By Duty Bound

"You are more concerned with duty than in doing what is right?"

"Performing my duty is what is right."

WHEN FITZWILLIAM DARCY meets Elizabeth Bennet at Longbourn, he is a footloose and fancy-free second son, still bearing a yoke of family expectation but free to fall in love with whomever he chooses. He forms an immediate attachment with Elizabeth Bennet who, with her sweetness and good humour, is exactly what he has always wished for. Alas, just as he recognises his wish to offer for her tragedy strikes and suddenly his future is no longer his own to decide.

Two years later, Elizabeth Bennet finds herself restless with the strictures of being a lady of the Quality. She finds her heart tugged in a multitude of directions, from the plight of servants to the struggles of orphans, but despairs of ever finding a gentleman who will replace Darcy in her heart. Her own considerations of romance are also set aside when family tragedy strikes the Bennets.

TAKING HER ILL SISTER to Ramsgate, Elizabeth is once again thrown into the path of Mr Darcy but finds him a far different man than the one she once knew. Mr Darcy is taciturn and grave, oftentimes angry. Despite her disappointment in his abandonment years prior, she cannot help but feel a tug towards wanting to understand and help him. But can duty ever be reconciled with happiness, or is their romance destined to be forever thwarted by their responsibilities?