"Well, well, well. Isn't little Anna Hayward out late?"

Prick

She was tempted to keep it up. Anna Hayward that is. Just to keep up the pretence, just to give herself some degree of control. Ever since she had came to Pemberley she'd been turning from one crisis into another at the speed of light, constantly at a disadvantage, constantly at a loss. And like this one, she had mostly created them herself by not sticking to the rules. So here she was again, face to face with another ghost from her recent past for the second time in a day. Was tempted to keep it up….

But she didn't. Keep it up that is.

Because she was tired. So fucking tired. Not physically, she'd ran away from non existent sleep after all, but mentally. Her mind was not ready for yet more scrutiny, for yet more puzzles to be solved, for yet more lies to be analysed. Lies upon lies upon lies. What her whole life was built on. Games within games she didn't want to play right now. So she resigned herself to it. Resigned herself to being Lizzy Bennet again.

"What's the story then, Anna?" Richard smirked, his glasses wet with condensation, his trousers muddy, his eyes sparkling with amusement.

"Fuck are you doing here?" she sneered, attack as the best form of defense. Didn't want to answer him, didn't want to admit it, to seem weak.

"I don't know if you'd heard but I happen to know the owner of this fine establishment," he continued to smirk. "He's a bit of an arsehole but what can you do?"

"Just leave me alone, Richard." she sighed.

"And what kind of gentleman would that make me? Leaving a woman out in the Scottish highlands all alone in the middle of the night?"

"Did the last fifty years not happen to you? I dunno if you'd heard but women are even allowed to vote these days." she bit sarcastically.

"Oh gosh, are they?" he gasped. "Crazy times."

"You're such a prick."

"Never pretended to be anything else," he spread his arms wide. "Come on, Lizzy, answer the question. What are you doing out here?"

"You first." she resigned herself to the conversation.

"Bit of a tradition," Richard began. "Every time we're all together at Pemberley we come out to the lake with some whisky, start a fire and have ourselves a bit of a knees up. To be honest we normally just take the piss out of Charlie and wait for Caro to say something objectionable or offensive. Passes the time."

"You sing Kumbaya as well?" she sneered.

"Oh absolutely!" he laughed. "Kumbaya, African rain dance, sacrifices to the Grifter God, you know the like."

"Grifter God?" she questioned, couldn't help herself. Richard had an uncanny knack of drawing you in with his nonsense.

"Aye, the Grifter God." he nodded seriously.

"You dropped acid tonight?" she asked, a fair question given his current line of conversation.

"If only," he sighed. "Honestly this crew is so clean living it's ridiculous. Even makes me miss George sometimes…. I mean the lad's a cunt but he'd always have a substance on him."

"So who's the God?" she pressed.

"You're serious?" he asked mock incredulous. "How have you gone through life as a Grifter not knowing where we were all birthed from? Well sit down, Elizabeth, and let me educate you."

"I'm fine where I am. This ain't gonna be a long one is it? You're already starting to bore me."

"Hey, Darcy's the boring one. Ok, ok, young padawan. Allow me to blow your mind. So, in the beginning God created man in his own image. Little arrogant don't you think? Anyway, there they were, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And God said "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die."

"Richard, is this when you ask me if I have accepted the Lord Jesus into my life?" Lizzy narrowed her eyes, causing him to laugh.

"Do not interrupt the word of God!" he chastised, eyes twinkling before continuing on. "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"

"You will not certainly die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

So Eve took the apple, and God cursed man for all eternity."

He finished with a flourish, looking at her expectantly.

"And…." she asked, confused.

"Don't you see, Lizzy? The snake, well, the snake was the first Grifter!"

"Oh Jesus…."

"I know, I know," Richard nodded, seriously. "As I promised, mind blown."

"Where do you get this shit from?"

"Ach, I saw it on some TV show," he waved her off with a chuckle, serious facade crumbling to be replaced by that cocky grin. "Use it sometimes to pick up short con players at card games. Surprisingly high success rate…"

"You're a pig." she snorted, but she couldn't help but laugh.

"You know it's a shame you and Caro don't get on. You have a remarkable overlap in opinions. Don't worry about it by the way."

"Don't worry about what?" she asked, confused by the about turn in conversation and the sudden seriousness of his tone.

"Why you're out here. No-one sleeps after a score. No-one. Doesn't matter how many times you've done it, how many times the parts been played, how many times the curtain falls, how many times the chapters ended. How do you come down from that? How can you come down from such a perfect high? You're with the Gardiners, right? I guarantee they're tossing and turning as we speak. Actually scratch that, married couple, they're probably shagging like animals."

"Can't help yourself can you?"

"It's part of my charm."

"You call it charm, I call it being a twat."

"The two often go hand in hand." he laughed again.

"Whatever, I'm leaving now." she started to move past him.

"Hey come on, Lizzy!" he implored. "I thought we were friends."

"You lied to me from day one, bugged my hotel room," she said derisively. "Not exactly what I'd call a friendship."

"Just doing my job. Have to admit, hell of a score…."

"It was ok." Lizzy shrugged. "Little bit rough around the edges if you ask my opinion."

"God, you really don't like us do you?" Richard chuckled. "Can't even admit to our greatness."

"Good to see you're remaining humble."

"Is pride not justified if it's earnt?" Richard shot back, shooting her back to all those months ago in the Netherfield when Darcy had said something remarkably similar. She'd mocked him then.

"Pride's one thing, arrogance another."

"And of course, you've never been guilty of arrogance," Richard raised his eyebrow at her. "Come on just admit it was a good score."

"Of course it was a fucking good score," she muttured. "Darcy's a genius."

"Hey! What about me?" he exclaimed, mock offended. "I'm the greatest Fixer to ever play the game, right?"

"If you say so, Richard." she finally let out the laugh that she'd wanted to for a while at his petulance. Felt better, felt free.

"Darcy always gets the credit." he muttered darkly, but Lizzy knew he was just pretending.

"It was his plan right?"

"Technicalities," he brushed her off with a smile before he gestured to the forgotten football nestled in the ground next to her. "Anyway I better get this back. Mind you, I think Darcy kicked it all the way over here just so he could stop playing with me. Private schooling, more of a rugby type, you know? Come on, let's go see the others."

"No, I best be getting back," she attempted to extract herself, ignoring the jolt in her stomach at the thought of seeing Darcy again. "He won't want to see me."

"We both know that's not true." Richard smirked, glint firmly in his eye.

"Don't go there," she warned. "Anyway, he thinks I'm trying to rob him, thinks the whole Hugo Chamberlain thing's a misdirection and that he's our real mark."

"That would probably just turn him on even more," Richard teased mercilessly. "Besides, he doesn't think that. He had me run backgrounds on you all as soon as he saw you."

"Of course he did.." Lizzy muttered, by now used to the invasion of privacy that came with knowing these people.

"And I, the greatest Fixer in the game, turned up nothing so therefore there is nothing to turn up. Even your child prodigy Hacker didn't catch my malware in his system. Kid's still green."

"I'll pass that on. But seriously, Richard, I need to go."

"By all means then," he gestured vaguely back in the direction of the hotel. "If that's what you really want then go. But I'm not sure that is what you want. And besides, if you come with me I can offer you a free slap on Charlie Bingley…"

Charlie Bingley. Just hearing the name cause the rage to fill her like it used to, like it always had before she'd began this journey. These days she could keep it in check, could control the anger that was constantly begging to burst out of her, but it was still an everyday battle. And here it came again, a tidal wave crashing over her. All her suppression tactics disappearing in the smoke rings of her mind. Charlie Bingley. The man who'd seemed the very best of them, the most charming, the most sincere, the most fucking real, before revealing himself as the falsest of all. He'd honey trapped her sister, seduced them all with his words and nice guy facade before leaving behind a trail of devastation, a path littered with confusion, hurt, betrayal and crushed hopes. Jane. How could anyone do that to Jane?

OK, she knew the hypocrisy. It had been spelled out to her enough times by Darcy and even were all Grifters, they were all criminals, they were all immoral, blah blah blah. She thought she'd softened her stance, Darcy's justifications had wormed their way into her to such an extent that it was worrying. Since when did she start agreeing with the prick? And Jane as well, given some distance had agreed with him. Charlie was doing his job, nothing more. Did that make it ok? Right or wrong, that was something she didn't deal in, none of them did. There was no such thing.

It didn't matter. All that mattered was that in this moment she wanted to hurt Charlie Bingley.

"Should have led with that." she stated darkly, starting off towards the dying embers, steel in her eyes, ignoring Richard's laughter.


She approached quickly, tread soft through the fallen leaves, strides long and purposeful. She could make them out now as she drew closer. As was custom, her eyes immediately locked onto the unmistakable form of Darcy. He was lying down, legs bent at the knee, the smoke from his cigarette twisting and turning, crowning them all in thin streams of gas. Smoke rings for halos she snorted inwardly. Caroline was sat on a chair, her perfect form obvious even in the dark. And he was next to her. Standing up, bottle swinging sloppily from one hand, the other gesticulating animatedly. Judging by Darcy's deep chuckle he was obviously in the midst of some kind of anecdote. Anger rising and rising. He didn't get to laugh.

She was there now. She saw Darcy out the corner of her eye sit up in surprise, but her gaze was firmly on the mark. He turned just as she finally arrived to him, eyes widening in shock, bottle slipping from his hand landing with a soft clunk. It didn't matter.

She punched him square in the nose.

"Fuck!" he exclaimed, staggering back clutching his face. She went to go for him again, but she stopped as Charlie's eyes flicked up to hers. Stopped mid motion, fist raised, breathing heavily. And she saw it all in him. The surprise, the pain, the hurt. It stopped her in her tracks. He looked so pathetic, hunched over, blood spilling from his nose, crestfallen doe eyes wide and dull. None of the usual gleam.

"The first one's free, all things considered," she vaguely heard Caroline drawl over the blood pounding in her ears. "But if you touch my brother again I'll make you into fucking gloves. Like I actually know someone who can do that."

"He honey trapped my sister." she snarled, but the anger was evaporating quickly.

"Fine, fine, one more then." Caroline sighed.

"Hey!" Charlie finally found his voice, his eyes not leaving Lizzy. "How's that fair? If I'm getting smacked about then the rest of you should to. It was yours and Darcy's plan, Caro."

"Stop being a pussy, Bingley, and take your punishment like a man." Richard chortled somewhere from behind her, thoroughly enjoying himself.

"Charlie is right," Darcy put a gentle hand on Lizzy's raised fist, lowering it cautiously and slowly. "We are all equally to blame, Lizzy."

"Do you want to get hit, Darcy?" Richard hissed.

"Is that it, Will?" Caroline asked, a hint of mischief in her tone. "Fancy a bit of rough from your bit of rough? Whatever turns you on I suppose…."

His hand was still on hers. She wasn't sure which of them was trembling. Looked into his eyes to see concern etched on his face, Caroline's taunts barely heard above the white noise. She realised that it didn't matter where they were or how many people were around the two of them, he always made her feel alone, like they were the only two people for miles. It was frustrating, exhilarating, hell she didn't know anymore.

A light cough sounded and she pulled her hand away from his as if scalded.

"So, I found Lizzy." Richard chimed in unnecessarily, diffusing the tension slightly.

"Thank you for that, Colonel," Caroline laughed slightly. "You do like to make an entrance don't you, Elizabeth?"

"He honey trapped my sister." Lizzy repeated.

"We honey trapped your sister," Darcy corrected. "Do not put all the blame on Charlie."

"Forgive me for being confused, but what is all this talk of blame?" Caroline questioned. "We are all Grifters here are we not?"

"I'm sorry, Lizzy," Charlie spoke up, almost pleading with her. "You don't know how sorry I am. I had to do it, they're my family, Jane was talking to the police, I had to do it…."

He really was sorry, she could see that. It was time to end this.

"Tell him." she turned back to Darcy.

"Lizzy…." he warned her, eyes flicking to the others.

"Tell him all of it." she pressed.

"Tell me what, Will?" Charlie asked, confused.

"Stop this, Lizzy," Richard took a step forward, for once deadly serious. "It's over now, there's no point."

"What are you all talking about?" Charlie half shouted.

"Look at him for fuck sake," Lizzy gestured, still staring at Darcy, imploring him to do the right thing at last. "Just tell him all of it, tell him what you did."

"Will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?" Charlie howled desperately.

Darcy closed his eyes and turned away from her, staring into the fire. She knew what he was thinking, she knew there was a part of him that regretted his actions. Caroline, Richard and he had made it look like the police were coming for Charlie, made it look as if Jane was perhaps working with them or at least in contact with them. Drafting in The Italian no less. It was time for this small bit of truth to come out, time for just one sliver of honesty from them.

Just needed some truth tonight.

"It's no longer my decision." Darcy finally broke the silence, eyes on Caroline.

It wasn't often that Lizzy felt sorry for Caroline Bingley, but in this moment she felt for her. Finally saw the mask crack, finally saw the hint of emotion as she gazed on her brother.

"You're in charge now, Caro. It's your call." Darcy stated.

"Caroline," Charlie moved to kneel in front of her, clasping both her hands in his. "What is it, tell me."

She paused for a moment before collecting herself.

"Doesn't look like we have a choice does it?" she sighed. "But this is yours, Darcy, it was your idea, shit it was your whole score. Fucking own it."

"As you wish."

And so Darcy told him. Told him all of it. All of the deception, the lies they had strung together to force him away from her sister. Charlie listened in silence, his expression unreadable. Caroline's gaze remained firmly on a fixed point in the sky, never wavering, never once flicking to her brother. She didn't want to watch this Lizzy realised, didn't want to see her brother hurt. Richard paced up and down as Darcy spoke carefully and considered, sometimes pausing and almost making towards the stoic Charlie before he stopped himself and pulled back, resuming his purposeless purpose. Darcy stuck to facts, he didn't shroud his story in the justification that were his trademark, didn't appeal to any emotion, he just told him. Unlike Caroline, his eyes never left Charlie.

When he was finished, silence descended. Nobody moved for what seemed like an age. And then Charlie let out a short and sharp laugh, piercing the silence like a knife. It wasn't his usual deep chuckle full of mirth and wonder, it was cold and dull and seemed to break at the very seams. He shook his head once and then turned slowly, walking away from them all, steps heavy and deliberate. They watched him walk away slowly, it was all slow motion. By the time he'd eventually been swallowed by the darkness, Richard turned to Darcy.

"The fact he didn't punch you worries me." he said quietly, and Lizzy could hear the strain in his voice.

"It's not his style," Darcy sighed. "The only time I've even seen him angry was that time in the Desert…."

"That wasn't anger in the Desert," Caroline said quietly and sadly. "That was rage. He can shout and scrap with the best of them when he wants to, but it's never from a place of anger. No, what we just saw is anger."

"You should go after him." Lizzy directed towards Caroline, suddenly feeling guilty for forcing the issue, for making this happen, for ripping a family apart.

"Trust me, I'm the last person who should try to talk to him right now," Caroline dismissed her. "Darcy, Richard, go check he's ok."

"I'll come with you." Lizzy asserted, keen to get away from the fire she had started as soon as possible. Didn't miss the way Caroline raised an eyebrow at Darcy who looked quickly away, as if embarassed by something.

"Are you forgetting you're supposed to be in the middle of a score, Anna Hayward?" Caroline drawled, tone seeped in patronism. "How would it look if you waltz back into the hotel with three known Con Men?"

Lizzy could have kicked herself for not thinking before she spoke. For looking so weak in front of them, looking so naive and out of her depth. Because whatever her feelings were, she wanted to impress them she realised, harking back to Jane's words all those months ago. As a point of pride, as a fuck you, whatever, she wanted them to know she was in the big league now, that she'd proved them wrong.

"Come on, Darcy." Richard sighed with worry.

"Will you be ok here, Miss Bennet?" he asked stiffly, reminding her of how she used to perceive him, all cold with formality.

"She'll be fine," Caroline snapped. "As much as I imagine neither of us are thrilled by the prospect of being alone together, I'm sure we'll survive without you. Now go and sort this mess out."

They were gone with a conciliatory nod from Darcy, leaving Lizzy and Caroline alone in each others company for the first time in their short acquaintance.


Neither spoke for a moment, the awkwardness and tension as delicate as a filigree.

"I still can't get used to giving the orders," Caroline broke the silence thoughtfully. "When it's just the three of us it's fine, but when Darcy's around it just feels wrong, like we're in some alternate reality. We spent so long following him and now he's gone."

"We gonna tell all our secrets and braid each others hair, Caroline?" Lizzy mocked.

"I honestly don't know what people see in you, Lizzy, I really don't." Caroline sighed out.

"Ditto." Lizzy spat back.

"I mean, aesthetically I can kind of see the appeal," Caroline raked her eyes over her, leaving Lizzy feeling exposed. "But you have to be one of the most willfully ignorant people I have ever had the displeasure of associating with."

"Again, ditto." Lizzy worked hard to control herself.

"And why do you keep showing back up? Why are you always fucking here?"

"I keep asking myself the same question. Look, it's not my fault we were part of your score, not my fault that my crews mark chose Pemberley to stay in. It's just one of those things."

"You're mark's the man we met earlier?" Caroline asked.

"Yeah, Hugo Chamberlain. We closed it this afternoon, just waiting on the cash now."

"You're Cool Out?"

"Hugo's keen to keep it off the books for tax purposes, so by the time the horse gets to his stables and he realises it's a dud there's nothing he can do. If he calls the police then he admits to tax fraud. We just disappear like smoke and he goes home and cries."

"Got to love it when a mark does all the hard work for you." Caroline snorted.

"Honestly, the score was beautiful," Lizzy boasted, finally claiming back some pride. "Down to a tee, it's just perfect. £250,000. Easy."

Caroline looked at her with an inscrutable expression before her eyes lit up with understanding.

"Oh, you don't know, do you?" she breathed out, tone full of amusement.

"Know what?" Lizzy asked, confused.

"Oh, this is priceless," Caroline threw her head back and laughed. "I was wondering why you were boasting about it, but you actually don't understand do you?"

"What do you mean?" Lizzy questioned, Caroline raising her eyebrows in that mocking way again.

"Taking Hugo Chamberlain is like taking candy from a baby. They've Cold Decked it, Lizzy. The Gardiner's I mean. They chose Hugo Chamberlain because he was as easy as easy can be. You think Grifter's with their experience would let a Short Con player like yourself work an actual mark with real stakes?"

"He is an actual mark, we just took him for £250000 for fuck sake!" Lizzy bristled.

"There's marks and then there's marks. They'll have been sitting on him for months, maybe even years," Caroline explained, glint in eye. "Just waiting for the right time, when they needed to test some new recruits out. Hugo Chamberlain, I ask you. It was a test, Elizabeth, a test to see if you were up to scratch. Don't you see, it's a classic Cold Deck. The cards were stacked before you even entered the game, they knew it was a no risk score. Well, at least it was no risk until you managed to turn it into a bloody drama. I'm sensing a pattern emerging. And you go and brag about taking Hugo Chamberlain like you're some Grifting genius. It's a set up, Lizzy. Every crew has a Hugo Chamberlain ready to go for when they need to test out some new blood. I've got two of them ready for when I start looking for a new Inside Man."

Was it true? Had she been Cold Decked? Because it had been easy hadn't it? When you really thought about it, it had been remarkably so. The only hiccups were…

Oh God. The only hiccups had been entirely related to her. She'd turned a slam dunk into an underside of the bar job. She'd made it so much harder than it actually should have been.

"Now you're getting it." Caroline nodded with a laugh.

"What difference does it make if it's a sure thing or not?" Lizzy attempted to cling to something. "Hugo's still real, the £250000 is still real. Money's money, why wouldn't you take the easier option, the sure thing?"

Caroline looked her straight in the eye, disappointment etched across her face and uttered the phrase she knew was coming, why all of them did this.

"It's not about the money."

"You parrot Darcy but I don't think you believe that for one second. I know you, Caroline, I know who you are. You do this for the money, you do it for your ego. You don't do this for the right reasons…"

"Is that so?" Caroline said, a hint of steel crackling.

"You're just another stuck up, posh snob who looks down on everyone."

"Because you know me so well?"

"Yeah, I know your type." Lizzy sneered.

"You still don't get it, do you?" Caroline laughed softly. "How many times do you have to be lied too to understand? How many times? You're smart, Lizzy, you're tough, there's something about you, I see that. But honestly, you are so far behind the game it's laughable."

"There are no games here, it's just me and you." Lizzy pointed out.

"It's all a game, can't you see that!" Caroline stood up quickly, waving her arms. "I'm a fucking Grifter! You say you know me, but the only things you know about me are what I've allowed you to know. All of it, your construction of me, wasn't created by you! How can you be so arrogant to think it? You know what I want you to know, you think what I want you to think! Nothing more, nothing less."

"I don't believe you.." Lizzy trailed off, but her mind was whirring.

Caroline smiled at her.

"This is why you're so far behind, Lizzy," Caroline continued softly. It took a second but Lizzy noticed it. The jarring change. The clipped tone, the ever present condescension, the perfect vowels and the plum accent disappearing and in it's place the broad lilt of Northern England, the elongated vowels, the clipped endings, the dropping of the h's, the way the words melded into each other without pause. The Mancunian in all her glory.

"Charlie and Caroline grew up with very little ….. I saw them first in Manchester, oh seven years ago now…."

"Richard had discovered the Bouzid's whilst tying up a few loose ends in Manchester…"

It was all a lie. She was a lie.

"We're women in a man's game, Lizzy," Caroline shrugged at her, but the woman in front of her was a different person, the once stiff body now looser, the face normally so hard and cold all of a sudden warm and open. "You have to become who you need to be. I became who I needed to be to get by, to be taken seriously by those fucking pricks in The Ton. To be taken seriously by Grifters not worth half of me calling me 'love' and 'darling', patronising me with their fucking obnoxiousness. Men I could run rings round thinking I was just Darcy's 'bit of skirt', the 'bird' in the crew, just there to look pretty for when it was needed, just there to add some window dressing. Nah, mate, fuck that, something had to change, I had to change. They want posh, I'll give them posh. They want a bitch, I'll give them a bitch. So I became someone else, I made it so my whole life was a Grift. Shit, even my own crew fell for it. You think I don't see them rolling their eyes, complaining about how 'difficult' I am now? But what about now? The best Grifter's in the world saw me running that score in Vegas, me not Darcy. I was the face of it, they all took instructions from me. And now I have my own crew. I'm leading the best Fixer, the best Roper, the best crew in the world. All because I live this. This isn't a job for me, Lizzy, this is life. Where I start and end…. Shit, I'm just a Grifter I suppose."

Lizzy stared slack jawed at Caroline Bingley, no that wasn't right, Caroline Bouzid.

"Now tell me, Lizzy," she heard through the fog, "Do you still want to be a Grifter? Do you even believe you can be?"

And for the first time, Lizzy wasn't sure at all.


AN - One week, five months, same thing...