Read At Home with Mr Darcy for Free Online Page B

her life in preparation for this job.’
    Warwick’s left hand clenched into an angry fist under the table. A bit of that Pride and Prejudice one . She was a hopeless case, wasn’t she?
    ‘There’s something I want you to hear,’ he said, carrying on regardless as he took a paperback copy of Northanger Abbey out of his pocket.
    ‘You carry that around with you all the time?’ Melissa asked, an eyebrow raised in disbelief.
    ‘I like to have something decent to read on me at all times,’ he said. Well, he wasn’t going to confess to having popped it in his pocket that very morning with the express purpose of reading her an extract, was he?
    ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘What are you going to read me?’
    ‘It’s a passage I’ve always appreciated as a writer and I thought you might like it too,’ he said. ‘It’s the perfect response to anybody who belittles the work of a novelist.’
    ‘And you’ve had your work belittled?’ Melissa asked, leaning forward slightly.
    ‘Of course,’ Warwick said. ‘When you write books for as many years as I have, you have to take the bad reviews along with the good. But you’ll know that as a journalist, won’t you? I mean, you’ll have had to have reported something – told a story – that upset somebody.’
    ‘Absolutely,’ she said matter-of-factly.
    ‘Then I think you’ll appreciate this,’ he said, opening the book at the relevant page which he’d dog-eared. A habit which drove Katherine nuts.
    ‘So this is what somebody says when they’re explaining that they’re reading a novel and they know that they’re going to be judged harshly for it.’ Clearing his throat, he read.
    ‘“It is only a novel… or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”‘ He looked up from the page and caught her eye.
    ‘Jane Austen wrote that?’ Melissa said.
    ‘She did indeed. In Northanger Abbey .’ He showed her the cover. ‘It’s good, isn’t it?’
    ‘Hmmmm,’ Melissa said, ‘quite good, I suppose.’
    Warwick stroked the open page. ‘I love how defensive she is about the novel. How she knows the skill and perception involved in writing a story because that’s often overlooked by readers, isn’t it? I mean, I get that all the time. My books are easy to read and therefore people think they’re easy to write.’
    ‘Aren’t they?’
    ‘They’re fun to write,’ he said, ‘but it’s still hard work putting one hundred thousand words in the right order and I love how Jane Austen knew that too. Just think how much harder it was for her too with paper and pen. But what I also love about Jane Austen was that she wasn’t just writing about the fluff of life.’
    ‘The fluff of life?’ Melissa said, an eyebrow raising imperiously again.
    Warwick nodded. ‘Some people think she was just writing love stories and there’s nothing wrong with that, let me tell you, but Austen did more than that. She truly knew her way not only around the human heart but the human mind too.’
    ‘Right,’ Melissa said.
    ‘You don’t look convinced,’ he said.
    ‘You’re trying to convince me?’ she said. ‘Is that what all this is about with the quotation on tap and the pep talk?’
    Warwick hoped to goodness that he wasn’t blushing. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘I just thought you’d appreciate that passage. As a fellow writer.’
    Melissa nodded slowly, eyeing him warily before finishing her coffee. It was then that her phone beeped. She looked down at the screen.
    ‘Dame Pamela wants to meet me and I believe she doesn’t like to be kept waiting,’ she said, standing up.
    ‘Where are you meeting her?’ Warwick asked.
    ‘Outside the Orangery shop,’ Melissa said, checking her watch with a grimace. ‘I feel like I’ve been