Attempting Elizabeth by Jessica Grey Page A

warm. I put my feet back up on the other arm of the settee and crossed my ankles.
    “Oh Darcy, Mr. Darcy where are you? Although I guess I’m your sister, so that’s, um, awkward.” Another gulp, it seemed an appropriate punctuation to the realization that even if Mr. Darcy came sweeping through the door right now, my throwing myself at him would be out of the question—or get me confined to Bedlam. Incest. Not really the kind of topic one finds in a Jane Austen novel.
    “You know. I thought Jordan was going to be a Mr. Darcy. He kind of looks the part: tall, dark, handsome, all that nonsense.” Gulp. “But nooooo, Jordan, you were not quite Darcy were you?” Swig. “More along the lines of a Wickham.” Guzzle. “Damn Wickham! Stuck with you in real life and in—” Gulp . “Whatever the hell this is.”
    Drat. The brandy was gone. How did I not notice that I’d had so much? I let the decanter slip out of my hand and fall to the floor. Luckily, there was a soft ornately woven rug directly under me so it didn’t break. My arm felt oddly heavy as it dangled over the side of the settee. Actually, I felt heavy all over. And warm. And lethargic. But for the first time since I’d first opened my eyes in the sitting room yesterday, actually for the first time in as long as I can remember, I felt completely relaxed. Relaxed was good, I thought as I let my eyes drift shut. Relaxed is...
     
    ~
     
    The rushing sound filled my ears and then I felt the push and pull on my body. I blinked against the bright, afternoon sunlight, and clenched my teeth at the sound of Mrs. Younge’s grating voice.
    “...and I must say, he was paying you particular attention yesterday during our stroll. Did you not notice it? Such charming manners, and so handsome.”
    Damn.
    “Oh, yes. You are right, he is quite handsome,” I replied absentmindedly.
    I didn’t even have a headache from all of the brandy I’d consumed. In fact, I bet if I walked back down the hall to the study I’d find that same decanter refilled and sitting just where I’d found it yesterday (was it yesterday?), as if it had never, ever happened.
    Maybe it hadn’t, I thought to myself as I mindlessly let Georgiana’s hands work away on the sampler and stared blankly at a spot directly above Mrs. Younge’s head. I mean, I know I lived through it, but if Kelsey gets drunk in a fictional sitting room by herself and there is no one around to see it does it make a sound? This analogy sucks.
    I glanced down at my sewing. The same dratted row of roses. This was now the second time I’d filled them in. And guess what? Tomorrow they’ll be unsewn again and I’ll sit here and stitch them right back. Ad infinitum. Running screaming out into the street and throwing myself under the first available carriage was beginning to seem less and less like bad idea.
    All right, so falling asleep in the same position and same inebriated (okay, fine, slightly more inebriated) state as I had in the real world didn’t seem to have caused me to jettison out of the book. Neither had telling Mrs. Younge and Wickham that I was onto their little scheme.
    New theory: What if I did something really dastardly and completely out of character for Georgiana, could that pop me out of the book? Or at least out of this same scene? Telling Mrs. Younge off had been out of character for Georgiana, but maybe I had to do something even more dramatic. I didn’t want to kill myself but I could kill someone else. Wickham seemed like a good victim.
    Hmm, same problem as killing myself—jerk though he was, he was necessary for the storyline. In a way, we have Wickham to thank, odd though it seems, for finally bringing Darcy and Elizabeth together.
    Fine, so I wouldn’t kill the bastard. I’d just have to come up with something else jarring enough to shake me right out of the book. As I waited for Wickham to arrive, it occurred to me that Pride and Prejudice is a romance, maybe my infraction needed to be