CLOSED Excerpt & Giveaway: Darcy's Decision by Maria Grace

  ~ from Darcy's Decision by Maria Grace...

Early spring, 1812

They are gone …
The first fiery rays of daybreak blazed behind the marble cherubim guarding the graves. Despair contorted Fitzwilliam Darcy’s face, threatening to defeat his last fragile threads of control. He gulped in the morning mist, fists balled, arms shaking. Ragged gasps tore from his chest; he opened his eyes and blinked the burning moisture away.
Backlit against the dawn, two headstones filled his view. The one on the right listed slightly, its inscriptions half-covered by a creeping vine that, come summer, would erupt in delicate white flowers. The other gravestone still stood solidly upright. The neat soil mounding before it bore no new growth though, if one looked closely, the barest signs of green were just becoming visible.
From a window of the nearby stone church, John Bradley contemplated the familiar vigil. He shrugged on his coat, fingers pausing over the threadbare patch at the elbow, and reached for his wide-brimmed hat. Cane in hand, he shuffled toward the heavy door. The chill wind buffeted him as he stepped into the morning.
They stood together silently, taking in the sunrise.
“Someday I must take my place here beside them.” Shadows masked the inscriptions: George Darcy … departed this life anno domini 1811 … Lady Anne Da— vines obscured the rest.
“I would prefer a situation in the shade. Over there, I think.” Bradley pointed to a grassy spot near the church wall. “You cannot rid yourself of me, you know. I held you in my arms to baptize you into the church, and I will keep watch over you even from there.”
Darcy chuckled, but his shoulders slumped, and he stared into his empty palms. “I miss him, Mr. Bradley. Father always knew what to do. Everyone trusted him.” He rubbed the back of his neck, sighing out the emptiness that churned within. “I trusted him.”
A cold gust blew through the graveyard. The iron gate clanged, the sound echoing against the stones.
“How can I take his place as master?” His guts twisted, the words burning his throat.
“Your father doubted himself, too.”
“He did?”
“Many evenings, over tea, we talked of his misgivings.” The corners of Bradley’s mouth lifted and his eyes twinkled. “He had an excessive fondness for my cook’s shortbread.”
“He went to you to find wisdom. Father valued your advice and insight above all others.”
Bradley dipped his head, blinking.
“I am not like him.” Darcy grimaced and swallowed hard against the rising bile. “I lack his wisdom, his discernment.”
“But you were given good principles, the ones your father stood on.”
The wind whipped his coattails and scoured his face. “Are they enough?”
“He found them so.” Bradley clapped his shoulder.
They locked in a penetrating gaze. Finally, Darcy released a deep breath. A slow smile spread but did not quite reach his eyes. “Join me for breakfast this morning? I must mediate a tenant quarrel today and need my father's wisdom.”
“I would be honored.”
They strolled to the manor, the gate jangling behind them.

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ABOUT THE BOOK:

Darcy's Decision (Given Good Principles #1) by Maria Grace
Amazon | Goodreads
154 pages

Six months after his father's passing, Fitzwilliam Darcy still finds solace in his morning reflections at his parents' graves. Only in the quiet solitude of the churchyard does he indulge his grief. None but his unlikely mentor recognize the heartache and insecurity plaguing him as he shoulders the enormous burden of being Master of Pemberley.
Not all are pleased with his choice of adviser. Lady Catherine complains Darcy allows him too much influence. Lord Matlock argues, "Who is he to question the God-appointed social order?" But the compassionate wisdom Darcy finds in his counselor keeps him returning for guidance even though it causes him to doubt everything he has been taught.
In the midst of his struggles to reinvent himself, his school chum, Charles Bingley, arrives. Darcy hopes the visit will offer some respite from the uproar in his life. Instead of relief, Darcy discovers his father's darkest secret staring him in the face. Pushed to his limits, Darcy must overcome the issues that ruined his father and, with his friends and mentor at his side, restore his tarnished birthright.

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