Atonement was a private matter. Elizabeth Bennet was not.
At Easter, Fitzwilliam Darcy welcomes the Bennets to Pemberley with one purpose: to restore Jane and Bingley's happiness without presuming upon Elizabeth Bennet's good opinion. He is no longer the proud gentleman she condemned in London. He is quieter, graver, inconveniently attentive?and still concealing how much harm his judgment once caused. What he does not anticipate is that Elizabeth, lately given fresh reason by his own cousin to think worse of him than she did before, will not let him repair the harm in silence. She will require him to do it openly, daily, and on her terms.
Elizabeth means to be on her guard. Pemberley may be beautiful, Miss Darcy may be dear, and Mr. Darcy may be developing a talent for repentance that is positively offensive to her composure?but Jane's quiet hurt cannot be repaired by fine rooms and civil dinners. And with Caroline Bingley carrying ammunition her brother does not know she possesses, and Mr. Bennet meeting Lydia's letters from Brighton with the same wit he employs upon every dangerous thing, every look, letter, and quiet decision at Pemberley becomes evidence in a case Elizabeth is no longer certain she can judge.
As Jane and Bingley are drawn toward the happiness once denied them, Darcy's careful work of atonement is overtaken by the woman who has become its accomplice?and by the confession that has waited four months for an answer in his own house.
Elegant, witty, and slow-burning, His Pemberley Temptation continues Jessie Michaels's When Mr. Darcy Atones trilogy with a question worthy of Pemberley itself: can a man earn the woman he loves not by arranging her happiness, but by trusting her with the truth that may yet undo him?
