Dear Internet,
Meet the cover of When Darcy Met Lizzy, designed by my very talented friend Jessie Broom.
Isn’t she beautiful?!
First, some housekeeping.
Thank you all for contributing to my previous Kickstarter for When Darcy Met Lizzy!
Unfortunately, I didn’t meet my fundraising goal. Kickstarter is an all-or-nothing platform, meaning that your project isn't funded if you don’t meet your goal. This is a good thing and protects artists from having to deliver something if they don’t get funding.
GOOD NEWS! I will still do preorders for When Darcy Met Lizzy via Kickstarter, but instead of printing a limited edition hardback, which would cost $4000 😬, I will stick with a paperback version. I was also generously supported by some of my friends, which will help lower the overall costs. This means that instead of raising $9800, I need to raise $3000 to cover the audiobook cost.
BAD NEWS! If you preordered your copy the first time, you’ll have to order again. This is a major pain in the ass, I know! But you weren’t charged for your previous preorder, and if you still want the book or audiobook, you’ll need to do this anyway, whether it’s on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Audible. So, no matter what, if you want to hear Darcy and Lizzy get it on, you’ll need to do this again 🥵 (p.s. I have never used this emoji so much in my entire life lol).
The moral of the story: sometimes you make budgeting mistakes, and you need to recalibrate. Listen to Angie McMahon tell you it’s okay to make mistakes. I listen almost every day, highly recommend.
So, why preorder via Kickstarter?
You’ll still get the book or the audiobook. If you buy them both together, you get five dollars off. But the only real difference is that if you contribute through Kickstarter and not via Amazon, Jeff Bezos and his cronies won’t get extra money 💸 Don’t get me wrong, they will still get money. But not nearly as much. And I’d rather keep the money raised from queer joy out of the hands of big corporations.
How can I preorder?
Click this link and select the product of your choice! Options include an audiobook performed by the lovely Lilli Hokama or a signed paperback copy.
Now for the good stuff!
Here’s another teaser for When Darcy Met Lizzy. This is the third chapter of When Darcy Met Lizzy. I chose this chapter because it explicitly explores the speculative spin WDML takes on this classic. It’s told from Mr. Darcy’s perspective and focuses on her experience as a “woman gentleman.”
I repeat! I will not be reading the final audiobook. My talented friend, Lilli Hokama will be doing the honors!
So, without further ado, Chapter 3, folks!
DARCY SAW THE young woman with bright, explosive eyes immediately. She was standing with an astonishingly large group of ladies—six at least—but she had them all under her power. Darcy watched as the young woman masterfully conducted the conversation as if it were a symphony, gathering laughter from some and more conversation from others. When an older woman at her side seemed to work herself into hysterics, the young woman managed to dissipate the tension into an easy peace. Darcy had always been envious of people with such social confidence. People who could capture the attention of a whole room, hold it, and return it with more emotion and more joy than before. People who made the party more alive simply because they were there. The young woman was beautiful. She had dark hair that flickered red in the candlelight. And—unusual for a lady—her naturally pale, white skin was tan from the sun, with a dusting of freckles across her flushed cheeks. This woman must spend a lot of her time outside. This didn’t surprise Darcy. It was evident that she had more energy than anyone in her entire group combined, and where can energy go but out into the world?
“Ah,” Bingley said. “That must be Mrs. Bennet and her daughters. I met their father just before I found you in London and dragged you back here with me. He mentioned they’d be here tonight. I think I’ll introduce myself. Come along?”
Darcy shook her head, and Bingley shrugged with a coy smile as if to say, your loss, old friend. He wasted no time crossing the room towards a blonde woman standing beside the woman Darcy most admired. Classic Bingley. He was always drawn to obvious charm, a tiny waist, and an ample bosom. Bingley was easily entertained by a pretty face. He could dance with many women. Darcy had seen him in love before, and she was bound to see it again. Bingley loved love. He loved to find a pretty girl and flirt and smile and dance and be merry, but he never wanted to go much further than the laughter, the exchange of a glove or a flower, or perhaps a kiss on the palm. Commitment was not Bingley’s style.
Darcy wasn’t interested in flirtations or passing glances. Darcy wanted someone to share her life with—not a bevy of women surrounding her, each woman feeling that Darcy might propose at any minute. She hated the drama of it all. What Darcy wanted in a wife was someone who would only need to take one step onto the grounds of Pemberley to understand how the earth changed there and the world grew calm. She wanted her future wife to feel, in her soul, how life made more sense along the river that ran through her estate—as if everything that worried you suddenly disappeared. She wanted to take her wife to that spot where she spent so many childhood afternoons, surrounded only by the sound of water flowing against mossy stones and the faint call of lapwings. She wanted a woman who would understand her home so deeply and profoundly because she understood Darcy so deeply and profoundly. But how could any of the women here in this assembly hall in the village of Meryton ever come close to understanding Darcy?
Darcy looked around the ballroom. These women had probably not traveled more than twenty miles from the house where they were born. Ladies whose entire social circles lived and died within a five-mile radius. Women who knew nothing of the world, of the books she’d read, of the countries she’d seen, of the flavors she’d tasted. These women could never understand what it was like to be one of the few hundred women to attend Cambridge since 1736 when Princess Amelia demanded that her father, King George II, let her wear breeches, marry the woman of her dreams, and decree that any woman who could afford it be free to pursue her education. Yes, it had been seventy years, but women gentlemen were still a minority. In small, rural villages like Meryton, in a ballroom like this one, Darcy felt her skin tighten and her chest constrict when the villagers appraised her from across the room. What do they think of me? she wondered.
Darcy always thought she’d find the woman she’d share her soul with at school or touring the continent, but it turned out that just because a woman had been to Cambridge or joined her for fencing practice, that didn’t always mean that these women wanted other women the way Darcy wanted other women. There were many women gentleman who went to school with Darcy who wore dresses and went on to marry other men. Darcy learned early on that just because a woman was studying to become a solicitor didn’t necessarily mean that she, too, wanted to part open a woman’s mouth with the delicate pressure of her tongue, to pull a woman’s taste into her body and gorge herself on it, the way Darcy did. Of course, some women did want what Darcy wanted, but they never seemed to want it from each other.
In the end, there had only ever been Rebecca. Standing in the dark ballroom, Darcy could still remember the first time she snuck Rebecca into the library after dark—how Darcy’s hand slid along Rebecca’s leg until she felt the heat of her swell against her fingers—what it felt like to push Rebecca against that same desk and kiss her from her earlobe to the place her collarbone met her shoulder. Darcy’s throat grew tight, and her eyes began to pulse. It never ceased to amaze her, even after all these years, that the memory of Rebecca brought such a swell of shame and regret. No, Darcy would not think about Rebecca tonight—not here with these people.
“Come, Darcy,” Bingley said. Darcy had been lost in thought and hadn’t noticed him approach. “Please dance! For the love of God, would it kill you to have just a little bit of fun?!”
“I came to the ball didn’t I, Bingley? Please don’t make me dance as well. Why ask me to do something you and I both know I loathe? You’ll only be disappointed.”
“You and I both know you’re only pretending to be such an ass. Why don’t you give it up for once?” Bingley said.
Darcy ignored him.
“Being your friend is exhausting. Have I ever mentioned that? But Darcy, I must tell you, I’ve never met more beautiful women in my whole life!”
“You’ve found the only beauty in the room,” Darcy said, looking at the blonde woman with the bright smile. Darcy knew that she was the lady Bingley liked most of all, and Darcy also knew that Bingley wanted to see if she approved of his choice.
“Isn’t she breathtaking?!” Bingley blushed and beamed across the ballroom at the beautiful blonde woman, who was now dancing with another gentleman. Then, as if to distract himself, Bingley whispered, “But look! One of her sisters is sitting down just behind you. She’s quite stunning, too.”
Darcy looked behind her to see the woman she’d admired when she first entered the ballroom. She was sitting with her hands folded in her lap. It appeared as though she was looking out at the dance, but Darcy couldn’t help feeling like somehow, out of the corner of her eye, the woman was watching Darcy instead. It unnerved her, this feeling of being secretly observed.
Darcy shrugged, “Not beautiful enough for me. Besides, no other gentlemen are dancing with her. I won’t dance with a woman out of pity.” Darcy looked around the room with disdain. “Even here, I still have my pride. I told you, Bingley, you’re wasting your time with me.”
Bingley threw up his hands in mock frustration and left her. Darcy was safe again. She would not have to dance tonight. The energetic young woman with freckles and bright eyes stood and walked across the hall to her friend, a plain, short woman with intelligent eyes. Both women looked at Darcy and burst into laughter. So she’d heard Darcy. Good, she thought. There was nothing Darcy wanted less than some country woman with no education or intelligence thinking Darcy had any interest in her. The thought was mortifying.
Darcy came from an ancient noble lineage, and her family’s Pemberley estate prospered more and more each year. People said there was something magic in the river that ran through Darcy’s lands that brought wealth and success to all who lived there. But Darcy knew it was not magic. Everything Darcy possessed resulted from her father’s marriage to her mother, the daughter of an earl. Her father married her mother not because he loved her but because she had a large fortune. That fortune had been put to good use, and because of it, Darcy was even wealthier than her parents. Darcy’s father had been practical and left his affairs for his daughter in a better state than he had received them, and Darcy would do the same. Especially because it was her sister, Georgiana’s children, who would inherit Pemberley as Darcy would have no children of her own. At least not now. There was a time when she might have had a child, but she’d missed her chance. The thought of Grace sent longing and grief through Darcy’s body in a wave. What is it about tonight? Darcy thought. Her palms began to shake, and for the second time in the evening, she almost cried. Why was this smoky ballroom dredging up such ancient wounds?
Darcy watched a young man approach the woman with bright eyes. She curtsied and allowed him to whisk her around the room. When she passed Darcy on the dance floor, she looked her straight in the eye and smiled wickedly as if to say, Who said I would have ever wanted to dance with you? Darcy's face flushed, and she tugged at her cravat. Darcy wouldn’t let this woman get under her skin. There was no time for any distractions. She would not make that mistake again. She would marry, and she would marry well. Darcy would do many things to preserve her reputation, but to protect Georgiana and her future children? There was nothing Darcy would not do.
Caroline was also dancing with a handsome young officer. He looked like he’d just been the victor of a historic battle, proudly puffing out his chest, but she kept looking over her shoulder as if hoping no one was watching. After all those years looking for a partner at Eton, then Cambridge and afterward, touring the continent with Bingley, Darcy had decided that the other women like her, the first women to be lords of their class, generally only had two things in common: they were all rich, and they all had fathers who loved them deeply and would let them do whatever they wanted. Caroline Bingley was an example of a woman who wanted women the way Darcy wanted women. Who knew if Caroline would have liked to have gone to Cambridge like Darcy, but her father was in trade and not yet secure enough in his position to risk it on his daughter’s education. Darcy pitied her. She couldn’t imagine what her life would have been like if she’d been unable to go where she wanted or speak to anyone she pleased. But she also didn’t think that Caroline really would have enjoyed the life Darcy led. She seemed content to follow wherever Bingley went. There was a lack of imagination in her aspirations.
Darcy looked around the assembly hall. If women who were to be the next earls and dukes couldn’t satisfy Darcy’s desire to know and be known, how could the women here ever possibly understand her needs? She could never find pleasure in simple smiles and easy company the way Bingley did. In all her life, Darcy had had only three great friendships: Bingley, her cousin Anne de Bourgh, and the other, who she’d rather never think about ever again. Over time, she’d discovered that true friendship, let alone love, was a rare and precious gift. Not something she’d likely find in this stuffy, overcrowded hall with women who all dressed alike and seemed just as pleased to dance with one gentleman as any other. There was no taste, no discernment, and Darcy wanted none of it. Not even the beautiful woman with the bright, intelligent eyes who commanded the room with nothing more than the sound of her voice.
Caroline finished her dance and came up beside her. “What do you think of it all, Darcy? I bet you wish you were still in London, surrounded by more suitable company.”
Darcy said nothing. Caroline wanted to make it clear that she and Darcy were on the same side and that these Meryton people were nothing compared to them. But Darcy didn’t want to be connected to Caroline in the way Caroline wanted, and she hoped that her silence would discourage her. Darcy was still furious with herself for letting that flirtation go further than she’d meant. Now she’d have to spend the entire visit with Bingley ensuring that Caroline didn’t get the wrong idea.
Darcy knew she could never marry Caroline, but sometimes Darcy was so lonely that her skin burned as if she’d been dunked in ice. Sometimes she wished she could go to brothels the way her friends did and come back with stories about which woman was prettiest and which one was the best kisser. Darcy had gone once and paid a handsome sum. But when she’d found herself alone in the room with a blonde beauty, naked under red silk sheets, she’d stood there, frozen. What she wanted couldn’t be taken and couldn’t be paid for. She wanted an exchange, not just a release. She wanted someone to open her the way she opened them, sharing the gift of giving and receiving. Darcy and the woman had played chess instead.
“I have heard the Miss Bennets described as the most beautiful in the country. That’s the eldest there, dancing with Charles. But her younger sister, Elizabeth, I’ve heard, is considered quite the beauty. What do you think, Darcy?”
So Elizabeth was her name, Darcy thought. Elizabeth Bennet. To Caroline, Darcy said nothing and pretended she hadn’t spoken.
Darcy looked at the clock. Very soon, she’d be in the carriage and away from all these people who stared at her. Whether they looked at her for her ten thousand a year or because beneath the coat and trousers, she was a woman, Darcy did not know. And frankly, she did not care. Midnight could not come soon enough.
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