For eight months, Elizabeth Bennet has been falling in love with a man she has never met — a witty, thoughtful gentleman known to her only as “Mr. A,” who corresponds with her through the anonymous letter service at her family’s Meryton lending library. In writing, he is everything she has ever wanted: honest, attentive, quietly certain of her worth. In person, she despises him. She just does not know they are the same man.
Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy knows exactly who Miss E is. He has known for months. He knows that the woman who makes him think harder than anyone he has ever met — the woman whose letters he has read until the paper softened at the folds — is also the woman who looks at him as though she has already judged him and found the verdict satisfying. He also knows that he inadvertently purchased the building that houses her mother’s beloved lending library, and that his attempts to correct this wrong have been too slow, too careful, and too private.
When the library receives its notice to vacate, Elizabeth writes to her anonymous correspondent in the language of grief and fury. She does not know she is writing to the man responsible. He reads every word. He is trying to fix what he has broken, and he is afraid she will never forgive him when she finds out who he is.
A year of letters, three evenings by firelight, one furious walk in a Hunsford lane, and the particular difficulty of being loved by someone who has seen all your worst qualities before your best ones — this is a Pride and Prejudice variation about what it means to be truly known, and what it costs to deserve it.
