The Strange Marriage of Anne de Bourgh

by Skylar Hamilton Burris

  “The author not only has a hauntingly familiar Austen-esque voice, but is painfully true to our plain, sensible heroine…Austen fans will not be disappointed.” – Long and Short Romance Reviews

  Conviction: a sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Double Edge Press. 2006.

  This satirical, original sequel to Jane Austen's timeless classic Pride and Prejudice reveals the romantic destiny of Georgiana Darcy. The story, however, does not rest on the laurels of Austen; an entirely new cast of characters is introduced, including an ambitious soldier, a wistful vicar, a flirtatious abolitionist, and an ordinary curate. The fates of these characters intertwine as each struggles to find the conviction to live out his or her own calling, while confronting issues of loyalty, courage, faith, and love.

  "Conviction is a beautifully original and well-rounded sequel for our beloved Pride and Prejudice. I highly recommend it!" – Austensque Reviews

  "Jacob Markwood could give Mr. Darcy a serious run for his money in the romantic lead department [...] This is a must read for any Jane Austen fan." - Sara Mills of the Christian Fiction Review Newsletter

  "...[T]his book is wonderful and…can stand alone as an excellent novel in and of itself. The characters are rich (and believable for the Regency period); the plot is delightful, and you'll find Georgiana Darcy to be a moving heroine. Even if you haven't read P&P, you can still enjoy (and love) Conviction." - POD-DY Mouth

  "Conviction straddles an obscure boundary between fan fiction, Regency drama and intertextual exploration [...] you may just find yourself enjoying the romantic romp that Burris has offered. I did." - POD People

  An Excerpt from Conviction:

  The parade of gentlemen who had sought to dance with Georgiana Darcy all averred they had been drawn by news of her singular beauty and diverse accomplishments, but her elder brother suspected that the promise of an expansive fortune had not been a deterrent. “I should have been at peace had she never been allowed out,” he said, somewhat edgily, as he fell into his favorite chair by the fireplace. The ball had concluded and the house was now solemnly quiet, save for the crackling of the single fire, which had been lit to provide a reading light. Elizabeth Darcy let her eyes depart momentarily from the pages of her book to honor him with an amused glance, but she was soon reading again by firelight.

  “And what do you mean by that look?” he asked, feeling himself settling back at ease after a tiresome night, which had required him to converse amiably with a great many strangers. He had performed admirably, but he was nonetheless glad to return to his own small family circle. Now that Georgiana and the family’s various houseguests had retired for the night, Mr. Darcy could finally be alone with his wife.

  “Why I mean nothing at all by it, Fitzwilliam,” Elizabeth said, archly returning her eyes to his face.

  “Hmmm,” he murmured, clearly unconvinced. “You think me, perhaps, too cautious an elder brother?”

  “I did not say so, my dear. Yet I think it may not be necessary to interrogate every gentleman who happens to dance with Miss Darcy.”

  “Interrogate!” he exclaimed in mock protest, knowing full well her statement had been light-heartedly hyperbolic. “I was merely attempting to ascertain their characters.”

  “And how did you get on?”

  “About as well as you when you first met me, I imagine.”

  “You thought them all despicable?”

  “No. I only mean that I had not the necessary information to draw an informed opinion.”

  “Unfortunately, that consideration did not stop me when I first drew a fixed opinion of you. Had I been less hasty in solidifying my prejudices, perhaps, our courtship would not have been so—tumultuous.”

  He winced. “It is equally true that had I been less arrogant and more of a gentleman—”

  Elizabeth stopped him with a slight raise of the hand. “It is enough. We have been married for well over a year now, and I think we can put our humble beginnings behind us.”

  He nodded. They sat silently for a moment as he watched her face. At times, he still stared at her in that same odd manner; it was a look she had once mistaken for offense, but which she now knew meant he was either struggling to arrive at some conclusion or striving to control some emotion. In this case, she suspected the former and asked quietly, “What are you thinking?”

  “I am hoping that my sister will be able to make as fulfilling a match as I have done. But I fear…I fear it will be difficult to tell if she is sought for herself or for her thirty thousand pounds. Appearances, as we have both learned, can be deceiving; men know well how to don masks in society. Of course, it has never been a particular talent of mine.”

  “No, it has not. And although I once took umbrage at the fact, I have since learned to respect you for it. But do you not trust your sister’s feelings to be a reliable guide in this matter?”

  He raised his eyebrows. It was not a well-thought question. Georgiana had almost eloped with the disreputable Mr. Wickham, who was now married to Elizabeth’s sister Lydia. Indeed, even Elizabeth had been temporarily persuaded by his seemingly fine character, and she did not have quite the innocence of Georgiana.

  “Then at least, love,” she continued, “do not worry yourself about any of them until your sister should take a particular preference to one. Then perhaps you could inquire after him in a…subtle fashion.”

  “Invite him over in company for dinner; observe his character.”

  “Yes, exactly. And you will, no doubt, be sure he sees you have just finished cleaning your guns when he arrives.”

  He smiled. “You always know how to lighten my spirit, Elizabeth.”

  “It is certainly an arduous task,” she sighed, “but I assume the burden as my domestic duty, and I will continue to persevere.”

  She had intended to tease him further, but he had already crossed the room and was now sitting beside her, his arm extended across the back of the couch, his eyes dancing with hers.

  “Take pity on me, my darling wife, and do not tease me tonight. Social exertion before strangers is for me an exhausting exercise, and having engaged in such efforts all evening, I fear I do not now have the energy to spar with you."

  “Why should you feel drained, Fitzwilliam? You are not shy like your sister.”

  “No. But I am easily bored. And I don’t much enjoy speaking casually on such an enormous host of trivial topics.”

  “Ah, yes. I had forgotten. You are above such discourse.”

  “You rebuke me. Perhaps not undeservingly.”

  “No, dear, I will assign credit where it is due. You were all charm tonight, the single exception being the thirty minutes you spent in the corner watching your sister and Mr. Davidson dance.”

  “Did you not think he was a bit too familiar with her?”

  “Yes, and so did Miss Darcy. I assure you she is not interested.”

  “And in whom would you say she did take an interest?”

  “I am never one to disclose easily my opinions.”

  Mr. Darcy laughed. “Yes, indeed. You are quite guarded in your judgments, Lizzy. You have always been the epitome of restraint.”

  “And now it is you who rebukes me. Is it really true, then, that you have no energy remaining for the night?”

  “Oh, I have energy enough,” he hastened to clarify, “just not for a prolonged battle of wits.”

  “Then for what, Mr. Darcy?”

  He looked as though he would begin to answer her, but instead he hesitated, attempted to speak, and again fell silent. She marveled that he could ever seem unsure of his reception, especially given the passion that—when it had first surfaced in response to his own—had surprised and almost frightened her by its intensity, but which she had since so often and so freely shown to him.

  Mr. Darcy leaned closer. “Do you not think,” he said, taking her hand in his, “as it is growing late, perhaps we should. . . that is, Elizabeth, do you wish—”

  Her lips silenced his, and h
e responded to the kiss with fervor. He felt her draw very near to him, and when the faintest whisper of pleasure reached his ears, he knew he had his answer.

  end excerpt

  Reading Recommendation

  If you enjoy the writing of Skylar Burris, you may also enjoy this literary romance from the pen of Molly Taggart.

  Roots that Clutch

  by Molly Taggart

  ISBN 978-1492957348

  Jeb Anderson is entranced by his brother's lively sister-in-law, but he can’t act on that. His ex-wife wants him back, and they have children. Life isn’t like the simple country love songs he writes to turn a quick buck. It’s thorny and it’s tangled, like family roots, like the poetry that haunts his soul. Jeb recently managed to reconcile with his estranged brother over their father’s coffin, so maybe he can rebuild a marriage with his cheating ex. Or maybe he’s making the worst mistake of his life. Roots that Clutch is a contemporary tale of family, reconciliation, and the obstacles we must overcome on the path to mature love.

  Excerpted from Roots that Clutch:

  Jeb Anderson’s eyes were narrowed in concentration at a spot on the sidewalk, and he was trying to remember Carl Sandburg’s definition of poetry, something about sea animals wanting to fly in the air. The rhythmic roar of departing airplanes had reminded him of it, but he knew those weren’t quite the words. He reached up and shifted his cowboy hat downward to shield himself against the raw Texas sun. His mind hitched and then shifted when he spied the thin twigs clawing their way up through a jagged fissure in the pavement, green buds of leaves disrupting the dull, gray cement. T.S. Eliot’s poem Waste Land rose to memory: What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow / Out of this stony rubbish?

  “I said, are you by chance Jeb Anderson?”

  Jeb looked up and scratched his nose. His brother Roger, who was two years his senior, had broken it seventeen years ago. At the time, Jeb had been living with him in San Antonio, and Roger had come home from work only to catch his wife Becky and Jeb sitting mouth-to-mouth on the couch. Jeb’s nose had long ago healed, of course, but it had never regained quite the same chiseled look again. “That’s me,” he said to the professionally dressed stranger standing before him.

  “This car’s for you.”

  When Jeb was in the back seat of the black Lincoln, he spied the built-in booze shelf. He took a clean glass, lifted the bottle of Johnnie Walker Gold, and poured himself two fingers.

  The driver began to raise the privacy glass. “Keep it down,” Jeb said. “You know that poem by Philip Larkin?”

  The driver shook his head. “No, sir.”

  “About your ma and pa screwin’ you up? You don’t know that one?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, my mamma didn’t screw me up none, unless you count her dyin’ on me when I’s a boy, but that wasn't really her fault, now was it?”

  “No, sir,” the driver answered.

  “My dad’s a different story. So’s my ex, but I don’t know as Larkin had any poems about ex-wives. I reckon he must’ve. Do you know if he did?”

  “No, sir. I wouldn’t know that.”

  Jeb sipped his scotch. “I wrote twelve songs ‘bout mine. Six before the separation, and six durin'.”

  His richest and purest songs were the ones he'd written about Sarah after she'd told him she didn't love him anymore. They were more like his private poetry, and nothing like the simple love songs he once pounded out to turn a quick buck—love songs about Sarah, about the women before Sarah, and about imaginary women, whatever kind of woman the market at the time happened to demand. Once, he'd even written a catchy love song about Becky, but he'd done it for Roger's wedding and from Roger's point of view. Jeb had never loved Becky, not really, but he'd loved her temporary attentions at a time when his ego was deflated, even if those attentions were only aimed at making Roger notice her pain.

  Jeb leaned back against the dark leather interior and closed his eyes. In less than an hour, he would see his brother for the first time in seventeen years. He wondered what Roger looked like now, if, at forty-two, his raven hair was beginning to show any flecks of gray.

  *

  When they arrived in his father’s circular driveway on South Padre Island, Jeb eased out of the car, walked past the palm tree that was blocking his vision, and gazed at the impressive dwelling that loomed before him. The house was three stories tall in a part of the country where most people bought ranch houses because heat rises. For some reason, looking at the mansion reminded him of Anne Bradstreet’s poem about her house burning down. He was trying to remember the opening line when he was distracted by the sound of gravel crunching on the driveway.

  Jeb recognized Becky instantly. The strawberry highlights in her blond hair were darker than he remembered, and she'd put on a few pounds, but those striking emerald eyes were hard to forget. He wondered if he looked much different to her. His hair was a dirtier blond than it used to be, and he had a pair of sideburns now, but his hazel eyes were the same, of course–just like Roger’s, only lighter. Jeb looked at his approaching brother and reached out his hand. Roger took a step closer to Becky and wrapped an arm possessively around her waist. There was indeed some gray in Roger's hair now, in a distinguished scattering that broke up the solid black.

  Jeb let his hand fall to his side and said, “You look good, brother. I see you ain’t lost any of your hair neither.” He raised his tan Stetson and ran his hand through his thick, unruly curls before situating his cowboy hat back on his head.

  “How long have you lived in Nashville?” Roger’s tone was casual, as though these were not the first words he had spoken to Jeb in almost two decades.

  “Well you know I moved back there after you kicked me out,” Jeb answered. “So, countin’ the first time I was there—over twenty years. You’re an uncle, by the by. My son Fletcher's seven. My daughter Mary Ellen's five.”

  “We were finally able to have a child,” Becky said. “Lizzie. She’s five years old too. We left her back home with my sister Shannon. We moved to Maryland a few years ago.”

  Roger turned toward the house. “I guess you should meet Maude.”

  Until he’d gotten the call about the funeral, Jeb didn’t even know his father had remarried, but Carson Anderson had apparently chosen a wealthy wife the second time around. Jeb followed his brother through the front door of the house and into a formal dining room. Colorful frescoes adorned the high ceiling. Maude Anderson, who wore a semi-formal, short-sleeved black dress that nearly touched the ground, entered through a side door and invited them to sit down at the massive table that looked as though it could seat sixteen. Her chin-length hair was immaculately arrayed and clearly dyed because nature possessed no such precise shade of auburn. Jeb guessed her to be about sixty.

  They were brought a three-course dinner by a silent and sullen-looking servant. During the meal, Becky graciously maintained conversation with the widow. Roger didn’t say much, but he said enough for Jeb to judge that he had shed the last remnants of his Texas twang. Roger's accent had never been as pronounced as Jeb’s to begin with. Jeb had treasured his, nursed it, and grown it into a creature all its own. The first time he’d attempted to make it in Nashville, he’d intentionally exaggerated his drawl and loosened his grammar. He said his can't like cain't, his wasn't like wuden, his didn't like diden, and his hadn't like haden. He threw in double negatives whenever he could remember to, which wasn't always. At some point those speech patterns had become a natural habit, and now the accent—part native Texas, part adopted Tennessee, part individual invention—was innate. It was unpredictable and inconsistent, but as true as any poem.

  “So, Roger’s a history teacher,” Maude said, “and I understand you’re a teacher too, Jeb?”

  “Uh…I give private piano and guitar lessons, yeah. And I write songs.”

  Maude made Jeb feel ill at ease not because she lacked for any civility, but because she was a stranger to him, and one who seemed to expect
a certain level of familiarity. She'd called him to inform him of Carson Anderson's death after finding his number on the Internet in a list of private guitar tutors. Jeb hadn’t wanted to come to the funeral, at least not for his father’s sake, but he dimly hoped for an opportunity to reconcile with his brother.

  After dinner, Maude Anderson invited them all to the “drawing room.” Jeb was bemused by the strange choice of word, but the room looked the part. It seemed to have been taken from the stage of an Oscar Wilde play. When he was seated on the ostentatious couch next to his father’s widow, Maude put a hand on his knee.

  “It's so nice to have Carson's family here to honor him,” she said. This line she repeated twice more in the course of the conversation, the third time patting Jeb’s knee and adding, “Such a handsome family!”

  Jeb was helpless to reply. This woman pretended to know him, when he had not known his own father. He looked across the glass-topped, dark coffee table to Roger and Becky, but they offered no response either. Roger pressed his lips into a thin line and Becky bent hers into an uncertain smile.

  Jeb slugged through the awkward evening, until Maude Anderson retired for the night and Roger led Becky up the spiral staircase to their guest bedroom, his hand resting against the small of her back. Retreating to his bedroom on the first floor, Jeb peered over his shoulder and up to the landing, where Becky was giving Roger a gentle, comforting kiss. Their marriage had grown over the weeds of the past and bloomed again, while Jeb's had withered so quietly that he'd barely noticed.

  end excerpt