The Winter Of Our Discontent

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I signed my maiden name first before memorialising my new name. Elizabeth Madeline Darcy. Elizabeth Bennet lay dead on the altar of matrimony.

Having signed the register as Elizabeth Darcy, the former Miss Elizabeth Bennet must somehow survive a crushing scandal as a stranger to herself. Her unwilling husband is so outraged to find himself tied to a person he thinks no better than a fortune hunter that she is forbidden to speak of the circumstances behind their union. Indeed, Mr Darcy seems to loathe even the sound of her voice, and often Elizabeth's only recourse is to be silent.

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When the couple arrive at Pemberley, Elizabeth—Mrs Darcy—is forced to draw upon stores of courage and resourcefulness she did not know she possessed in order to build, if not a happy life, a purposeful one. Facing obstacles and detractors, she carefully cultivates a friendship with Georgiana Darcy.

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Trapped in an unwanted marriage, Darcy must walk the long road of bitter resentment which forces him into increasing isolation during a very long winter. Increasingly confused by his new wife’s poise and determination to be useful, Darcy’s struggles multiply until a moment of reckoning shocks him out of his rage and into the strong light of truth: that even in the harshest of winters, the roots of tender feelings can quietly grow deep.

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