Wednesday, July 25

"Knock, knock."

Darcy looked up to find Bing in his doorway. "Oh, no lunch with Jane today?"

"I thought we might go out for lunch instead, if you have time."

Darcy had the time and readily agreed, though he did wonder at the request. This wasn't Stephane's day off, and it was earlier than their usual lunch time. Were they avoiding Caroline for some reason?

Of course. The videos. Lizzie and Jane would have told him by now, and Bing must want to talk privately about it.

They were mostly quiet as Bing drove. Darcy was preoccupied with the coming conversation. He had been too absorbed by his own role in the videos to give much thought to his friend. He had Lizzie's word for it that Jane truly cared for Bing, but that wasn't something he could just outright tell him. And what other advice could he give? He was uncertain now about so many things.

Bing waited until they had placed their orders to broach the topic. "I saw Lizzie's latest video. I, uh, assume you know she showed the footage of you. Or of your voice anyway."

Darcy nodded. "I gave her permission."

"So did I, when she and Jane told me about them. I've already been in a couple anyway."

Tactfully worded, he noted. From the carelessness of Bing's tone, there was no need to ask if he was bothered about the lack of previous consent. "Yes, I saw. I believe I wasn't to know about your purchase of a period romance film, lest I 'revoke your man card.'"

Bing grinned sheepishly. "I might have known you'd watch that one."

"I watched all of them, in fact." He tried to speak the words lightly, but nevertheless Bing's smile disappeared.

"I was afraid of that. That must have been rough watching."

"It was."

There was a pause, then Bing said, "I had no idea Lizzie disliked you so…intensely. I mean, she did seem more on edge when you were around, and ready to argue with you, but I didn't realize how skewed some of her opinions about you were."

"Then you knew more than I," he said wryly.

Another pause, then Bing asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Darcy stared at him as realization hit. Bing hadn't brought him here to talk about Jane, or at least that wasn't his primary reason. Bing was concerned about him. It was strange, having the shoe on the other foot. Darcy wasn't sure he liked or felt comfortable with it…but he also realized he couldn't shut out his best friend.

"I did not like much of what she said," he said hesitatingly. "But I needed to hear it."

Bing's eyebrows lifted. "You think she was right?"

"In part, yes. She said I'm rude and arrogant, and I admit I'd had little kindness or respect for anyone here. At times, not even for you."

"You mean that scene she and Caroline were re-enacting when you came in?" Bing said in surprise. "I don't think you were rude. I'd given you a hard time about coming down and spending time with the rest of us, and you gave me a hard time back. There's nothing wrong with that."

Darcy didn't know whether to laugh at Bing's easygoing nature or be appalled that his friend was apparently accustomed to his rudeness and anti-social behavior. "Be that as it may…I am trying to do better."

Bing nodded. "Does Gigi know about all this? Or Fitz?"

"Gigi, no. Fitz, yes. I wanted an impartial perspective, and he was kind enough to agree with Lizzie that I am a snob," he said dryly.

That earned a chuckle from his friend. "Yeah…he's probably right about that." Darcy narrowed his eyes in mock annoyance, and Bing continued, "But hey, you're improving already. You didn't even complain today when I brought you to a chain restaurant."

Darcy had to smile a little at that.

As their food arrived, Bing mentioned marathoning the videos with Jane. "Caroline thought that my finding the videos would be catastrophic, but it turned out just the opposite. Watching them with Jane was…really nice."

Darcy took in Bing's dreamy smile and naivete. From Caroline's perspective, Bing finding the videos probably had indeed been catastrophic—to her hopes of limiting his entanglement with Jane, to their attempts at convincing Bing to leave Netherfield and return to med school in the fall. Not to mention that his own opinion of her had lowered after seeing her deception. But saying as much to Bing would serve no good purpose.

Instead, he focused on the last part of Bing's statement. "'Nice' is the most tepid adjective you have applied to Jane to date, but I gather from your expression that it is an understatement."

For a moment, Bing's smile was unrestrained. "Yeah, it is." Then he sobered, continuing hesitantly, "If you want, you can actually watch it. Lizzie had been filming already before Jane and I came in, and she asked about including some of the footage in her next video."

Darcy tilted his head a little, his eyes narrowing in thought. Usually, asking about Jane Bennet elicited flights of near-poetry from his friend. "I take it you have adopted a no-spoilers policy?"

"No, I can tell you if you want. I was just…trying to be sensitive."

"Sensitive to what?"

Bing was looking distinctly uncomfortable now. "You. I found out through watching the videos with Jane that she really does care for me. You…well, Lizzie feels the opposite."

Oh. Darcy kept his expression impassive. "Unlike you and Jane, Lizzie and I are not dating."

"I know. But you wouldn't have watched all those videos if she was just another woman."

Darcy looked down. He could not deny it, could not even formulate the words to continue deflecting. "You're right," he said finally. "I…don't know what to say. Or even what to think."

Bing nodded compassionately. "Well, I'm here if you want to talk it through sometime."

Darcy thanked him, and they spoke of lighter topics during the remainder of lunch.

%%%

Continue working in his room or join the others? Darcy had finished an evening business call with colleagues in Singapore, and was not long in deciding. He took his phone and book and headed downstairs.

It wasn't that he was eager for company or that dinner had been a resounding success. Caroline had monopolized the conversation with a string of reminisces that left the Bennets with little to say. She had also questioned him about his favorite foods, ignoring his assurance that Stephane's meals were always to his liking. Bing had finally given up his attempts to steer the conversation to more general topics; Darcy himself had responded to Caroline only enough to avoid being rude.

Yes, dinner had been strange, but he still felt he should join the others for the rest of the evening. "Make something good come out of this," had been Fitz's parting advice when they spoke again last night, and while solitary self-examination and growth would continue to be a large part of that, so too would practicing better behavior.

He entered the lounge to find Lizzie alone, reading. "Excuse me, Lizzie. Er…where are the others?"

"Jane and Bing went for a walk. I'm not sure where Caroline is. I haven't seen her since supper."

"I see."

Darcy selected a chair across and diagonal to her and settled in. He adhered conscientiously to his book for perhaps the first three minutes, until he happened to glance up and find Lizzie's eyes on him, frowning slightly. She immediately looked away. It happened again a few minutes later, and then a few minutes afterward the tables were turned and she caught him looking contemplatively at her.

Clearly, neither of them was really reading. He wanted to say…something that would break this polite standoff between them. She had tiptoed around him at breakfast the last two days, sounding him out as to whether he was still angry with her. In fairness, he was probably no better. He did not understand Lizzie well enough now to know how to interact with her.

Still, it would be odd to be silent for half an hour together. He opened his mouth to say something about whatever book she was reading, but then closed it just as quickly.

Darcy is boring. Stuffy. Unbelievably rude. He heard the words as clearly as if she'd spoken them aloud again. She appeared now to regret having aired such words in her videos, but that did not negate the fact that those were her true feelings. If he initiated a conversation with her, she would respond politely, but only for politeness' sake. He did not want that. And so he returned to his book, mechanically dragging his eyes across the page, though in reality not taking much of it in.

"Still reading Shakespeare?"

Darcy looked up in surprise at her question. Was there a challenge in her voice? He could not tell, though it seemed likely given their previous heated debate over the dramatist.

"Yes," he said, tilting the book for her to see the title: Henry IV, Part 2. It was his reading of Part 1 that had sparked their previous debate.

"Is there a Part 3?"

"In a way, this is Part 3. Shakespeare wrote a tetralogy on the English kings Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V."

"Oh" was Lizzie's only immediate reply, and Darcy looked down, feeling at that moment the personification of "boring" and "stuffy."

"Why do you like them so much?"

"I am descended from a soldier who fought under Henry V at Agincourt." Her expression seemed to indicate genuine listening, so he went on. "Aside from the personal element, his character as drawn by Shakespeare is intriguing to me."

"Why?"

Did she really want to know? "He is introduced as the wayward and undutiful Prince Hal, resisting the attempts of two opposing father figures to groom him in their image. But his father's death forces him to take his place as king, and shouldering the responsibilities of the crown is transformative for him."

Lizzie had been quietly taking it all in, then suddenly asked, "Is your dad a businessman too?"

"He was. My…parents are gone. There was an accident some years ago."

Lizzie's mouth rounded in surprise, and Darcy drew in on himself slightly. He hated being the subject of pity; that's why he almost never spoke of the incident.

Then horror washed over Lizzie's face. "Oh G-, and I said you were doomed to be alone for life! Of all the stupid, malicious things I could have said, I—."

"It's fine," he said firmly, cutting her off. "You could not have known."

"It is not fine," she countered just as firmly. Then, quietly, "I am so sorry for your loss."

Darcy had heard those words before, dozens of times in the wake of the accident. But now they came from Lizzie, with a feeling tone and sympathetic expression that he had never seen before, not even in her videos. His gaze felt trapped by hers. "Thank you."

A long moment passed, then he shook himself and changed the subject. "Are you still reading Tolstoy?"

"Yeah, still Anna Karenina," she said, lifting the book from her lap for him to see. "The high school lit teacher assigned it as summer reading for the incoming juniors, and I'm tutoring a few of them."

Ah, so she was a tutor. She must be a good one at that, else the parents would have hired someone studying for a literature degree rather than mass communications. "Are they as insensitive to the merits of Russian literature as I?"

Lizzie's mouth quirked upward a little. "There's a range. One of them is insensitive to the merits of all literature. Another has really dug into it and is planning to major in literature. The rest are somewhere in between."

"Is Tolstoy—," he began, but Bing and Jane entered at that moment. Jane started excitedly telling Lizzie about the beautiful sunset they'd seen on their walk, and Darcy was recipient of a curious but encouraging smile from Bing. Caroline joined them shortly thereafter, and there was no further opportunity for conversation with Lizzie.

Still, as Darcy stretched out and prepared for sleep that night, he found himself thinking again and again of Lizzie's words.

%%%

How's this for a start on these two really getting to know each other?

Why Henry IV? Well, we know from P&P that Darcy was reading a book that had at least two volumes, and we know from LBD that he and Lizzie have debated Shakespeare vs. Tolstoy. Only a few Shakespeare plays have multiple "volumes."

FYI, I have several upcoming trips and will not be able to update as often, but will try for every other week. Thanks for understanding and for reading!