Colonel Fitzwilliam and the Countess of Sainte Toulours

Colonel Edmund Fitzwilliam, second son of the Earl of Andover, has pursued accomplishment his whole life. His first real opportunity to achieve the recognition he desires unfortunately comes just as he meets the woman who captures his heart, Miss Emily Chelwood. Separated by months of danger and distance, even his safe return does not reward them with the happiness they deserve; peril, death, and intrigue follow him home, throwing their future into the winds of chance. Aided by his friend, the adventurer Lord Estéban de Esparza, and his relations Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy, the Colonel must overcome a French spy, a London blackguard, and his own powerful sense of duty, as he struggles with the forces of love and war in his attempt to secure happiness for himself and his beloved.

This work can be taken as either a love story, periodically interrupted by the Napoleonic wars, or an adventure story with romantic intervals. It was necessary to be written to rescue the Colonel from a lingering bachelorhood as a crusty, moustachioed old soldier.
 
For those lovers of Jane Austen's works and their derivatives, we are graced by the appearance of Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth Darcy and their family, though in minor roles only. To whatever degree it goes beyond a simple entertainment, the work may be taken as something of an investigation into what drives a man through life; although, as Austen's Captain Harville expresses it, "I speak, you know, only of such men as have hearts". Save Darcy, who has reached a precious interlude of ease and contentment, each of the main male characters described herein represents a unique compound of driving factors: the most common, and most powerful, of course, being their feelings towards the women to whom they have attached themselves.
 
At times I have forfeited a more modern etiquette between the sexes, the better to reflect the period; I apologize to my modern readers for this unseemliness. I also apologize to my friends from France: a villain was necessary, and so I settled on l'Etailler; the war is my only excuse and rationale. And so, with a debt of gratitude to both Miss Jane Austen and the Baroness Orczy, I offer this work.