By the time little Jane was a year old, Thomas Bennet was utterly disappointed.
Where he had thought to find a curious mind, he was met with vacuous disinterest.Where he had needed a helpmeet, he got little more than a girl in a woman’s body.And perhaps most disappointing of all was that her vivacity had not translated to the intimate side of their marriage.Their shared bed was the one place in their home where Francis was utterly silent and motionless, and the one place he desperately wished for the opposite.
What Thomas Bennet had not known, and what he would not find out for many years to come, was that Francis was more than a little avaricious, and always had been.She was as romantic as the next girl, but stronger than her desire for love was her desire for fine gowns and a carriage of her own.
Her sister had begun sporting a mark at the age of eight, and when she was sixteen, Priscilla Gardiner had met Mr.Phillips, a young clerk with a matching mark.His prospects were decent but not yet realized, and their engagement lasted the better part of two years.Even after several years of success, he would never be a wealthy man.Priscilla may be happy with her partner in life, but Francis wanted more.
When she stood at the altar on her thirteenth birthday, being blessed by the vicar, she surprised everyone by calmly declining the offer of a mark.The vicar had already begun speaking the fateful words and stopped mid-sentence, his mouth hanging open.Her mother gasped audibly, and her father rushed to the altar, thinking she had misunderstood the question.Francis had looked her father in the eye and told him that it was no mistake; she did not wish for a mark.Seeing the stubborn look in her eyes, no one had pressed the issue.
Had her mother known what was truly going on in Francis’s mind, she would have stopped her daughter from making such a momentous mistake.Alas, Mrs.Gardiner had no idea, and a new destiny was set in motion by Fate, who was none too pleased to have to rewrite all of her plans.
Francis was uncommonly pretty.She had been thus since she was a tiny girl.She had been the object of attention from children and adults alike for years.Lately, she had seen the way the men had begun to look at her.Her young mind decided her face was her ticket to the life she craved—the gowns, the parties, the jewels.She would rise above her station and not be held back by any mark.She would be the author of her own destiny.
Little did young Francis know that Fate was never wrong, and manipulating destiny seldom worked in favor of the manipulators.
When Thomas Bennet began to pay her attention, Francis sprang at the opportunity.He was dull and bookish, but not unpleasant to look at, and most importantly, he came with Longbourn, the largest estate in the area next to Netherfield.He would make a fine husband and she would make a fine wife, she was sure of it.
When she fell with child so quickly after her wedding, she thought it was Fate smiling on her for making such a good choice.She would have a son, tall and strong, and he would take care of her into her old age.When the babe was a girl, she knew a moment of concern, but soon talked herself out of it.It was her first babe, and she was young.Only nineteen!There was time to bear a son.
The second child was another girl, though she was nothing like little Jane.Elizabeth was loud and energetic and playful—and utterly exhausting.For some reason, Thomas took a particular interest in this child, though Francis could not understand why.He did not do the same with their third, another girl, or their fourth, yet another daughter.
When Fanny was pregnant with her fifth child in seven years—her husband had stopped calling her Francis nearly five years ago—she took a fall on the stairs.She was great with child and likely would have been delivered in a few weeks if not days, but the fall caused her waters to break and her wrist to twist and swell painfully.
Thomas rushed out of his bookroom when he heard the commotion, sweeping Fanny up in his arms and rushing her to their chamber.He sat beside his wife as they awaited the midwife, holding her uninjured hand and speaking soothing words.Calmed by his presence and pleased with his attention, Fanny did not wish for him to leave.When the midwife arrived, Thomas leaned over and kissed her forehead and Fanny’s hand fell to his shirt where it gaped open at his neck.She had meant to grab the collar, but her hand slid inside the opening.He had not buttoned his waistcoat or put on a jacket in all the commotion, and when she moved to pull her hand free, the loose collar opened further to the side.Fanny froze, staring at a tiny glint of red beneath the dark hair.She quickly forced the shirt open further, ignoring the pain in her wrist as she raised it to hold open the fabric.
There, on her husband’s chest, just over his heart, was a soul mark.A soul mark that had not been present on her wedding night, nor the last time she had seen him without his shirt on in broad daylight.
To her chagrin and dawning horror, she could not remember when the last time she had seen him thusly was.She jerked her attention to his face and was met with his ashen expression.
“Thomas,” she whispered.
He gave her a look of resigned guilt, his lips falling down at the corners.
“When?”she asked.
“Just after Elizabeth was born.”
Her eyes widened.“She is nearly five years old!”
He winced at her words.
“How could you not tell me?”Her expression was filled with shock and confusion, and beneath those emotions, betrayal.
“What good would it have done, Fanny?There is nothing to be done about it.I am married to you!”
He had meant to say that he would not leave her and his decision had been made many years ago, but she took him to mean he was trapped with her when he would rather be with someone else.
Her body took that opportunity to remind her that she would soon be having a babe, and Thomas was whisked out of the room by the midwife.
Throughout her labor and pains, and after the babe was born and latched to her breast, Fanny’s mind continued to focus on one thing: her husband’s soul mark.
Somewhere out there, an eighteen-year-old girl was looking for her future husband, her soulmate.And she would never find him, because he was here, with her.She did not know how she felt about that.When she was younger, she would not have worried at all.But now that she had five daughters of her own, daughters who might have marks, she could not help but feel a stab of pain for that unknown girl.
This was quickly followed by worry.What if Thomas met her eventually, as soulmates inevitably met?What would he do?Would he set her up in a cottage somewhere, right beneath Fanny’s nose?Would he sneak away to meet her at odd hours?Take her to the seaside?Go carousing in Town with this unknown woman?
Is that why he had grown so close to Elizabeth?In the wake of a mark appearing, had he clung to whatever was sweet and simple in his life to avoid his confusion?Or was she simply the last child he had desired with his wife?
Now that Fanny thought about it, the appearance of his mark coincided with a cooling of his ardor.It was well known that marked men were not interested in women who were not their soulmates.They did not even look at other women.They saw only her.They lived for her.Breathed for her.Desired only her.
