Most Truly the Gentleman

A man of consideration in the world can afford to marry where he pleases… When one has wealth enough for security, the next thing to be sought must be happiness.
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.

Tropes: Slow-burn courtship · Wounded-soldier cousin as matchmaker · Charlotte Lucas gets a love match · Ramsgate averted · Standalone, no cliffhanger · HEA guaranteed