In July 1812, Elizabeth Bennet is seized in Hertfordshire, and her captors demand ￡10,000 within three days—two of which have already slipped away.
Mr Bennet has neither the fortune nor the influence to bring her home, and his only remaining hope is a letter written thirty years earlier, together with the nephew of the man who wrote it.
Fitzwilliam Darcy arrives at Longbourn expecting to settle an old obligation of honour, only to be pulled into a bargain with George Wickham and a second man whose grievance reaches far beyond money.
To free a young woman he has never met, Darcy must put himself in the power of men who have every reason to despise him, while Elizabeth, imprisoned and unable to see the stranger negotiating for her life, must decide whether his promises can be trusted.
A buried scandal now binds the Bennets, Darcys, and Fitzwilliams, and the ransom becomes a danger no payment of gold can safely end.
