On The Market Chapter 43: Will's POV13 - Driven, a pride and prejudice fanfic

Here we go: it's Friday, and before this slow burn kills you and me both here it is, the offsite-to-doorstep chapter.

Have fun, and when you're done with this don't forget to give A Bee in her Bonnet a try because that's a complete work and you can binge it all as fast as you like

Have a great weekend

Mel

They all stared when she bent down to pick up her cue, but only Will's mind travelled back to her picking hangers off the reception floor. Her pool cue had slipped and crashed down onto the parquet, that was all. Now as then, she wasn't trying to turn anyone on, she genuinely was just butter-fingered, and incredibly fuckable at the same time.

Very much her problem, yet not at all her fault.

She'd managed to win the last pool game - or rather Neil had, in spite of teaming up with her - but Will had had the best time watching her play, both on and off the table. Especially after he'd taken his tie off and clocked her struggling not to stare. Now, again, he saw her eyes do a delightfully awkward little skip over him as she bade the company good night, turned around and left.

He smiled to himself then made his own excuses. It was late, high time indeed to turn in, plus he had to drive back tomorrow morning - that is, in a few hours. Drive her back too – though that still didn't feel like it could possibly happen. He was tired, for sure, but also not at all ready to sleep. So his feet led him the scenic route back to his room, perhaps to help clear his head, more likely just playing the odds, and hoping to catch a little more of Elisabeth before bed.

Would this ever stop, this wanting more? The two of them had done really well tonight, it felt like they'd both had a good time for once, together. No crisis so far, and she hadn't looked like she was having to try hard either – other than not staring inside his shirt collar. From where they'd been two weeks ago this was amazing progress.

Yet it still didn't feel like enough, because nothing ever did.

Wait, what was that?

Through the French doors on his right Will saw a shadow flutter up and away against the pale stone wall on the opposite side of the terrace. Then another. Then his eye traced their source to the silhouette of a human huddling on the steps and even from this distance, and in black outline, Will recognised the familiar curve of Elisabeth's neck in profile, and that kink her hair did at the back. He counted seven steps cutting the whole width of the Bath-stone terrace between the two wings of the back of the hotel, and saw that ever the quant, Elisabeth had elected to sit in the middle of the middle step, facing out into the park.

He watched her, one shoulder leant against the French door's casement, a smile on his face. His brain made some feeble attempt at reasoning him out of joining her but his hand was already on the handle. He stepped out, felt the cold, took a few steps until he too could see the sky between the two wings of the building, and discovered that what he'd first seen had been the mere moonlight shadow of her smoke against the opposite wall. Had anything less substantial ever posed a more serious threat to man's sanity?

He stood and watched Elisabeth some more, waiting for her to move. He'd never seen her sit still for so long. Even when she was buried deep in a piece of code, some part of her was always fidgeting, or she was tapping the up and down keys of her keyboard while cogitating away.

Perhaps she wasn't thinking right now. Once again Will told himself he ought to step back and leave her alone, but once again his legs carried him on towards her. He'd not often had cause to wish to be less tall but now, as he folded himself down to sit on the other side of her pile of burnt matches, he felt he'd failed to make himself small or inconspicuous enough:

'There you are. Doing a runner again?' he said, as if it were natural that he should have been looking for her.

She shrugged, not her fuckoff shrug but a cool, happy, moonlit one:

'Smoke gave you away: nice spot you found here.'

He said it staring at the bottom step between his knees because he couldn't trust himself to look at her yet. But out of the corner of his never-sated eye he thought he saw her nod.

'You sure you're OK?' he asked.

She'd have every right not to be, what with him barging in on her and her moon and her cigar.

'Aha.'

'Good, you're a great sport,' he said, which was a little absurd but she was, she'd been a great sport all evening.

She said nothing for a while.

Will moved his eyes from the bottom step and up to the tree line she'd been staring at. The moonrise was spectacular.

Suddenly he remembered a book Georgie had made him read to her again and again when she was maybe four years old. About bunnies dancing by a full moon, which made something magical happen. Miracle of the multiplying cabbages or something. Anyway, Georgie had become obsessed about staying up to catch a full moon, and they'd spent half their summer holiday sneaking her out of bed behind Mum and Dad's back, without ever managing to catch a moon half a good as this one.

'Are you OK?' he heard from miles away, which turned out to be from across the pile of burnt matches.

'Yeah, 'course,' he said. Why wouldn't he be?

She sent another puff of smoke out and away towards the trees and, as he turned his head to follow its course, Will couldn't help glimpse at Elisabeth's face, one eyebrow quirked.

'What?' he asked.

'Nothing, it's just that, you've hardly been yourself tonight.'

Ah, so she'd noticed? Good.

No gloating though, Will, don't go spoiling it all now. Don't look at her, just…

'In what way?' he asked the tree line.

'Oh, come on...'

He shook his head, desperately curious to find out what she considered "not himself" about tonight, but meanwhile just about managing to stay looking straight-faced at the moon and the trees.

'Well, let's just say you've seemed considerably happier than usual.'

'I'm generally a very happy guy.'

'Hmmm, not around the office, no.'

'Around the office I'm sat in front of Andy all day, trying not to screw up my trades and not to piss you off,' he said, which whilst being an understatement was still directionally truthful.

'I know, tall order… I mean I get to sit in front of Master Yoda, trying not to break tradePad and not to piss you off.'

It seemed she too found it easier to talk to the trees and the sky, than to him. Fine:

'You don't piss me off anymore,' he said.

'I know, you don't really piss me off anymore either,' he heard her reply. He still didn't trust himself to look at her and check, but if she was telling the truth then it certainly was a relief.

'But I used to, right?' he asked the clouds.

'Oh yeah, big time,' he saw her nod out of the corner of his eye, 'But then I do believe that in your case pissing me off was deliberate, whereas I wasn't actually trying to be annoying, believe it or not.'

Fair enough:

'I'm sorry,' he said, and he truly was. Why couldn't they have done this from day one, instead of fighting?

Oh that's right: the cold mean arrogance thing.

'Why, though? What did I do?' she asked a tree two hundred yards away.

'Nothing. My bad: you can't help it that you're so much smarter than the rest of us… and better with computers, and therefore Raj's number one pet,' Will said to the lawn.

'What?'

What?

What was not to get? Will turned to look at her but no, this wasn't her fishing for compliments. Not that fishing for compliments had ever been her style but... No, this was her having one of her quant moments: not enough CPU to process the sheer amount of cold mean arrogance his explanation implied. But then:

'Oh come on, Elisabeth, it's bloody obvious. You should have heard how pleased Raj was with himself for poaching you from Toad: Elisabeth Bennet this, Elisabeth Bennet that… I'm sorry it got to me though. He was right, we're lucky to have you.'

He smiled as he said it, he couldn't help it because to be here with her, close enough to see the moonlight cast a tiny shadow inside that dimple in her cheek, it was incredibly lucky indeed.

'Thank you, Will. You're very kind. Glad Raj found you too,' she said, smiling back, but then when her eyes started travelling down to his shirt collar she turned her face away again, and smiled at the sky instead.

Kudos to her, because as for him, after just that one smile from her he was done for. Couldn't tear his eyes away. Or quit smiling at her like the happiest moron under the stars, which indeed he was. And his mouth too started spewing stupid stuff but hell, he was smitten:

'You know, Elisabeth, you never smile like this around the office. More's the pity.'

The trouble was, instead of shooting him down in flames Elisabeth turned back to face him, held his gaze and smiled on. Nothing she hadn't done earlier in the pool room, when they were bantering away, but now they were bantering alone and there was no pool game at stake, no game at all, just her, smiling away at him and looking, wait: looking almost as happy as he felt.

That's what it was, yes, she was happy. As happy as he'd ever seen her. As happy as he'd ever dared dream of making her. At least as happy as she'd been while reading that tosser's dross from out in Estonia.

'You're right, Will,' she was saying, 'I should make more of an effort, we both should.'

'This isn't an effort.'

It really wasn't, not for him and not for her either, by the look of it. Happiness sure looked good on her, but then after a while she must have realised what they were doing because she looked away again. It looked like she was trying to snap out of it, but why?

Why?

'Better turn in, Will,' she said, 'I think you're pretty drunk.'

He wasn't drunk, he was ecstatic. Also, was it the cold that had just made her shiver, or his open shirt collar? Probably the former, but maybe just a little bit of the latter too:

'I'm not that drunk, but sure.'

'No, you definitely are.'

'Am not.'

'Will, you just pretty much came on to the desk quant. Trust me, you'll regret this when the cheap champagne goggles come off.'

'Will I?'

'I should think so.'

'I'm not even sure you will.'

Had he just said that out loud? Well, Dean wanted him to dial up the come-hither, here it was: dialled right up, to an ear-splitting 11-out-of-10. Even more amazingly, instead of freezing up in horror and telling him where to get off, Elisabeth only looked away for a moment, then smiled back again and put on that mock-air-stewardess voice she'd used that first day, to serve him coffee at reception:

'OK fine, Will, whatever, you're right. Let's go.'

Hang on hang on hang on. Was this…?

Yes, it was! It was flirting! Bona-fide flirting! Together! At the same time!

Well yes please, bring it on:

'I'm right? Did the desk quant just say I'm right and she's wrong?'

'Yes, Will. Of course, Will. You're right, Will. Look, I've just done it again!'

'It's my lucky night.'

It truly was.

'Whatever you say, Will, oh and that makes three!'

'Now you're just being contrary.'

But still, and as ever: utterly delightful with it.

'God, you are so right. Four. Is this getting to you yet? Pretty please?'

Was this getting to him? Did she have to ask? Wasn't it rather obvious? But:

'You'd never be able to keep it up long enough.'

'Also true, five.'

Boy, did she look good happy...

But she was right, they'd better stop this now, before he went and kissed her. Having got this far she might not even stop him from doing that either, and that would be amazing. Ever, ever so tempting.

But still a mistake. He mustn't kiss her here. Lovely though this moonlit terrace was, it was still a work-do-moonlit-terrace, and it was late, and she was right, they were both a little drunk, and he wanted to kiss her sober. No tricks of the moonlight or games or plausible deniability: whenever he did kiss her she'd know he wanted to kiss her for real.

'Come on then, let's turn in.'

He stood up, one step down from her, and held his hand out. She grabbed it and he pulled her up. Her face came almost level with his and close up she did look tired. Still happy, but tired. Was this that point she'd talked about, the night after go-live? Beyond tired and exhausted, where one tipped into mild hysteria: was it all this had been?

Her hand was still inside his and he couldn't bring himself to let go of it, so he set it under his on his opposite forearm, nice and warm, and she let him. She even leant against him a little as they climbed up the stairs and made their way back inside.

Will wanted time to freeze, but instead it was the electric glare of the corridor that poured over them like a bucket of ice water as soon as they got inside. Elisabeth took her hand away and a step back, and bid him a very polite good night.

A vintage night's sleep it wasn't. Too short, obviously, and most of it spent worrying, whether awake or not, what Elisabeth would be like in the morning.

Will had woken up at dawn, opened the curtains and looked at last night's trees under the pale new light of day. By then last night felt about as real as the bunny dance of Georgie's old picture book. More magical, but even less believable. He stared on at the trees for a while, their elegant branches cutting black filigree lines across the cold grey drizzle.

Lines leading nowhere, he remembered, as indeed did standing here thinking about it.

He sighed, showered and cut himself shaving, of course, having pulled a t-shirt and an old rugby shirt on over his jeans, all the while wondering what Elisabeth would make of off-duty him. Also was he showing too much neck? Shaved too close? Wearing too much after-shave?

Worrying too much? Definitely. Oh come on, Will: odds were she was going to be so over herself, she wasn't going to even notice what he looked like.

Coffee. He needed coffee. And to pack, which he did as slowly and meticulously as possible because it was still too early to go down for breakfast and he was far too tired to go for a run, but also too awake to go back to sleep.

He did lie back down for a while on the bed he'd just made – boarding school habit - his hands behind his head on the pillow, trying to stare at the ceiling and not to think, which was another boarding school habit, because in some situations thinking just didn't help. In fact it helped the least whenever your brain was most agitated, because nine times out of ten it was your emotions, not your thoughts, that were all over the place.

Back at boarding school it was usually anger he had to manage this way. Sometimes sadness, or a bit of pre-exam nerves but now, what should he call this? Worry? Excitement? Fear? Panic?

Love?

What did it matter what word he, or the world, put on it? He couldn't sleep, but he mustn't think. Just get a hold of enough caffeine to see her to Archway or wherever it was she lived, and then…

And then do it, whether or not it felt right on the spot, because when would he get another chance? So yes, just grow a pair, take a punt and show her he'd meant it, yesterday. And all the days before that too – long before she'd noticed.

Keep it light, obviously, bouncing blow, not sexual assault. That was going to be the hard bit, judging by his cack-handedness with the old come-hither dial last night. Perhaps his was more of an on-off switch than a dial, maybe that was the problem. And the other problem was that whilst he could just about picture himself leaning in to kiss her, he never could imagine pulling back away.

Stop: what could be the effing point of thinking about it anyway? Will made himself look at the coving again before checking the alarm clock on the bedside table. Come on, lie still, try again, another ten minutes. Close your eyes but don't think – no, that didn't work. As soon as he closed his eyes he did think.

Oh, sod it.

Will got up, grabbed his bag and his key card and took the long way down and around to reception. He walked, in other words, via the French doors to the terrace, put his bag down and paused. Whatever happened today and from then on, he'd had a nice time here. The best.

He sighed, picked up his bag and walked on. Reception had coffee and wait, was that the Financial Times? Yes, now that might work. Probably didn't have anything in it today either, about kissing Elisabeth Bennet.

He kept checking, but she wasn't showing up for check-out, so eventually he texted her asking where she was. Answer: here, obviously.

Good: so Her Contrariness was alive and well. And eventually she did show up in the check-out queue, together with Neil and some other woman. But she didn't spot Will so he waited until she finished and called from behind his paper:

'You're late,' because it wasn't like her to be late, and it sounded better than "thank God you're here I'd started thinking maybe last night had only happened in my fevered imagination".

OK, so she was here: good. Still, he didn't dare put the paper down. What if she was tired and hungover, or just grumpy with him for keeping her up too late last night?

Or worse still: what if she felt embarrassed?

'And a very good morning to you too, Will,' he heard eventually. She sounded remarkably like herself, so he folded the FT, feasted his eyes on her Sunday morning face and said:

'Good morning!' because it already was. She was here and not looking too mortified about it. Not at first anyway, but then she started tucking her hair back and saying:

'Well look, Will, since you're in a hurry don't worry about me: I can make my own way back, they put on a late shuttle, I can see it from here. See you tomorrow?'

What? No no no no no no no. Will checked the nearest window. Still drizzling, thank goodness for the Great British weather:

'Don't be daft, Elisabeth. It's vile out there.'

'Are you sure?'

Was he sure?

'Positive. Come on!' he said, picking up her bag before she had a chance to change her mind, or more people started to stare.

Never had the sound of footsteps on gravel crunched louder than it did as the two of them walked to the car in otherwise complete silence. Was he about to make himself the biggest fool in the history of world fools? Was taking the Golf just the daftest idea he'd ever had, or was the very idea of driving her home in order to kiss her today, on some drizzly doorstep in North London, the daftest idea that he or anyone had ever had?

She walked straight past him when he stopped. Then she realised what she'd done, stared at him and the Golf for what felt like an awful long time, then said:

'That's your car?'

'Aha.'

Ever so smooth.

For something to do, rather than stand here and be judged, Will started opening the boot and loading their bags in.

'Nice motor!' she said when he was done, and while he could tell she was being sarcastic, he was far too tired and anxious to tell whether she was being sarcastic with him, or against.

'Nice?'

'I expected you to have one of those.'

Thumbing over her back, she could have meant literally any of the other cars parked there. They were, to the last, nicer than his Golf.

More expensive, anyway. What a moron: clearly she'd expected him to own exactly the kind of car that he did in fact own, so what the fuck had he gone and done, swapping it for this?

And a timeshare on a flipping cat into the bargain…

'Yours is miles better!' she said, and he almost passed out from exhausted relief. Well hopefully she'd like Clara the cat too, because Georgie had gone to some shelter last Tuesday and dealt, and she was already busy planning their first visit to his flat.

But that was a problem for later. For now:

'I'm sorry, there's no central locking,' he said, and Elisabeth stood mutely watching him get in, then reach across to her side to unlock her door.

Then it was his turn to sit mutely, and watch her sit down and buckle up. Good job the air in the car was still cold, because this close to her there was already a hint of that lovely scent she'd left on his dinner jacket after the Christmas party.

He tore his eyes off her and got the engine started, praying that she'd feel no worse than he presently did, whenever her funny French nose picked up his own morning splash of Penhaligon. Then just as he put his clutch foot down she decided to try and wriggle out of her coat after all, but without taking the seatbelt off first.

Whether or not this was her intention, and it probably wasn't, her little comedy turn did loosen him up.

Loads.

Not for long, mind, but for a moment he did smile, and managed to quit worrying just how bad he might be screwing up.

Then he realised that she'd got herself completely stuck so he grabbed one of her sleeves to help her, then started worrying all over again whether he should have done that earlier. He put the car in gear and what do you know: she decided to pull her coat back on after all, back to front over the seatbelt.

Quants.

Still, once she reached optimal temperature finally she seemed to relax. Lucky her: he didn't. He focused on trying not to jolt her, keeping the revs from jumping on each gear change.

'You OK?' he asked once the road straightened up a bit.

'I'm fine. Thank you.'

'Good.'

She did look OK. Not particularly car-sick, no, she looked good. Or rather: gorgeous. And relaxed too, unlike she had been to start with, in the lobby.

And unlike him.

To see her like this, calm and contented, was still a novelty for him. A fantastic novelty, very cosy indeed, but the trouble was that relaxing in his presence would also be a novelty for her, and in his experience quants disliked novelty.

In his experience quants liked established patterns. Coffees being delivered in the morning. Programmes doing what they were written to do, not stumbling over bad data and bugging out. Scheduled updates running smoothly. He, on the other hand, was paid to deal with a constant assault of novelty pouring down his screens on a tick-by-tick basis. The crux his job was to decide when to act on it and deal, and when to wait. And the problem was that, looking at her, right now didn't feel one bit like the right time to be dealing, not in kisses by doorsteps anyway.

She'd done incredibly well so far, putting up with his lack of a dial on the old come-hither. Not half bad at flirting either, when she put her mind to it. Or perhaps when she switched that great big brain of hers off and smoked a cigar instead. But what had kept Will up half the night was the uncomfortable feeling that she still didn't trust him, or at least herself around him. Give her enough data points, and she might eventually establish the statistical significance of the fact that he liked her, but something told him they were a good few evenings short of her required sample-size.

But then this wasn't some empirical analysis of t-cost trends, the like of which Raj would commission to serve his propaganda effort with the Board. No, this was more akin to a block trade. Either Will pounced on it now, or he didn't. And if he didn't, then someone else would, and then there would be no point trying to deal again later, because the deal would be off the table – forever.

Not that this was a deal: the stakes were obviously much higher. What if she went to some other wedding next weekend? What if some random Lithuanian or worse, what if some French guy with a side parting a guitar and a PhD in Econometrics made a move on her?

What then?

Then, it was absolutely essential that she be made aware that Monsieur DeFrench-Tosseur's wasn't the only offer on the table. That he, Fitz-jolly-william Kingsley-Darcy was open and available for mutual shirt-collar gazing whenever she liked. Or for smoke breaks on moonlit terraces or just for sitting together in crappy old cars, he didn't care what, but Elisabeth simply had to know that he hadn't been messing around with her yesterday. That he meant it.

Which meant in turn that he really did have to…

Elisabeth moved. She'd pulled her hands out from under her coat and started tugging at some bit of tissue around one of her thumbs:

'You all right?' he asked.

She nodded.

'What's with your thumb?'

'Paper cut. When you called. From the conference folders in my bag.'

Oh crap:

'Sorry about that,' he said, then had to focus on changing lanes without getting killed by the CEO, who was out in his Maserati trying to prove some point, probably about his dick or brain being smaller than everyone else's. Most likely both.

'Is that the right time?' she asked, pointing at the dashboard shortly thereafter.

'It is, why, do you need to get somewhere?'

If so, they were definitely in the wrong car.

'No no, it's just...' she watched him drive for a few seconds, then looked back through the windshield again without finishing her sentence, which he was in absolutely no fit state to cope with:

'You sure you're OK?' he asked, 'You're not normally this quiet.'

'I know, you neither. It's nice, isn't it?'

Was it? Well, if she said so and meant it, he sure was happy for her. As for him:

'It's nice to see you happy,' he said, and returned to ruminating the pros and cons of doorstep kissing. On the plus side it wasn't drizzling anymore, but on the downside it was time to come off the motorway and merge onto the North Circ.

'So where am I turning off?'

'What?'

'Which exit am I taking?'

'Are we actually on the North Circular?'

'What do you think? So what exit are you?'

'I don't know.'

'What do you mean, you don't know?'

Also, how was this funny? She didn't know her own way home. How on earth was he supposed to kiss her on her doorstep, if they never made it to her doorstep in the first place because they drove endlessly around London instead because, oh divine irony, she couldn't tell him where to get off?

'I mean I don't have a car, do I? I hate driving. Don't you have a Sat-nav we can check?'

'What?'

'One of these Tom Tom things.'

Spoken like a true quant and also: in this car?

'Please spare me the technicalities.'

'Alright! A road atlas?'

'In the boot.'

'Well, that's not a very clever place for it now, is it?'

Well of course it wasn't, but this wasn't his car and he couldn't remember the last time he'd looked at a road atlas, because he knew his own way home, he just didn't know hers, because he'd not thought to check her post code last night when he was working up the guts to ask to drive her back:

'Oh come on, A1! Are you down the A1?'

'The A something is near me, after Holloway road it's either the A1 or the A1000.'

'Fucking typical,' he said, which was another thing he shouldn't have done, because she didn't like swearing but seriously: A1 vs, A1000? Three effing zeros: when had she stopped caring about that kind of detail?

'I beg your pardon?' she said, in case he hadn't worked out that he shouldn't have said it . Seriously, Will, way to set the mood:

'Just as well you don't work with numbers,' he said, attempting to lighten the tone, but also to read the signs for the next exits: 'Golders Green, 'that near you?'

'I think we need to go further. After Archway there's Highgate, and then the Finchleys. Golders Green's definitely on the wrong branch.'

What?

'We're not on the tube, in case you hadn't noticed.'

And also at this rate they really might never make it to her door, or if they did then they'd definitely be at each other's throats by then.

'I know! I'm sorry, only trying to help! I thought you lived around here, perhaps.'

He shook his head and rolled his eyes, which she seemed to find funny. Weird sense of humour, sometimes, but if his being this stressed out made her laugh then perhaps they really were meant for each other. After all he too used to laugh watching her get worked up over nothing.

'I'm sorry,' she said, 'Look, the next one says Holloway, that'll be OK.'

'Good.'

'You see, there you go! All sorted.'

Her bluffing skills were of their usual sub-abysmal standards, but since they were being deployed for his sake he did his best to pretend he believed her, which he didn't for a second. Indeed he'd been driving for a good, or rather another awful five or ten minutes when they passed a tube station and she said:

'I know where we are now! Carry on straight down. Where do you live anyway, then?'

'Butler's Wharf.'

'I see. Not too out of your way, at least.'

He made no reply, because how far out of his way she lived had never been a consideration. But then, he was no quant. They dropped down a hill to a large square roundabout, and turned down some truly awful dual carriageway which she identified as the Holloway Road.

'Nearly there!' she said encouragingly.

Really? Here?

'My, isn't this a nice neighbourhood,' he said, very much as she'd said 'Nice motor' before.

'Isn't it just? Very up and coming.'

'I bet, yes. Let me know when it's up and come.'

'But by then it'll be too late to invest and you'll have missed out on the upside. OK OK, turn left, not that one! That one, good!'

He did his best to get the car to follow the direction of her gesticulations without jolting her about more than she could cope with:

'Even nicer.'

It really wasn't.

'Oh come on, don't be precious. Now just go to the end and turn right.'

'…'

'OK now there, behind the Moonbus.'

'The what?'

'Orange thing, there! Great! Thanks,' she said, looking unaccountably happy to be here, in this not very nice street in the middle of this terrible neighbourhood.

He stared blankly at what she'd called a moon bus.

Perhaps she just had a thing for old Volkswagens. Vintage German engineering, right? Kind of made sense, for a quant. Shit, what if she met a German engineer at next weekend's wedding?

Will was possibly about to give up on his own chances with her entirely, when Elisabeth decided to put her coat back on whilst still sitting inside the car with the door closed.

He felt himself crack into a smile. It figured, that in order to maintain optimal temperature at all times quants would have to take their coats off after they got inside a vehicle, and put them back on before they got out into the cold again.

'So this is where you live?' he said when she'd finished, looking away and willing himself to see some upside. This wasn't the worst house on the street, and the street wasn't the worst one around here. In fact the steps to the front door were almost pretty, there were many worse ones up and down Kensington.

'Aha, basement flat.'

What?!

Basement flat?

He had to kiss her under those stairs?

Now she started checking her coat pockets and then bent down to pick up whatever it was that she'd dropped in the footwell, giving Will what was probably his last window of opportunity to make a move. Any kind of move, really, before she went and left him again, with nothing more than one of her stiff polite little goodbyes like last night. Then by next Monday, for all he knew she might be snogging Herman, the German motor-vehicle-engineer-slash-oom-pah-wizard.

Not to be outdone by some wrench-touting, yodelling Kraut, Will got out of the car and went to open her door. It seemed incongruous to dance that particular dance around a twenty-year-old Golf in 21st century Archway, but it kept him in the game. She looked confused and he could hardly blame her, but he could hardly pause and think about it either, because just as she stepped out in front of him Georgie's words unhelpfully came back to him: Blimey, she won't know what hit her.

Hell, he wasn't sure either.

All he knew was he wasn't letting Jan-the-Dane get in there first. He'd seen the way that lanky long-nosed bastard had been staring at her last night in the games room. The lad seemed dull enough on the surface, but what if he knew his way round a ukulele?

Her bag, get her bag. Take it down to her doorstep, so she'd have to follow.

And then what?

Then, surely, a strong bid for Great Britain in the World Championships for Worst Ever First Kiss, but never mind. In and out, bouncing blow. Not a big deal: an Indication of Interest, get her to think about it. That's all. No biggie.

They were standing in front her door now, quite close together because if he tried to step back further he had to stoop even more to fit under the flight of stairs to the raised ground floor. Objectively Elisabeth was starting to look quite uncomfortable and again, who could blame her?

'Do you want to pop in, meet my flatma-'

'No thanks.'

He put her bag down. Things were about to get even more uncomfortable. For her, that is. For him, the whole Indication of Interest bullshit had ceased to make any kind of sense the moment she'd opened her mouth, this close to his. He didn't want to meet her flatmates, no. He just wanted to kiss her.

'OK then. Thanks for the ride, Will, see you tomorrow,' she said, shook his hand and was about to kiss him on the cheek, so he jerked back and hit the back of his head against the stairs.

That might have knocked some sense into him, but it did the very opposite. He watched her watch him rub the back of his head for a bit, and quite forgot to let go of the hand she'd offered him earlier. And when that made her blush, and tuck her hair back, Will knew he couldn't wait any longer. He stopped rubbing his head, remembered to put his hand on the door next to her head, before it got ideas of going wandering all over her of its own accord, and then he did what he'd wanted to do for an awful long time.

Fitzwilliam Kingsley Darcy kissed Elisabeth Bennet.

Much under-rated too, if current reading figures are anything to do by. You could become a trend setter and make my day by giving it a go, it's right here only a couple of clicks away.

Go on….