The Two Darcys

By S. Faith, © 2011

Words: 34,476 (Prologue + 6 Chapters)
Rating: M / R
Summary: What if a certain history existed prior to Mark and Bridget finding one another?
Disclaimer: Not my characters. These are my words, though.
Notes: Many thanks for everything to M.

Prologue.

Spring was a beautiful time of year to be in Paris. He was glad to be there, glad for the break after an especially difficult year at Cambridge, but he couldn't help feeling guilty all the same for having taken the gift from his parents. They were by no means struggling financially, but after accepting their assistance for his schooling it felt excessive to accept this too, despite their insistence he go abroad on their dime, such as it was.

But, he told himself, he was here, Paris was absolutely breath-taking, and it would be a shame not to make the most of it.

In the first few days he did something he was not proud of, and by that, it meant playing utter tourist. He went to the Eiffel Tower; he had coffee and baguettes at a bistro on the bank of the Seine; he visited the Louvre and stood speechless before the world's most famed paintings. And the evenings, oh the evenings; the rambling strolls through the streets at night were much more pleasurable for the briskness, for the chill on his cheek.

It was during one of these strolls on the fourth evening, this time along the banks of the Seine with the moon full and hanging heavily in the sky, that he saw someone who looked very familiar to him. She stood at the railing, cap on head, blonde bobbed hair blowing madly around her face as she gazed down at the glittering peaks of moonlight on the briskly flowing river. It occurred to him why she looked familiar; he had seen her on his second day at the café, mangling the beautiful French language beyond all recognition in her request for a coffee and croissant. He had stepped in, placed her order for her, thereby saving her from further embarrassment (and further hunger pangs). They had chatted for a little bit—she was a student too, also on holiday—but further conversation was cut short because she had to catch up with the friends with whom she'd travelled.

"Not thinking of jumping in, are you?" he said, startling her visibly. She spun around to face him. When she saw who he was, saw he wasn't a total stranger, she visibly relaxed and smiled. "Your French isn't that bad."

"Hi." She brushed the fringe out of her eyes. "Fancy meeting you here."

He grinned. It seemed a rather extraordinary coincidence that he should meet her completely out of the blue twice in four days. "So if you aren't jumping, what brings you out strolling about on your own at night in a foreign city?"

"Same reason you are, I wager," she said with an equally bright grin. "Charms of the city are too much to resist. It's really magical and romantic."

At this his eyebrows rose quite against his will.

"Not that I'm out trolling for a man or anything," she added, which caused him to laugh.

"Looks like you found one all the same," he quipped. He was, as he had been in the café, immediately charmed by her, and felt a bit of an impulse overtake him. "Would you care for a coffee or a drink?"

She smiled at him, but then her brows drew together. "How do I know you're not a madman?"

"Good point," he said. "I suppose if I were, though, I might not have announced my presence so loudly."

"Well…" she said playfully, "you could just be a really lousy madman."

He chuckled, then came to stand closer to her, putting one hand on the railing. "I suppose I could be," he said, "but I promise I'm not."

She looked up at him with eyes that sparkled enough to rival the moonlit water. He hadn't noticed until then that he had some height on her, and that under the blunt cut fringe her eyes were beautiful. "You promise you're not a madman," she said, "or promise you're not lousy at it? Big difference."

Once more he chuckled, and he knew he did not want to spend another evening alone. In fact, he wanted to spend the evening talking to her, getting to know her better. "Please come have a drink with me."

After many moments of looking up into his eyes, she blinked, then nodded. "Okay," she said softly. After a charged moment, she added with more of a humorous tone, "But if you are a madman, you'd best make it worth my while."

He chuckled, trying not to hear her words with a double meaning; he had never been all that great gauging flirtation with strangers and usually erred on the side of caution. "Top shelf vodka, all the way."

"All right, then. Lead on."

As they began to walk, he had the oddest feeling that she kept looking up to him, but he didn't say anything to turn to look at her. He took her to a cosy little bar and ordered her drink for her when she began to fumble with the language again. They went to a corner table and didn't say a thing to one another until they had each taken a couple of sips of their respective cocktails. She spoke first, breaking the ice.

"So how did you know where this place was?"

"Been here before," he said. "I'm staying not too far from here."

"Mm," she said. "It's nice in this area of the city. Very posh."

"And where are you staying?"

"Not too far away, either," she admitted, "but not very posh."

He asked her what her name was and told her his in turn; it was an unusual, lovely name, and he told her frankly he'd had enough of 'Sarah' and 'Claire', which made her laugh.

"I'm not usually a vodka person," she confessed, having another sip. "This is very good, though."

"Told you," he said. "Top shelf. So… small talk. Right. What do you plan on doing the rest of your life?"

She laughed again. He thought she had one of the loveliest laughs he'd heard. "You first."

"Well… undergraduate work is coming to an end, so I have to start thinking beyond that," he said. "I'm rather using this time to not think about it, to be honest. What about you?"

"Still in school, too," she said. "Uni, I mean."

The quickness with which she added the qualifier made him worry suddenly that she was too young for him to be buying her a drink. She saved him the trouble of asking how old she was by hinting she was halfway through her uni track, and therefore no more than two years his junior. It surprised him a little.

"I really don't want to talk about real life, though," she concluded. "I don't want to think about it. I'm here to have fun." The corner of her mouth quirked up in a smile.

This prompted him to ask, "Is this fun?"

"Mm, quite."

The tone in which she spoke suggested that her earlier comment had indeed been meant as flirtatious. He could not deny he found her attractive, and though it was not his usual way he was very, very open to the idea of a holiday fling. The alcohol coursing in his veins probably helped him reach this conclusion.

"Would you like another?" he asked.

"I would love another."

With the second drink she seemed to become further emboldened, reaching her hand out and placing it over his own. The feel of her nails grazing on the back of his hand, the engaging way she held his gaze over the edge of her glass… he was not mistaking the signs of her own attraction. Certainly, her leaning forward to brush her lips on his was a surer sign still, triggering his simultaneous lunge forward, lips on lips, mouth on mouth, for a kiss that was probably slightly indecent for a public place.

"Had a thought," he said in a gravelly tone.

"What's that?" Her question was breathy. Sexy.

"Come see how posh my digs are."

She smiled devilishly, then nodded.

They finished their drinks, left the bar hand in hand, leaving no one present with any illusions about what was to come next. His flat, rented for him for the two weeks he'd be there, was no more than five minutes away, but might as well have been two hours for the anticipation he felt in walking towards it.

They were barely into the door of the place when he pulled her roughly towards him, pulled her cap from her head and flung it aside, then fumbled to open the buttons of her jacket. He pushed it from her shoulders then brought her close to him again, relishing the feel of her knit shirt under his hands as he ran them along her waist, equally relishing her silky lips against his. He wanted to take her to bed and ravish her completely as soon as possible.

He took great delight in divesting her of her clothing and great pleasure in running the pads of his fingers over her velvety skin, in exploring all of her curves and bends, eliciting sounds of ecstasy and driving him to elicit them once again. She was responsive and not shy about not only her own wants and desires but in actively seeking to satisfy his. And satisfied they were, again and again; she had impressive stamina, pulling him back from the edge of slumber more than once to engage again.

The sky was just beginning to lighten with rosy pinks and blues when they felt the pull of sleep becoming inevitable. As he lost himself to a happy unconsciousness, he promised himself he wouldn't sleep too long because he wanted to treat her to breakfast, wanted to stroll the street with her in midday, have lunch, have dinner, and do it all over again if she were willing and they could procure more protection.

It wasn't yet eleven when they roused; she slipped from the bed (likely thinking he was still asleep) and made her way to the loo. He smiled sleepily as he turned over, awaiting her return. She came creeping back in and acted very modest when she realised he was awake.

"You have no need to be shy," he said, "even if we hadn't just spent the night together."

At this she turned pink all over. "I don't usually do this sort of thing," she admitted, perching on the side of the bed like a timid bird, shielding her breasts from his view with crossed arms.

"That makes two of us," he said with a placid smile. He fought the desire he was feeling as he gazed at her lovely form, and cleared his throat. "I had a thought for today, something that could make this more than the sort of thing we don't usually do." She chuckled. "Maybe you and I could have breakfast, have a walk… take it from there."

She smiled shyly, as if pleasantly surprised that he was still interested in her beyond sleeping with her. "I'd like that." Her smile broadened. "I'm glad, you know."

"Glad for what?"

"That you're not a madman," she said. "Quite the opposite."

The day went quite as he hoped, as did the night; he had a lot of fun in her company, laughed a lot, smiled a lot. She just had a way about her that made laughing, smiling, having fun that much easier to do; unspoken was the agreement that they say nothing that revealed too much about themselves or their lives outside of Paris, not even their surnames. This was the only reality that mattered. They had dinner together, then returned to his flat for a nightcap; it was only a matter of time before they were in the bedroom, kissing, fondling, groping, making ardent love as if it might be the last chance they would ever have.

As he would come to discover, it would be.

He dozed off in his post-coital bliss and when he woke again, the flat was dark and he was alone. Puzzled, he sat upright in the bed, looking around, listening for sounds of water running in the loo, of her footsteps on the floor, but the only thing he could hear was the distant sounds of a city alive at night. He pushed aside the sheets and rose, systematically padding through the flat until it became quite obvious she had gone.

On the table on which they'd had their after-dinner drinks he did find a note.

Sorry, sorry. Had to leave. Forgot flight back home is in the morning and have yet to pack. Thanks for a nice send-off. xx

He cursed silently to himself as he crumpled the note into a ball and tossed it randomly aside. He didn't know quite why he felt as wronged as he did; it wasn't like it was meant to be anything more than a bit of fun and frivolity.

As he thought about it further, he realised he might have felt better knowing her whole name, of having some way to find her again, because he liked her as more than just a two-night stand, thought he might have liked to know even more about her. No matter, he thought; She could have left a name, a number, if she'd wanted to hear from me again.

Best to have had what they'd had, then move on.

…

He hadn't thought of her in years and years. It was when he heard that his brother was getting married that the memory of her sparked, because his brother's new fiancée shared a name with that girl from so many years ago. He smiled with that memory of his two nights and a day with her; it really had been one of the highlights of that holiday. She had helped him to really relax and be more impulsive while there, which got it out of his system for his return to England and to his new-born professional life.

Though it was not a common name, he knew it was not unique by any stretch, so he didn't give much more thought to it as he mentally prepared to meet the mysterious woman who had won his brother's heart.

Perhaps he ought to have.