Guest Post: Jayne Bamber and "Handsome, Clever, and Rich"

Hello everyone! Today's post is from my good friend and fellow Austenesque author, Jayne Bamber. It's been a while since she's visited, but I'm more than happy to give her some time and space to talk about her new book, Handsome, Clever, & Rich. Handing the page over to Jayne...

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It’s great to be back at All That They Desire! Today I am here to share another excerpt of my new release, Handsome, Clever, & Rich, which is now available on Kindle Unlimited.

This Pride & Prejudice variation is a crossover with another of my favorites, Emma, and I have had a blast writing the two leading ladies together. After all, which outspoken Austen heroine has a high opinion of her own judgement, is her father’s favorite, gets duped by a handsome rake who flirts with her before his secret is revealed, takes it way too personally when her bestie gets heartbroken, and has to get knocked down a peg before getting her HEA? It may be an unpopular opinion, but Lizzy and Emma aren’t so very different; Elizabeth Bennet is widely lauded for giving Mr. Darcy the business, but when Emma speaks her mind, based on the same manner of misinformation, she is simply a spoiled little rich girl.

After seeing such similarities between Austen’s most and least beloved heroines, I couldn’t resist the urge to throw them together. In fact… brace yourselves… they are actually sisters in Handsome, Clever, & Rich!

While both Emma and Lizzy have romantic storylines that end in HEA for each of them, another focus in this novel is the two sisters healing a breach in their relationship. For those of you who have been following my blog tour, you will know that this Lizzy is a Bennet not by birth but by marriage; Eliza Woodhouse, just like Georgiana and Lydia, was persuaded to elope at age 15… with a dashing Bennet gentleman who died just after the birth of their son (sorry Mr. Collins!).

The story opens just before the Meryton Assembly, where Lizzy encounters Mr.Knightley, leading to a reunion of the two Woodhouse sisters after five years of total separation. Emma finds her younger sister recovering from an injury at Netherfield, and engaged to Mr. Darcy after a compromising situation – and Lizzy is not entirely pleased at being found! Which leads to today’s excerpt, the first conversation after the sisters’ reunion.

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“You think I owe you an explanation?” Elizabeth arched an eyebrow, though the expression was not as much of a challenge, in her medicated state, as it had been during the quarrels of their youth.

“I do,” Emma replied. “It does not follow that I desire an argument – far from it. I have not come all this way to be unhappy, nor to make you so. I… I simply wish to know you.”

Elizabeth was silent, her expression undergoing several changes as she appeared to consider this.“What do you wish to know?”

“Everything,” Emma cried. “You have been in love – you have been married! You have a child. You are mistress of your own estate. You have built a whole new life, and I am not a part of it at all. I suppose if I had not come here today, you would have been content for it to remain that way forever.”

“And if Mr. Knightley had not come to the Meryton assembly two days ago, would you not have been content at Hartfield without me? It never occurred to you to ask John and Isabella where I had gone?”

Emma abruptly withdrew her hand from Elizabeth’s and began to fidget. “I have never been fully content without you, though I was soon made to understand that John cared little for that, and Isabella found the topic too distressing to discuss. But I have never gone a day without thinking of you, since you left us!”

“We were never the best of friends.”

“What does that signify? You are my sister, Lizzy, and I have always loved you. Papa has always loved you. How could you leave us?”

“How could I leave you?” Elizabeth glowered at Emma. “I was sent away! For ten years I was stifled and shunned by our father. I never understood how you could endure his constant irrational fretting over every little thing. We could not play as other children did, we could not even eat food with any flavor to it! But for you, I suppose it was easier to bear as the golden favorite, and not the ghost of our mother.”

“I bear it because I love him,” Emma replied with feeling. “I bear it because there is nobody else left to do so. Do you think it is pleasant for me to hear my nephews speak of their travels to the seaside, when I have never seen the sea myself, at one and twenty? Do you think it pleases me to hear of Jane Fairfax traveling all over the country with the Campbells, while I sit at home, knowing that even if I acquired half as many miraculous accomplishments as she, I shall never go anywhere or meet anybody to admire me for my talents? Do you think I enjoyed watching Papa hover over Miss Taylor’s wedding cake, telling the poor Perry children they could not have any of it, because they would become too excited?”

Emma was panting with rage after her outburst, and tears spilled down her face. “Forgive me – I am so ashamed. I love Papa, but….”

“But you know it is wrong for him to keep you always at home. I came to that realization much sooner than you,” Elizabeth replied. “Then again, I suffered greater indignities than being compared to Jane Fairfax. I was always compared to you.”

“Is that really what you think?”

“It is the truth,” Elizabeth said. “You did not need to be sent away to school to be corrected. You were always right just as you were.”

Emma sat in miserable silence for a moment. “I envied you being sent to London,” she said at last. “I begged them to let me go, and promised that I would not run away, but Papa insisted I should never leave his sight after that.”

“Oh.” Elizabeth chewed her lip. “I never meant to make your life more difficult. I thought only of

myself, I suppose. I was young and angry and foolish, and I fancied myself in love.”

Silence prevailed again as Emma considered Elizabeth’s words. It was not exactly an apology, though Emma knew that she had no right to expect one. The stark contrast between her own perception of their youth, and Elizabeth’s view made Emma begin to question things she had long taken for granted. She wondered if she ought to apologize, but she could not. Elizabeth had gotten away, and while Emma had always cherished some degree of private envy over the fact, seeing Elizabeth again now heightened Emma’s jealousy and her sisterly affection in equal measures.

“It was always going to be one of us,” Emma mused aloud. “Perhaps it is for the best that it is me. Isabella is too like Papa, and together they only bring out one another’s fears and anxieties. You and he are too different, and your appearance is so difficult a reminder for him. I suppose I was a fool not to see it, but of course it must be me to stay at home always. I do not mind it, most of the time, and that is what makes me angriest. I ought to object more – he would deserve it if I did demand a greater share of independence. I wonder if there is something wrong with me that I do not. Here you are, living your own life, one of your own choosing. Time has altered you far more than it has me, and I find I am suddenly very ashamed.”

Elizabeth chortled. “If you are capable of shame, Emma, I would say you have changed a great deal.”

Emma recoiled, but a look at her sister revealed a playful smile on Elizabeth’s face. “I suppose – and if you are always ready with a clever jest, perhaps you are not too terribly altered.”

“I have grown in everything but good sense, it would seem,” Elizabeth drawled woozily, taking Emma’s hand once more. “Perhaps we have grown more similar, in all these years of separation? I imagine you must be quite the lady of the house, now. Did I hear rightly that Miss Taylor has married?”

“I am – and she has! Oh, Lizzy, it is my greatest accomplishment!”

“You have been mistress of Hartfield since Isabella married John. You were always quite a tyrant.”

“No, I mean that Miss Taylor was married – and I am sure I am not so thoroughly mistress of Hartfield as you are of Longbourn.”

Elizabeth shook her head with bemused laughter. “Pray, do you mean to say that our governess marrying is an accomplishment of yours? Surely Jane Fairfax would never boast such a thing.”

Emma grinned. “She never could! It may be the one way I can claim to be her superior – I have a talent for making matches, for it was I who helped unite Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston.”

“Mr. Weston! I had always imagined someday he might do for poor Miss Bates.”

“Lord, no,” Emma laughed. “But he purchased Randalls this summer, and I knew at once he wished his home to have a proper mistress. A few little nudges here and there was all that was required.”

“Well, I hardly know, Emma,” Elizabeth said with a happy sigh. “I am sure Jane Fairfax is quite capable of a few little nudges here and there. But then I suppose she has always been interested in her own concerns, and not everyone else’s.”

Emma grimaced. “Jane Fairfax has done well enough in improving herself, I shall admit it – but I have improved the lives of others, and that has got to count for something.” She paused, unable to resist the urge to carry her point. “I hope I have improved Papa’s life, by always staying home at Hartfield. Not that I have ever had much occasion to be elsewhere – I have never made any friends outside of Highbury who might invite me to travel, and I am sure I shall never marry. I suppose my situation is preferable to a great many marriages, in that I have fortune and consequence, and the independence at least in running our little household – but what I really mean is that I shall have little enough opportunity to meet any gentleman, much less one so superior as to make me willing to leave Hartfield. But I suppose it is better not to be tempted.”

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at Emma. “Are you baiting me?”

“A little,” Emma admitted with a rueful chuckle. “I daresay the only way I should ever be in love is if Mr. Frank Churchill might finally visit Highbury, for he sounds like just the type of man to suit me, and I know the Westons must have imagined it many times already. He is expected presently in Highbury, though now I am here, and happy to be with you, of course. But I wonder what it is like, to be in love.”

“If only you had visited a house full of single gentlemen,” Elizabeth drawled.

Emma laughed again. “I will not deny that I am quite excited to be among so much company. I do not think I have ever encountered so many young people in one place together in all my life! But it is you that I have come for. Oh, please say you are happy I am here!”

“Strange as it is, I rather think I am,” Elizabeth said with a slow smile spreading across her face. “I was not best pleased by the manner of your arrival – and you must be nice to my family, or I will be very cross – but you are fond of Tom, I can see that, and as a mother I will tell you candidly there is always something endearing about anybody who is kind to children.”

Emma felt her chest swell with joy at Elizabeth’s praise and acceptance. “I want very much for us to be friends. I will love the Bennets with all my heart, and Miss Lucas, too – and I will despise your enemies most passionately – already I am resolved to think very ill of the Bingleys, which has moved Mrs. Bennet to forgive me my intrusion at such an inopportune time.” Elizabeth made a strange face, and Emma quickly clarified her meaning. “Arriving unannounced at Longbourn, that is – and while you are injured.”

“I will make you a bargain,” Elizabeth said. “I shall accept your olive branch, and if you desire that we grow better acquainted – reacquainted – I will do my best. I cannot promise to bear my soul to you at a moment’s notice, but I will put the past away, or at least learn to look upon it only as it gives me pleasure. We have been friends at times, though never with much consistency. But we are women grown, and surely we might both do better now, than at the difficult age of our separation.”

“That is just what I think,” Emma said at once. “I am so pleased to be with you again, that I am sure I can forgive you everything that ever made me bitter! I just want to be your sister, as much as the Bennets.”

“You must let me finish, for I have two conditions,” Elizabeth said wryly. “First, you must take Jane’s place here at Netherfield. She has suffered a great deal in caring for me, for Mr. Bingley and his sisters have been most unkind to Jane, and I suspect she tolerates them only to give me comfort.”

“I have heard nothing but good of Mr. Bingley from Mr. Elton and Mr. Knightley, so I should be happy to accept this condition,” Emma replied. “What is the other?”

“That you do not ask me – not yet, anyhow – about what happened with Mr. Darcy. I scarcely know what to think of it, much less what to say. I know you too well to think you would leave it alone.”

Emma could not deny that she was vastly curious about her sister’s relationship with the handsome man in the library, and certainly she was not alone in that, but she nodded her head in agreement. “I hope you will confide in me, in time, but I know it is too soon to press you. Of course, if I am to remain at Netherfield, I might rely on my own powers of observation.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “What have I gotten myself into?”

“A wonderful time, I promise,” Emma cried. She started to embrace her sister, but hesitated, fearful of aggravating Elizabeth’s injuries.

Elizabeth shook her head but smiled warmly at her sister. “You have never been away from home – I hope you will behave yourself. I must remind you that I am a member of this community, and as my sister you must comport yourself well. The Bingleys have already made such blunders as to sink themselves in the esteem of the entire village, and if you were to make any mischief….”

“I never would! Oh, Lizzy, I swear I shall be infinitely better! I will have to be quite perfect, you know, with Mr. Knightley here.”

“Yes, he does seem to take an eager interest in our family’s concerns,” Elizabeth said primly.

“Our father has always relied on him,” Emma replied, considering this in a rather new light. “I am sure I shall never be permitted to leave Hartfield again if I do not put my best foot forward, and so I shall. Truly, Lizzy. If you are willing to let me into your life, I swear you shall have no cause to regret it. I only wish tobe your sister, fully and affectionately, as we ought to have always been, if you will give me the chance.”

“Very well, we shall be sisters and friends,” Elizabeth replied. “I hope I shall not regret it.”

***

Will Lizzy regret allowing Emma back into her life? What mischief with Emma make for the Bennets, and people of Meryton? Follow my blog tour for more glimpses into the twists and turns of Handsome, Clever, & Rich - and don’t miss your chance to win a free digital copy of the book!