Meg Osborne

“He might, at last, be allowed to speak to Mary unguarded and learn a little more about her. He did not know why she had lodged herself so firmly in his mind but that she was so unlike the young ladies he usually met. So unlike her sisters! This was perhaps a part of it. He had sensed something in Mary that he knew all too well in himself: the pain of being overlooked by one’s immediate family. It was plain that Mary’s father preferred clever, outgoing Elizabeth and Kitty was her mother’s favourite. Mary was...Mary.
She is an enigma, Richard thought, letting the noise of his cousins’ conversation drop to a low lull at the back of his mind. And I am intrigued by her.”
― Meg Osborne, Christmas in Kent: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

“I oughtn’t to have eaten so much,” Richard groaned, laying a hand on his slim midsection. “Not when I am not marching to burn it off.” “You might march, if you wish,” Darcy remarked, from his seat in the corner. “Rise with the rooster and plot a route around the grounds. I shall give Georgiana leave to heckle you, if you are missing regimental life so sorely.” Richard grinned. “Thank you, no. I have been on the receiving end of Georgiana’s heckling before and she is a crueller drill-sergeant than any who wears colours. No, I shall embark on some easier exercise, I think. Perhaps a ride.”
― Meg Osborne, Mr Darcy's Summer Surprise