Valerie Lennox

Her lips moved against his skin.“You’re awful. Everything about you is hateful.” “And you,” he said, breathless, “are the least proper woman in the history of England.” Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s father is on his deathbed, and his wife is desperate to marry off her five daughters. At the Meryton assembly, Mrs. Bennet schemes to throw Elizabeth together with the rich and elusive Mr. Darcy, hoping the scandal will force his cooperation. Proper Mr. Darcy is concerned primarily with his reputation and would not dare marry someone like Elizabeth under normal circumstances. But with that dreadful situation in Ramsgate threatening to be exposed, he fears for his sister’s good name. His hands are tied. Elizabeth thinks Darcy rude and arrogant. She would not marry him if she had a choice. Darcy thinks Elizabeth far beneath him, but he is drawn to her against his will. Together, they summon within each other passionate hatred, a lit match that promises to explode. Dear Reader, while this variation is hardly wall-to-wall love scenes, I fear it is neither clean nor sweet. Be advised.

With gentlemen scarce at the Meryton assembly, Elizabeth Bennet means to scold the man in the shadows who refuses to dance. But when he comes into the light, she sees his horribly scarred face and his limp. Fitzwilliam Darcy survived a tragic carriage accident that claimed the life of his sister, and by all accounts of those who knew him, he is much changed. Now, he is a beast of a man, often in a bad temper, owing the pain he still suffers from the injuries he incurred. Elizabeth pities the man until he kisses her in the middle of the dance floor at the Netherfield Ball with everyone looking on. He’s trapped her in a marriage that is not of her choosing, and now she must travel with him to the isolated estate of Pemberley. Mr. Darcy knows what he’s done is monstrous. But there are monstrous things within him now. He doesn’t know what has possessed him to trespass against this beauty that will now be his wife. He knows he is beyond any hope. And yet… she stirs things within him. He will not let her go. This first book in the Happily Ever Collection unites Beauty and the Beast and Pride and Prejudice. Though each story in the collection takes its cue from a fairy tale, there are neither magic nor otherworldly elements in the stories.