Intrigue At Longbourn

Elizabeth Bennet enjoys a lively six months before Netherfield Park is let at last. She is appalled to learn that a pregnant teenage kitchen maid, Alice, was dismissed from Longbourn House eight or nine years earlier with no thought for her welfare or that of her unborn child.

She approaches the recently arrived, handsome, young rector of Longbourn parish, Mr Wilde, who agrees to assist her in secret. Their apparently clandestine association is noticed and misinterpreted by some.

Meanwhile, to secure the family’s future, Mr Bennet embarks on a complicated, high-risk scheme which is ultimately in danger of spiralling out of control.

Father’s and daughter’s separate manoeuvres inevitably clash, stoked up by a jealous mischief-maker, as the summer races inexorably towards Michaelmas of 1797 when a young man of large fortune named Bingley first enters the neighbourhood.

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