Emma + Elsie Meet Fitzwilliam Darcy

Chapter 3 ~ Elsie

As Elsie rounded the corner away from the Woodhouse’s neighborhood, heading back downtown, she couldn’t help but think about Fitzwilliam Darcy and the potential opportunity to meet him at Annabeth’s wedding the next day.

She didn’t know much about him, only that his family was well known all over the state of Louisiana for a number of reasons—his mother served as a state senator, his family owned most of the raw sugar mills across the state, and his parents died in a horrific tragedy during Katrina, leaving their children orphaned.

Both Fitzwilliam and his sister Georgina became some of the richest teenagers in the entire state overnight. Since then, they had stayed out of the press, but Elsie never forgot how she watched them on the news, being so strong and so brave as their lives turned upside down in front of the entire nation.

She was curious about him, though she would never admit that to Emma or anyone else. She couldn’t believe that Jace Knightley of all people knew him personally, either—perhaps because she felt a little starstruck by the idea of him, it was hard to believe that they had any sort of connection.

She couldn’t wait to tell Jane the news, since even their mother didn’t know about Fitzwilliam Darcy attending the wedding, and Mrs. Bennet knew everything that was happening in Rosebelle.

Elsie stopped walking, realizing with horror that Chuck and Fitz weren’t the only ones attending the wedding the next day—her mother was too.

Mrs. Bennet had always been a social climber, and while her father had done well enough, she knew that her mom, like most moms, wanted more for children than she’d had for herself. And what did Mrs. Bennet want? She’d always pictured her daughters settled with rich men, tending to their large mansions and jet-setting off to Europe for the holidays.

Of course, her mother planned to tag along on these adventures, because Mrs. Bennet wasn’t the type of woman who like to sit at home—she always had to be in the thick of things.

The problem with this was that there was no doubt in Elsie’s mind that her mother would try to wrangle Chuck Bingley and Fitz Darcy into dancing with one of her daughters at the wedding. She got a little… overeager, at times.

As curious as she was about Fitz, she would definitely have to keep her mother out of the picture. She knew for a fact that Jane was just getting over her first heartbreak at college and not looking for a boyfriend. She was off to college in less than three months, and she wanted time to concentrate on school, make new friends, and figure out who she was outside of Rosebelle. Neither of them were in the market, but that didn’t stop a force of nature like her mother—she only hoped that nothing too embarrassing happened at the wedding.

She entered the downtown area, spying Rosie’s at the end of the block. It was one of those shops that had mediocre coffee and a limited food menu, but amazing, curl-up-with-a-book atmosphere and unlimited, free Wi-Fi. It was a perfect place to get Jane alone so they could catch up on all the gritty details of her recent relationship without the company of their pesky younger sisters.

Not that she didn’t love her sisters, but they were still at the age where Jane and she had to watch which they said. Some of the more adult stories that Jane had promised to tell her were not the kind that would get more compelling through filter.

She peaked in the window as she came upon Rosie’s storefront, but nearly stopped in her tracks when she saw another girl sitting across from her sister, laughing. Jane didn’t mention that they were meeting someone else there, and Elsie had never seen this girl before in her life. She had met most of Jane’s friends Tulane University in New Orleans, but this girl didn’t look like anyone she knew.