It is the evening before the Lady Anne ball when the residents of Pemberley are disturbed by a coach ridden in a hazard manner and pulls up outside the front door of Pemberley. Elizabeth Darcy's younger sister, Lydia falls from the carriage in a hysterical state. Unable to get any facts from the girl, it is to the coach driver to tell the household what has occurred. The carriage originally carried Lydia, her husband, Wickham and their friend, Captain Denny. Midway through the woods of Pemberley, Denny ordered the carriage to be stopped and climbed from the vehicle, denouncing Wickham and strode off in to the wooded area. Wickham followed his friend and after a few minutes gunfire was to be heard. On Lydia's orders the coach driver took them at speed to Pemberley itself.

Setting out a patrol that includes Darcy, Colonel Fitzwilliam and Alveston, the three men follow the carriage back to where Denny and Wickham were last seen. Soon they find Wickham prostrate over Denny's dead body and declares upon their arrival that he has killed him.

What follows is an inquest and trial of unsavoury proportions that will envelop the Darcy's, Bingham's and all at Pemberley before the truth is finally revealed.