Overview: A year ago, Lizzy woke up in Cardiff, gravely injured and surrounded by strangers. After realizing that she had no memory of her past, her future appeared bleak – and hopeless.
Until she found she was with child.
Knowing she had to fight on for her child, she recovered and learned to mother her baby, Jane, without the benefit of a family – or her memories.
However, without an explanation for her condition or a respectable father for her daughter, she’s all but an outcast and nobody will give her a chance.
That’s until a sickly lady arrives in town and hires her as a maid.
Determined not to squander this chance, she set out to impress her new employer – but when she meets her new mistress’s husband, she’s thunderstruck.
Something about him is familiar, and soon she flooded by feelings so unexpected and shocking, she fears her entire future might slip away from her once more.
Can Lizzy resist her attraction to the mysterious Mr. Darcy? Or could it be that this handsome stranger holds the key to unlocking the mystery of her lost past?
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| Lizzy's Secret Baby A Pride and Prejudice Variation by Lucy Byrne Book |
Lizzy's Secret Baby A Pride and Prejudice Variation by Lucy Byrne Book Read Online Chapter One
The sound of crying broke Lizzy out of her dream, and it took a few moments for her to shake off her disorientation. This happened often, and it normally, took several minutes for her to realize where she was. For some reason, she always struggled with her surroundings when she was awoken suddenly.
Lizzy kicked off the covers. The air was cool as autumn began to turn into winter, and the floor was freezing against her bare feet. She tiptoed as fast as she could as she rushed towards the small bassinet that wasn’t too far from her bed.
“Good morning,” Lizzy said softly to the little girl who was kicking her arms and legs up out of the bassinet. She was only three months old, but as Lizzy looked down, she was starting to see distinct features overtake her face.
As the little girl looked up at her with wide, blue eyes, she quieted down. Lizzy reached out a hand and pressed a fingertip to the little girl’s cheek. She smiled at the softness of the child’s skin.
Lizzy reached down and took the child in her arms. She held the baby close softly, reveling in the smell of her skin. Her heart was racing from the way that she had been pulled from her dream.
It was the same dream that she always had. She was in a plush, well-decorated room, and there was a dark-haired man with her. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew that she loved him.
Lizzy shuddered. The feeling of her daughter’s body grounded her. There was so much in Lizzy’s life that was unknown, too much really, but being a mother had somehow come so naturally to her.
Lizzy rocked her daughter, enjoying the sounds of her coos. The baby was only three months old, but she was starting to sleep through the night, which was a Godsend. Lizzy smiled to herself as she thought about those early days. She had been so exhausted that she had barely been able to think. Now, things were starting to get slightly better as she got a grasp on motherhood, and she realized it meant she was going to have to work through the many problems of her life.
Sighing, she lifted her daughter into her arms and slowly opened the door to her room. It was a small space that barely fit her bed and the bassinet, but there was a large window, and it was comfortable.
It was also right at the top of the stairs, which led into the kitchen of her lodging, and she smiled as she heard the sound of pots and pans smacking together.
“You’re up early,” Lizzy greeted as she entered the kitchen.
Susan, the woman who Lizzy boarded with, the wife of the vicar of Cardiff, stood up so quickly that she nearly banged her head against the edge of the counter.
She pressed a hand to her heaving chest as she looked on with wide eyes. “My goodness, Lizzy, you nearly scared me to death.”
Lizzy tried to hide a smile. Susan was a kind woman, old enough to be Lizzy’s mother, who was always on the edge of some hysterics. Many people found her to be slightly grating. She’d grown up in London and had come to the smaller, seaside town of Cardiff when she married her husband.
Even after residing as the vicar’s wife for nearly thirty years, the people still viewed her as an outsider, which Lizzy thought was silly.
“Apologies,” Lizzy told her. “I thought that you had heard Jane crying.”
The mention of the baby in Lizzy’s arms brought a smile to Susan’s face, and she dropped what she was doing to go over to the baby. “Oh, my word,” she cooed. “You are getting to be a big girl.”
Lizzy laughed. “She’s only three months,” she reminded Susan. “She has a long way to go before she’s a big girl.”
“Nonsense,” Susan ran a hand over Jane’s hair. When Jane was born, Lizzy was surprised that she had a full head of hair. The coloring was very dark, and there was a slight curl to it. Though Lizzy also had dark hair, hers was pin straight, and when she looked at Jane, she wondered if she had gotten her curls from her father.
Not that Lizzy would know.
“Frank went into town. He was needed early this morning,” Susan’s lips thinned, and Lizzy knew that whatever had pulled the vicar away wasn’t good. “Mr. Forks has fallen ill. I don’t think that he is going to make it through the day.”
The thought made Lizzy sad. Mr. Forks had always been kind to her, which was more than she could say for a great many of the residents of Cardiff.
Not that she could fully blame them. After all, she’d come to town under suspicious circumstances, and though they were no fault of her own, she couldn’t stop the sting of knowing that people did not care for her.
It made a difficult circumstance much more challenging.
“Lizzy?” Susan asked, her voice soft as she spoke. “Are you well?”
Lizzy shook her thoughts away as she tried to focus on Susan. She gave her a small smile. Susan worried about her, so Lizzy was trying her best to seem joyful and cheerful these days.
“How did you fare last night?” Susan asked as she resumed making breakfast.
“Well enough,” Lizzy responded, taking a seat with Jane, who had fallen back asleep in her arms. Lizzy knew that she should wake her daughter, or else she’d likely be keeping everyone on their toes come early afternoon, but she couldn’t bring herself to do such a thing.
Jane looked so angelic when she was sleeping.
“Did you have the dream again?”
Lizzy frowned. A month ago, she’d told Susan about her dreams. Mostly so that the woman would stop hounding her, but now Susan had turned to a new obsession—discovering what the dreams meant.
“Don’t get in a tizzy,” Susan must have sensed Lizzy’s changing mood. “I know you don’t like to speak of them, but they may be a clue.”
Lizzy frowned. “They’ve been happening for months, and so far, they’ve led me nowhere.” There was a note of frustration in Lizzy’s voice as she spoke.
“They must mean something.”
“What could they mean?” Lizzy asked. “It’s been a year, and no one has come looking for me. That means more to me than some silly dreams my mind has concocted.”
She didn’t mean to snap at Susan. In fact, she was more grateful to the woman standing before her than she’d ever been to anyone in her entire life. Lizzy didn’t know what she would have done had it not been for Susan.
A year ago, Lizzy had been found wandering the wilderness just outside of Cardiff. She’d been discovered by some young men hunting, and it had been pure luck on her part that they’d been kind enough to bring her to the vicar and his wife instead of taking advantage of her in her addled state.
Lizzy shivered as she recalled those first few days in Cardiff. She’d been terrified, unable to remember how she’d gotten to the forest, or who she was. The only thing that she recalled was her name—Elizabeth. If she thought hard enough, she could hear a woman screeching it loud and clear in her mind.
Susan and her husband, Frank, had shown her nothing but kindness. They’d even treated her as though she were part of their family, insisting on her calling them by their Christian names.
“There has to be someone looking for the two of you.” Susan looked pointedly at Jane, and Lizzy knew immediately what she was thinking.
Several months after Lizzy had come to Cardiff, she’d fallen ill. At the time, it was thought that it was perhaps leftover sickness from her time in the forest, but when Susan realized that Lizzy hadn’t had her courses since she’d arrived, they’d all concluded that it wasn’t the forest that was making Lizzy unable to keep her food down, but rather, a new life.
“I wasn’t wearing a wedding band when I was found,” Lizzy reminded Susan. “Perhaps, Jane’s father was happy to hear that I’d gone missing, or maybe he didn’t care. He might have even had something to do with it.”
Those words caused a knot to form in Lizzy’s stomach.
She and Jane faced so many obstacles. When Lizzy had arrived in Cardiff, Susan had insisted on taking her in. She didn’t have children of her own, and she’d been glad to have Lizzy in her home. Lizzy had thought that she would get herself back together and be on her way to discovering who she really was, but when she’d discovered her pregnancy, all her plans had gone out the window.
Lizzy was grateful that Susan and Frank had kept her in their home. As an assumed unmarried mother, it was challenging for Lizzy to make her way in the world, and if she hadn’t had Susan and Frank, she was sure that she and Jane would be on the streets.
“Perhaps it was stolen from you.” Susan was the eternal optimist, and even after all these months, she still believed that a handsome young man would come and sweep Lizzy off her feet.
Lizzy had given up that dream. As time went on, and no one had come to claim her, she started to focus on what she could do to survive. Though Susan and Frank made it clear that Lizzy and Jane were free to stay at their home for as long as they needed, Lizzy knew that she could not infringe on their kindness forever.
“Perhaps,” Lizzy responded. “But I need to focus on the present and not the past. I need to make sure that Jane is provided for.”
Susan opened her mouth, and Lizzy knew she was going to argue that they would always take care of them, and Lizzy knew that they would do just that. They were good people, and she knew that they would care for them, but she couldn’t allow that.
“Do you think that you would be able to watch over Jane this afternoon?” Lizzy asked.
Susan nodded, excitement in her eyes. “You know that you never have to ask.” She looked at Jane with a soft smile. “I love watching over this sweet girl.”
That was something that Lizzy knew to be true. Susan and Frank had not had any children, and Lizzy knew that they both adored Jane’s presence. Frank especially. He was well-respected in the town of Cardiff, and Lizzy was sure that his acceptance of her was the only reason she wasn’t ridiculed in the street.
“What do you have planned for the day?” she asked.
Lizzy sat up proudly. “I am presenting myself for a position.”
“Oh?” Susan asked, eyes wide.
She nodded. Lizzy couldn’t blame Susan for being shocked. After all, most places did not care to employ a young, unwed mother with no memory and no discernable skills.
“Where?”
“There’s a new family in town that is looking for a governess. They want someone who speaks both French and Latin, and they haven’t been able to find anyone in town. They can’t afford a live-in or to bring someone from London, so I think that I have a chance.”
Lizzy learned very quickly that she had a knack for learning. She often helped Frank when he needed some translations done.
Originally, it made them all think that Lizzy was from a well-off family who’d maybe been robbed on the road. After all, most working-class girls wouldn’t know how to speak French or Latin.
But Frank had been unable to locate anyone who’d been robbed on the road, and when months passed without word of anyone looking for a missing sister, wife, or daughter, they’d all stopped discussing the possibility.
“I hope that they see how lucky they would be to have you,” Susan told her kindly.
Lizzy hoped so as well, but she knew that it was unlikely.
But she couldn’t do nothing. She looked down at Jane once more. After all, she had a daughter who needed her.
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