Discretion and Decorum: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

My name is Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.

A man should tell his own story.

Of course, this is not primarily my story, but the story of my wayward cousin, Miss Anne de Bourgh. It has come to light that, for some time, my cousin has been feigning illness and malaise in order to conceal a scandalous double life.

My poor cousin is dead, and the man I hate worse than life itself, Mr. George Wickham, is holding my family ransom by claiming to air her secrets to the world, or at the very least, half of London. I’m here, at Rosings in Kent, to determine how my cousin died and whether anything that Wickham alleges is true. Which would be difficult enough if it weren’t for the fact that Miss Elizabeth Bennet keeps appearing everywhere I go.

Miss Bennet is incredibly distracting.

But never mind her. Never mind anything about her. I’m certainly not thinking about her nearly constantly. I’m especially not thinking about marrying her. I can’t marry her. There are a great many barriers preventing such a thing, and besides, I have other things to occupy my mind, not least solving a veritable murder.

Marry her? Insupportable! Marrying her would be impossible.