Hi friends! I’m so pleased to welcome back author, Don Jacobson to Austenesque Reviews today!

You may have already seen that Don just celebrated the release of his new book last week – In Westminster’s Halls! 🎉

Like many of Don’s works this tale looks very unique and interesting – with a focus on slavery and the moral, social, and political fight against the slave trade. Which will be interesting to explore with Jane Austen’s characters, don’t you think? 🤔

Don is here to share an excerpt from In Westminster’s Halls – we hope you enjoy!! 🤗

 

~ Excerpt from In Westminster’s Halls ~

This excerpt of “In Westminster’s Halls” is ©2024 by Donald P. Jacobson. Reproduction by any means or use to train Artificial Intelligence (AI) is prohibited. Published in the United States of America.

En route to the Royal Opera House, January 12, 1806

Mr. Wickham’s disclosures about one of her father’s colleagues were deeply troubling. Elizabeth resolved to address them as soon as was practical. However, Mr. Bennet was taking her to the opera for a performance of Herr Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, a great sacrifice; Elizabeth knew how her father despised the pretensions of box subscribers. She smiled as she recollected Papa’s discomfiture as he revealed he had secured two seats for them in Lord Grenville’s stall.

However, it is Papa’s way of saying thank you for my efforts since we arrived. He affects an air of indolence leavened by persecution, if not by the six women in his life, then by the Tories and Whigs with whom he rubs elbows daily. Yet, Mr. Bennet is like a Dutch chocolate, dark, even tangy, on the outside, soft and gooey on the inside.

Practicality vanished in the face of Aunt Gardiner’s insistence that Elizabeth prepare herself for the opera as was befitting the daughter of one of the Six Hundred Fifty-Eight—a far more exclusive number than the Ten Thousand. Each Member, irrespective of the number of voters in his constituency, served by virtue of being elected rather than finding themselves one of the ton’s elect because of birth.

An azure silk gown had been pulled from Madeline Gardiner’s wardrobe to be nipped and tucked to fit Elizdabeth’s maidenly frame. Yesterday, one of Gardiner’s express riders rushed to Longbourn to return with Grandmother Bennet’s Indian sapphire set, deep blue to near navy. The hours after Elizabeth’s return from Walters House vanished as Sarah took Jane’s place to dress Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s hair and array her in her evening finery. The finishing touch was Aunt Gardiner’s midnight velvet cloak lined with crimson silk. With pattens strapped to her slippers, Elizabeth took her father’s arm, balanced herself, and carefully walked to the carriage.

Elizabeth dismissed any thought of discussing Wickham’s assertions as the Gardiner equipage rattled from Gracechurch Street to Covent Garden. She knew anything of that nature would fracture her father’s fragile composure. For more than twenty years, he had lived to end the slave trade. His focus was not as singular as Uncle Clarkson’s—the man had always been part of her life and had become as much an uncle as Papa’s brothers Philips and Gardiner—but he would keenly feel any defection. Her stomach roiled each time she considered the rank betrayal of the Cause. Elizabeth had no desire to spoil whatever enjoyment her father would take from the evening.

She turned her face to watch the buildings slide by.

***

En route to the Royal Opera House

A damp washrag had more spine than Darcy. Three weeks into his recovery, he still felt like a bundle of spinach tossed in hot oil: limp and wilted.

Grenville and Wilberforce have been remarkably tolerant of my absence from the House. Bingley and Bennet have done journeyman’s work keeping me up to date. Bennet’s papers have been remarkable for their organization and trenchant observations.

Mrs. Reynolds was rightly concerned when I had Hastings pack a valise and strap it behind Praetor’s saddle. Then I spent three days riding south and ‘enjoying’ indifferent weather that varied over two hundred-odd miles only in the intensity of the sleet blowing in from the North Sea and Channel. I rode like the Furies were nipping at Praetor’s heels or if Georgie’s schoolmistress had written of a cold that had swept through the girls and laid my sister low.

Any other man would have stayed on the Great Northern Road toward town, except that it would have added a day or more to my journey. Committed to the coast road, I should have taken the ferry at Hull and gone to ground in Barton on Humber. No, ‘Darcy the Dependable’ was ‘sensible’ and took the long way around the estuary, adding thirty miles of misery.

More fool me! My inclination to be useful led to my downfall.

I managed to attend the opening of the Session and then fell into a wracking cough, pounding head, and a fever that refused to break. Wilson summoned Mr. Campbell, who ordered me to bed and told the staff that if I set foot out of my four-poster, he would have me restrained. You would have needed an axe to chop through his peaty brogue. ‘Pee-new-monia kills th’ old folks too often but is less’n a threat ta th’ young. But, young Darcy, sir, ye could be doin’ me wrong by makin’ a liar o’ me.’

So, I stayed put and drove Mrs. Wilson to distraction by playing the world’s worst patient. If I never sip another cup of willow bark tea…

Now that Campbell has granted me the freedom of the city, I had to escape Darcy House lest the four walls begin to close in on me. Fortunately, I can leave the Opera whenever I wish without inspiring much comment.

I made it clear to Bingley that I did not include his sisters in tonight’s invitation. He may be willing to countenance Miss Bingley’s antics. I have almost no reserves to maintain my self-control. If she steps from his carriage, I will return to mine and leave it to Bingley to explain the unpleasant facts to his sister.

His evening planned Darcy now Socratically assayed his foul mood. Since Mr. Wilson had brought the late post, a note from “A Friend”—How is it that blackmailers always amicably referred to themselves as friends—reminded him of the perilous nature of his sister’s reputation after her Ramsgate summer sojourn. He recognized the hand and wondered how much he would have to pay to keep the cur from bruiting Georgie’s disgrace about town.

His musings were interrupted as his carriage rocked to a halt in front of the theater. Stepping out, Darcy took a moment to adjust his clothes and survey the crowd before the main entrance. Even at night, with the west wind freshening the air, the fug of open sewers and horses by their hundreds of thousands was oppressive. His grimace drew a flower girl who won a penny for a nosegay.

Gentlemen, if they were able, footmen, if the escorts were not, flooded the walkway to assist ladies tottering across the slimy stones leading toward the runner rolled down the marble steps. Feathered turbans added to the impression of instability, although the platforms favored by the women did not help.

Darcy could not help but remember Master Pepys’s diary and a passage he had uncovered as a Magdalene College student. The Royal Navy’s First Secretary offered a man’s opinion of a woman’s footwear: something unchanged in the 140-odd years since the great chronicler had put pen to paper.

Called on my wife and took her to Mrs Pierce’s, she in the way being exceedingly troubled with a pair of new pattens, and I vexed to go so slow.

Looking toward Covent Garden’s portico, Darcy caught sight of Thomas Bennet helping a young woman from a carriage, two in front of the Darcy coach. A frown began to cloud his forehead. Although he had met Bennet only once, on the back benches behind Lord Grenville’s Cabinet, his brief encounter left him with the impression that Meryton’s Member was a family man who eschewed the ton’s unrestrained behavior. Darcy was surprised to see a man his father’s age squire a colorfully dressed young woman. Then again, was he astonished that a country gentleman endowed with position and turned loose in town would offer carte blanche to one of Westminster’s bits of tattered muslin?

Men follow their instincts, which, for most, rest behind their drop fronts. Those of a particular age are especially susceptible to a pretty pout, widened eyes, and lean-in listening. I imagine she plays the courtesan’s part to perfection.

Even from fifty feet away, the woman was particularly engaging. Her hood had fallen back, and her chocolate locks glistened in the torchlight. Jeweled pins held tresses in an entrancing coiffure. In profile, her slightly upturned nose distinguished her from the crowd of aquiline-beaked daughters of the ton. A robust native intelligence animated her face. She paused on the lowered step to be eye-to-eye with Bennet. Reacting to something he said, her bow-shaped lips parted in laughter that struck Darcy as genuine and unstudied. Holding Bennet’s hand, she stepped onto the roadway.

Darcy staggered under the impact of her loveliness. Not for a moment, though, did he imagine she was anything but what he had been used to seeing grasping town gentlemen’s arms: never wives but rather an evening’s kept entertainment.

Her cloak obscured a figure that did not offer any appearance of stockiness, always a problem for petite women. A shapely leg broke through the cape’s slit, framing it in crimson. Her innate sensuality was effortlessly presented in Eve’s pose, knee bent slightly, tightening her rich blue gown across a thigh to promise delights hidden beneath.

Bennet’s companion unleashed the hounds of imagination, settling, curdled, in his belly. The woman’s profession disqualified her from consideration as Mrs. Darcy, but compared to the ton’s candidates paraded before him, she hewed closely to his ideal.

He saw himself seated across from her in Pemberley’s library as they read to one another of an evening. She would tuck her bare feet, dainty toes curled to display flower petal nails, underneath her legs. The hearth would embrace them in an orange circle. Darcy would send them to the Lake District with Mr. Wordsworth while she would counter with Shakespeare’s sonnet that spoke to her eternal love for him.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
    So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Darcy shook himself to eradicate the haunting image of tousled tresses spread across his bare chest. While he had the needs of a healthy man, he had rarely availed himself of the pleasures discreetly hidden behind doors adjacent to the better districts. He was no Galahad the Pure, but he found it easier to repress longing than seek satisfaction in the arms of someone paid to tell her customers that each encounter was her life’s best.

This capture of his heart was not to be borne! Every fiber fought the firm hand clamped atop disloyal emotions. These uncomfortable feelings draped over fields blackened by the threat to the family name. Wresting control, Fitzwilliam Darcy buried everything but heightened disdain deep beneath layers of practiced hauteur.

Like a bull mastiff catching sight of a staghound infringing on his bailiwick, Darcy walked stiffly toward the opera’s shelter, closing on Bennet and the woman. Her mincing steps angered him. Thenshe stumbled, only to be rescued by Bennet’s arms. Leaning away from his chest, she threw a thankful smile. Bennet genially set her back on her feet and absently patted her arm.

How brazen these town women are: using their arts and allurements to turn the heads of men old enough to be their fathers.

Why he did not veer away to avoid an inevitable meeting, he could not answer. Later—and throughout several nights’ reflection—Darcy understood. He concluded that he needed to confront them. Only then could he issue the angry slight that would injure her for choosing the paramour’s path and denying herself the trail to honorable matrimony. His fury became incandescent, yet the flames were dark and froze rather than burned.

As he approached, the sound of his boots on the sanded stones drew Bennet’s attention. “Ah, my friend, how well you look after three sennights fighting whatever grippe was throttling your spirit. Aesculapius has indeed smiled at you.

“May I introduce my…”

Darcy arrogantly cut him off. “I have no interest in tolerating any woman who finds her daily bread anywhere further above stairs than the dining parlor.

“We may have to engage with one another, sir, in the ordinary course of business before the House. However, that does not require me to give consequence to any of your acquaintances engaged in the world’s oldest profession.

“Your private preferences are your affair, sir. I need not know the name of your paramour to know what she is. Although your reply is unimportant, I am curious about the going rate for a woman of such obvious talents.”

He looked sideways to see how hard his bolt had struck. His target did not disappoint, except that her reaction was not to descend into hysterics and depend on her protector to answer for her.

The young woman’s eyes first showed shock and then narrowed in anger. Carmine patches—making her even more beautiful in Darcy’s estimation—stained cheeks gone pale. Setting her jaw, she made to advance on Darcy, but Bennet restrained her. Having made his point, Darcy looked directly into her rich brown, near-chocolate eyes before allowing his gray-blue orbs to drift away to the procession moving up the carpet. His cut could not be more obvious.

Darcy observed the elder man’s jaw clenching as he prepared to answer Darcy’s litany. However, that reply would probably be a challenge, something Darcy would never countenance. He was, after all, Fitzwilliam Darcy, the Earl of Matlock’s nephew. Pemberley’s master would no more meet someone of modest estate on the field of honor than he would bow to Caroline Bingley’s attempts at compromise. Both were beneath him. Rank’s distinction must be maintained. A challenge from Bennet would be akin to Darcy demanding satisfaction from the Duke of Westminster, ludicrous on the face of it. Better for all if the man swallowed his words.

Forestalling Bennet’s rejoinder, Darcy spun on his heel, returned to his carriage, jumped in, and slammed his walking stick on the ceiling to signal the driver to pull out of line.

Oh my goodness! Mr. Darcy! Not only did you put your foot in your mouth – you put both feet, your hat, and maybe even your carriage! 😬🫣😳 

How will you ever make amends for spewing such insults?!

~~~

~ Book Description ~

With a narrative steeped in duplicity and conspiratorial intrigue, “In Westminster Halls” offers a unique speculative journey into the world of Jane Austen. This bold exploration delves into the existential issue of slavery. Set against the backdrop of Regency privilege, sexual nuance, and callous indifference, Jacobson’s masterful storytelling will captivate you, leaving you yearning for more. It’s a portrayal of Meryton’s beloved characters like you’ve never seen.

Robert W. Smith, award-winning author of A Long Way from Clare

Fighting for Freedom, Finding Love

In 1807, a dark stain marred British society. It wasn’t Napoleon or the War. The slave trade divided Britons along economic and moral lines. In Westminster’s Halls is a tale that unites Longbourn, Pemberley, and Matlock in a mission to end the trafficking of human souls.

Powerful forces are determined to silence Bennet, while Wickham is sent to manipulate Darcy. Amidst mystery, danger, and politics, Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy navigate mutual prejudice and willful pride, striving for a future in a world where all are free. Their journey is a testament to love’s power.

In Westminster’s Halls seeks to fill Austen’s great silence on slavery. The book speculates, with a touch of audacity, how Austen’s beloved characters would have behaved if true-life events were part of Pride and Prejudice.

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GIVEAWAY TIME!!!

Don is generously giving away 🔟 ebook editions of In Westminster’s Halls in conjunction with this blog tour!!  Woot woot!  

Commenting on this post and entering through the rafflecopter widget on this blog enters you in a chance to win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

• This giveaway is open worldwide.  Thank you, Don!
• This giveaway ends August 2nd!