Story Connections – Page 6

The Apothecary to See Miss Bennet

Pride and Prejudice Illustration, Charles Edmund Brock (1870-1938), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Today, I’m sharing an excerpt from my upcoming release, His Father’s Last Gift, (which is currently on pre-order everywhere). The story begins during Jane’s illness at Netherfield, and the apothecary is indeed called to see her… but not just because Jane is not feeling well. Mrs. Bennet needs his assistance for another reason. 🙂

The Trouble of a Curricle (and the gentlemen who drive them)

Morburre, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

If you’ve read Waking to Mr. Darcy, then you know that at the end of that book we discover Mary Bennet has as secret crush. Nicholas Hammond is that crush. He’s also the Bennet’s neighbour, the eldest son of a spendthrift of a father, the older brother to a rather reckless brother, quite practical (perhaps to a fault?), and not uninterested in Mary.

Below is when we first get to meet Nicholas’s brother, Fred, and his friend, Whit. This excerpt tells of just one incident where the two of them cause trouble with a curricle and the first of four times they cause issues through racing.

Despite all that, they are two of my favourite troublemakers. 😉

My Favourite Description of Caroline

Image: The Palmy Days of the Café de la Rotonde. In the Palais-Royal, 1868, François Courboin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Several years ago, I shared this image on a Wednesday right before the Thursday on which I posted the chapter from which the quote is taken. Back then, I was just beginning the writing of my Marrying Elizabeth series, and I was posting it on Thursdays as I wrote. Below is a portion of that Thursday’s chapter. (It was chapter 11 if you’re curious.)

Until the end of January 2023, you can download Confounding Caroline for FREE at your favourite ebook retailer. I have put links to the book below the excerpt for those who don’t have this book in their collection yet.

The Colonel and a Cup of Cider

Warm spices. Autumnal flavours.

Those are the sorts of scents and special foods that come to my mind whenever I write about Colonel Fitzwilliam.

He is my character who has a sweet tooth when it comes to biscuits and will drop whatever he is doing in pretty much any story for a gingerbread… and in this story, he’ll also drop what he’s doing (even hiding from Caroline Bingley) for a cup of cider.

I think he’d enjoy the mulled cider from the recipe in the short video above since it is a cup of mulled cider that Darcy uses to entice him to enter Netherfield instead of staying out in the cold.

Here’s how his journey to happily ever after (with Caroline — yep, Caroline) begins in One Winter’s Eve:

Ladies Having Tea (Albert Lynch)

Femmes Prenant le Thé (Women Having Tea), Albert Lynch, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

I saw this picture and thought of this rather memorable ladies having tea scene below. Here, Mary Ellen Dobney is sharing the true story behind a story that Lydia heard Captain Harris tell in Brighton. Captain Harris is Mary Ellen’s cousin, and Lydia has never liked him. Enjoy!