[Reprise] Something Wonderful This Way Comes
JAFF Bonanza Lands July 1
Apologies to Ray Bradbury for revising one of my favorite titles.
(This is a re-release of the 6/29/26 newsletter)
Today is the day for one of our genre’s biggest events—The JAFF Bonanza.
On July 1, over forty of your favorite Austenesque authors will offer one e-book—available on Amazon storefronts—at absolutely no charge to you. You’ll be able to enjoy everything from novelettes to novellas and novels! Fill your Kindle to the brim!
Now’s the time for me to tell you which book I’ll give you for FREE!
It’s my 2023 CIBA Semi-finalist (Goethe Award) Pride and Prejudice/Persuasion crossover, The Sailor’s Rest.
This is the audiobook cover.
Readers have enjoyed the friendship between Anne and Elizabeth as well as between Wentworth and Darcy.
Here is a quick peek inside the tale.
Two grooms missing at the altar. Darcy & Wentworth kidnapped. Two great loves tried by separation, battle, and deception.
Set on the stage of Napoleon’s 100 Days, relish the mystery, sea chase, and, finally, the satisfying finish as four yearning hearts--desperate to be reunited-- draw closer together. Join the heart-stopping chase with Anne Elliot & Elizabeth Bennet as they search the tattered rooms of a waterfront inn, suffer on board a frigate engaged in a deadly game of naval chess, and then enter the gilded confines of London’s preeminent card room where revenge is riding on one final hand.
Can true love be lost at sea?
The Sailor’s Rest is set in the Persuasion timeline of 1815 but leaves in place the age and plot constructs established by Austen in Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen’s greatest lovers come together to be tested in the crucible of war on the Mediterranean’s blue waters and in the smoky confines of a prestigious London gambling den.
July 1, 2026 is the day for the JAFF Bonanza. Visit the website—jaffbonanza.com—on that day only to take advantage of the free books waiting for you.
LINK TO BONANZA SITE:
And, dear friends, new subscribers to Austenesque Thoughts (it’s always no charge) can receive a free Audible Code (US or UK stores only). So you can enjoy listening to Benjamin Fife perform while you read or do whatever. I will get your email when I am notified of your subscription. I will then send you a note asking which store you use.
Until then, please enjoy this excerpt from The Sailor’s Rest.
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This excerpt is ©2023 by Donald P. Jacobson. All rights reserved. Reproduction is prohibited. Published in the United States of America.
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Anne Elliot and Elizabeth Bennet are aboard the frigate HMS Naiad in pursuit of their bethrotheds, Darcy and Wentworth, kidnapped into the ship’s company of the frigate HMS Persephone. They are searching for the other ship in the Western Mediterranean
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Chapter 18
Naiad, NW of Port Mahon, April 9, 1815
The evening beneath the snowy canvas sky was magical. Inky channels rippled between creamy billows, recalling the Abbey, albeit made from air, thread, and imagination. The restless tacking as the ship worked its way north through the Balearic Sea toward Toulon pushed the Milky Way’s starry belt one side and then the other of the bowsprit’s black finger scribing the moonless sky. The sirocco had diminished, although the wind blew warm and humid from the southwest. Clouds rose above the waters but fled before the ship, making Naiad’s passage smoother.
Anne and Elizabeth stepped past the marine guarding the great cabin and made their way forward. A shadow whisper walked behind them, never coming too close to violate their privacy but never too distant to be unable to rescue them.
The women strolled arm-in-arm along a deck slightly heeled over in concert with the starboard tack. The crew that kept Naiad working toward their goal was invisible in the night’s gloom. Seen from above, the ladies floated, their light gowns blending seamlessly with the deck boards. They appeared like bergs calved from the canvas peaks above and drifting along the moon-darkened surface. This image was only a figment for the waters through which Naiad drove had never seen ice in this age.
The two misses were not unseen, just unremarked upon, by the silent watchers.
Passengers they may have been, that was true: what would have been equally valid was that the Naiad’s crew owned as if theirs the search, such was the nobility of the mission. Through dim nights on the gundeck, before they crawled into the hammocks, they had heard stories told by those who had their letters of Camelot’s knights. In those tales, though, the damsels in distress were held in dark castles or deep caves and guarded by fell beasts and witches’ spells.
Their quarry fled before them, trailing its coat upon the restless sea. ’Twas manned by those unknown. That unfamiliarity allowed the attribution of malicious traits bordering on the ancient images of men who kicked the law aside and raised piracy’s black banner. None were good; all were evil and examples of what men can become if not ruled by the Articles of War. They were a scourge, a cancer in civilization’s innards.
In such thoughts lay the courage sailors need when facing waterborne war. Boarding parties would crouch below railings, waiting for the order to leap onto the opposing ship. Contrary to instinct, they would clamber over the boarding nets, running toward, not away, from mayhem. Mates fighting alongside on all compass points gave surcease. Officers would make for the quarter deck and the flag. Cutlass-bearing, mallet-wielding sailors—peasants they were not, instead standing on the field like King Harry’s men-at-arms—would clear the forecastle and venture into the bowels below decks.
They doubted that the men of their target—even though British sailors—would fight with the same ardor as they. After all, was there a better fighting vessel than the Nimble Nymph: her figurehead soaring above the waves clad in gilt and calcedony? Perhaps they were deluded, but if it was fantasy, then it was one familiar the world over and held tightly by frightened men throughout history. Otherwise, they would quail at the thought of intentionally wading into a clutch of desperate sailors fighting for their lives.
There was one complication and not a minor one. While Naiad had bypassed Gibraltar, a messenger boat had raced from the harbor bearing the news that Napoleon had fled his gilded cage on Elba and was marching toward Paris. With the Emperor on the loose, the reconstituted French Royal Navy had raised the Tricoleur. Although the British had reduced that service across twenty-plus years, it could still float many a frigate to harry unsuspecting commerce and bring death and destruction to British warships doing their duty. That added an element of uncertainty to their pursuit of Persephone.
Somewhere beyond the edge of sight, their prey waited. Whether Naiad would be the hunter or the hunted was a story yet to be written. The coming confrontation would neither be civilized nor simple.
However, at this moment, suspended between darkling waters and the brilliant sphere punctured by crystalline points, contemplative peace was known by those who strolled on the deck.
***
Retained heat radiated through her canvas slippers. The night air, its African shimmer cooled by the sea flowing alongside, demanded a shawl about Anne’s shoulders. Elizabeth, too, offered healing warmth to a bruised heart. Instead of the pit left by Frederick’s taking—one that could be healed only by his recovery—Miss Bennet poured balm on the wound opened by the loneliness of more than ten years without a mother’s warm hug or sisterly amity beneath bedtime quilts. The two ladies had uncovered new depths of companionship by sharing secrets and worries that neither could confide to Sophie, Annie, or Sarah.
Mrs. Admiral and Mrs. Sergeant both had their men to share their cots. They could nestle in the comfort of their husbands’ arms. Adolescent Sarah was far too young to have experienced the fullness of a man’s love: at least, Anne prayed that to be the case. Miss Small had become like a younger sister. However, even Sarah’s situation looked to change with Cox’n Tomkins, a grizzled veteran, hovering above the maid, waiting for her to become old enough for him to declare himself.
Her arm looped through Lizzy’s, Anne held her breath as they gingerly stepped past the starboard heads and into the forecastle. The ship’s pace through the waves created a rejuvenating breeze that swept away the stink. The hiss of the sea and the white mustaches curling away from Naiad’s bows left Anne feeling an otherworldly calm.
She called me ‘Janelike.’ Knowing the reverence with which Lizzy holds Jane Bennet, that is the highest possible praise. Would that I could be as close to Lizzy Bennet as she is to her elder sister! There has been nothing in my life like the comradeship Lizzy tells me she has with Jane.
How well I imagine the disdain of my sisters—colored by Elizabeth’s condemnation and Mary’s selfishness—if I filled their ears with my deepest thoughts.
The past month has shown me how much better a caring—loving—friend is than living unnoticed by those who should be your confidantes. We complement each other—Lizzy, the Impetuous, and Anne, the Thoughtful.
“In my old life, such closeness was impossible to imagine. Now that I know its beauty, I cannot envisage the void if Elizabeth vanished from my life. My grief would demand at least a year’s wearing of weeds.
“Anne? Hello, Miss Elliot. Are you there?”
“Hmmm?”
“’Tis far too dark to see your face, so I cannot look into your eyes nor determine if you are smiling or frowning. The sigh I heard a moment ago tells me you are in a deep study.”
Anne sighed again. “Lizzy, I miss him so much. The poets speak of being heartsick, and I am. I ache everywhere, but right here,” she laid her hand on her chest, “is the worst.”
Elizabeth matched her earlier sigh and pulled Anne closer. “Dearest, I know the pain. Only when I first awaken, in those few moments between dark and light, do I forget that he is not here. Then daylight blows away those waking dreams, and the cold bare metal of the situation spreads itself before me.
“Tell me about your Frederick. Tell me something special, something only you would know. If you are anything like me, you will use one of Mr. Hooke’s microscopes to examine the man minutely, so greedy you are to discern his innermost workings.”
She whispered into Anne’s ear. “I know, for I have often desired to make off with one of my Papa’s magnifying glasses. Then I could subject William to an inspection that would put the Gulliver’s trials in Lilliput to shame.”
Anne closed her eyes and cataloged her man. “He is a fidget, which is contrary to how people see a frigate captain. Of course, he is not so obvious as to begin tapping his foot or bouncing his leg. Instead, Frederick spins his Laconia signet ring about his finger.
“To most, he is the picture of absolute calm, as if North Sea ice fills his veins. They assume he must be nearly emotionless, given that he is measured every time he brings the ship to within pistol shot of the enemy.
“Others imagine how they would feel if they stared into a fifteen-gun broadside from half a cable away. Because they would run and hide when he stands tall by the binnacle, they believe he must be without the fright factor that keeps the rest of humanity from placing their hand above an open flame.
“I know better. Frederick feels fear like any man but channels that inclination into action when fear paralyzes others.
“However, the fidgeting comes to the fore when he is away from his ship. I see he is a caged lion in a drawing room, but he is too gracious to pace about on the lookout for a tasty morsel. Thus, the longer he sits in polite company, the faster the ring is spun.”
Elizabeth’s giggle brought a smile to Anne’s face and a flood of warmth throughout her body. “Oh my, just as you and I are different, the men we love are likewise night and day, but, then again, so similar.”
Elizabeth’s outburst warmed Anne’s heart. Then she remembered happy scenes, recent ones, of Wentworth surrounded by Bath’s resident tabbies rather than frog corvettes, and a wave of despair swept over her. Here, in a spring night’s darkness, Anne broke down.
***
A sniffle dragged Elizabeth away from memories of a broad-shouldered giant atop windswept Oakham Mount.
She dug into a pocket and pressed a handkerchief into Anne’s hand. “Anne, Anne: I know that remembering him hurts dreadfully. Reminiscences of the past that bring pleasure may also bring tristesse. That fact took me a great while to learn.
“Pleasure and pain are equal parts of life. We cannot appreciate happiness without sadness nor understand dark times without knowing bright ones.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes and embraced her beloved’s image framed in brightness playing on the plane behind her lids. Her eyes flashed open to drink in the rolling terrain, starlight reflecting off the wave crests. “At the risk of sounding like the admiral, so fond he is of all things nautical, Darcy is an example of still waters running deep.
“He, like your Frederick, fidgets. He, too, plays with his signet. However, Darcy’s actions come not from a surfeit of energy but from profound uneasiness. I learned this once I set aside my dislike of the superficial man and allowed him to show me the authentic Darcy underneath.
“My William is a man of few words. No, that is incorrect. He regulates his emotions beyond what is needed to protect himself. Darcy is uncomfortable when in unfamiliar company. The less he is acquainted with those in the room, the more taciturn and, some might say, unsociable he becomes.”
Anne stirred beside her. “Not your Mr. Darcy! I have heard you do nothing but sing his praises this past month.”
Elizabeth chuckled. “He is the best of men—now. I have known two Fitzwilliam Darcys. There is the Darcy of the past half year and the one from before. I pray that you will meet the most recent version, but I have no way of knowing how his time aboard that ship has shaped him.
“The earlier man had more than a few rough edges. In the situation I just described, he would stalk the chamber’s perimeter. His impenetrable mask appeared full of disdain and hauteur, and his eyes seemed determined to find fault wherever he looked. That was the man I first came to know, and he was intolerable!
“Once William had set a room against him—although of that sublime condition he was invariably and infuriatingly unaware—the Master of Pemberley would halt before a window and stare through it, back to the room, for the balance of the visit. He would stand with one hand clenched behind his back, the thumb polishing the forefinger. The greater his disquiet, the more furious the rubbing, and, I think, the greater the calming.
“’Tis challenging to imagine the master of a great estate becoming overwhelmed by strangers. I think it takes him longer than most to understand people. Once he does, he relaxes.
“Just as your captain feels fear but does not show it, so, too, does Fitzwilliam, but the way he hides it is…unfortunate.”
Anne’s soft reply was almost lost in the rush of noise as the ship’s bows dug deeply into a swell. “Frederick bears up so well under adversity. Me?” she continued after a sigh, “I grow morose and make miserable everyone around me.”
Turning toward Anne, Elizabeth gently gripped her shoulder. “You must be brave and patient. Captain Rochet says that if Persephone followed orders, she would have been up north against the Savoyard coast. With the Beast’s flight from Elba, so did her reason to be there. All we can hope is that she still is between us and France.
“We are closing in on both of them. I know that William lives. I would be aware if it were otherwise. We are tied by an invisible umbilical—heart to heart—that…”
“You feel it, too?” Anne asked. “I know that Frederick is alive in the same manner. I would feel his loss.”
“And here I have been missing Jane. She said the same about her tie to Bingley. I can see that you will have to become acquainted with my older, much more beautiful sister.
“It must be a condition common to those deeply and truly in love.” Elizabeth slid her hand into Anne’s. No further conversation passed between them. Both ladies lost themselves in appreciating the endless waves vanishing in the distance.
Sophie’s voice interrupted their musing. “I realize you have nothing better to do than share lovelorn reminiscences, but Sergeant Wilson has a wife. Mrs. Wilson has grown impatient waiting for him in their cabin. The admiral prevailed upon me to leave our shared warmth and hurry you two back below so he could snuff the wick.”
Embarrassed chuckles at the modest vulgarity presaged the pair turning away from where they imagined Persephone lurking beneath the horizon. They lapsed into companionable silence: two ladies wrapped in and warmed by thoughts of their loves.