A/N: Some of you are feeling very anxious, so I will tell you that I ALWAYS do an HEA in JAFF unless I explicitly announce it in advance (which I have never done). I'm not that interested in experiencing tar and feathers, so just give it a chance. Trust me, I'll deliver. I don't think I'd be having any real problem except that it's a WIP, and I post as I write. Just about every one of the last 10 chapters were cliffhangers. It's the nature of the story, not me being evil – not that I am opposed to evil per se.

Don't read too much into sources of inspiration. This story is its own story with some pieces pilfered from here and there. Most specifically, Red and Green are alternate endings. The threads will not come together like in Sliding Doors. They are the same characters until the moment Red Darcy does not hear "Fair Warning" in Red but does in Green. Amanda Price has nothing to do with time travel – it is just a name I borrowed from "Lost in Austen" (which I really love). Red and Green versions of characters will not meet each other.

Some of you have pointed out a few logical, timeline or name errors. I'll go back and fix them up later, but for the moment, just roll with it. I publish chapters as I finish them, and they don't always fit together perfectly. Stories change and the timeline doesn't always exactly match. I'll eventually go back and work out a timeline that works all the way through. That will change the dates of some events, but not the sequence (usually).

There are about 10 chapters left in each thread. Poor neglected Green will start again after today's two chapters of Red.

Wade


RED

Darcy held the door open for Mrs. Price, and held his hand out for her to precede him. Just as she crossed the threshold, a toddler of perhaps two or three years ran across the front of the shop on unsteady legs, to crash into her legs and grab on to her skirt, holding on for dear life.

Mrs. Price gave a laugh, which Darcy was happy to hear seemed to lack most of the tension she showed around him (understandably), and she said, "Good afternoon to you as well, Miriam."

She then picked the child up, threw her in the air a couple of times, and ended up carrying her on her hip.

She pointed the child to Darcy. "Miriam, this is Mr. Darcy. Mr. Darcy, this is Miriam."

The child looked at him carefully, then became shy and buried her face in Mrs. Price's shoulder, which brought a chuckle from the woman, and an accompanying one from Darcy.

Another, young woman, of around twenty years, sitting at the same counter where Darcy had first spied Mrs. Price looked up sharply at the introduction, although it was anybody's guess whether she knew the name, or just wanted to insure her offspring was not in any sort of mischief.

Amanda said, "I will keep Miriam for a while," not bothering to introduce the woman to Darcy.

"I will go help Cook then. We are having beef stew tonight."

With that, the woman said, "Mr. Darcy," then curtsied and left the room.

"She and her husband are partners in the business, Mr. Darcy. They came with little money, but we have been working together five years and I would judge us successful. They are a good part of that success."

He looked around, and got the same impression of a large, well‑organized shop. "If I may mention that first day without recrimination Mrs. Price, I was just turning to complement you on the shop when –"

She laughed. "You may continue with the compliment and forget the rest, sir. We are beyond that."

Miriam still had her head buried in Mrs. Price's shoulder, but she was curiously peeking out from time to time at Darcy, and then burying her face again. Experience with Georgiana's children, Bingley's children, and even some of the Bennet sister's children had taught him that it was easy to frighten them by acting precipitously. However, if he was wily and patient, and just left them alone, they would eventually decide that he was big, but not noticeably bigger or more frightening than other adults. The child would eventually reach out to him if he was patient.

Amanda said, "All right, Mr. Darcy. Tell me five books you love and five you hate."

Intrigued, he named his five favorites, although when he finished the list, he could easily pick five others and they would be equally his favorites. He named three books that everyone knew he loathed, and just to be fair, two more that Georgiana loved but he did not care for.

"All right, Miriam, shall we help Mr. Darcy?"

The child was still clinging tightly to her, so she walked over to a small wheeled cart turned the child around to sit on it. "Hold on, little one!" before pushing off with the cart at breakneck speed, or what must have seemed so because the child vacillated between screaming and laughing.

While Darcy watched in bemusement, Mrs. Price pushed the card down one aisle and up another, slowing down only marginally at certain spots to pluck a book off the shelf and throw it on the cart on top of a growing pile in front of Miriam.

Five minutes later, she appeared with the cart full and the child laughing her head off. "There you go, Mr. Darcy. You can take the cart over to the fireplace where you will see a nice chair. You may of course buy nothing, but if you are inclined towards purchase, you are limited to five."

Not quite able to follow, Darcy started dividing his attention between looking at the pile of at least twenty books, then back at Mrs. Price. "Only five? Why?"

She laughed. "Because, sir, I am doing you a great service. I am giving you the supreme pleasure of having to decide based on limited choices. I do this often. Rich men like you rarely need to choose. You have enough money that if you see twenty books that look interesting, you can just as easily buy them as not. Frequently, you will then end up with twenty books gathering dust on your shelves, while you repeat the process in your next shopping excursion. By forcing you to choose, I make it more likely you will read and enjoy those you take. I call it scarcity economy."

He laughed. "It sounds like I read too many law books, and you read too much Adam Smith, Mrs. Price."

She laughed. "Perhaps. I do read a great deal, on far more subjects than would be considered 'ladylike' in England, but –"

She seemed thoughtful for a moment, long enough for Miriam to start seeking attention, so Darcy bent over to be closer to eye level and smiled at the child but made no other movement.

Amanda continued, "Aristotle famously said, 'The more you know, the more you realize you don't know.' The world is a much bigger and more interesting place than my upbringing led me to believe."

"That is the truth," Darcy replied, then before diving into a metaphorical rabbit hole, he returned to the original subject and asked simply. "What if I just write down the rest and buy them from your competitor, or sneak back in and buy them from your assistant?"

"That would defeat the purpose," she laughed. "but I never force my wise council on anyone who does not want it. If you insist, you can buy every book in the shop."

Then she grabbed the child from the cart. "Come along Miriam. Let us go see what the cook is up to. If a customer comes in Mr. Darcy, either yell at me or sell him something."

With that, she picked up Miriam, and walked away without looking back, while Darcy sat scratching his head in confusion. Eventually, he gave up and went over to sit down in the admittedly very comfortable chair and peruse her selections. The cart contained at least twenty books on several subjects. A quick glance told him that he thought he was very likely to enjoy about half, and half were something completely unfamiliar to him.

He sat in the same chair for four hours, as customers came and went. Contrary to Mrs. Price's instructions, he never had to actually sell any books, although he might have been willing to give it a try if it came down to it. The owner returned whenever anyone came into the shop, and he was wondering exactly how she knew when to return, but assumed she had some sort of system. Shops with a bell on their doors were commonplace, but she did not have one. Eventually, he just decided she probably had another desk where she could do her work and observe the shop at the same time.


The next month turned out to be very busy, between intense study of a few businesses he was considering investing in and going to entertainments among the local gentry. It turned out that most of his friends knew about the bookshop, but not much about the owner save that she was a widow and not to be trifled with intellectually. She was generally regarded as honest to a fault. She was perfectly willing to tell any person of any status when she thought they were wrong and why; but also more than willing to admit that she did not know, or change her mind based on new information and reasoned arguments. On some subjects she would even say she did not know and did not want to, while recommending some other shop.

Her choices for his five books had been quite good, and he ended up reading most of them at least twice, thus proving the efficacy of her system in his mind.

On the Saturday when he planned to visit her shop, he stopped at the same coffee house on his way. He had no idea whether he just liked their coffee (which was excellent), or he was being superstitious and considering that part of his Price Books ritual. He was just trying to work that out, when the talisman theory got a sudden boost by the entrance of Mrs. Price herself.

Darcy stood up, left his hat on the chair, and approached her with a bow, saying, "Good morning, Mrs. Price."

She looked him up and down, paused just a moment as if trying to judge if he had recovered from his madness, then curtsied and said, "Good morning, Mr. Darcy. I see you have found the best coffee in Old Town."

Feeling bold, Darcy smiled and asked, "And perhaps the best company?"

She laughed. "I am afraid Miriam is back at the shop," then took pity on him and said, "but, if that was an invitation, I will accept, Mr. Darcy."

With a smile, he led her over to the table, and pushed her chair in for her. It was obviously unnecessary, but the courtesies never hurt.

They had barely sat down when a waiter placed two bowls of soup on the table, along with a basket of bread and tub of butter in the center.

Darcy looked confused so Amanda said with a laugh. "It is not magic, Mr. Darcy. I come her for my midday meal most days. Aiden knows what I like and assumes anyone eating with me will have enough sense to like the same thing."

He laughed. "So, am I to understand that you are in charge of my reading and my eating now?"

She laughed along with him, then just took her spoon and tucked into the soup, so Darcy joined her. He had to admit that it was very good soup.

About halfway through the meal, she said, "When you have formal dinners in your almost certainly very grand dining room, Mr. Darcy, do you ask your diners what they want?"

He chuckled. "In that analogy, you are the mistress and I the guest?"

"Not really. More like the housekeeper I suppose. You are the guest in this neighborhood, and I am the one who knows what is available. In the extremely unlikely scenario that we might find ourselves eating in – what was that village again, Lambton – then I would take your advice."

The teasing tone of the rejoinder made him laugh with her. A few more minutes passed with both eating their meals, and he asked curiously. "Please let me know if I pry too much, Mrs. Price."

"Oh, you can be assured, I shall without qualms."

"You mentioned England in passing, and your accent places you as originating in Southern England. Do I miss the mark?"

"Ah, so you want gossip, is it?"

Darcy looked embarrassed, so she said, "I am only teasing, Mr. Darcy. You state the obvious. Any Englishman could make the same conclusion. I imagine you would have been surprised to find me named O'Flannery or MacGowan?"

He chuckled. "Yes, that might have been unexpected."

"Yes, I am from England. I left after my marriage ended."

"Do you never go back to England?"

"No, I have a buyer who is about half bloodhound. We move a lot more books than you might think for our little shop. Many of what we purchase never even makes it to the shop though. Quite a lot of my custom is done via the post. My buyer is particularly good at working out who among the gentry has a good library, is likely to die soon, and has relatives who are likely to need or want money more than books. It sounds a bit mercenary, but we always pay fair value. I really have no need to return."

Darcy nodded, and they finished their soup with more common conversation. He found he liked Mrs. Price quite a lot and was happy for the acquaintance. When they were finished, they went back to the shop and he asked the proprietress to repeat the earlier experience, with the same success.


A month later, Darcy felt a tugging on his trousers and looked down to see Miss Miriam staring at him pensively. Having worked out an adequate system, he simply picked the child up, placed her on his lap next to the book, and gave her his pocket watch. He judged that would give him twenty minutes of peace before he might have to entertain her, which was just enough time to choose between the last two books he had examined.

Her system of forcing him to choose only five books had nearly drove him mad for the first month of their association, but in the end, by the time she removed the restriction, he had found it to be a useful practice. He had a small trunk being gradually filled with books for the Pemberley library, and another with those destined for others. Bingley was making a belated entry into the world of the written word, and Georgiana and her husband were not afraid of a bit of ink themselves. He had never quite reconciled with his father in law, Mr. Bennet and only saw him rarely, but his cousin Richard devoured books at the same rate Darcy did. He occasionally wondered how much of the Darcy library would have to eventually be recovered from the Matlock library.

Darcy occasionally thought it was time to start worrying more about the Pemberley nursery than the Pemberley library, so he went to house parties, and some grand balls among his new and old associates. He met a number of ladies that were perfectly suitable, and some that he even liked, but none that made him want to drag her 300 miles or more from her family. He was not opposed to a Scottish bride, per se. If he found the right one, she would not be the first Scottish Darcy bride. She would not even be the first from Edinburgh. Darcy attended the balls, danced with the ladies, got to know them, but never quite went past the first few dances.

After three months, he had gotten past the stage where Mrs. Price startled every time he appeared, and she gradually became less guarded in her conversation. The first couple of weeks she had always seemed nervous, almost skittish, as if she thought he was not quite stable or trustworthy. She would be bright and energetic sometimes, but always somehow – he could not quite come up with the word, but 'closed' was the best he could do. He still knew basically nothing about her past as she never volunteered anything and he did not ask, but she did intrigue him.

Like many plans that occasionally do not work as specified, his plan of entertain Miriam either fell apart or succeeded brilliantly when both fell asleep in the warm summer sun coming in from the window.