1.
The one called Dar didn't know what to think of Miss Elizabeth Zipporah Bennett.
At that Harvest Dance, he'd managed to convince himself that while she was reasonably attractive, she was probably insane. He'd made an honest mistake (you can't ever be too careful in the entertainment industry), and she'd completely over-reacted. However, he did find it interesting that she over-reacted in regards to her photography rather than the unkind comment he'd made regarding her food poisoning. Most women he'd met would be angrier about an insult directed toward them than an attack on their possessions; of course, after he thought about it some, he decided he might have reacted in nearly the same way if someone had deliberately tried to destroy one of his recordings. He liked to think that he wouldn't have resorted to physical violence though; it was quite unbecoming in a grown woman, even one with such bright eyes.
He knew what the others thought of her; they were very vocal about their opinions to him. When she arrived at the front door of Netherfield the night of the ice storm, her entire top layer gilded with ice, her toque frozen on her head, she merely stamped her feet and shook the icicles off her sleeves before sniffing and asking, "Where's Jane? Is she okay?"
"Upstairs," Charlie said. "She's fine; she's asleep. How did you get here?"
"Skied," Lizzy said, tugging with the zipper of her jacket with pale, pink-knuckled hands. "Cross-country. There are trails running all through your property, Charlie; now that it's snowing again, you'll probably have a lot of uninvited visitors."
"That's not snow," said Will, looking out the window and back to Lizzy; the cold had planted two flushed roses on her cheeks. "It's ice."
"Well," said Lizzy, sniffing again and wiping her nose on the back of her hand, "I managed, and others will, too.—Charlie, where's Jane? Can you take me to her?"
After Charlie lead Lizzy upstairs to the room he'd given to Jane, Caroline Bingley muttered to Will, "Is she crazy? Skiing a mile and a half in pouring sleet to be with a sister who only has a cold? Did you see how her nose was running?"
"Her eyes were tearing, too," Louisa added, lighting a cigarette now that Charlie wasn't around to tell her not to.
"She can't be completely crazy," Will said, watching the top of the stairs. "Otherwise, she wouldn't have made it here."
Caroline Bingley tossed her long, blonde hair over her shoulder and let out a laugh like a bark. "You're too cruel sometimes, Will."
It hadn't occurred to Will that he'd been cruel, and he was about to say so when Charlie tramped down the stairs again (Louisa slipped out the front door to smoke her cigarette in peace). "Can you believe it? How many miles do you think it is to the university?"
"Nearly a mile and a half," Will said. "Your driveway's more than a mile of that."
"It's freezing out there!" Charlie cried, crossing his arms and peering out the window.
"How stupid can you get?" Caroline asked.
"Well, I think it's sweet of her," Charlie replied. "It shows how much she loves her sister."
"Well, I love you very much," Caroline scoffed, "but I know better than to risk serious injury because you might be sick."
Will personally felt that statement reflected more on Caroline than on Elizabeth Bennet. It was stupid—he had to admit that--but it was exactly what he might have done for his own sister.
The next morning, Will woke to see his breath hanging in the air, and he flipped the lightswitch twice before he realized the power was out. He pulled on his jeans and two sweatshirts, and when he left his room, he found Charlie shivering in the hallway.
"Power's out," Charlie said, pulling his shoulders up to his ears and rubbing his hands together.
"No shit," Will replied, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
Both Bing and Dar turned when someone coughed in the hallway; Will thought Elizabeth Bennet was trying to get their attention, until he saw her eyes screwed shut and a pained line between her eyebrows. She'd really gotten sick.
"Hey," she said, smiling, and her voice rattled in her throat. "Jane's still asleep. Called the power company, yet?"
Charlie called the power company, searched through the kitchen junk drawer until he found the keys to the shed, and followed Elizabeth outside to find mallets and chop wood for the fireplace. She'd given Will a tight-lipped glare when she and Charlie re-entered the mansion with logs in their arms, until she noticed the small generator Will had pulled out of the garage and wheeled into the sitting room. He'd only just managed to get it to power a few lamps.
"Oh," she said softly, stopping in front of the fireplace, and Will felt she might have said something more—perhaps apologized for thinking him too lazy to chop his own wood—if Caroline and Louisa Bingley hadn't entered the room, groaning about the weather and huddling in the down comforters that they'd pulled from their beds.
She wasn't beautiful, so it wasn't that. When Elizabeth Bennet guided her twin sister into the room and showered Jane with blankets, Will couldn't help noticing that the redhead was the prettier of the two, even though he couldn't quite figure out what the difference was. Elizabeth's mouth was a little too big, perhaps, or her hair a little untidy. Maybe, it was their figures: Jane had a slim, tall frame that would look attractive in nearly anything; Elizabeth wasn't overweight exactly, but she had the curvy figure that would easily run to fat. Even Caroline—with her sharp nose and sculpted mouth—was more aesthetically pleasing than Elizabeth Bennet. But there was something about her—Elizabeth—that drew the eye; he could understand how Elizabeth would seem beautiful to those who loved her.
2.
Netherfield was gorgeous; Lizzy couldn't get over how beautiful it was. She wished she'd thought to bring her camera last night (of course, she didn't though—she was too busy worrying about Jane). Lizzy wanted a picture of the colors that the winter sunlight was teasing out of the window frame, those dark-stained mahogany sparkles and the bright curves of the grain; she wanted one of the ceiling too, painted blue and carved with angels. The room's corners needed dusting, and the hardwood floor needed waxing, but it was the most photogenic room she'd seen in months. She also wouldn't mind having a picture of her twin, flushed with fever and swaddled in blankets like a baby with tissues scattered around her like confetti. She might even want to catch a picture of Charlie, pretending to tend the fire but watching Jane.
She didn't need a picture of the Bingley sisters. They were both sitting on the couch in nearly identical velvet jogging suits; Louisa flipping through magazines and Caroline listening to her iPod As much as she hated to admit it, the one called Dar had been right about those two, but that hadn't improved him much in her opinion. In fact—
Lizzy coughed into her hands and tried to hunch lower in the blankets and hide herself in her hoodie. "He's doing it again, Jane," she complained. "Make him stop."
Jane sighed and reached for another tissue to wipe her nose. "Lizzy, Will Darlington is not staring at you."
"He is," Lizzy replied and coughed again.
"You're so cranky when you're sick," Jane mumbled into her tissue.
"Excuse me," Lizzy muttered. "Since you don't like it, I'll just strap my skis back on and head back to the apartment then."
"No, Lizzy," said Jane quickly, catching her twin's hand; Lizzy saw a photograph—of the concerned frown across her sister's face in the foreground and of the one called Dar's stare in the background. "I'm really glad you're here; I'm really glad I'm not alone right now."
"Alone with two rock stars and the nice one's sisters, you mean," Lizzy asked.
Jane leaned forward to whisper in Lizzy's ear. "No, basically just the nice one."
Lizzy snorted.
When her iPod's battery died, Caroline Bingley looked up from her blankets on the couch, pushed back her hair, and realized no one's attention was on her: her sister was reading Vogue, her brother was watching the redhead, and Will was watching the redhead's crazy sister.
"I'm hungry," Caroline announced.
Charlie scooped up a handful of aluminum-wrapped snacks. "Here's some Pop-tarts."
"I want something warm," Caroline said.
"I'm sorry; we'll have to wait until the power comes back," Charlie replied.
Caroline stretched, sensuously like a cat; her black velvet jogging suit shone gold in the sunlight. "Can't you fix something with that generator, Will?" She leaned forward to stretch her back, giving the one called Dar an eyeful if he chose to look.
He didn't. "It can't support a Crock-pot," Will said.
"Then, when's the power supposed to come back on?" Caroline asked her brother.
"This evening, about six," Charlie said.
"Can't we leave and go someplace else?"
"Sure, if you want to shovel the driveway," Lizzy told Caroline.
"Lizzy," Jane hissed.
"They can't clear the driveway until sometime tomorrow," Charlie apologized. "We're stuck here until then."
"Can't you pay—" Caroline started.
"Public roads first; private later," Lizzy said, harshly enough that everyone looked at her, and a moment passed in awkward silence.
"I'm hungry," Caroline repeated, and when Lizzy opened her mouth to say something else, Jane rose. Her blankets fell in a graceful pile behind her, and her red hair blew around her face like a halo. Lizzy snapped a silent picture in her head ("Angel of Tact," she would've called it).
"Maybe there's something in the kitchen we can cook over the fire; do you have any popcorn?" Jane asked Charlie.
Charlie stood, smiling. "We'll go check; have you seen our kitchen here?" He opened the door for her and held it as she walked past; for an instant, their faces were framed by the curve of his arm. Click. Lizzy'd have called it…"An Easy Excuse to See Each Other." Maybe that was too long; maybe she really was sick—she was even losing her touch.
"No, not yet," Jane answered, and the door swung shut behind her. Lizzy then realized that she was alone with some of her least favorite people; she rewound the imaginary film in her head and relabeled Jane's pic "Angel of Abandonment." Luckily, she noticed that the fire was sputtering out (Lizzy smirked; apparently Charlie had been watching Jane much better than the fire) and stood to tend it, grabbing the stack of magazines that Louisa had discarded before ripping out pages and stuffing them under the grate. When she realized everyone was looking at her, she asked, "Oh, I'm sorry; is it okay if I use these?"
Louisa shrugged, tossed Lizzy the magazine she was holding, and reached for another. Caroline sniffed, and Will replied, "It's fine."
Lizzy placed some more logs carefully in the fire and opened the next magazine for ripping purposes. "Even this one?" Lizzy asked, looking up at Will. "It's got your picture in it."
"We don't care about that sort of thing," Will scoffed, turning away to look at the icicles hanging from the trees.
"So you don't mind that according to People, you're the second sexiest up-and-coming artist, after Charlie?" Lizzy asked, flipping through the magazine before looking up to catch Will scowling down at the page and trying to read it.
"No, he's not," Charlie said, re-entering the room with Jane on his heels; Jane was carrying a pot that rattled with popcorn kernels. "They didn't order us, and we're on the same page. Will, you got that memo, remember?."
"But he didn't read it, of course," Lizzy said, tearing the offending page out and feeding it to the fire. "He doesn't care about that sort of thing."
Will scowled, nostrils flaring, and Caroline decided to rescue him. "Only a certain kind of people read those magazines anyway."
Louisa raised an eyebrow at her sister and said nothing, but Lizzy frowned and said, "So you aren't the CB who scored a 92 on this 'How Fashion Conscious Are You?' quiz, huh?"
Caroline's jaw dropped, but Lizzy only smiled, tore out the page, and stuffed it among the orange coals. "Don't worry," she chirped. "Evidence burnt."
Will rubbed his mouth to hide his smile.
3.
If you remove electricity—and with electricity, TV, internet, and even radio—most young people can't entertain themselves.
The Bennet twins, the Bingley sisters, and the rock stars tried anyway. Luckily, managing to get the popcorn popped over the fire took three tries and a whole fifty minutes (and half a jar of Newman's Best Kernels). Putting out the fire that an over-enthusiastic Jane set on the carpet took just five minutes, but Jane's apologies and Charlie's reassurances managed to take up another twenty minutes. They used three hours and two laptops to watch movies (The Sweetest Thing, Caroline's choice and half of Bend It Like Beckham, Jane and Lizzy's choice) until the last of the laptop batteries gave out. Jane unearthed some board games in one of the front closets, but when she noticed the way Lizzy was glaring at Caroline, she whispered a request into Charlie's ear. Charlie left the room and returned with a digital camera for Lizzy, saying that he thought that maybe she might like to take some pictures of the house and grounds; Lizzy was so excited that she whooped and hugged Charlie around the neck, which earned her a snide comment from Caroline Bingley and a covert glance from Will as she left the room.
She returned a couple hours and three rounds of Scrabble later, coughing again but grinning, her cheeks bright with cold, and the camera dangling from her hand. "Charlie," she said, slinging off her backpack and pulling off her coat, "I love your house."
Jane and Charlie exchanged laughing glances in front of the fireplace; Lizzy caught it on film, just barely, the last memory available in her camera. "Thanks," Charlie said, smiling. "I'm happy here myself."
"Before we leave, you have to show Jane the ballroom; that chandelier—" she said. "Oh, speaking of leaving, the road's cleared at the end of the driveway, and I might have talked the crews into tackling your driveway first thing tomorrow morning."
"How did you get to the end of the driveway, Lizzy?" Jane asked, suspiciously.
Lizzy ducked her head and mumbled, "Skied."
"You shouldn't push yourself so much," Jane scolded. "You're already sick."
Lizzy shrugged. "It was on the way to the apartment."
"You went all the way back to your apartment?" Caroline Bingley asked, as if she couldn't believe that Lizzy hadn't stayed there.
"Yep," Lizzy announced proudly. "I gathered us a change of clothes and toothbrushes and stuff; I think I forgot a hairbrush, though."
Caroline made a noise in the back of her throat that sounded suspiciously like a snort.
"You remembered your camera though, didn't you?" Jane teased, coming to give her sister a hug.
"Yeah, but Charlotte confiscated it," Lizzy sighed with so much regret that Jane laughed.
"You probably shouldn't ski again if the plough crews might come unannounced," Will said and immediately regretted it when he saw Elizabeth scowl; apparently she hated being told what to do.
"That's true," Jane agreed quietly. "I want you to promise me that you won't go skiing again until we get back home."
"Then how will I get back home?" Lizzy asked.
"We'll call Charlotte to pick us up," Jane said, sternly. "Promise me, Lizzy."
Lizzy stared at her sister levelly for a moment. "Fine, I promise," she mumbled. "So bossy."
"Older sister's privilege," Jane said.
"Okay—minutes, Jane," Lizzy said, rolling her eyes. "There are minutes between me and you."
Jane shrugged with a smile, and the lights flickered on above them. Lizzy caught the whir of the central heating click on around them, too.
"Finally!" Louisa cried.
"Just in time for a shower and an episode of the OC," Caroline agreed, and Lizzy had to work really hard to keep herself from rolling her eyes. Caroline looked around and added, "Any takers?"
Will and Charlie assumed that they weren't being addressed.
"I've never seen it," Jane said quietly.
"I think I'm going to read," Lizzy admitted, pulling a book out of her backpack.
"Read?" Caroline and Louisa repeated together. Caroline went on, "You'd give up the OC to read?"
"Homework," Lizzy explained, as politely as she could. "We won't have snow days forever."
Caroline and Louisa didn't know how to respond to this and stepped out of the room. Jane asked Lizzy if she brought any medical texts with her, and her twin replied by smiling and pulling Atlas of Human Anatomy out of her bag without even looking up.
"What's your major?" Will asked.
"I'm a medical student," Jane replied, but he was looking pointedly at Lizzy.
Lizzy was pointedly not noticing until Jane nudged her. "Anthropology," Lizzy said.
"What are you going to do with that?" Will asked.
Charlie scowled, but the words were out of Will's mouth before he could stop them.
"Save the world," Lizzy replied, her gaze barely glancing up from her copy of Persepolis for a short second.
"That's not quite practical, is it?" Will said. He could feel Charlie staring at him, but that was easily ignored.
"Jane's the practical one," Lizzy said, turning a page, lips tight. "I'm just the rebellious one."
"Lizzy," Jane pleaded.
"However—" Will started.
"Will, you were an English major," Charlie laughed. "What are you picking on Lizzy for?"
Will shrugged. "I planned to go to graduate school."
"And do you still?" Lizzy asked, still refusing to look up from her book. "Now that your major turned out to be so helpful for your career?"
"Yes, I bloody well do," snapped Will.
Now she closed her book; now she looked up at him. Will barely had time to notice that her eyes were blue, not green, before Lizzy's next question threw him off guard: "Are you British?"
"What?" Will asked. Charlie started forward, but Will threw him a warning glance.
"Are you British?" Lizzy asked.
"Why you always ask me that?" Will asked.
"Uh, Will? This is the first time she's asked you," Charlie said.
"No, he's right," Lizzy told Charlie. "I asked him a lot when I was throwing up in his dressing room. I just keep hearing faint traces of the UK in your o's; plus, I don't know too many Americans who use 'bloody' in everyday conversation, unless they're med students like Jane here."
"You specialize in linguistic anthropology, don't you?" said Will.
"You wish," replied Lizzy with a grin.
"You took a course in it last semester though," Jane reminded Lizzy.
"Where are you from, Mr. Darlington?" Lizzy asked in her best British accent.
"My mother's family is from Boston," Will said, looking Lizzy in the eye as steadily as he could, "but I move all over."
"You're doing a great job of not lying," Lizzy commented, "and not answering the question."
"Elizabeth Zipporah Bennet," hissed Jane, and Lizzy rolled her eyes but left Will "Dar" Darlington alone.
Charlie tried to rescue them from an awkward silence. "Jane, why did you want to become a doctor?"
Lizzy looked up to watch Jane for her reaction. "I'd like to find a cure for asthma," Jane replied.
Will wasn't sure how practical Jane was either, but he knew the shit that Charlie would give him later if he dared to bring this up. He needed something to distract him from his bad mood, so he crossed the room to turn on his laptop.
"Oh," said Charlie in a more polite tone than normal. "Why is that?"
"Me," said Lizzy, turning to Charlie with a smile. "I have asthma. Or I did; I've mostly outgrown it by now. But back in middle school, I had a really bad attack on the soccer field, and Jane's wanted to cure asthma ever since."
"I've never felt so helpless," Jane said quietly. "I thought you were going to die."
Out of the corner of his eye, Will watched Lizzy reach for her sister's hand and hold it for a moment; then, he turned and saw Charlie practically melting with infatuation. He had a sudden vision of their drummer Fitz turning to him and announcing, "Now experiencing Crush #18. Strap in, folks; we're expecting turbulence ahead," and Will snickered. He froze though, turning pale at his mistake, when the Bennet twins and Charlie turned to him; it looked like the only thing keeping Elizabeth Bennet from crossing the room to hit him was Jane's hand holding hers.
Charlie noticed too. "Uh, Lizzy—wanna download those pictures onto my computer?"
Lizzy grinned to show Charlie that she knew she was being placated. "Sure, Charlie."
4.
Disappointment, in all its forms, is most keenly felt directly after its actualization; the same was true of Caroline and Louisa Bingley after they discovered that the storm had knocked out the cable in the Netherfield mansion and they would not in fact be watching the OC that night. The Bingley sisters turned to distraction, which has proved an effective antidote to disappointment, to pass the time—Louisa, in the form of a novel with a scantily clothed couple on the cover, and Caroline, by distracting Will from his task on the computer.
Their brother Charlie was distracted himself by the tutelage of Jane Bennet, who was trying to demonstrate how a fire should be properly attended. Jane was distracted by her twin's cough, which seemed to be getting worse, and forced her sister to promise to see a doctor the next day. Darcy seemed to be distracted by Elizabeth Bennet as well; he kept pausing at his keyboard to scowl at her over the screen. Caroline Bingley didn't take too kindly to Lizzy being better at her task than she was.
"Jane, sweetheart, what I can't seem to understand is how you can be well into medical school with your sister stuck in undergrad, yet," Caroline said. "You two are twins, aren't you?"
"Jane's just way smarter than me," Lizzy said from her place at Charlie's computer.
"That's not true, Lizzy," Jane said. "You skipped just as many grades as I did."
"Yeah, how many did we skip? Two?" Lizzy asked.
"Two and a half," Jane replied.
"That's right," Lizzy said, smiling up at Caroline's scowl over the top of the laptop.
"You skipped two grades?" Charlie asked, obviously impressed.
"Two and a half," Lizzy corrected him.
"That still doesn't explain why you two are so far apart in your educational careers," Will commented.
"No, did something happen? Did you change your major too many times?" Caroline asked.
"Nope, just took a couple years off," Lizzy said. "I didn't feel like entering college as a sixteen-year-old."
"Taking time off is nearly always regretted," Will said. "It's very difficult to return to the life of a student."
"Well, you're bossy, Mr. Darlington," Lizzy replied, grinning at Jane. "You must know everything; I bet you have a younger sister."
Will's mouth fell open to explain that he was merely trying to be sympathetic and that he was having difficulty mustering the inclination to go back to graduate school himself, but Jane spoke first. "Don't let her fool you, Will. She's talking to me; I said something like that to her when she told me about her decision. But I was just scared to be separated from her. Lizzy handled the transition fine."
"The trick is to never stop reading," Lizzy advised.
Caroline Bingley had nothing to say about this, so she returned her attention back to Will. "You type so fast, Will!"
"You must be mistaken; I type rather slowly."
"It seems like your fingers are just flying over the keyboard."
"If they were flying over the keyboard, I wouldn't be typing at all."
Caroline was silent for a moment, and so was Will.
"I don't get it."
Will explained, "If they were flying, they wouldn't be touching the keyboard."
Lizzy tried not to snicker; she didn't exactly succeed but covered it up pretty well with a coughing fit, one that made Jane and then Charlie turn to her in concern.
"You alright, Lizzy?" Jane asked.
"I'm fine," she promised. "And I'm almost done; you'll have your computer back in a few minutes."
"Take your time," Charlie told her.
"I just need send twenty more pictures to myself and delete all the files, and I'm done," she assured him.
"No, leave them," Charlie said. "I'd like to see them; Jane's been telling me about your gallery opening."
"It wasn't a real gallery, just something at school," Lizzy said modestly, but she was beaming.
"No, but it was visited by real gallery owners," Jane reminded her. "Give yourself some credit."
"Why would she need to, if you're doing it for her?" Will said, and both Bennet twins turned to look at him.
"Will, how's Pemberley this time of year?" Caroline asked.
"I imagine it's much like this," Will replied. "In the middle of its first snow of the year. Or rather close to it."
"What does Georgiana say?" Caroline said.
"I'm emailing her to ask," Will replied.
Jane whispered to Charlie, "Is Georgiana his girlfriend?"
Charlie shook his head, turning to grin at Lizzy. "His little sister."
Lizzy glanced up at Will and laughed. "Called it," she reminded him.
Will began to grin sheepishly, but Lizzy had already returned her attention to the computer screen.
"How is dear Georgie?" Caroline asked.
"Very well."
"Tell her hi for me; I haven't see her in so long," Caroline lamented. "She must taller than me."
"Not quite."
"What colleges is she applying to?"
"None," said Will. "She's yet to take her A-levels."
"A-levels, Mr. Darlington?" repeated Lizzy suspiciously. "Are you sure you're not British?"
Will and Charlie exchanged glances; Caroline looked smug (a little too I-know-something-you-don't-know to soothe Lizzy's curiosity). "I won't dignify that with an answer," Will said.
"It's funny," Lizzy commented, as she typed (she was a fast typer). "You've got the accent down; it's a little too proper and grammatical correct for your age but it's good."
"Are you in the habit of badgering people about their nationalities?" Caroline said and added a tickling laugh.
"Only when they throw in rather and quite into their everyday speech," replied Lizzy, smirking.
"No!" cried Jane. "Not that one."
Lizzy, Will, and Caroline turned to the fireplace, where Jane had rescued a magazine from Charlie's hands and was hugging it to her chest.
"But you told me to rip out the pages and put them under the wood," said Charlie slowly, looking abashed.
"Yeah, just…" Jane sighed. "Not this one; use another magazine."
The room was silent, and Lizzy was trying not to laugh at the face that Charlie was making. "Jane?" she asked. "You okay? You're weirding us out?"
"Sorry," said Jane. It's just that I have so few pictures of Lizzy; she hates to be in front of a camera nowadays." Jane relinquished the magazine to display a picture of a slim, long-haired brunette grinning over a Tommy Hilfiger logo.
"That's Lizzy?" Charlie asked, mouth open.
"You were a model?" asked Caroline.
"Who was a model?" Louisa asked looking up from her book.
"Elizabeth Bennet was a model," Caroline told Louisa.
"Oh," said Louisa and returned to her novel.
"You're the last person I would've thought had a modeling history," said Charlie.
Lizzy laughed. "They only wanted me, because they hadn't met Jane."
"Lizzy!" cried Jane.
Lizzy laughed again.
Caroline peered over Will's shoulder to see what he was Google-ing. "We can't find any 'Elizabeth Bennet' supermodels on the internet," she told Lizzy, smugly.
"That's because I worked under the name Beth Bennett," Lizzy said. "I had to make a few things up; not many agencies were looking for sixteen-year-old high school graduates. Good thing Jane and I looked old for our age."
"Lizzy held three jobs in New York," Jane said, proudly. "She was also a daycare assistant and a part-time secretary."
"No, I quit the secretary job, remember?"
"Right—you hated your boss," Jane remembered.
"I worked in a salon instead; I was a receptionist," Jane said.
"You put yourself through college?" Will asked quietly.
"Yes," replied Lizzy defensively.
No one asked why, but the question hung in the air. Will tried to ignore Caroline's head above his shoulder, looking on, and clicked through the resume-portfolio of the model Beth Bennette. This was a very different girl than the one in the hoodie and ponytail, typing away at Charlie's laptop; this Elizabeth Bennet was at ease in some of the labels that would make the Bingley sisters' mouths water.
She still wasn't beautiful, but he could understand why she had once been a popular model. It was more noticeable in these pictures against a backdrop of the beautiful, blank stares of other models.
There was always something in her face.
She didn't wear a mask like the other models; her moods were visible—laughing in one, angry the next, then mocking. Or perhaps that was laughing again.
"Why'd you quit?" Caroline asked, as if she could never understand why anyone would give it up.
"The rest of me grew in, and the clothes stopped fitting," said Lizzy.
"The rest of her?" asked Charlie.
"I believe Miss Bennet means that her figure grew rather curvaceous for popular approval," Will said.
Lizzy lifted her eyebrows, smirking. "Bingo; point for Mr. Darcy."
"God, Lizzy," said Jane, rolling her eyes and handing Charlie another log to put on the now-roaring fire. "If you're going to call Will by his last name, you might as well get it right."
Charlie didn't move; instead he asked, slowly, "Who told you that Will's real last name is Darcy?"
5.
Throughout her life, Elizabeth Bennet had been told by two dozen people that she was too clever for her own good. Sometimes, as with her father, this was said with a touch of admiration or even pride; other times, as with her mother, it carried a hint of a threat. It was the threat that Will would've tried for, if he could've gotten his mouth to move.
"Oh, my God," said Caroline.
" said Lizzy, and she started reading off the screen. "'Pemberley Hall was built in 1733 by three generations of the Darcy family; Fitzwilliam Henry Darcy is the fourteenth owner of the mansion, which has fifteen bedrooms and—"
Charlie got up and slapped the laptop shut; Lizzy jumped away from the desk, hands in the air, surprised to see him so angry. "I didn't let you borrow this for—"
"It's quite all right, Charlie," said Will, and Lizzy's head whipped around to hear a clipped English accent coming from his mouth. "It's better that she did it here, where we might catch her; she needs to understand."
"Excuse me?" snapped Lizzy, pissed that he could be caught in such a huge lie and still manage to be condescending.
"Understand what?" Jane asked.
"What happened?" asked Louisa, looking up from her book.
"The Bennets found out about Darcy," Caroline explained.
"Oh," said Louisa, and she returned to her novel.
"You're lying to a lot of people, Mr. Darcy," Lizzy reminded him. "I'm going to want a reason why."
"For the same reason that you once called yourself Beth Bennette," Will said calmly.
"I used a false identity so that I could lie about my age. People don't care how old rockstars are," Lizzy reminded him. "Look at Hillary Duff. And Mick Jagger."
Charlie made a sound like he was wounded, and Will scowled. "I can't believe you just compared B.F.D. to Hilary Duff," said Jane, and Charlie beamed at her.
"Privacy, Miss Bennet," said Will sternly. "I don't want anyone bothering me and mine."
Lizzy burst out laughing. "Are you serious? Did you just step out of a historical thriller or something?"
Will scowled again, and Jane said, "Lizzy, please."
"Don't you understand what this could do to their careers?" Caroline huffed with crossed arms.
"Depending on their PR guy," replied Lizzy, "the scandal might be great publicity for B.F.D.'s new album."
"We've gone to great lengths to hide—" Will started.
"I hope you're not trying to tell me that you've been successful," Lizzy said. "I can't be the only one to have figured this out."
"There have been certain reporters," Will said as calmly as he could, "and a considerable amount of money has been paid."
"And a few threats," Charlie added. To Will's questioning frown, he explained, "Fitz's."
"And neither of those will work with me," Lizzy told them. "So, I need someone to explain why he's going by Darlington instead of Darcy."
"My mother's maiden name was Darlington," Will said quietly.
"Well, good to know you didn't make it up," said Lizzy scowling.
"Georgiana," said Charlie quickly. Will scowled at him, but Charlie continued, "Will figures she's had enough to deal with already; she doesn't need to be known as a rock star's little sister on top of everything else."
"Oh," said Lizzy in a very different tone. "Okay, then; I won't say anything."
Both Dar and Bing's eyebrows flew up.
"You—" started Charlie, cautiously.
"If Lizzy says she won't," interrupted Jane quietly but firmly, "she won't."
Charlie glanced at Will and sighed. "Okay."
"And you obviously don't need to worry about Jane," Lizzy chirped; she turned back to Will, grinning. "So…what? You just woke up one day and decided Darcy wasn't the name for you?"
"When I came to the states to finish high school, I registered under the name Darlington, because it was my mum's family that was paying for my education," Will said. "It was one of their conditions."
"And obviously, your accent changed as soon as you crossed the big pond, huh?" said Lizzy.
"He wanted to fit in," Charlie said. "He was having a hard enough time changing schools during his senior year."
"I would've thought an English accent would've made you more popular," Lizzy mused, "or was it an all-boys school?"
Will lifted one eyebrow. "It was exclusively male."
Lizzy grinned. "So, how'd you find out, Charlie?"
"He was my roommate," Will explained.
"And Will talks in his sleep," added Charlie. Charlie and Lizzy laughed at this; Jane smiled, and Will scowled.
"Louisa and I found out when Charlie brought Will home at Thanksgiving," Caroline said.
"So you hid in his bedroom to listen to him talk in his sleep?" Lizzy asked, innocently.
"I most certainly didn't," Caroline scoffed.
"What did I do?" Louisa asked.
"You found out about Will being British," Caroline told her.
"No, I didn't," Louisa said, flipping a page. "Charlie told me."
"Charlie believed I might have an easier time feeling comfortable in his home, if the truth was not concealed from his family," Will said slowly.
"And did it work?" Charlie asked.
Fitzwilliam Henry Darcy was silent.
"Come on, Will," Charlie said. "Did it work?"
"Yes."
Grinning, Charlie sat back down and leaned against the fireplace. "That's all I needed to hear," he told Jane, who covered her mouth with her hand to restrain her laugh.
"So, when you got to BU, you had enough faith in your sex appeal that you didn't feel like you needed to switch back to your original accent?" Lizzy said.
Will wasn't sure if he was being mocked or not.
Charlie laughed. "Will didn't need any help with his love life when he got to college."
"How did you know that Charlie and I attended BU?" Will asked. wasn't the only website I visited," Lizzy said. "In case you were wondering, B.F.D brings up over two and a half million websites nowadays."
"See," Charlie told Will smugly. "I told you that we'd break three million sites by Christmas."
"You might need to work up a scandal to reach that number so fast," Will said.
"You offering?" Charlie asked.
"You seem to be doing quite well on your own."
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"
"Charlie, can I use your computer again?" Lizzy asked.
"Are you going to track down more skeletons in our closet?' Charlie asked, suspiciously.
"Yep," chirped Lizzy and grinned at Will, "but this way I have supervision. So, I can understand."
Now Will knew he was being mocked.
"Go ahead," Charlie sighed. To Jane, he said, "Has your sister always been this much trouble?"
Jane smiled. "She'd be much worse if she didn't like you."
"Well, that's a relief," Charlie said, and Jane laughed again behind her hand.
Will pondered briefly that Miss Elizabeth Bennet seemed to give him quite a bit more trouble than she did Charlie.
6.
The next morning—when Lizzy woke up early coughing and Charlie just woke up early, Charlie told Lizzy about the sad, sad childhood of the one called Dar: of his parents' failed marriage, of his mother's abandonment and subsequent death in Boston ("an accident," Charlie emphasized, as if it needed to be emphasized), his father's decline into alcoholism and subsequent death ("a heart attack," Charlie shrugged, as if there was a story there, too), and Fitzwilliam Henry Darcy's inheritance of the Pemberley estate and guardianship of his sister Georgiana Darcy at the age of twenty.
"A very sad story," Lizzy told Charlie, which it was—if it were all true. Lizzy didn't suspect Charlie of lying, but she could easily see a young Will Darcy feeding the story to his gullible roommate and keeping it up for years, when he couldn't figure out a way to extricate himself from such an elaborate lie. After all, that Darcy hadn't managed to break it to the public that Boston's all-American college band was one-third British.
"Don't tell him that I told you," Charlie said. "He's very secretive."
Lizzy couldn't imagine that even with such a "secretive" rock star, this story wouldn't have leaked; the whole thing was fodder for a nice two-hour-long segment on the E! Entertainment Channel.
"That's why he's so moody," Charlie offered hesitantly. "He just really wants to go home, but since the tour, the press has been following us everywhere. Fitz gave them some pics of him and his wife in their underwear, and they agreed to ignore us while we're living here."
Lizzy grinned. "You probably should've told the university paper."
"No one really reads those anyway."
"I won't tell, Charlie," Lizzy said, because he still seemed so nervous.
"He'd be really mad," Charlie continued, "but I wanted you to understand—"
"Charlie, where the bloody hell are my keys?" said someone in the hallway. "Your sister snuck into my bloody room again last night; I bloody well told you to talk to her about that."
"I did, Will," Charlie said, "but you should really understand how uncomfortable it is for a younger brother to scold his older sister for showing off her latest purchase from Victoria Secret."
"She doesn't fucking shop at Victoria Secret, for Chrissake," muttered Will, as he strode into the living room. "Caroline only goes for Versace—oh," he said, spotting Lizzy and stopping in his tracks.
"Good morning, Mr. Darcy," said Lizzy nodding decorously.
"Oh, fuck," said Will and fell into the closest chair with his hand over his face.
"Are you always going to call him that?" Charlie asked.
Lizzy grinned at Will. "Only when it stops amusing me."
"Which will be never," scoffed Will.
"Well, I gotta say—" Lizzy leaned forward mock-serious, but she was smiling. "Your reactions aren't cutting back any on the potential amusement."
"I just want to go home," Will moaned through his hands.
"Same here," commented Lizzy. "Hey, is the driveway cleared?"
"You know," said Charlie, getting up, "I'll go check."
"You don't have to do that," Lizzy said, hurriedly, "or—I could do it just as easily as you."
"No, I'll go," Charlie insisted; Lizzy expected that this might be Charlie's opportunity to go check on Jane. "You're my guest," he added with a grin before he left, and Lizzy was alone—completely alone—with Mr. Fitzwilliam Henry Darcy.
Lizzy sighed and pulled her book towards her; after a moment, Will removed his hands from his face and reached for his computer. There was the bing! of his Powerbook, and Lizzy felt it was her responsibility to say something, to break the silence. She turned and opened her mouth at the same time a tall, slim figure in a purple satin robe threw open the door and cried, "Will! I found you!"
"Morning," said Lizzy quickly, in case Caroline didn't notice her in time and the Versace lingerie was revealed again.
"Oh," said Caroline obviously disappointed. "Elizabeth. Morning."
Lizzy nodded once and returned to her book.
"Will, what are you doing so early in the morning?" Caroline asked, perching on the air of his chair and leaning until her chest was pressed against his arm. "I find that I'm not good for much, except, well…a select few but uplifting activities."
Lizzy wondered if there was any way to leave the room gracefully.
"Damn," said Will, getting up so quickly that Caroline nearly fell off the arm of the chair. "Battery's low; where the devil is my power cord?"
"Still in the wall," Lizzy said pointing. "Right behind you."
"So it is," said Will, bending to reach for it. "Thanks," he added curtly, before sitting on the sofa.
"Will," said Caroline, "you didn't answer me; what are you doing?"
"Writing my sister."
"That's what you were doing yesterday."
"Yes, but as she's replied to me twice over the night, I feel I must be prompt in my reply."
"You're such a kind brother."
Will seemed to not feel a need to reply to this, and Lizzy wondered if Charlie's story might be true. After all, siblings who suffered together like that were usually very close.
"You type so fast," said Caroline.
"That's what you said yesterday," said Lizzy with only a hint of a grin, and Caroline and Will turned to her.
"You're certainly a good reader," scoffed Caroline. "That's what you were doing yesterday; what's so interesting?"
"Bing: A Biography," said Lizzy, grin widening. "Tell me: is it true that you tried to flush a box of baking soda down your toilet and needed to have your septic tank replaced?"
"That was Louisa!"
"Oh, sorry—it just says 'older sister;' I didn't know," said Lizzy, who returned to her book and thought she was safe until she spotted purple satin at her elbow. Lizzy looked up to see Caroline smiling down at here and felt a chill crawl up her spine.
"I was wondering if you might want to walk around the room with me, Lizzy," Caroline said. Lizzy snorted, smiling until Caroline added somewhat huffily, "Come on; I'd like to see that famous walk of Beth Bennette, supermodel."
"Oh," Lizzy said. "You're serious." Since she felt slightly guilty for laughing, she stood up, saying apologetically, "I didn't do much runway. Mostly photo shoots, actually. I certainly wasn't a supermodel."
Once Lizzy was standing, Caroline looped her arm through her companion's, and steered them along at a leisurely pace around the circumference of the room; Lizzy's guilt wore off in a few seconds, so she said, "I know I said I didn't have much experience with runway, but I don't remember anything like this."
"No, but it's refreshing, isn't it?" Caroline asked, arching an eyebrow at Lizzy as if she were daring her to argue; Lizzy couldn't decide whether to reply or to figure out a way to reclaim her hand, when Caroline asked, "Wouldn't you like to join us, Will?"
"Certainly not," Will said. Lizzy couldn't see him, but she could hear the keys of his laptop clacking.
Lizzy wondered if she should tell Caroline that her robe was gaping open, or if Caroline had just managed to make that slice of chest seem careless; she guessed the latter. She tried to wiggle her hand a little, but Caroline clasped her tighter. "Oh? And why not?" Caroline asked, smiling. "I can see you watching us; doesn't it look like fun?"
"It looks like you want me to see you, and I see you fine from here."
Lizzy wondered if her freedom was worth making a scene.
"Oh, Will—behave," Caroline said, and Lizzy snorted (freedom was definitely worth making a scene).
"That's the worst Austin Powers impression I've heard in a while," Lizzy said, and Caroline was insulted enough to let her go.
"Austin Powers?" said Will gaping.
"Yep. Spy. British. Bad teeth," said Lizzy, crossing the room in four swift paces to return to her seat.
"Mike Myers is American," Will protested.
"Uh, Canadian actually," Lizzy said. " But bad teeth are definitely British. Let's see yours, Mr. Darcy; go like this." She wrinkled her nose and bared her teeth, which were white and even; Will rolled his eyes. "Or you could just smile; we don't see that all too often from you."
Will smiled at that, despite himself, despite the fact that Caroline was seating herself on the couch next to him.
"Oh, darn," said Lizzy with real disappointment. "Your teeth are fine; it's bound to be something else, then."
"What?" Will asked.
"Your fault," explained Lizzy. "You're bound to have one. You see, Mr. Darcy, I found out your biggest secret, and now, I need to find out your greatest fault. Get myself a matched set."
"Calling me Mr. Darcy isn't enough of a thrill for you?"
"No, that'll get old real fast—for me and for you," Lizzy said. "So, what's your fault, Mr. Darcy? You have to answer me, or I'll be forced to make one up." Will wasn't sure if he could answer, and Lizzy only gave him a half-second's chance. "Poor Mr. Darcy, you're playing right into my hands. Yellow toenails? Hair on your back? A lazy eye? A quick temper? Pride? Vanity?"
"Pride isn't a fault," Will said.
"No?" said Lizzy, and she laughed. "Are you sure? Or are you too vain to consider it one?"
"If there is something to be justifiably proud about…" Will began, frowning.
Lizzy laughed again. "And who's the one to justify it?"
Caroline had had enough of a conversation that excluded her and said, "I guess we'll just have to assume that Will's perfect, then."
Lizzy wasn't sure how the three of them managed to get to that conclusion, but she managed not to snicker. Will looked her full in the face and said, "I'm certainly not perfect. My good opinion—once lost---is lost forever."
The seriousness of his answer shocked the smile off Lizzy's face. "That is a fault, then," she sighed. "And it's not even funny."
Jane Bennet entered the room, yawning, "What's not funny, Lizzy?" Then, Jane caught sight of Caroline's robe, stopped, and looked down quickly at her own t-shirt and jeans, and Lizzy couldn't stop herself from laughing at her sister's expression. "What? What's so funny?"
"Mr. Darcy's not funny," Lizzy said. 'His fault, I mean."
"That's really not very nice, Liz," Jane said. "Just because everybody doesn't come equipped with the same sense of humor you have doesn't mean—Charlie, what's wrong?"
Charlie Bingley was standing in the doorway, with his blonde hair sprayed out like a tousled fan on his left side and his eyebrows pulled together in a hesitant scowl. "Well, the good news is that the driveway's been cleared."
"Finally," said Caroline and Lizzy together, and it was hard to tell who was more upset about that coincidence.
"I should take a shower and get ready to go, then," Jane said.
"What else, Charlie?" asked Will from the sofa.
"Lizzy, you have a visitor," Charlie said, still frowning. "He was at the door."
The Bennet sisters exchanged glances. "Who?" Lizzy asked.
"Your fiancé."
7.
"My what?" said Lizzy, aghast.
Will dropped his laptop.
"Your what?" cried Caroline delighted.
Will hurriedly picked up his laptop.
"Jane, I'm not engaged," Lizzy said, and Will was surprised to hear the note of question in her voice.
"You're not engaged," Jane soothed.
"Then, who?" Lizzy asked. Then, she scowled. "If it's Charlotte, I'll—"
"No," said Charlie. "No, it was definitely a man. Short. A moustache.—Hold on; I'll get him." He left the room.
"Oh," said Jane, as if that settled it.
"Who?" asked Lizzy.
Jane winced. "Collins."
"Shit!"
"Lizzy!"
"Jane, quick—repeal the you-can't-ski-home clause; I'll sneak around the back, and—"
"Lizzy, if Charlie's already let him in, you should really see him," Jane scolded. "He did fly all this way."
"And followed me to Charlie's house," Lizzy said. "He's a stalker; I don't know why you won't let me get a restraining order."
"He's not a bad person, and—"
"Easy for you to say; he doesn't want to marry you."
"I don't think he'd ever hurt you."
"That's because I'd kick his ass before he could even get close."
"Lizzy."
"Jane."
"My dear Miss Eliza Bennet," said an entirely different voice, smooth and skulking, "what a pleasure to see you again. My, your accomodations have improved since our last meeting." The figure in the doorway was small, only just matching Lizzy's 5'8" frame. He had a slight paunch straining at the vest of his forest-green, three-piece suit and a very hearty moustache that did its best to take attention from his comb-over.
"It's Lizzy," she sighed, "and I don't live here."
"It reminds me a great deal of Rosings, that little place in upstate New York I'm fixing up for Mrs. De Borough," continued Mr. Collins. He gestured to the windows with a well-manicured hand. "Eighteen foot windows--$965 each. Marble frames--$600 each. And these hardwood floors, my God! Look at the inlay, the craftsmanship, oh!"
Lizzy had forgotten that Mr. Collins made conversation like an American Express commercial. "We don't live here, Mr. Collins," Lizzy repeated with a resigned patience. "We still live in the same apartment we lived in last month; I don't know why you didn't look for us there."
"Oh, but I did, my dear Miss Eliza," said Mr. Collins. "Your charming roommate directed me here."
"My charming roommate won't be so charming when I get through with her," Lizzy muttered darkly.
"What was that, my darling?" asked Mr. Collins.
"You don't want me to repeat it," Lizzy told him.
"Now, my dear—" began Mr. Collins with a sigh. "There should be no secrets between us; the secret of a happy marriage is communication.—Perhaps, your friends would like to meet your fiancé?"
"Why do you keep introducing yourself as my fiancé? We're not engaged," she told Mr. Collins. To Charlie, she insisted, "We're not engaged."
"Okay," agreed Charlie nodding.
"My dear Miss Eliza, don't you think our engagement can be made public now? Your insistence on our secrecy, my darling, is frankly becoming ridiculous—"
"What engagement?" snapped Lizzy.
Caroline stood, smiling her most charming smile. Lizzy rolled her eyes; she knew Caroline was loving this. "Hello, Mr. Collins. I'm Miss Bingley." She held out her hand, which Mr. Collins took and bent to kiss.
"A pleasure," announced Mr. Collins.
"Ugh," snorted Lizzy.
"This is my brother, Charlie Bingley," said Caroline sweetly; Charlie nodded with a half grin. "I suppose, you know Jane already, but this is—"
"Oh, Mr. Darcy!" cried Mr. Collins, moving from Caroline to peel Will's hand away from his keyboard and shake it vigorously.
"Looks like Mr. Darcy missed a bribe payment," mused Lizzy, smiling for the first time since Mr. Collins had entered the room.
"Have we met?" Will asked Mr. Collins coldly, as he withdrew his hand.
"Yes! At the house of your dear aunt, the wise and illustrious Mrs. Catherine de Borough," said Mr. Collins, smiling as if he didn't notice Mr. Darcy's scowl.
"Oh, well, that explains it," Lizzy muttered. "From what I've heard of the de Borough's bitch, there's a family resemblance, too." Will shifted his scowl to her, and Lizzy was embarrassed that he'd heard.
"You really must come to wedding," Mr. Collins was telling Will. "You must; we haven't set a date, yet, but it'll be—"
"Mr. Collins, have I told you today that we are not, have never been, and will never be engaged?" Lizzy said.
"Yes, Miss Eliza, you say that," Mr. Collins agreed, "but I had the pleasure –or should I say, the honor—of discussing the matter with the wise and illustrious Mrs. Borough. She tells me that many a modern young woman turns down offers of marriage that she may accept upon a second avowal of love. So, my dear, let me once again praise your beauty—your untrimmed brown hair, your slightly chapped, but well-formed lips, your—"
Caroline snickered.
"Mr. Collins!" Lizzy interrupted. "With respect to your employer, she's never met me, so isn't there a good chance that she could be wrong about me?"
"Oh, but sweet Miss Eliza," said Mr. Collins, "Mrs. de Borough is rarely wrong."
"She is actually quite frequently wrong," Will said from the sofa. "Especially in such matters of love."
Lizzy threw Will a grin of gratitude. "So, Mr. Collins, I'm sorry, but I have to refuse your offer. Just as I refused it last month and the month before that."
"And the month before that," Jane offered.
"So, if you would please go home, or go wherever—" Lizzy began again but stopped when she noticed that Mr. Collins was still smiling.
"Mrs. de Borough warned me that it might come to this," Mr. Collins said.
"Uh-oh," said Lizzy paling.
"Oh-ho," said Caroline smirking.
"My dear, I had hoped that you would not be that type of young lady—to need such a flagrant display of affection, but for you, my darling…" he said. Then, slowly, wobbling, he bent and knelt on one knee.
"Oh, my God," moaned Lizzy, her hands over her face.
Mr. Collins drew a small box out of the inside pocket of his forest-green jacket and opened it to reveal a ring with a diamond large enough to make Caroline squeak in surprise. "Dear, sweet, beautiful Miss Eliza Bennet," said Mr. Collins, "I kneel here before you, not as a successful businessman, nor as the indispensable employee of the wise and illustrious Mrs. de Borough, but as a man in love. I ask that you become the companion of my future life, my love and my bride."
The room was silent. Lizzy's jaw was set; her eyes were narrowed. "No," replied Lizzy.
"My dear," said Mr. Collins, rising with a long-suffering sigh and the cracks of his leg joints, "really—what must I do for you to accept my love?"
"Don't give me that shit," snapped Lizzy. "You don't love me. This de Borough woman told you that you should be married by your age, so you showed up on my doorstep four month ago with my face on a file and you proposed. You've come every fifth of the month to repeat yourself. I don't give a fuck if we're cousins eight times removed or whatever; we aren't family. I don't have to be nice, and I certainly don't have to marry you—"
"Miss Eliza," said Mr, Collins, still smiling, which Lizzy took to be a very bad sign, "Mrs. de Borough told me that this might happen; she told me what measures I might have to resort to, for a young modern romantic like you. While I'm afraid that I didn't think I would have to do this in public, I fear it's the only way."
"It won't work," said Lizzy, in an irritated sing-song, "even if it is prescribed by the all-knowing Mrs.—"
Mr. Collins then surprised everyone by taking Lizzy by the shoulders, swinging her into a dip, and kissing her stoutly on the mouth.
This brought a range of reactions:
Fitzwilliam Henry Darcy stood up scowling.
Louisa Bingley looked up from her book, flipped a page, and continued reading.
Caroline Bingley burst into a fit of giggles.
Charlie Bingley took a step forward and said, "Um…"
Jane Bennet gasped and clapped both hands over her face.
Lizzy screamed against his mouth, squirmed out of Mr. Collins' grip, and punched him in the nose.
"What the fuck!" shouted Lizzy.
Will realized that he was standing and promptly resumed his seat.
"Lizzy!" hissed Jane.
"What?" Lizzy snapped at her sister. "The little shit just put his tongue in my mouth, and I'm not allowed to get a little upset?"
"Dear God, I think—" said Mr. Collins stuffily. "I believe you've broken my nose. Oh! Oh, it hurts!" The rest of the room noticed for the first time the blood blooming from between Mr. Collins' fingers.
"Good," said Lizzy icily. "Now, get the hell out."
"I—" said Collins, staring at her. "That's assault; I could have you arrested."
"Same here," growled Lizzy. "For stalking and sexual harassment. That's one charge up on you, pal. Out."
"I—" started Mr. Collins again.
"Charlie!" snapped Lizzy, and when Charlie jumped, Lizzy's scowl softened. "Sorry, but isn't he trespassing, yet?"
8.
After Charlie threw Mr. Collins out (with directions to the nearest hospital) and after Jane spent a good amount of time calming Lizzy down despite Caroline's snickers, Jane went to shower and pack, and Charlie returned to apologize for letting the so-called fiancé in. The doorbell interrupted his third apology.
"If it's Mr. Collins again," said Lizzy evenly, "please tell him that I've thrown myself off the roof and am no longer available on the marriage market."
"Don't do that," Charlie said. "I'll just call the police."
After he left the room, Lizzy mused aloud, "He does know I was kidding, right?"
"He's rather literal," Will replied.
Lizzy met his gaze over his laptop. "Don't you dare laugh."
"I didn't—" started Will, but then, Charlie entered the room again, looking like he'd accidentally swallowed his gum.
"Lizzy, I think I may have done something bad."
"Charlie, if you accidentally ran a fist into Mr. Collins, I'm sure it's fine."
"No, he's gone. It's—um, well, you have another visitor."
"Well, he can't be worse than Collins."
Charlie swallowed. "Your mother."
Lizzy paled. "Who called my mother?"
"I did," apologized Charlie. "Before I got a hold of you, during the ice storm. I gave her the address, because I didn't realize she lived so far away. I thought if she's sick, Jane might want her mother…"
"You didn't know my mother," Lizzy said with a short laugh.
"Lizzy, I'm sorry," Charlie said.
Lizzy shook her head and smiled. "It's okay; where is she?"
"'Where is she?'" repeated a brash voice from the hallway. Lizzy was very still, as a middle-aged woman with gray in her red hair, crow's feet around her eyes, and dog hair all over her over-sized black sweater. "'Where is she?' Honestly, I'm not the Black Plague."
"Good morning, Mother," Lizzy said quietly. "It's been a while."
"That's your own fault," snapped Mrs. Bennet. "You're the one who chose not to come home this summer."
"I was working, ma'am," said Lizzy, "and I did visit at the Fourth of July."
"Where's your sister?" Mrs. Bennet demanded.
"In the shower, ma'am."
"Don't give me that shit, Jane Elizabeth Bennet," Mrs. Bennet said. "I didn't drive all the way from Chicago to be fooled by your little tricks; who the hell do you think you are to keep a mother from her daughter?"
Lizzy reminded herself to stand straight and to look her mother in the eye. "I'm not tricking you, ma'am; she'll be out as soon as she's done."
Mrs. Bennet snorted and glanced around. "Well? Where are we? Who are these people?"
"We're at the residence of Charles Bingley, our host, who you met over the phone—" began Lizzy.
Charlie nodded, with a shy smile. "A pleasure to meet your acquaintance; any woman with such a wonderful pair of daughters must be—"
"Yes, Jane's turned out well, hasn't she?" said Mrs. Bennet sharply, looking straight at Lizzy, who sighed. Charlie looked abashed and couldn't think of a thing to say.
"This is Charlie's older sister," continued Lizzy, gesturing at Caroline, who merely raised her eyebrow.
"Well, she's fairly pretty," said Mrs. Bennet, and Caroline preened, "but don't hold your breath on her personality."
"Excuse me," started Caroline.
"Yes, excuse you," replied Mrs. Bennet, with one arched eyebrow of her own. "You're the one still in her robe at 11:30 in the morning."
Caroline looked affronted, and Will coughed into his hand in a way that sounded a lot like a laugh.
"And this is Mr. Darlington," Lizzy said, ignoring the brief flash of panic over Will's face, "Charlie's friend and bandmate."
"Bandmate?" asked Mrs. Bennet, in an entirely different tone, a tone that matched the appraising look that she used on Charlie and Will.
Lizzy winced; Will could see her mentally kicking herself.
"Lizzy," said Mrs. Bennet, "that's your cue to tell me more about these two gentlemen."
"Do you really not recognize them?" huffed Caroline. "This is Bing and Dar from B.F.D."
"Hmph," said Mrs. Bennet, looking down her nose at Caroline, which was quite a feat for someone at least a head shorter. "The wife of a pop star? I always knew Jane was beautiful for something."
"Mother!" hissed Lizzy; she couldn't look at Charlie. Or Will. "Jane and Charlie aren't even dating."
"Lizzy, if you and Jane have spent the weekend already," Mrs. Bennet said, pityingly, "you'd better call it dating. As for you, what are you doing with this fellow? What happened to that other one? Something Collins?"
Caroline gasped. "She and Will aren't together."
Mrs. Bennet shook her head disapprovingly. "Well, I understand that Mr. Collins isn't very attractive, Lizzy, but you should really await until the wedding to have flings on the side."
"They aren't—" shouted Caroline.
"Caroline!" said Lizzy sharply. "Maybe you should go check on Louisa." When Caroline opened her mouth to argue, Lizzy added, "Please," and Caroline turned her nose into the air and left the room. "Mom, I'm not marrying Collins."
"But he came all the way to Chicago to ask for your hand last August," said Mrs. Bennet thoughtfully.
"Yes, but there's a difference between you agreeing to the match and me agreeing—"
"Like I told you on the phone, Lizzy," Mrs. Bennet said with a long suffering sigh. "I looked him up on the world wide web; he's worth at least six million."
Lizzy closed her eyes and pressed her lips together so hard they turned white; when she turned to her mother, her eyes were in slits. "Unfortunately, ma'am," Lizzy said, "those six million come with some unavoidable drawbacks, including a husband like Collins."
Mrs. Bennet shook her hand and threw her hands up in the air; Will noticed she had large-jeweled rings on almost every finger. "I've taught you nothing; I wash my hands of you." Lizzy snorted. "Look at what you've done; you've cleared the room with your bad attitude."
Lizzy looked around; Charlie had followed Caroline's example and disappeared. Lizzy hoped that he'd gone for help, for Jane, and then wondered how much he'd heard; then she noticed Will on the couch with his computer still in his lap and realized it didn't matter. Mr. Darcy was probably taking notes to give Charlie a detailed account later.
"Jane will probably be out soon," Lizzy offered, wrapping her arms around her middle.
"Wonderful," Mrs. Bennet said, looking at the marble floor. After a moment, she added, "This really is a nice place; Jane will be…"
"Mom!" cried Jane, before Lizzy could contradict her mother. Jane barreled through the doorway, her hair in wet, dark red ringlets. "Lizzy!"
Will and Lizzy got to see Mrs. Bennet smile for the first time this morning, as she walked across the room with her arms and rings outstretched to embrace her eldest daughter. "Jane! Sweetie!"
Charlie came in behind Jane, carrying Lizzy's backpack; he'd brought her. "Thanks," Lizzy mouthed at him, as her mother and sister hugged. Charlie grinned and shrugged.
"Hi, Mom!" said Jane, smiling but slightly out of breath. "Sorry—I was in the shower."
"Jane, dear—that's sweet, but you don't need to cover for your sister," said Mrs. Bennet, cupping her daughter's face in her hand. "Oh, you even wet your hair. You really should have, especially when you're sick."
"But—" Jane started, helplessly, and she and Lizzy exchanged glances. Lizzy shook her head once and shrugged a little. "Mom, why are you here?"
"To take you to the doctor, of course."
"But Mom, it's a twenty-five hour drive for you to take me to the doctor," Jane reminded her, "and I'm not that sick."
"Don't worry, Jane," Mrs. Bennet crooned. "Didn't I tell you when you left home for college that I'd come any time you needed me?"
Jane smiled. "Thanks, Mom; I guess…" she said, meeting Lizzy's eyes and looking quickly away. "We should go, then; the doctor's office should be opened by now."
"Finally," said Mrs. Bennet, slinging her arm around Jane's shoulders and steering her out the room; Lizzy caught a flash of Charlie's wide eyes before he grimaced apologetically and followed Jane and Mrs. Bennet out. Lizzy could still hear their conversation as their footfalls clacked in the hall. "You should have seen, Jane, how your sister tried to handle me."
Lizzy sucked in a deep breath. She let it out. She looked at the wooden floor. Then, she looked up and started out the window, reaching out to touch the marble sill with the tips of her fingers. Will realized that she was watching her sister and mother leave, probably composing a photograph she couldn't bring herself to take. He glanced into her face and saw her mouth set and her eyes dry of tears, and he decided that it was her eyes—green, or maybe blue—unhappy, but absolutely fierce. Lizzy's eyes were what made her beautiful.
"Lizzy," said Charlie, returning to the room; he had snow on his boots that fell off and melted on the marble. "Shit, I'm sorry. I had no idea."
When Lizzy turned away from the window, she was smiling; she even shrugged. "Don't worry about it; I apologize for her behavior by the way. She's pretty ridiculous," Lizzy said.
"But are you all right, Lizzy?" asked Charlie. "She—"
"She and my father are divorced," explained Lizzy, "and Mom didn't take it well. I'm a lot like my father, so—" She shrugged, again.
"No, you seem to be much like your mother," said Will from the couch, and both Lizzy and Charlie turned to him.
"Congratulations, Mr. Darcy," said Lizzy with a smirk, as she began to gather her books. "You just managed to insult me in the only way my mother didn't think of."
Will was polite enough to look chastened; over Lizzy's bent head, Charlie mouth, "Do you have to be such an asshole?"
"I didn't mean—" started Will.
"It's fine," Lizzy told them, looking at Will. "Good to make your acquaintance, Mr. Darcy." Will winced. "Charlie, thanks for having us. Sorry we've been so much trouble, but I really should get back. I have a class this afternoon."
Charlie tried to convince Lizzy to call Charlotte for a ride, or to let him drive her home, but Lizzy wouldn't hear of it, even after Charlie told her that Jane had already second-guessed Lizzy and taken the skis with her. Lizzy snorted and replied, "Well, I walk, too; Jane must've forgotten." Charlie followed her out, still trying to persuade her to accept some help.
Will sat on the couch and watch his screensaver; he jumped when he heard a voice by his ear. "I know what you're thinking, Will." Caroline dropped into a seat next to him, again clad in Versace but in a dress and boots this time.
Will didn't feel like he needed to respond to that.
"You're thinking about the Bennet bitch."
"Which one?" said Will.
Caroline laughed. "You're terrible, Will; the mother, of course."
"Wrong."
"You were thinking of Jane?" Caroline snorted. "Don't tell Charlie."
"Of Elizabeth."
"Elizabeth?" huffed Caroline.
"She seemed quite upset."
Caroline's hands dropped to her lap. "You aren't serious?"
"She was almost crying; wouldn't you hate to have her mother?"
Caroline rolled her eyes. "Well, I hope you two will be really happy together; should I shop for a fall wedding or spring?"
"What the bloody hell are you talking about?"
"That Lizzy has to be really stubborn, or really strong," said Charlie. "She's just marching down the driveway like it's nothing; I've never met any girls like the Bennets. Do you think there's more of them?"
Instead of replying, Will turned in his seat, peered over the back of the sofa, and looked out the window to where a small, determined figure was striding purposefully up the lane. He mused that with the curve of the road and the thread of footprints against the line of trees, it would make a good picture.