More Truly The Gentleman

​​​

When Colonel Fitzwilliam quits the Continent on crutches and accompanies his cousin to Hertfordshire, he arrives determined to enjoy himself—and quite incapable of allowing Fitzwilliam Darcy to brood in a corner while a roomful of charming strangers goes unmet.

​

The colonel cannot dance. What he can do is talk, and his easy warmth soon draws the truth from the proud master of Pemberley: it is not contempt that fixes Darcy silent in a crowded assembly, but an affliction of the nerves that Elizabeth Bennet recognises at once, for her own father suffers the same. A single honest conversation undoes the insult that ought to have divided them—and that is only the beginning of what the colonel sets right.

​

With Fitzwilliam at his elbow, Wickham's lies collapse before they can take root, an officious clergyman is gently steered toward a wife who actually wants him, and a scheming sister's poison-pen letter is exposed before it can part Jane from her Bingley. Yet for all the colonel manages, one thing he cannot do for his cousin: win the lady himself.

​

That Darcy must learn to do alone. And a man accustomed to commanding a room by his silence must discover whether he can earn a heart by his conduct.