A Pair of Fine Eyes — Jennifer Lang

Description:

What if Mr Darcy had proposed to Jane Bennet before meeting Elizabeth?

For years, Mr Darcy has been haunted by the fine eyes of a woman he glimpsed in a carriage. Unable to find her, he has at last proposed marriage to the sweet, gentle Jane Bennet so that his sister will have an affectionate friend and he himself will have a beautiful and biddable wife. But on finally meeting Jane's sister, he is stunned to find she is the woman of his dreams. Unable to go back on his word, he is tormented by his feelings, the more so because he suspects that Elizabeth is falling in love with him. Their path to happiness lies through tangled circumstances and it is not until the unwitting intervention of Lydia that a solution can be seen

Extract:

A flurry of muslin gowns, bonnets, shawls, pelisses and capes went past the window and there came the sound of the front door opening.

‘My sisters,' said Jane. ‘They have been into Meryton.'

Mr Darcy stood up as the four young ladies entered the room. Lydia flew in like a whirlwind, Kitty followed in her wake, Mary walked in stolidly with a book held in front of her face, and Elizabeth . . .

. . . His heart stopped beating.

. . . . Miss Elizabeth Bennet was the young woman from the carriage.

He froze. The woman with the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen; the woman he had spent the last two years trying to find; the woman who had haunted his thoughts and dreams ever since the moment he had caught sight of her; was now standing in front of him.

And he could do nothing about it.

If they had met a year ago . . . . even a day ago . . . it would all have been so very different. He would have paid court to her, wooed her and married her. But now he could do nothing because he was engaged to her sister.

His spirits plummeted as he stood there like a statue, for his proposal was a legal contract, binding on both parties, and one he could not escape.

He felt a terrible wrenching inside him as the trap closed tightly around him, and he thought in anguish: I am marrying the wrong sister.