Prejudice and Rewritten Fate

Lady Catherine de Bourgh's letter arrived on a morning of brittle sunlight and stiff frost, borne by a liveried footman whose expression conveyed a lifetime of silent disdain. He delivered the missive to our butler as though bestowing royal edict, and by the time it was laid on the drawing room tray, my mother was already halfway to a swoon.

"Rosings Park," she whispered, reading the seal. "The *Lady Catherine de Bourgh*."

My father raised a brow from behind his paper. "We are not being summoned to the gallows, Helena."

"Do not be vulgar. It is an invitation, no, a *summons*. Read it."

I took the letter with steady hands, though my pulse stirred. The parchment was thick, the script sharp and uncompromising.

> To Lady Clara Ashworth,

>

> It has come to my attention through my esteemed nephew, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, that you are recently come to Hertfordshire, and of genteel birth. As the only daughter of Baron Ashworth, and possessing a reputation for precocious insight and respectable accomplishments, it is proper that I make your acquaintance.

>

> I expect you at Rosings Park during the second week of December. You shall be met at the parsonage and accompanied thence. My daughter Miss de Bourgh is most eager for refined company.

>

> * Lady Catherine de Bourgh

"She does not *invite*, she commands," my mother said with mingled horror and awe.

"She commands everyone," I murmured, folding the letter with careful fingers. "Even Darcy."

---

The reason for Lady Catherine's interest was not difficult to divine. I was an Ashworth, yes, but more critically, I was young, unattached, and recently become of age to be considered eligible. Darcy had clearly spoken of me, and whether favourably or with mere formality, it was enough to rouse the great lady's curiosity.

Perhaps she suspected I might rival her daughter for some imagined suitor—though Anne de Bourgh was an invalid and barely spoke, Lady Catherine's pride was not so easily tempered by fact. Or perhaps, more pointedly, she had begun to hear of my proximity to Elizabeth Bennet.

Darcy had noticed us.

Since the Netherfield Ball, there had been subtle alterations in his manner toward me. Still reserved, still honour-bound and pride-stitched—but occasionally, I caught his gaze lingering. Not on my face, but on the space I carved into a room: the way I listened, the way Elizabeth laughed when I said something impertinent but true.

Elizabeth, for her part, had begun to warm to me with that mix of affection and curiosity she offered only to those she found both intelligent and harmless. In her eyes, I was still a child—clever, perhaps precocious, but not yet entangled in the stakes of womanhood.

But I was. And I knew too well what lay ahead.

---

The days following the Netherfield Ball were filled with the expected murmurs and shifting attentions. Mr. Bingley continued to call at Lucas Lodge, and Charlotte, though serene as ever, was transformed by the quiet pleasure of being wanted. She never presumed. She never assumed.

And yet, in her gentle glances, her now careful arrangement of her hair, I saw a future sprouting.

"You truly believe he admires me?" she asked once, as we walked the boundary path between Ashworth Hall and the Lucas fields.

"I believe he respects you," I said. "And that is the truest foundation for affection."

She looked away, a flush rising. "But he does not adore me. Not like men in novels."

"You would not wish to be adored like a heroine, Charlotte. That kind of love burns too fast, and ruins where it cannot consume."

She said nothing, but later that week, she wore rose-coloured ribbon.

---

Elizabeth, meanwhile, had not forgotten Darcy.

"He is more perplexing than a Latin riddle," she said one afternoon while we sat reading aloud to Georgiana, who had remained in Hertfordshire longer than planned.

"He has too much sense to be gallant, and too much pride to be pleasant."

"But not enough arrogance to be dismissed," I said.

Elizabeth laughed. "Perhaps that is what irritates me most. That I cannot quite dislike him."

Darcy entered the room just then—how poetic—and paused at the threshold. Elizabeth did not glance up from her book. Georgiana did.

"Brother, come sit with us. Clara is reading Dryden."

He came, though reluctantly, and took the chair across from me. I continued the passage as though nothing were amiss, though I could feel his eyes on my voice.

Later, as he escorted Georgiana to the carriage, he said, low enough for me alone to hear:

"You see too much, Lady Clara."

"And you hide too little, Mr. Darcy."

His lips twitched. "An impasse, then."

"Perhaps a beginning."

---

Mr. Collins, meanwhile, had shifted his affections. Jane having declined his overtures with gentle finality, he turned, inevitably, to Elizabeth.

"He is like water," she complained to me. "When one barrier forms, he simply seeks another path."

"Yes," I replied. "But water can erode even the firmest stone if given time."

"Then I must become a moving target."

I smiled. But her reprieve was short-lived.

The next morning, Mrs. Bennet herded her daughter into the parlour under pretense of a musical interlude. I remained in the drawing room with Kitty and Mary, but the tension was palpable through the walls.

An hour later, Elizabeth emerged, her colour high.

"He proposed."

"And you refused."

"Naturally."

"Then you have my congratulations."

She sat beside me with a dramatic sigh. "He has written to Lady Catherine. No doubt I shall be called a harlot before the week ends."

I did not correct her. I only wondered what Lady Catherine would say of me when I crossed her threshold.

---

And so, December drew near. Darcy departed Netherfield, ostensibly to attend to estate matters. Bingley lingered.

Charlotte and I walked together often now. I found in her the kind of companionship I had rarely possessed in my first life—calm, reflective, unburdened by illusion.

The leaves had all fallen by then, the landscape stripped to bones.

"He will return to London soon," she said. "And then the winter shall be ours again."

"Not if he asks you to join him."

She did not reply. But she did not deny it either.

And I—Lady Clara Ashworth, reborn scholar of Austen's world and now a living participant—began to understand the cost of interfering.

Because with every small change, the story turned.

Elizabeth laughed more readily with Darcy now.

Charlotte sat beside Bingley during a game of whist.

Jane looked on with a serenity that carried no disappointment.

And I waited for Lady Catherine's carriage.

Not as a guest.

But as a disruption she did not yet understand.