Mary’s Daring Demand by Jaime Marie Lang

Society dictates that a lady must wait for the gentleman to declare his interest. But what happens if she gets fed up with this waiting game?

Mary Bennet has loved Gabriel Goulding for nearly as long as her sister Elizabeth has loved Mr. Darcy, but while her sister is happily married and expecting her second child, Mary remains alone and longing to be loved by the man who holds her heart. Every time she sees her happily married sisters with their doting husbands, it serves as a painful reminder of what she longs for but cannot attain. She has tried to show her regard in every way she knows how, but still he has said nothing; he has not even asked for a courtship. Why is she not good enough for Gabriel’s love? Dare she risk losing the fragile thread of hope she clings to by confronting the man who possesses her heart?

Gabriel Goulding’s affection for Mary Bennet has spanned years, but his limited prospects as a second son have consistently thwarted his plans to ask for her hand. Fresh out of Oxford, he is filled with a mixture of determination and anxiety as he seeks a path to support himself and the woman he longs to spend his life with. He is not afraid of hard work, but it will take him years to amass the kind of fortune he will need to buy, even a simple estate. After all, she deserves the very best. He does not want to wait to claim her, but how could he approach the woman he loves with nothing more than his heart to offer?

When a nearly destroyed Longbourn comes back into the family, Mary and Gabriel are thrown together in the reconstruction effort. If they can withstand the collapsing floors, heated arguments, and blizzard conditions, their love story might just unfold.