Mr. Darcy needs a wife, and Elizabeth Bennet is the only woman desperate enough to say yes.
When Lady Amelia Apethorpe, avowed spinster and notorious novelist, dies in a carriage accident, she leaves her two-year-old son and her scandalous manuscripts to her good friend, Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Elizabeth’s father is dying, the entail looms, and Longbourn’s roof leaks waterfalls. She marries Darcy to save her family, expecting duty and no devotion.
Instead, she loses her heart to a solemn little boy who calls her “Lizba,” builds walls instead of towers, and befriends snails. Worse still, she falls in love with the man who bought her.
Darcy is nothing like the proud gentleman she once judged. He reads poetry by firelight, remembers her favorite dessert, and looks at her as though she can never belong to him.
One night, he confesses, his voice breaking. “Whatever else—I love you.”
And then he does not come to her bed.
But Elizabeth has secrets, too. A courtship in Cheapside she has never confessed. A stolen kiss. And a signet ring she keeps hidden, initialed with the letters, G.W.
The truth is coming—in the form of Lady Amelia’s brother, a curious rector’s daughter, Georgiana’s correspondence with Wickham, and Elizabeth’s own investigations.
And when it arrives, the marriage that was supposed to be convenient becomes anything but.
