On The Market Chapter 28 - Epilogue, a pride and prejudice fanfic

With typical Bennet contrariness, Victoria Marie Elisabeth Bennet-Bingley decided to grace the world with her appearance one week late, on the sixteenth of May. She was a picture of health, unlike her exhausted mother. And almost a month later, on the 15th of June, Neil put his first European trade through tradePad. That night once again the drinks were on Raj down at the Porter's by Borough Market.

'... and my boyfriend's got anozer job in London zis weekend!' Paul exulted.

'How did he get started in the flower business?' Master Yoda asked him.

How things had changed since the Spring. For a start, Jane had come to her senses and decided to go back to work, signing up to a 10% pay cut. She'd get the exact same crazy amount of work done over four days instead of five but, being Jane, she had managed to negotiate herself out of the more traditional full 20% pay cut by pointing out that she would surely end up doing considerably more than just checking her emails on her day off. This was a first for the bank, a daring and dangerous precedent the firm was keen to keep very quiet. It made Elisabeth prouder than she could say: perhaps there was hope for the sisterhood after all.

The mood had also changed on the desk, where things were starting to feel almost settled. With everyone on tradePad it wasn't as loud as it had been when all deals were made through the phones. Paul's boyfriend, Frank, had come out with them couple of times, and he and Yoda had bonded over greyhounds to such an extent that they were talking of buying a racing dog together. Meanwhile Neil and Natasha were, more conventionally, talking of buying a flat together. And Elisabeth had started to wear skirts to the office, occasionally. Two A-line skirts, to be precise, and only ever with flat shoes. Today the navy one was on, in honour of Raj's visit.

Paul started regaling Andy, Newbie and Yoda with tales of Catherine Deneuve's horticultural taste, and Neil turned to Elisabeth:

'How's things going with Chris then?'

He and Natasha were holding hands as he asked this, and she eyed them jealously.

'I'm not even sure,' she said, 'what little I see of him these days.'

'Come on, it can't be that bad,' Will said, and she shot him a murderous glance:

'It is. He's been out with work every single night this week.'

'I'm glad you've found someone who shares your dedication to strong work ethics,' Raj commented without an ounce of irony.

'That is true,' Will concurred, though in his case with a raised eyebrow and a smile in his eye, 'and in fairness you've been working pretty late this week too, Elisabeth.'

'What does he do?' Raj asked.

'He's a lawyer, Raj, what do you expect?' Will said with another teasing look at her.

'No wonder, indeed,' Natasha said.

Elisabeth sighed as she looked at her and Neil, standing all cosy and happy, shoulder to shoulder.

'Where is he tonight?'

'Out with work - naturally.'

'And so are you,' Will pointed out.

'That works out well, then,' Raj nodded.

She'd never wanted to strangle him more.

'Come on,' Neil said, 'when do we get to meet him? Are you hiding him from us, or are you just hiding us from him?'

'I'd say the latter, definitely,' said Will.

'You know what? At this rate soon there may be nothing to hide. Sometimes I'm not sure why I even bother with him,' she replied with daggers in her eyes.

'Right, clearly we need more drinks here,' Will said, raising his empty glass as evidence. 'Elisabeth, come and help me translate the wine list, will you?'

'Sure.'

She followed him to the far end of the bar, then around it until they were out of sight from the rest of their group. There he stopped, turned around and grabbed hold of the sides of her head:

'OK don't dump him. Please? He loves you, he's really sorry, abjectly sorry, Raj will be off tomorrow and then he'll make it up to you, promise!'

She begun to smile, and he jumped at the chance to kiss her. They hadn't done that for a whole three days so they indulged for a delicious long while.

'So you're not gonna dump him?'

'Of course not.'

'I've missed you too, you know,' he said, and this time she was the one who reached for his lips, until instinct made her pull back. Raj was rounding the corner of the bar, headed for the gents. She grabbed a wine list from the counter and started pointing at it randomly.

'We're having Sancerre by the way. They're far too pissed to appreciate anything better.'

'Sure. That was close,' she said, pointing at the gents' door. 'I suppose we've got no chance of bumping off early?'

'Not on his last night in town, no.'

'It's not fair, I hate this! I can't even argue with you properly!'

'Hey look, I hate it too... oops, there he is, look busy.'

She hid behind the wine list again, while Will waved at their boss. She knew he was out of sight when Will pulled the wine list away, dumped it on the bar and took her in his arms. She pressed herself against him, their arms wrapped tight around each other, her hands stroking his back. Sitting next to him for the last three days without getting to do this even once had been torture. With her ear to his chest she felt his heart start to accelerate. Four months in she still loved doing that to him, loved it best of all the fun things they did to each other when Raj and the guys weren't around. She looked up at him and found his lips on hers again.

'Off you go then,' he said, not very convincingly in view of the fact that he was still holding on to her waist. She tucked her hair back and tried to gather her wits:

'OK, and we're having the Sancerre 'cos we're too pissed for anything better, right?'

'That's the one. Go on,' he smiled, tucked the other side of her hair back, and sent her off with another kiss.

'I thought we'd have the Sancerre,' she said to Neil a moment later, 'I reckoned we're all far too pissed to appreciate anything nicer.'

Translating wine lists had long replaced pool as Elisabeth's favourite activity on their work nights out. Thankfully Will always sent her back with her opening line at the ready, else light-headed with the taste of forbidden fruit she would have given the whole game away. This was why they'd had to make Chris up: on the Monday after the Rheinland do she'd looked so obscenely happy that within seconds of her sitting down the guys knew she was in love, and wanted to know who with.

She'd given them the first name to spring to her mind, the name of the person in the 60 second interview of that day's Metro. So now they were stuck with the name Chris which, as it happened, neither of them liked, but they did so much pretending on an average day that not infrequently she'd called Will Chris in the privacy of his flat too.

She felt a buzz in her handbag – a nice understated French one Will had bought her to wear with her pocket-less skirts. His sartorial taste was far better than hers, undoubtedly, and to Jane's eternal gratitude Elisabeth didn't seem to mind him civilising her – up to a point. The look of pride in his eyes when she wore something a teensy bit feminine more than made up for the effort of having to open a handbag rather than reach into a back pocket to retrieve her texts.

Chris was writing that she looked gorgeous and please would she hang in there and come back to his afterwards if he promised to make it worth her while? She sighed and smiled and thought for all of about two seconds before sending a positive reply. Will switched to water after that, and despite the late hour he did indeed make it very much worth her while once they eventually got back to his.

I don't believe in long drawn-out goodbyes so that's it: end of story.
If you've enjoyed it tell your friends to tell their friends to read it while it's free on FanFiction - I will be looking for an agent! And while I work on my next piece (a modern day Emma, but with bees) you can find me (and my bees) on Tumblr as mellifragh
All the best, stay safe and thanks again for reading.
Mel