Her Brother’s Keeper by Julie Cooper

He lives in a world all his own, and I must visit him there, for he will seldom enter mine…

When three-year-old Edward Bennet’s tantrums provoke her uncle’s violence, Elizabeth seizes her brother and flees to the isolated hunting lodge of Fox Hollow. Neddy lives in a world of his own, understanding horses better than words, fascinated by creatures while struggling to grasp the simplest social rules. The Philipses, now ensconced at Longbourn, have already decided: the boy is defective, best forgotten, and certainly not fit to become the master of Longbourn. Through manipulation and machination they slowly seek to drain Longbourn’s coffers and deny Neddy his inheritance. Elizabeth is her brother’s sole protector—a role that costs her reputation, her comfort, and perhaps her future.

Elizabeth knows her brother is intelligent, just locked behind doors she has not yet learnt to open. But she is fighting a losing battle. Her elderly guardian is ailing, proper society shuns her, and she’s perilously unprotected in a world that preys upon vulnerable women.

Then Fitzwilliam Darcy is thrown from his horse practically at her feet.

The proud master of Pemberley should have ridden away and forgotten the strange encounter. Instead, he finds himself drawn back again and again—captivated by Elizabeth’s fierce devotion, intrigued by young Neddy’s mysteries, and increasingly determined to help them both. But can even Darcy’s wealth and influence save them from relations who will stop at nothing to control Longbourn’s fortune?