And so the trial begins!

Henry Crawford begins to tell his tale of what happened, with his nefarious history with Maria Crawford at Mansfield Park.

The residents at Pemberley listen, and all roads lead back to one solution: the residents of Mansfield Park have to come to Pemberley and face the Crawford family.

All throughout this, Jane Bennet’s story of her friendship with Mary Crawford unfolds and explains their history.

All throughout this, Kitty Bennet must face a painful reality: the two men who are in love with her are in the same space and she has to accept that she might be the problem in this situation.

Here comes Part seven of the story, showing that life can get complex, no matter what.

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Release Date: September 9, 2025
Genre: Historical | Regency

~ A Pink Satin Romance ~

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Excerpt

Prequel
Jane Bennet’s Story: The Letter After Netherfield Hall

With it having been an exhausting night the evening before, I woke up to see my beloved husband sleeping beside me. I chuckled silently and decided to remain in bed, next to him, until he woke.

Marrying Charles Bingley had been one of the highlights of my life, and one of the first things that I learned about him, when entering the married state, is that he could stay awake and alert during an entire ball…but the day after? Oh, he was asleep and would spend the whole day in bed, if he could.

While my limbs were equally exhausted, my soul was restless though.

Or rather, my imagination was.

Or my memories were.

Looking up at Bingley, I saw the beautiful outline of his face, as he looked there, peacefully.

In that moment, I ought to have been content. Yet with individuals such as I, there is a part of me that is heavily unknown and can only be described as the time-honored maxim: still waters run deep. Within each silent reaction that I give, there are many words that I think, yet do not speak. Many times, I have wished to shout, when I whispered. The voice be serene, but the mind—always awake. Always alive. Always alert.

I should be happy now, and I was. Very much so. But between the sheets of thought, between the bed of life, we often dwell—or return to times where things were not in a firm state of balance. Of when struggle and folly ruled the day, and not peace and felicity.

And so, my mind chose to dwell, to relive a journey that had long been left alone.

I couldn’t help but wonder...so to speak.

My memories drove back to earlier times, more troubling and turbulent times, of when my heart was in a constant state of uncertainty.

Of when, the happy scene that I was amidst, almost did not occur.

Of when everything seemed as if it had fallen apart, months ago...

 

Sitting down, I opened the letter and smiled when I saw Miss Bingley’s familiar handwriting. Immediately I noted the elegant paper and marveled at her skilled handwriting.

And then I began to read the contents of the letter.

By the time I was finished, I cannot honestly recall how I even got to the end of it. Removed from myself even more, I felt as if I was pushed out of my body, someone else had come in, and finished my actions for me.

It was someone else who had re-read the letter.

It was someone else who closed the letter and put it back in the envelope.

It was someone else who stood up, went over to the rest of the company, sat down, and tried—in vain—to ingratiate herself into the party.

It was someone else who was smiling whenever a joke was made—when an anecdote was narrated—when a compliment was offered.

But it was me who was immediately distressed.

It was me who felt as if her world had come undone—had underwent a sudden collapse.

It was I who felt as if a link within me had been severed.

And it was truly me who felt the sudden pangs of heartache, abandonment, and loss.

It was me that was breaking in every way a person could feel broken.

But one thing that both of us women had in common was that they both believed that they hid their heartbreak well from the present company.

Both women believed that they did quite well at concealing their agony. Both women were me.

But every minute that I was not allowed to be alone felt like daggers digging into my skin. After what felt like an eternity, the officers took their leave.

At the very moment that they had disappeared down the road, I stole a glance at Elizabeth. She took my meaning and joined me in my room.

With every step we took, the words from the letter weighed me down even more, and the reality of my present became even more real... and even more terrifying to face.

Eventually, we made it to my room, and Elizabeth closed the door behind her.

“Tell me what it is,” she urged, “because I could see your disappointment all while you read the letter.”

As you know, the two separate women that read the letter: the one who did read it and smiled throughout, and the other woman who cried out in pain...now those women were merging together. Within my form, they united, and we became one.

“You knew that something was wrong?” I asked, heartbroken.

“I saw it in your eyes. Jane, what is it?”

Unfolding the letter, I handed it to her.

“This is from Caroline Bingley.” Mentioning it now made everything feel heavier. It made the truth more real, and I could have been knocked down with a feather. “What it contains has surprised me a good deal. The whole party have left Netherfield by this time and are on their way to town—and without any intention of coming back again.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened in shock.

“What!” She gasped.

“She tells me that they all are gone. And Mr. Bingley is never coming back.”

My whole world had come undone.

All was lost.

 

* * *

 

With the letter still in my hand, I was motionless.

The shock was real—while also not being so. I felt as if I was not myself, but rather on the outside of myself, watching a woman who looked like me, spoke like me, but was not me. Rather she was someone else, experiencing the pain of the news, undergoing the alarm of knowing that something so certain, so ever-fixed, was all to never come about.

And Lizzy was still there, having heard my announcement. Coming back into myself, I looked at her.

“Jane,” she gasped, “I cannot believe it.”

“But it is true,” I found myself able to utter. Here, you shall hear what she says.” Raising up the paper again, I breathed out and in. The page was not more than ten centimeters from my face, and yet the words fell in and out of focus. At last, I steadied myself and continued to read onward.

‘Resolving to follow after my brother, our entire party has quitted Netherfield Park and returned to town directly. We intend to be dining in Grosvenor Street by the end of the day, where Mr. Hurst has a house.

I do not pretend to regret anything I shall leave in Hertfordshire, except your society, my dearest friend; but we will hope, at some future period, to enjoy many returns of that delightful intercourse we have known, and in the meanwhile may lessen the pain of separation by a very frequent and most unreserved correspondence. I depend on you for that.

I lowered the letter and was surprised to see that Elizabeth was not especially shocked.

“You do not look disturbed by this?” I asked.

“Why should I be?” she responded, “the only surprise there is to the letter is if Miss Bingley truly means what she says.”

“Of course, she means it.”

“Forgive me, but I am not apt to trust that she intends to remember you or any of us, once she returns to town. Her words are pretty. But that’s all they are: pretty. And as for the rest, nothing about it alarms me. I am surprised by the suddenness of their removal, but I see nothing in it to lament. It is not as if their absence from Netherfield will keep their brother from returning. After all, it is his home and not theirs. Therefore, he can always return without them, which I would find to be a better situation all around.”

I bit my lip.

“It is unlucky,” she continued, after a short pause, “that you should not be able to see your friends before they leave the country. But may we not hope that the period of future happiness to which Miss Bingley looks forward may arrive earlier than she is aware, and that the delightful intercourse you have known as friends will be renewed with yet greater satisfaction as sisters? Mr. Bingley will not be detained in London by them.”

“Caroline decidedly says that none of the party will return into Hertfordshire this winter. I will read it to you.”

Taking up the letter again, I continued to read:

‘When my brother left us yesterday, he imagined that the business which took him to London might be concluded in three or four days; but as we are certain it cannot be so, and at the same time convinced that when Charles gets to town he will be in no hurry to leave it again, we have determined on following him thither, that he may not be obliged to spend his vacant hours in a comfortless hotel. Many of my acquaintances are already there for the winter; I wish that I could hear that you, my dearest friend, had any intention of making one of the crowd—but of that I despair. I sincerely hope your Christmas in Hertfordshire may abound in the gaieties which that season generally brings, and that your beaux will be so numerous as to prevent your feeling the loss of the three of whom we shall deprive you.’

I felt that surely, Lizzy could decipher, reading between the lines of words and phrases, what Caroline’s true meaning was.

“There?” I exuded, “do you not see? It is evident by this that he comes back no more this winter.”

Lizzy rolled her eyes.

“It is only evident that Miss Bingley does not mean that he should.”

She could not see. Heaven and earth! Why could she not see?

“Why will you think so?” I stressed. “It must be his own doing. He is his own master. But you do not know all. I will read you the passage which particularly hurts me. I will have no reserves from you.”

My imploring her, willing her to understand was potentially that of a despairing woman who was selfish. Her words were naturally what I should have wished to hear. Yet the news of Mr. Bingley’s departure had blinded me to such a degree that my inner voice became quite mad, I was driven to extreme sensibility internally, and I therefore wished for her to feel my wretchedness. She was trying to calm me, to coax me, and that was precisely what I needed. And yet, why did I wish to stress the horror of my situation? In the wake of heartache, we humans are so nonsensical. Looking once more to the letter—the very letter that I should have never read again, but instead clung to like a child touches a hot iron—I continued again.

‘Mr. Darcy is impatient to see his sister; and, to confess the truth, we are scarcely less eager to meet her again. I really do not think Georgiana Darcy has her equal for beauty, elegance, and accomplishments; and the affection she inspires in Louisa and myself is heightened into something still more interesting, from the hope we dare entertain of her being hereafter our sister. I do not know whether I ever before mentioned to you my feelings on this subject; but I will not leave the country without confiding them, and I trust you will not esteem them unreasonable. My brother admires her greatly already; he will have frequent opportunity now of seeing her on the most intimate footing; her relations all wish the connection as much as his own; and a sister's partiality is not misleading me, I think, when I call Charles most capable of engaging any woman's heart. With all these circumstances to favor an attachment, and nothing to prevent it, am I wrong, my dearest Jane, in indulging the hope of an event which will secure the happiness of so many?’

After reading those last words for the second time, then I began to fully feel the effects of it. The implications stung me as I closed the letter, sat back down and stared ahead.

It was moments such as those, in the cold silence of our hearts torn open from shattered dreams, that you become sensitive to every sound and feeling. Reality becomes filtered and you see everything on a finer scale. I felt the softness of the cushion beneath me. I saw the storm clouds outside of the window, threatening rain. I heard the sound of our grandfather clock in the other room. I heard mother’s voice in the other room, and Hill’s footsteps as she walked around the house. And the vast heaviness of the air around me also felt as if it had developed a heaviness and obscured my vision.

“Jane?” Elizabeth uttered. Her voice pierced through my fevered thoughts and brought me back into her company. “Dearest?”

“Yes,” I extolled, breathy. “Yes, I am here.”

“You have turned white.”

“I am... I am...” I could not find the words, therefore, I shifted back to our main discussion. “Lizzy, you heard the last comments that Caroline made. What do you think of this sentence, my dear Lizzy? Is it not clear enough? Does it not expressly declare that Caroline neither expects nor wishes me to be her sister…that she is perfectly convinced of her brother's indifference, and that if she suspects the nature of my feelings for him. She means, most kindly, to put me on my guard. Can there be any other opinion on the subject?”

“Yes, there can. For mine is totally different. Will you hear it?”

I willed myself to be brought back to my senses, and not my sensibilities. Elizabeth had another theory, and it would be to my favor. Therefore, I chose to listen.

“Most willingly,” I uttered, awaiting any kind news that she might deliver.

“You shall have it in a few words. Miss Bingley sees that her brother is in love with you and wants him to marry Miss Darcy. She follows him to town in hope of keeping him there and tries to persuade you that he does not care about you.”

This news did not satisfy me. As much as I wished that she was correct regarding Mr. Bingley, it contradicted everything that I felt about Caroline. I still believed that I was correct; Caroline was my most devoted friend. She would never hurt me!

“I cannot believe that of her,” I denied, shaking my head. Elizabeth stood up, came toward me and sat right down on the sofa, at my side.

“Indeed, Jane,” she urged, “you ought to believe me. No one who has ever seen you together can doubt his affection. Miss Bingley, I am sure, cannot. She is not such a simpleton. Could she have seen half as much love in Mr. Darcy for herself, she would have ordered her wedding clothes. But the case is this: we are not rich enough or grand enough for them. And she is more anxious to get Miss Darcy for her brother, from the notion that when there has been one intermarriage, she may have less trouble in achieving a second, in which there is certainly some ingenuity. And I dare say it would succeed, if Miss de Bourgh were out of the way. But, my dearest Jane, you cannot seriously imagine that because Miss Bingley tells you her brother greatly admires Miss Darcy, he is in the smallest degree less sensible of your merit than when he took leave of you on Tuesday, or that it will be in her power to persuade him that, instead of being in love with you, he is very much in love with her friend.”

After considering her words, I carefully gave my reply.

“If we thought alike of Miss Bingley,” I pointed out, “your representation of all this might make me quite easy. But I know the foundation is unjust. Caroline is incapable of willfully deceiving anyone. And all that I can hope in this case is that she is deceiving herself.”

“That is right,” Lizzy supported, leaning back and letting her shoulders slacken, “You could not have started a more happy idea, since you will not take comfort in mine. Believe her to be deceived, by all means. You have now done your duty by her and must fret no longer.”

 

* * *

 

In the work of a moment, hope was returned to me. Perhaps Lizzy was correct. For Mr. Bingley made it very evident, before he left, that he was leaving for town for a brief duration. That was all. There was nothing in his tone, manner and habit, that indicated anything otherwise.

All there was for me to worry over, unfortunately, was the matter of his sisters. This alarmed me to such a degree that I felt obliged to mention it.

“But, my dear sister,” I compiled, “can I be happy, even supposing the best, in accepting a man whose sisters and friends are all wishing him to marry elsewhere?”

“You must decide for yourself,” Elizabeth offered me this ultimatum, “and if, upon mature deliberation, you find that the misery of disobliging his two sisters is more than equivalent to the happiness of being his wife, I advise you by all means to refuse him.”

I smiled faintly.

“How can you talk so? You must know that, though I should be exceedingly grieved at their disapprobation, I could not hesitate.”

“I did not think you would,” Lizzy smirked, “and that being the case, I cannot consider your situation with much compassion.”

“But if he returns no more this winter, my choice will never be required. A thousand things may arise in six months!”

“And to that, I find utterly unlikely. Between his continual seeking you out, his inability to attend to anything else when you are present, his eyes so ever-fixed on you that he did not even notice our family’s humiliation at the ball, to his dancing with you so often—no! I draw utter contempt at the idea of him not returning. It is Miss Bingley’s wishes, and no more. I would say that we ought not to even mention what she wrote in the letter, but I know how we are; we are going to mention it by and by. And even if his family does not look on your match with a favorable eye, I cannot believe that Miss Bingley’s wishes carry so great a weight with her brother, that it would influence him to abandon his own will and desires. He is an independent man. Therefore, his heart is independent. Her influence cannot be so very large.”

The more she spoke, the more I was convinced that I had no cause for alarm, at present. Her arguments were so logical, and her concern for me too real, for it all to be anything else but the truth.

“I hope you are right, Lizzy.”

“I flatter myself that I may be. Unless I am terribly mistaken, I believe that Mr. Bingley will return very soon, to answer every wish that your heart desires of him.”

“You write me a happy ending. May reality turn out as you write it.”

“If only I was the sort who could control fate, he would be here tomorrow.”

Suddenly, another thought struck me! The notion of it was something that I dreaded.

“But what do you think I should tell mother?” I asked. “I’m worried that if I show her this letter, she would be overcome by the news.”

“That is an understatement. Her nerves would blow the house down. All that I can suggest is that we tell her the news of the family departing Netherfield. But we should not mention how long he is gone for and merely infer that it is a casual visit to town. We should not give her cause to alarm. If we do, we will regret doing it for the next month.”

“I agree. I do not want to make her feel any anxiety needlessly. I’m happy we are of the same mind in this. If we mention that they merely left for a brief time, then she will not be overcome.”

 

* * *

 

“What!” our mother cried. “What a horrible thing!”

Lizzy and I had told her the news, thinking it would not trouble her. We were wrong.

“This is exceedingly unlucky!” she wailed, “exceedingly unlucky, and very trying on my poor nerves. What a shocking thing! I said this about Mr. Bingley before, didn’t I? You all heard me worry that he was the sort of man to be running here and there quickly and never know how to settle down. You see? I was right. I am always right, but no one listens to me. I’m like a prophet that never gets heard.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lizzy roll her eyes. While our mother’s behavior indicated all the signs of becoming hysterical, I sympathized. Truly, I never wished to cause mother any pain, and now here I was, committing the very thing that I attempted to always avoid. I tried to tell myself that it was not my fault, that my mother put too high of expectations on me, but I knew that it would do no good.

“I just cannot believe it!” she continued, arguing with herself. “One minute he is there, and then he is gone. All was going so very charmingly. It all looked promising! And I hope he remembers his promise! Yes, I have not forgotten, you see? For I never forget anything! He promised that he would dine at Longbourn again. We invited him to dinner, and I had planned to two full courses.”

“Well, then you have no need for alarm,” Lizzy offered. “For if you invited him to dinner, for two courses, and he accepted, then he has no choice to return. After all, Mr. Bingley is not the sort of man to break such an important promise as a dinner with a neighbor.”

“Oh, who asked you to speak? Unfeeling, selfish child! At least Jane did everything correctly. You could have been Mr. Collins’s wife!”

“But she was right to refuse him,” I uttered, defending Lizzy. “They did not love each other and so her actions were correct, and not selfish.”

Mama looked away from me, and it was as if she had not heard me.

“Yes, well,” she continued, “he did promise. So, he will return. And when he does, I promise, I shall take care to have two full courses. Yes, for Mr. Bingley, nothing better will do. Two whole courses.”

This was the consolation she found at the end. And the belief of Mr. Bingley dining with us eventually was the balm to soothe the wound of him presently leaving Netherfield.

I am Jane Bennet...and my life was unwinding. Now I had to face a world of reactions that I did not wish to endure.

 

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