Stealing Mr. Collins

A Pride and Prejudice Possibility

By: Carrie Mollenkopf

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Before the Reverend Mr. Collins can take up his living under the patronage of Lady Catherine de Bourgh at Hunsford, he is beset by an old enemy who not only sells the good reverend into servitude, but takes his place as vicar. Unbeknownst to all, the imposter will seek a wife to secure his new status while the real Mr. Collins suffers aboard a ship bound for China. Through turmoil and misery, Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet will discover the ruse and attempt to set it to rights.
Read an excerpt below from Stealing Mr. Collins:

William Collins groaned as he tried in vain to open his eyes. Of the left, it peered out through a mere slit, meeting utter darkness, while the right, stubbornly refused. In an attempt to discern the problem, he discovered his hands were tightly bound, as were his bare feet. As to how he had arrived in this state, the memory was hazy as his last coherent thought was the road from St. Michael’s to the Cambridge station. Straining to remember was painful, for the pounding in his head drummed a cadence that matched an equally strange swaying feeling that threatened his already unsettled stomach. Where was he? Inching along the floor of his dark prison, the wooden boards were slick with some sort of slime that smelled of salt, fish and the unmistakable stench of human waste. Was it his own? He had no idea, but eventually, his hands met the still form of a companion. Was he interred with a corpse? The possibility nearly made him retch, but as a man who spent years in the practice of denial and self-control, he resisted, for it would only make the already fetid air all the worse. Gently nudging the body, Collins desperately prayed that the man was alive, and received a rough kick in reply.
“Leave off! Can a man not get some sleep?”
With his good eye now accustomed to the gloom, Collins could barely make out a bundle of rags as it inched away, feebly lashing out with its own bound limbs.
“I won’t harm you. My name is Collins…Reverend William Collins, from St. Michael’s, in Cambridge. Do you know where we are?”
His inquiry, uttered in the polite tones of his vocation, was met with a dry laugh of contempt.
“Cambridge, eh? Who does a priest cross to end up here? Take someone’s woman? Or did you lose a wager?”
“I beg your pardon, I only meant to inquire as to our situation. And I assure you, there has been no crime of which I am guilty.”
“That is what they all say. Ned Perkins’ the name and I am definitely a guilty man, but this is far better than Newgate or the rope. We are aboard the HMS Calliope, bound for the South China Sea.”
Collins swallowed heavily as the severity of this knowledge sank in. He was a vicar, not a sailor! He did not inquire as to the details of his new acquaintance’s guilt, but knew he had done nothing to justify being taken against his will.
“S…South China? As in halfway around the world? There has to be some mistake…I am expected in Kent, to take up the living at Hunsford. I cannot go to…to China! There must be some mistake. I must speak to the person in charge immediately! Where is the captain? I demand an audience with the captain!”
To this, Ned Perkins laughed outright, but inwardly cursed his luck. This was not his first time serving as an indenture, for he had a fondness for the card tables as well as the ladies. However, life aboard ship could be tolerable, even aimable, if one did what they were told and avoided trouble. But Mr. William Collins from Cambridge, bespoke trouble in spades and he would have no part in that undertaking. No sir, that sort of person would meet the sharp steel points of the bo’sun’s whip, or worse…