Under Such Circumstances

When Mr. George Wickham gets wind of the fact that Miss Elizabeth Bennet has inherited a sum of money, he decides he should have the money himself. There's no easier way to do that than to marry her, and there's no easier way to marry a woman than to compromise her.As it happens, Miss Bennet is visiting her friend Mrs. Collins in Kent, so Mr. Wickham will have to travel there and then contrive some way to get her alone.This he manages handily, but he doesn't expect Mr. Darcy to set off in pursuit of them immediately. Through a set of unfortunate circumstances, all three of them end up trapped in a leaking shack during a thunderstorm.Yesterday, Mr. Darcy asked Elizabeth to marry him.She may have refused him, but that doesn't mean that Mr. Darcy won't do anything in his power to protect her from Mr. Wickham.Even if Wickham has already compromised her.Dear reader, I set out to write a forced marriage variation, and none of the characters would cooperate. This variation decided it wanted to be an Elizabeth-is-not-a-Bennet variation (that pesky inheritance) and then Colonel Fitzwilliam showed up and started mucking everything into a love triangle (quadrangle, if we count Wickham?) This variation is steamy, outrageous, over-the-top, and full of twists and turns.  Also, it proved to be too much story for one book. Look for the conclusion in December.