"Mr. Darcy, is it?"
A portly, grey-haired man greets him the very moment he passes through the front door. Darcy stops short.
"I - uhm, Mr. - uhm - "
"Bennet." The old man sports a grim smile. "I see my daughter has taken in a stray."
A part of Darcy wants to retort that he truly is above this ramshackle country home with a front yard that has clearly seen better days. Another part of him catches a glimpse of Lizzie glancing between her father and her guest - and he figures his odds of being able to hang on to his newfound muse might be greatly helped by currying favor with the textbook Santa Claus of a man in front of him.
"Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Bennet." Darcy extends a hand.
Mr. Bennet smiles, shakes his hand firmly, and turns to his daughter. "He's stiff, isn't he?"
"Papa, don't be mean." Lizzie grins. And her smile brightens the room just as much as it did at the Cuppa.
Mr. Bennet shakes his head, smile lingering. "I've tidied up Jane's room."
"Oh, you get to stay at the pretty one!" Lizzie all but claps her hands in glee. "Come on! I'll show you!"
She grabs Darcy's hand and is just about to pull him towards the narrow stairs when the floorboards creak with the sound of a large man walking forward.
"Why don't you take our guest's things ahead. I'd like to chat with him first."
And for the first time since he arrived in this godforsaken town, Darcy feels almost afraid.
"Is this all your stuff, Will?" Lizzie gestures at his backpack. Darcy nods a single nod, and she whisks away with his things like a cotton candy whirlwind. He almost forgets to panic that someone else other than he is in current possession of his laptop and its fiercely-guarded secrets.
Not that any of his current drafts are worth anything, just yet.
"William Darcy, is it?"
Darcy looks up. "Mr. Bennet."
"I don't know about you, but we don't get a lot of mysterious boarders offering to study my daughter around here."
Darcy waits him out.
"Care to explain what you want from all of this?"
Darcy sighs, a hand in his pocket. It's tempting to tell the rightfully suspicious father that Darcy himself has never done anything as remotely impulsive as staying in a stranger's home indefinitely either - but it doesn't quite sound like the best thing to boost anyone's confidence.
"I am a writer," Darcy replies, reverting to professionalism. "I am currently working on a new book, and Lizzie is - a person whom I would like to model a character after."
Mr. Bennet nods slowly.
"I mean no disrespect," Darcy assures, "and I will ascertain that I cause your daughter no discomfort."
Then Mr. Bennet surprises him with a smirk. "I doubt anyone can cause Lizzie discomfort."
Darcy frowns. "I don't understand, Mr. Bennet."
The older man chuckles. Then, he levels a piercing stare almost reminiscent of his daughter's directly at Darcy. "I have three daughters. One is trusting, one is vivacious, and Lizzie, my favorite, happens to be both."
Darcy nods mutely.
"And I hope, Mr. William Darcy, that you are ready to be as protective as I am of her unique ability to have both her sister's strengths."
Somehow, Darcy feels as if he were under threat rather than being invited into a loving partnership.
"And I hope you remember," Mr. Bennet continues, "that I won't look kindly upon someone who violates that trust."
"Sir, I - "
"Are you all done?" Lizzie's voice echoes down the stairways. Darcy can hear her shuffling down the first few steps.
Mr. Bennet's glare molts into a smirk and then a smile.
"All done, Lizzie," he hollers back.
Despite his inauspicious introduction to the Bennet household, Darcy finds himself adjusting to Lizzie's rhythm of life far more quickly than he himself expected.
He wakes up every morning when he hears her alarm through the wall, grabs a shower, shares the breakfast she's magically whipped up in fifteen minutes, and drives her to work. She insisted on taking her own bike the first two days, but he's convinced her to join him since.
Mr. Bennet, for all his stay-away-from-my-daughter talk, grows on Darcy. Maybe it's the fact that the old man is actually a closet book lover behind the strict teacher facade, or maybe because he has literally the most charming relationship with his only remaining child - Darcy finds him just as fascinating as Lizzie herself. And a week spent in his host and hostess's company makes Darcy surer by the hour that he made the right choice to drive over to Rusterville.
"Do you have a girlfriend?" Mr. Bennet almost ruins the careful equilibrium of their shared coexistence the very next day.
"I used to," Darcy replies. Lizzie slides more bacon on each of the three plates. "Back in college."
"One of those dolled up blondes with perfect nails?"
"Papa," Lizzie chides.
"Just wondering if the books are true." Mr. Bennet grins at his daughter. "And the movies."
Lizzie shakes her head, but she smiles nonetheless.
Darcy thinks it through a moment. "You're actually not that far off the mark, Mr. Bennet. My girlfriends were - mostly blond."
Father and daughter share a laugh, though they manage to sound more indulgent than mocking.
"And your wife?"
"Don't have one."
"Successful romance writer still a single man? You surprise me." Mr. Bennet cleans off his plate.
Darcy shrugs. Of all the things he's had to explain over the years to agents and fans and publicists - this has never been one of them. In fact, most people just assume that he's a man whore, just because he can be.
Not that he is.
"I haven't been dating for a while, actually," Darcy replies, professional in every way. "I am a rather private person."
"Is that why it's hard for you to write? That you need to meet new characters?" Lizzie turns to him with the coffee pot, her words so innocently spoken that it just proves to him all over again that she just cannot be real.
"I - guess so." And Darcy shifts his focus entirely to the hearty breakfast on his plate. The drinks at the Cuppa, courtesy of Lizzie, are generally very pleasant. The food, courtesy of Paul with the side eye, isn't as impressive. And he's been more than grateful that he gets to enjoy Lizzie's cooking in the morning and Mr. Bennet's at night.
Life in Rusterville has been almost idyllic in a way, and while Darcy keeps bracing himself for the inevitable moment when he grows sick of it all and marches on to the next town in pursuit of more inspiration, it somehow hasn't happened yet.
It may or may not have to do with the fascinating brunette currently clearing up their breakfast. It could also be the semblance of family around here - something he's never had since being orphaned at ten and brought over to America to be raised by his uncle and his trust fund. But he doesn't know what it is exactly that's keeping him here. It's really, really hard to put a finger on it somehow.
"I gotta go." Mr. Bennet leaves the table first this morning. "Papers to grade and students to lecture."
"Bye, Papa." Lizzie leans over to hug him. They're very affectionate. "Should I bring you a scone, or a muffin?"
"Nah." Mr. Bennet stretches in his sweater. "Tell Paul that if he wants to be my son-in-law, he's got to try harder than that."
"Papa!"
Mr. Bennet grins, nods at Darcy, and makes for the door.
"Are you ready to go?" Lizzie asks next.
Darcy wipes his lips with the mismatched napkin assigned to him for today, smiles, and nods.
The drive to the Cuppa is short, very short, but Lizzie has the uncanny ability to still fill the short ride with random observations about the weather, the trees, and the people who have somehow chosen to live in Rusterville. It doesn't take Darcy long to wonder, yet again, just what a girl like her is doing in a town like this.
She has enough charisma to be a social media star. She has enough presence of mind to round up college students in a groundbreaking movement. She carries enough vibrancy with her to light up any classroom, any office, and any home.
But, somehow, she's working at the Cuppa, serving hitchhikers and locals and messy children day in and day out.
"May I ask you something?" He questions her later that day, once Paul sulks away from his table after shoving him his lunch.
"Well, I suppose I can be on lunch break." Lizzie smiles and slides into the seat across from him. "Is this one of those times when I tell you things about me and you write them on your laptop?"
Darcy smiles. She isn't dumb, despite the almost cliché cheerleader-esque spirit.
"I still don't understand your fascination, Will."
He smirks. "You don't have to."
"Mysterious - but alright, then. What do you need to know?"
Now that he has her, right in front of him, he takes his time forming the questions just right.
She isn't Caroline Bingley, who talked incessantly about herself until he couldn't stand it anymore. She isn't Emily Mayfort, who called him a boyfriend on social media after he'd taken her out for one date. She isn't even Tiffanie Vane, who had nothing to say about herself not from a lack of ego as much as from a lack of any personality whatsoever. In fact, Lizzie is so very different from every single girl he's ever dated that he's not sure if a line of cynical questioning would break her eternal optimism.
It's an eternal optimism he still hasn't managed to understand.
"What made you choose to work at the Cuppa?" He starts.
Lizzie shrugs. Her smile loosens but doesn't fall. "They were hiring."
"Did you ever think of being anything else? Going to college? Leaving town?"
She leans her head to the side, her pony tail swishing. "I never thought of it."
"Why not?"
"I think I - prefer to stay."
"In Rusterville."
She's smiling again now. "Yes."
"Why?"
"Because - " She pauses, like she's thinking. He wonders, sometimes, if she's a princess from another cartoon dimension who is, only now, learning real human feelings. "Because I like it here."
"You do."
"I - Papa does." She meets his eyes then, and he knows he's gotten to the heart of the matter. "My father has been teaching here his whole life. And Jane left when she married, and Lydia never wanted to stay around here. I - I wanted one of us to stay with him."
Darcy nods slowly. He knows he's knowing her better, peeking behind the bright exterior, for the first time.
"Did he ask you to?" He asks gently.
"No, no - he wouldn't." She shakes her head. "He's too kind to say anything like that, even if he does want it. I - I just - "
She closes her eyes for a moment. She continues when she opens them, "Mama died when I was four. Jane was only a year older, and Lydia was one - just a baby."
Her eyes water. Darcy passes her a napkin.
"Papa did everything he could to raise us, even with my aunt and uncle's help. He cooked for us and supported us, and he - I think he hasn't retired from teaching because he likes it - but also because he can't."
And the reality of financial need dawns on Darcy for the first time in over thirty years of privileged living.
How can one orphan be so different from another?
"How do you stay so happy?" he blurts, without thinking it through.
To his surprise, she just smiles.
"Well, someone has to be."
The coffee tastes just a little harsher that day, though he notices she's poured some cream in for him.
He doesn't even notice until they're packing up that he hasn't written a single word that day.
A/N: Darcy grows introspective. I don't know what happened to me when I was drafting the first scene in this chapter, but the two men sounded way more Regency than 21st-century America. Haha. Please bear with me!
In other news, I am currently sourcing ARC readers for "The Child." Once it's fully edited for publication, I would like to give out ten copies for free in exchange for unbiased reviews on Amazon. Please let me know if you're interested by reaching out to my gmail account of purpleproselady. Thank you!