title: A Ball at Pemberley
author: Lang, Jennifer
description: Novella length. All the novellas in the Darcy and Elizabeth What If? series are separate, standalone stories. They can be read in any order. What if Mr Darcy's parents had not died? With his parents still alive, Mr Darcy never stays at Netherfield Park. So when Elizabeth Bennet tours Pemberley with her aunt and uncle, she mistakes him for a steward. Dressed in rough clothes suitable for riding round his father's muddy estate, he looks nothing like the arrogant master's son! But at the Pemberley ball, Elizabeth learns her mistake, and she also learns that Mr Darcy is engaged to an heiress. When they meet again at the spa town of Buxton, they have a chance to find true happiness, but only if they can overcome the obstacles put in their way by Mr Darcy's father and by Mr Wickham.