The arrival of two eligible gentlemen at Netherfield Park sends ripples of excitement through nearby Meryton. But Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy are not the only additions to the neighbourhood raising eyebrows. An unremarkable cottage in the woods between Netherfield and Meryton also has new tenants. One of them — a lively little girl with an adventurous spirit, a love of the outdoors, and a past shrouded in mystery — draws the notice of more than one local.

Fitzwilliam Darcy, standing irritably at the edge of the Meryton assembly, declines to dance with Elizabeth Bennet. In a mood of revulsion, he rejects her without concern of being overheard. Country pretensions are always in need of squashing, and what better way to make clear he would not partner anyone outside his party? However, when he looks over at her, she does not appear humbled at all. She is secretly laughing at him! 

Fitzwilliam Darcy had planned to leave Netherfield Park and all thoughts of the enchanting Miss Elizabeth Bennet behind him - until one night when he saw smoke rising from Longbourn and realized she was in peril. Elizabeth Bennet found Mr. Darcy arrogant and insufferable right up until he became her hero, pulling her and her sister from the fire that devastated their home and could have claimed both of their lives. 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the disastrous first meeting of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet at the Meryton Assembly provided each with a ready-made set of prejudices to apply to the other. But when a horrific rural accident reveals Darcy to be a man of active, intelligent benevolence, and Elizabeth, in the absence of her appalling family, to be an extraordinary lady of courage and decision - then, surely, the course of true love will run smoothly. But alas, the lovers' meeting is not the end, but a new beginning. 

Elizabeth Bennet could scarcely credit the news when a letter sent to her father, from relations she did not know existed, informed them that untimely and unfortunate events would result in Mr. Bennet inheriting the dukedom of Everard. In the blink of an eye, the Bennets' lives are transformed - Elizabeth and her four sisters are wealthy, titled, and the talk of the ton.