Friendship and Forgiveness

When Elizabeth’s best friend told her that she was in love, Elizabeth decided to do everything she could to forward the match between Caroline and Charlie’s friend Mr. Darcy. After all, Elizabeth and Caroline Bingley had always been the dearest of friends since they were tiny children, and whenever they were apart they wrote reams and reams of paper in correspondence.

Fitzwilliam Darcy hoped that spending a month or two at his friend Bingley’s newly leased Hertfordshire estate would lighten his spirits, and distract him from the troubles with Wickham and Georgiana that had plagued his summer. Of course he would need to carefully avoid giving Miss Bingley any impression that her evident hopes for his hand might be fulfilled—they would not.

Once he arrived, Darcy was irresistibly drawn to Elizabeth Bennet, a girl who the Bingleys treated like another sister. And despite her intentions, Elizabeth gradually became entranced by his serious dark eyes, and the intense way that he studied her.

But Caroline would never forgive her if she married Mr. Darcy….

Note: There are several scenes with violence and references to possible or past sexual assault. And Wickham’s mind turned out to be a disturbing place. 87,000 words long.