A/N: I don't own Pride and Prejudice. I really appreciate the reviews.

Chapter 5: Nothing Wrong

Lizzie's POV

After Mass on Sunday, Jane and I had brunch at the Longbourn with our family. Claire-Marie had made a wonderful quiche Lorraine and brunch was going beautifully when Lydia dragged a tall, slender man over to our table. "Jane, Lizzie, this is our guest and new friend, Damien Wickham. Damien, this is my sister, Lizzie, and my other sister, Jane."

"It's lovely to meet you, Jane, Lizzie," he said, shaking our hands. "Lydia and Katie have been such delightful hostesses since I arrived Friday evening. But they did not mention that they had such lovely older sisters."

"Smooth operator," Jane mumbled in my ear before saying aloud, "It's lovely to meet you, Damien. I'm going to freshen up in the ladies' room. I'll see you both later."

Jane left me standing there with Damien Wickham who was smiling at me. I noticed that he was wearing large wireframe glasses, but they seemed to suit him in an odd way. He was wearing blue jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. He was handsome in an old-fashioned way. "So your mother tells me you're a teacher," he replied.

I nodded as we sat down at a small table a short distance from my family's table. "I teach high school Spanish at the local private school."

"Oh really?" he said revealing a charming smile, which was much more charming than Will Darcy's smile. "I have spent a great deal of time in various educational institutions over the past several years. I've become what you might call a professional student."

"So what brings you to Meryton? The only educational institution we have that goes above high school is Meryton Community College. Are you planning to teach there?"

He smiled. "No, I'm actually not here to teach. I'm here to visit a friend of mine who is working at the Army recruiting office; we were in the army together."

"Oh, you're in the army?"

"I was in the National Guard," Damien replied with his charming smile. "I never actually fought overseas, thankfully, but I believe that one has a duty to one's country."

"Of course, of course, so what is the name of this friend of yours?"

"Sean Denny, you might know him actually; he grew up around here."

Oh I knew Sean Denny all right. Sean Denny and I had gone to school together and he could have won an award for the most time spent in detention. But then, Damien seemed like a lovely, charming fellow; the army must have reformed Sean. I couldn't see Damien being friends with the sort of con man Sean was back in high school. This man sitting across the table from me seemed to be such a sweetheart.

By the time I went back to the condo later that afternoon, I had a date with Damien Wickham for the following Friday. I was excited, partially because Damien seemed like a great guy and partially because I hadn't been on a date in a year and a half. Now you may be wondering how a girl like me can go a whole year and a half without a date; yes I am aware that a year and a half is eighteen whole months. I'm also aware that I've been alone for the past eighteen months. My sisters are constantly reminding me of these delightful facts. When I told my sisters about my date, they started relentlessly harassing me about my lack of dating experience. I didn't go on a real date until three months before my eighteenth birthday. I dated that guy for about six weeks and then was single again for two and a half years. That was when I started dating Andrew Caldwell; Andrew was a great guy and I almost married him; we were even engaged, but then one day we realized that we weren't in love with each other. We suited each other better as siblings and friends than as a married couple. Andrew and I had broken up eighteen months earlier, right after we had graduated from college.

I'm terribly pathetic when it comes to relationships. I'm incredibly picky and I have a list of standards and morals that Char says is longer than Santa's naughty and nice list. Maybe she's right but I will have my standards; I want to marry the right man. I know I was a dues-paying member of the Never Been Kissed Club until my twenty-first birthday when Andy kissed me right before I started drinking my first beer. I've spent much of my life making jokes about spending my future living alone in an apartment with twenty-five cats. Right now I'm living in a condo with my sisters, two cats, and a dog. Oh, and I haven't been on a date since I broke up with the only serious boyfriend I've ever had. The more I think about this, the more depressed I become. I need a beer.

I went downstairs and grabbed a Guinness out of the fridge. Mary was sitting at the kitchen table fiddling in her sketchbook. "You shouldn't drink that stuff," she said barely looking up from her drawing. "Alcohol kills your brain cells and you can get addicted to it so easily."

"Thanks for the advice," I said. "And how would you know anything seeing as you've never touched a drop of the stuff?" I mumbled to myself as I headed back up to my room.

"And you should never drink alone!" she yelled after me.

I went back downstairs and stuck my head in the kitchen. "Yeah, well, Jane isn't home and you're not old enough to drink. So unless you have any other drinking partners for me up your sleeve, I'll be drinking alone."

Just then the doorbell rang. When I opened it, Damien Wickham was leaning against the doorframe with a six pack of Miller Lite in his hand. "Care to let me in, Miss Bennett?" he asked. "I see you're sampling the Irish beer, but I've brought you something better."

"I can put this away for later," I told him. Normally, I would never put away a good Irish beer in favor of a cheap American beer, but Damien was just too cute and sweet to pass up his offer.

As he followed me into the kitchen, Damien asked, "What's a girl like you doing at home on a perfectly good Thursday night?"

"Some of us have to go to work in the morning. Also just the school day may end at three but my work doesn't stop when my last class ends. I have homework to check and papers to grade. Hence I am sitting home grading homework in my sweatpants."

"Well, they're very sexy sweatpants."

I grinned, slightly embarrassed. I wasn't used to being called sexy. I'd been compared to Audrey Hepburn and my father always called me gorgeous. Andrew had always said I was beautiful; I'd always told him he was biased, but he insisted that he was just being honest. My sisters and my friends all seemed to agree that I was good-looking. But Will had said I was plain and not working a second glance.

"Personally, I think those sweatpants are hideous," Mary announced. "Besides, it's ten o'clock on a weeknight and Lizzie really ought to be in bed by eleven. She does have to go to work tomorrow morning. Also you two already have a date scheduled for tomorrow night so there's no reason for you to predate at ten o'clock. And just for your information, Damien, Lizzie never drinks American beer unless she is desperate. She would much rather drink a good German beer or an Irish beer or an English beer. Gracious, she'd rather drink a Mexican beer than an American beer."

"Hey now," I said. "First of all, I love these sweatpants. And secondly, Dos Equis is good beer."

I was wearing my black sweatpants from Jane's career in high school track. They may not be the newest sweatpants or the best fitting, but they work when you're just being lazy, grading homework, watching old movies, and wallowing in the pathetic nature of your own life. Wickham didn't seem to mind seeing me in my sweats, but I felt really pathetic standing there talking to a gorgeous man while wearing my sweatpants and an old t-shirt. My hair was in the pigtail braids I did up every night when I was getting ready for bed. Okay, so I had been getting ready for bed when I realized how pathetic my life is and I realized I needed a beer.

If Damien Wickham had shown up a few minutes later, I would have been in bed and I wouldn't have been able to see him. My desire for a beer had been fate; I was meant to see Damien tonight. In fact, based on how we'd met, I was starting to think our being together was fate; we were destined to be together. I'd been waiting to meet the man of my dreams since I first started watching chick flicks and discovered such princes of men such as Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. I had been waiting for Gilbert Blythe to spring out of the pages of Anne of Green Gables since I was nine years old and I kept waiting for C.K. Dexter Haven to jump out of The Philadelphia Story and sweep me out off my feet. But Gilbert Blythe always married Anne in book five and then went on to have seven kids with her. And Dexter always married Tracy Lord, although I guess that was a good thing since they were married before and they're just getting remarried-to each other. Maybe Damien was my modern-day Dexter Haven or Gilbert Blythe.

"Earth to Ellie," my modern-day Dexter Haven whispered in my ear. "Where were you?"

"Visiting Dorothy in Oz," I replied.

"You know she went back to Kansas at the end of the movie," he told me. "And you're still here in Michigan with me, so you can't be in Kansas or Oz. I want you to be here with me. And when you're with me, I want you to be completely with me, mind, body, and soul."

Okay, that sounded a little controlling, but some guys just like to feel in charge. I wasn't crazy about male supremacy, but maybe Damien was just bad at putting things into words. I smiled up at him. "Yes, sir, when I'm with you, I'm with you a hundred percent."

Jane came home a little later when Damien and I were sitting in the living room, drinking beer. "Are you two aware that it is after eleven o'clock at night?" she said as she threw her purse on the couch.

"Yeah," Damien said putting his beer on the coffee table. I could see Jane cringe at the thought of getting watermarks on her coffee table. Jane is a neat freak. She cleans compulsively, especially when she's PMS. I think it has to do with growing up in a hotel and having maids rushing around cleaning everything all day long.

"Oh okay," she said. "I'm going to head up to bed. Don't stay up too late, kids." She walked into the kitchen. "Mary Louise, go to bed, now."

"She's bossy," Damien said.

I sighed. "No, it's more you have to tell Mary to go to bed or she'll never do it. Once Jane thought I told her to go to bed and I thought Jane had, so we both went to bed and when we got up the next morning, she'd stayed up the whole night reading. You have to make sure she doesn't do that especially when she has to go to work at seven or eight in the morning."

He nodded. "So, do you want another beer?"

I shook my head. "Jane's right. I have to be at work around seven-thirty and we do have a dinner date tomorrow night. So I'm going to wish you a good-night and go to bed. Drinking beer only makes me sleepy and I need to be awake for work tomorrow morning."

"Does this mean you want me to leave?"

"Yes," I replied. "And take your beer with you. For the record, I prefer Leinenkugel is one of my favorite beers and the only American-made beer I really like is Sam Adams."

"You're weird; American beer is amazing and it's cheap."

"We can debate this later," I told him. "You need to leave so I can get some sleep and be fully functional for work tomorrow morning."

He sighed but was gone fifteen minutes later.

Darcy's POV

Friday night, I went out to dinner with Charlie, Jane, and Jane's friend Charlotte Lucas. Charlotte's boyfriend was supposed to come with us but they'd had some sort of fight and he'd left town that morning. "He's probably back in Chicago," Jane said when Charlotte was in the bathroom. "Ethan works for a real estate corporation called Rosings Properties Unlimited."

"Rosings Unlimited?" I repeated. "My aunt and cousin own Rosings Unlimited."

"Your aunt must be Catherine DeBourgh," Jane said. "Ethan never stops raving about her. To hear him talk you'd think she was God's little sister."

"She's no saint," I replied. We were sitting in a small Italian restaurant called La Riviera; Charlotte and Jane had recommended it saying it was small enough to be a peaceful place to eat but big enough to have great food.

"Yeah well Ethan's no saint either," Jane replied. "He'd like you to believe he's one, but he's not."

Charlotte came back to the table just then with news for Jane. "Did you know that Lizzie's here on a date with some guy? He looks pretty classy but he reminds of Sean Denny. He just has the air of being too good to be true about him."

Jane nodded. "I've met him and I'm not sure what she sees in him other than the fact that she's desperate for a man and he preys on desperate women."

"What's his name?" Charlie asked.

"Damien something," Jane replied. "It starts with a W and it has a slightly malicious ring to it."

"Damien Wickham?" I guessed. I didn't want it to be true, but I suspected that it was. Damien just isn't that common a name and Wickham did have a slightly malicious ring to it if you thought about it. I however was just personally biased against the bastard so the name "Damien Wickham" just sounded like an asshole's name to me.

"That's it!" Jane exclaimed. "They met at the Longbourn on Sunday. I guess he's made friends with Katie and Lydia, which is just a little perverted if you ask me. They're still in high school."

"But that's what he's like," I told her. "Unfortunately, Damien has a thing for younger women. I've known him since childhood and he's always preyed on younger women, especially those who might be able to benefit him financially."

Jane sighed. "Of course, and I won't be able to tell Lizzie that because she'll be convinced that I'm just trying to sabotage her relationships."

"Isn't that your job?" Charlotte asked. "Emma told me yesterday that she is now convinced the only reason I was born is ruin her life, especially her social life."

I was confused. "Why would you only be here to ruin her social life?"

"Char is my friend," Jane replied. "And Emma is in the same class as my younger sister, Katie, who does not have the most wholesome character. Emma's problem is that Katie seems to think that since Char and I are friends, she and Emma should be friends."

"But Emma doesn't want to be friends with Katie because she thinks that Katie is a little too much of a slut."

And then Jane sighed. "Why, God, didn't you make me an only child?"

I smiled at her but I thought she was being a bit dramatic. Sure her three younger sisters were twits but surely Lizzie couldn't be that bad. She didn't seem to be overly fond of me, but she had been really nice when Charlie and I were snowed in at her place the weekend before. She'd watched The Muppet Christmas Carol with Charlie and me and then the next morning, she'd made us blueberry pancakes. It had been a good weekend.

I didn't understand why she was suddenly hanging all over Damien Wickham though. Damien was the kind of man who preyed on innocent women. I would know; he had conned my little sister Georgie into dating him. Then when they'd only been together for a few months, he got her pregnant and then ran off to chase a young woman named Ashley King. Ashley was the heiress to a considerable fortune, but also the child of a very protective father. From what I understood, Damien's relationship with Ashley hadn't lasted very long. Her father had found out about the relationship and forced her to end things. I just hoped that someone in Lizzie's life would be sensible enough to show her the truth about Damien Wickham.

Lizzie's POV

Damien was fascinating, absolutely fascinating. We were sitting in La Riviera enjoying a good dinner and having a great time. He had traveled a long when he was younger and he was telling me all about his travels. "And when I was sixteen, my dad's job allowed us to spend the whole summer traveling through Europe."

"Oh, that must have been amazing," I said. "What was your favorite country?"

"Probably either the Netherlands or England," was his reply. "I really hate it when people can't speak English; it's so stupid. It's not like it's a hard language to learn. And the Netherlands was really cool. You know you can go into coffee shops and spoke pot there? It's great. And I love how you can drink when you'd be considered underage back home."

"I thought the drinking age in the Netherlands was eighteen."

"Oh yeah, it is, but you know you can get away with stuff if you have a fake ID."

"And that works here too," I told him. "I had plenty of friends who got booze with fake IDs during high school and college." And even now, I know some of my students use fake IDs. I don't entirely approve of it, but it's just a fact of life. They're my students and I can try to influence them as much as possible but I can never be their parents.

"Yeah, but it's more exciting to try that stuff in a foreign country."

I shrugged. He seemed a little kooky, but sometimes kooky was good. A friend of mine had once describable as "attractively insane, crazy in a good way." So it was fine with me if Damien was a little weird. Everyone has their own quirks and you should just accept them the way they are. "So what did you think of Spain?"

"It stunk; it was worse than France," he replied. "Why do you ask?"

"I lived in Spain for almost five months about four years ago," I told him. "I loved it there and I want to go back again as soon as I can."

"My dad's boss's son loved Spain, but I hated it. I guess it was just more Will's type of place than it was mine. There were just so many old buildings and the food wasn't that good. Plus the country reeked."

"Personally, I loved it, but it's all a matter of taste."

"Yeah, Will is the kind of person who likes old churches and seafood. I'm more of a red meat kind of guy."

Just then Will Darcy walked behind Damien's chair. Will was eating in another part of the restaurant with Jane, Charlie, and Charlotte. Somehow seeing the two of them so close to each other made me compare them mentally. Damien was tall and slender with dark blonde hair and blue eyes. Will was tall, probably taller than Damien, and well-built; he probably worked out regularly. He had dark brown hair and big brown eyes, with what Jane called "luscious lashes." Damien had a perfectly constructed nose while Will's was big and kind of stuck out from his face. And then there were their ears; Damien's were small and fit snugly against his head; Will's were big and stuck out from his head. Will also had an extremely unattractive look on his face at the moment. I could tell he was unhappy to see Damien Wickham. I had heard from Jane that Damien's father had managed one of Will's father's resorts and Damien had told me that he had been very close to the Darcy family, especially old Mr. Darcy, before old Mr. Darcy's death.

As Will returned from the bathroom, Damien noticed him. "I hate that guy. His father left me a ton of money, but Will wouldn't let me have it because all he wants is to have more money. He's so obsessed with money; he wants his sister to die single so he can inherit all the money that their parents left her. When his dad died and left me a huge chunk of money, he took that money away from me because he said I didn't deserve it. He is always looking for ways to make more money. It's not enough for him that he's the CEO of a national resort chain; he also has to become a lawyer. He did all of that for the money. He doesn't really care about the resorts or the law. He's just trying impress his rich aunt and her fancy friends."

I found myself readily believing everything Damien was saying. Granted the only thing that Will had ever done to me was say that I wasn't very good looking. He had been nothing but sweet to me since that day and I was starting to believe that he might not have meant what he told Charlie that night at Charlotte's party, until Damien started telling me about Will's obsession with money. I wanted to believe everything he was saying because I wanted to dislike Will. So all night I listened to Damien bash Will. He told me about how he had tried to date Georgie Darcy but then Will made her dump him because "I just wasn't good enough for his precious little princess of a sister. He probably won't let her marry anyone short of Prince William or something like that."

"He sounds like a real control freak," I replied.

"Oh he is," he said with a smile. "He always has been. I've known Will Darcy his entire life and he's always been like this. The most important things in his life are school, family, and work. He has no time for fun or anything social."

"That's kind of stupid. You'd think that he'd need to find some way to de-stress, you know kick back and relax."

"Kick back and relax?" he said with a laugh. "That is so not Will Darcy's style. He has a stick up his ass and he just is incapable of relaxing. He always has to be in control and know what's happening."

At that moment I happened to glance across the restaurant and see Will, Charlie, Jane, and Charlotte. They were all laughing and they looked like they were having a good time. Will had a glass of red wine in his hand and a broad grin on his face. He didn't look like any sort of tightwad, but maybe it was just the alcohol loosening him up.

All of this conjecture was, of course, ignoring the fact that I'd already had two glasses of wine. It was also completely avoiding the fact that when he wasn't looking at me, Damien was checking out other women around the restaurant. I knew all of this was going on, but I was avoiding it. I was lonely and here was a man perfectly willing to pay attention to me. I missed the feeling of knowing that someone was absolutely head over heels in love with you. Somehow all of this loneliness had evolved into a desire just to be admired and touched. In short, I had become desperate and that desperation wove a tangled web through my life over the next few weeks.

A/N: I'm sorry this took so long to get up. I was out of town for a week, but I'm back until Saturday so hopefully I'll be able to get another chapter up soon. Please review!