Darcy Loves Miss Bennet

Chapter 10. Lady Catherine's Story

Chapter 11. A Horse of a Different Colour

Chapter 12. The Private Struggle of Mr. Darcy

Chapter 13. Demise and Consent

Chapter 14. Mrs. Darcy Is Recovering

Chapter 15. Lady Catherine's Pique

Chapter 16. The History of a Row

Chapter 17. Nuptials to Plan

Chapter 18. Geogiana

Chapter 19. Mercy Twice Blessed

Chapter 20. Enough is Enough

Chapter 21. The Inquiring Mind of Mrs. Darcy

Chapter 22. Wickham, Alive and on Queer Street Once Again

Chapter 23. What Ails Miss de Bourgh

Chapter 24. Bingley's Betrayal

Chapter 25. The Hapless History of Lady Anne

Chapter 26. The Pangs of Love Run Deep

Chapter 27. The Road to Restoration

Chapter 28. Bliss Restored

Chapter 29. Lydia Scandalises Once Again

Chapter 30. Wickham's Waterloo

Chapter 31. Love Has Its Fashion

Chapter 32. Waif

Chapter 33. The Weir

Chapter 34. Wedding at Pemberley

Chapter 35. Hoodwinked But Not Hornswoggled

Chapter 36. The Road to Perdition Is Paved with Feathers

Chapter 37. Love Stings for Jane

Chapter 38. Small Worries Loom Large

Chapter 39. Basking in Love's Tepid Arms

Chapter 40. Harsh Streets

Chapter 41. Affaire d'Amour

Chapter 42. The Col. Fitzwilliams Meet Lord Beecher

Chapter 43. Bath

Chapter 44. Life As It Is

Chapter 45. Daisy Mulroney

Chapter 46. To Bathe or Not to Bathe

Chapter 47. A Blow to the Unused Heart

Chapter 48. Mrs. Darcy's Horse

Chapter 49. The Pleasure of His Company

Chapter 50. How Low is Bottom?

Chapter 51. For the Love of London

Chapter 52. The Spoils of War

Chapter 53. The All-Knowing Mother

Chapter 54. Death Is a Fair-Weathered Friend

Chapter 55. The Indecisive Confinement of Mrs. Col. Fitzwilliam

Chapter 56. Re-acquantance

Chapter 57. Lydia Takes on As Maid a Character Familiar to Our Story

Chapter 58. Brighton Charms

Chapter 59. Quittance

Chapter 60. Lady Millhouse Interjects

Chapter 61. A Season Ignored

Chapter 62. Mrs. Darcy's Duty

Chapter 63. Momentous Event at Rosings

Chapter 64. One Husband—Must Wear Regimentals and Have and Open Mind

Chapter 65. The Painting

Chapter 66. Sally Frances, One Step Closer to Truth

Chapter 67. Old Dogs, Old Tricks

Chapter 68. Happiness Is Two Warm Puppies

Chapter 69. Mrs. Bennet Rides Again

Chapter 70. Goddess of Discord, Goddess of the Hunt

Chapter 71. Footsteps Retracted

Chapter 72. What the Gods Have in Store

Chapter 73. Headlong Passions

Chapter 74. Love's Labours

Chapter 75. The Gathering

Chapter 76. The Proposition

Chapter 77. Sweet Sorrow

Chapter 78. Clandestine Tete-a-tete

Chapter 79. The Vicar's Widow

Chapter 80. Motherless Child

Chapter 81. The Talent of the Dead

Chapter 82. The Cunning and the Taken

Chapter 83. While the Cat's Away

Chapter 84. How Far the Fall

Chapter 85. Fortune Favours the Fools

Chapter 86. Irony's Sting

Chapter 87. Angels Avenge

Chapter 88. The Divine Duel

Chapter 89. A Turn or Two

Chapter 90. The Piper's Wages

Chapter 91. Bonjour, Juliette

Chapter 92. Wherefore, Mr. Darcy

Chapter 93. Second Verse, Not as the First

Chapter 94. Near Miss

Chapter 9

Editorial Reviews

"I am amazed by Berdoll's ability to flesh out complex and interesting characters and plot lines. There isn't a single boring passage in the book, even when the characters are only talking about mundane matters. Berdoll has an amazing grasp on understanding human nature and how to make the characters seem larger than life with their thoughts and motivations." — Blogcritics.org

From the Publisher

There are Jane Austen fans, and there are Jane Austen spin-off fans. Sometimes they merge, but probably not while reading Berdoll's bawdy second novel about the Darcys (Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, 2004). In 1815, Elizabeth Darcy, nee Bennet, gives birth to twins just as Mr. Darcy returns to Pemberley Hall from the battlefield of Waterloo, where he'd gone to rescue his sister Georgiana, who was nursing her beloved cousin Fitzwilliam. Now, deeply wounding Darcy's sense of propriety, Georgiana confesses that a hasty marriage must be arranged; a weak and befuddled Fitzwilliam obliges only to discover that she has fibbed about her deflowerment, let alone her pregnancy. Elizabeth's sisters Jane and Lydia have their share of problems as well. Jane's husband Bingley has strayed, briefly but long enough to father a child. Meanwhile, England's post-war political and economic woes have endangered his finances. As for Lydia, her wicked husband Wickham is assumed dead on the battlefield. So when she finds herself inconveniently with child, Lydia finds a new husband, the relatively decent Major Kneebone, only to have Wickham reappear. Then there is Darcy's impossible Aunt Catherine, whose desire to unite the family fortune causes mischief minor and major, bordering on tragic. As for Elizabeth and Darcy, their big drama concerns the frequency and picturesque locales of their connubial relations. Derdoll spares no effort in describing period details, but the tone has little to do with Austen's restrained understated social commentary. The continual couplings echo 18th-century sexual ribaldry (and 21st-century romance novels) while the plot reads like a Dickens or Thackeray knock off, particularly in thedownward spiral of wicked Wickham, whose capacity to bear and desert bastards must set some kind of literary record. Not without charm, but too bloated and overheated to be enjoyed as light-hearted fun.

Kirkus Reviews