Cover

Title Page

Praise for Charlotte

‘Brilliant … an Austen retake with smarts’

STYLIST

‘Helen Moffett respects the source text but breathes new and credible life into these beloved characters’

RED

‘Such a pleasure to read … The Charlotte in Helen’s book is passionate, funny, loyal and, from the opening of the novel, drowning in grief. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I wished it was longer’

WOMAN’S WAY

‘Charlotte is a lyrical meditation on grief, and has the added pleasure of being set in the Pride and Prejudice universe’

PETINA GAPPAH, GUARDIAN

‘Fans of Pride and Prejudice will find this a worthy and engrossing companion, beautifully written’

REBECCA MASCULL

‘A sparkling read, full of passion and flair’

LOUISA TREGER

‘Utterly compelling … Charlotte’s distinctive voice chimes as brightly as a just-struck bell’

LAURA CARLIN

‘An enjoyable and entertaining read which explores women’s constrained choices in early 19th-century England’

HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

‘This debut takes a supporting character from Pride and Prejudice and makes her a satisfying heroine … An enjoyable, even racy addition to the drawing-room industry of novels riffing off Austen’

SUNDAY TIMES

‘Deliciously satisfying’

ROSIE FIORE

Dedication

For Sarah, Paige, Lauren, Tom. My book children.

1811

PROLOGUE

NO PROSPECTS – OR SO the neighbourhood believed. Her own family thought it. Her dearest friend Elizabeth assumed it with the blithe arrogance of someone who could give her own wit and liveliness free rein because she had the gloss of both youth and beauty.

Charlotte was about to prove them all wrong, God willing. That morning, that very minute in fact, she intended to go out and roll the dice with all the bravado of a rake in a London night-haunt. She brushed down the folds of her best poplin day dress, with its pattern of minute sage-green flower fronds against a white background – no chainmail and pennant, but armour of a sort. Peering at herself in the glass, she was satisfied with what she saw, in as much as a tall, plain, and angular woman of twenty-seven and no prospects could reasonably be satisfied.

She took one more look at herself – her hair was at its best in the mornings, freshly released from the curlpapers that tackled a tendency to lankness, and her colour would be higher once she had been walking a little. Then she reached for her new straw bonnet, trimmed with the same fabric as her dress. Gentlemen did not notice such details, in her limited experience, but they responded to a sense of order, of patterns meshing. Anomalies in appearance startled them.