Free Attempting Elizabeth by Jessica Grey Page B

no other explanation. I was living some sort of freakish Austenesque redux of Groundhog Day . I was Bill Murray. But like a chick, Regency era version of Bill Murray. I couldn’t remember for the life of me the name of his character in that movie...Phil something or other I think...just the fact that he had the hots for Andie McDowell, was stuck reliving the same day over and over, and that each morning was heralded by the musical stylings of Sonny and Cher singing I’ve Got You Babe on the radio. Well, I didn’t have a radio, or any electricity at all, nor was I even allowed to “wake up” in the traditional sense, so I’d been spared Sonny and Cher . I suppose I should be thankful for small favors.
    My strongest memories of Groundhog Day were all of the attempts of Bill Murray’s character to kill himself as he relived the day over and over. I distinctly remembered him throwing a toaster in the bath (again, no electricity) and stepping in front of a truck (not gonna happen in 1810, but perhaps I could throw myself in front of a carriage or something). Killing himself hadn’t worked for Phil Whatever-His-Name-Was, and there was no reason to assume it would work for me either. I mean, what if by killing off Georgiana I did somehow rend the fragile fabric between novel and reality and permanently alter Pride and Prejudice . I couldn’t live with myself if I screwed up my favorite book! Or maybe I wouldn’t have to live with myself, maybe if I killed myself here I’d be dead in real life too.
    It could be that even now I was still lying asleep or comatose or something on the couch in my apartment. And if I walked down the street and drowned myself in the ocean, or climbed up to the roof and threw myself down to the cobblestones below, I’d die here and there. Tori would find my cold, lifeless body on the couch. Oh god, I was wearing my rattiest sweats when I fell asleep. How humiliating would it be to die in those? I didn’t want the coroner or the crime scene people (I mean, they’d call out CSI right, a perfectly healthy twenty-three year old dying randomly on her couch seemed suspicious, didn’t it?) to see me in those sweats. Pathetic.
    I didn’t realize I was clutching the sampler in a death grip until the needle poked my thumb viciously. I cursed and dropped the offending fabric, sticking my thumb into my mouth even though I knew that it was a stupid thing to do. Good, maybe Georgiana had some sort of horrific bacteria in her mouth and I’d get gangrene and die.
    But I’d still be in those damn sweats. Why couldn’t I have fallen asleep in a really flattering outfit? Even the jeans I’d had on earlier would have been preferable.
    Stupid, stupid, stupid Kelsey.
    Okay, I needed to get a grip. A serious grip. I wasn’t sure that this same day was going to replay over and over à la Groundhog Day . All I knew for sure was that I’d gone to sleep twice now, once in the real world, and once in Georgiana’s bed, and awakened in the sitting room at 1:30 p.m.
    There was nothing that said I had to sit around and wait for tomorrow to come anyway. Killing myself was out, but why jump to that extreme? I hadn’t killed myself to get into the book. I wouldn’t have to kill myself to get out.
    I hadn’t, until just the moment, realized that my brain had fully embraced the concept that I was, in fact, inside the pages of Pride and Prejudice . That I’d let go of the hallucination explanation (I fully admit the odds of me being certifiable were still good, but the odds of this just being a hallucination were seeming slimmer and slimmer with every moment that passed).
    I’d fallen asleep...and then here I was. What if all I needed to do was fall back asleep to get out. But I’d fallen asleep last night...just in Georgiana’s bed. At home I’d fallen asleep on the couch. Perhaps I needed to do that here.
    I stretched out, sprawling in a very unladylike manner, across the settee, propping my dress-clad legs up on