Previously: The Bennet family arrives at the Lucas estate for a charity event. Mr. Bennet arrives late with two 'beautiful specimens of man'.

3

"Well, if it isn't my lovely little girl who ran away and left me, her old, lonely father, for the cold and rain of England." David Bennet smirked at Elise as he pulled her in to kiss her cheek. It was strange, as although David and his stepdaughter Marissa shared no genes, the two had perfected the same sarcastic half-smile.

"Well, if it isn't my concerned and caring father, who emailed and phoned constantly while his baby girl was away for a year," Elise responded with a quirked eyebrow, calling her father out for having almost no contact with her over the past year.

"Hey, I called on your birthday!"

"No, I called on my birthday because it was a weekend and I hoped you wouldn't be busy."

"Oh Lisette, you know how it. There's always something I need to see or do at work," he said with a sigh, "You know I love you even if I don't get to talk to you every day."

Elise smiled sadly. She turned to wave Carla over from where she had lingered in order to give Elise and her father some privacy for their reunion.

"Hey, Mr. B!" she greeted him cheerfully.

"Carla, you look beautiful as always. Speaking of beautiful ladies, where's my other lovely daughter?" He asked, just as Jen approached the group from behind.

"Daddy! I missed you!" Jen smiled as she leaned in to wrap her arms around her father and kiss his cheek.

"I missed you too, sweet girl." Jen looked momentarily upset and Elise wondered if she too would reprimand her father for not having been in touch, but she quickly returned to her smiles.

"Actually girls, I'm glad I've got you both here because there's something we need to discuss."

Carla raised her eyebrows at El and then slunk off into the background to give the three some privacy. Elise and Jenine exchanged a concerned look. Their father had never been one for serious conversation. Usually, such topics had to be brought up and he had to be forced into a discussion at which point he would brush off the seriousness with sarcasm.

"I'm not sure if I told you-"

Elise coughed deliberately.

"Alright, Lisette, you've made your point. I shall try to phone more when you are away in the future. Anyhow, as I was saying, lately, the company has come under some scrutiny from the media because of a few recent high profile deals, nothing you need to worry about of course. Basically, there's been a lot of attention on me from the press. Now that the two of you are around again, some of that attention is likely to become focused on you, as you are both the heiresses to the company."

That Elise and Jen were to inherit the company was something of a sore subject to their father. He had wanted the two girls to remain at home and learn the ropes in his thriving publishing house to take over from him. He could not understand their desire to follow different career paths where they would have to 'work their way up from the bottom' and he understood even less their desire to leave home and move abroad. He had always felt some residual bitterness from losing his ex-wife to her desire for travel.

"Because of this," he continued, "I have decided that it would be best that the two of you have constant protection and from now on, you will both have a bodyguard 24 hours a day."

"Dad, this is ridiculous! It's going to attract even more attention!" Elise argued annoyed at having this decision made for her without her say.

"Elise, at this point there is little you can do to attract more attention. You can try to fight me, but you will not win on this one" her father responded, his tone and use of her given name making clear that his decision was final.

"If you think that's what's best, Daddy…" Jen sweetly assented as Elise grumbled to herself.

"Ok, I'll call them over now so that you can meet them tonight before they start their jobs properly tomorrow"

"Whoa. When you said 'from now on' I had no idea you meant from right this minute!" Elise was growing more irritated. This was her first night back in town, seeing everyone again and she was going to be encumbered with some big muscular doofus.

"Elise, I've already told you that the pressure from the media has been high recently so it is vital that you girls have the proper security effective immediately."

David Bennet waved, beckoning two men standing by the door near J.W. who was looking rather nervous. As the men approached, Elise realised that these were Carla's 'beautiful specimens of man' that her father had entered with. Both men were tall and muscular though aside from this their appearances were completely different.

Then one on the left had strawberry-blond-approaching-ginger hair. His eyes were wide and El wondered if he'd had something to drink because his cheeks showed an intense flush. The one on the right looked uncomfortable to the say the least. His demeanour was stiff, his jaw clenched and his muscles, which were not at all lacking, were on display.

"He might as well have 'I'm a Lumberjack' written on the front of his shirt" she thought, mentally rolling her eyes at this guy. She wondered if he had any missing teeth and brought her eyes up to his face. They briefly made eye contact and Elise felt her skin break out in goosebumps. His eyes were incredibly bright, a pale greenish grey colour. His face certainly didn't look like it was going to be missing any teeth. The man was tanned, his skin approaching the shade of melted toffee. Elise briefly found herself wondering if it tasted as sweet as it looked and almost smacked herself. His hair was unruly and curly but simultaneously looked soft and clean, it was long and a single curl was falling onto his forehead.

Just like his daughter, David Bennet was assessing the appearances of the two men he was appointing as his daughter's bodyguards. Although he had ridden with them from his office to the Lucas estate, he hadn't bothered taking in their appearances properly until this moment. The two men had been sent by a reputable agency and prior to this David had not pondered whether or not they would be suited to guarding his daughters.

He was attempting to decide which goon to assign to which girl. "The ginger looks like a right softie. I can just see Elise giving him swirlies. He'll have to go to Jen, that girl doesn't give anyone trouble."

The two men stood before the trio of Bennets.

"Girls this is…" David realised that the two men must at some point mentioned their names however he had obviously been focused elsewhere and now was at a loss. He briefly contemplated calling them 'Grouchy Goon and Ginger Goon' before 'Ginger Goon' jumped in.

"Charles Bingley," he stated. He smiled and held out his hand for the two girls to shake, his cheeks somehow managing to pinken even further. Both girls smiled back at him.

"Darcy."

"A real friendly guy, this one is." Elise thought to herself after Darcy's abrupt introduction. He neither made eye contact with any of them nor did he hold out his hand to shake.

"Yes, well, Bingley, you will be bodyguard to my elder daughter Jenine-" he gestured at the blond girl.

Elise watched as Jen and Bingley made Bambi eyes at each other. "Hmph. Twitterpated," she thought, rolling her eyes. She looked away from the two and was amused to find Darcy doing the same. She half-smiled at him but he maintained his scowl perfectly.

"- Darcy, you will be guarding my younger daughter Elise," David instructed motioning at El. "You will be keeping the girls safe 24 hours a day. Where they go, I expect you to follow."

"Except the bathroom," he added as an afterthought. "I expect you not to follow my daughters to the bathroom. I'm sure you kids can figure out the finer details between yourselves." He had clearly had enough of them, as he made something of a shooing gesture at the girls and their bodyguards and disappeared towards the bar.

"Miss Jenine, would you like to dance?" Bingley offered, blushing further. He seemed to have a permanent flush and the presence of Jen appeared to add to it further.

"Oh I'd love to," Jen smiled " but please, call me Jen."

"Jen…" he said as if testing the sound of her name. He beamed at her. "Then you must call me Charlie." Bingley placed his hand on the middle of Jen's back and gently led her towards where couples were swaying to the live band.

Elise realised she had been left alone with Darcy. "So…" she began, "do you dance at all?"

"I try to avoid it," came the curt response.

"I'll try to avoid you," she muttered under her breath, turning her back to him and navigating through the crowd to find Carla. She would not be attempting any further conversation with that grouchy asshole.

Darcy was standing in a corner glowering. He was annoyed that what he thought was going to be a job guarding important individuals, whose ideas could shape the future of the world, was actually a stint as a goon for some girl who was of no significance at all. Still, the man took his job seriously and from his position in the corner he was following her movements with his eyes.

"She may not be significant, but those eyes of hers certainly are," he found himself thinking. He'd noticed when they were first introduced that she had the finest set of eyes he'd ever seen, amongst other favourable assets. Of course, these assets were unlikely to be real, but the eyes most definitely were.

Her eyes were brown and at first unremarkable, however her irises were unusually large, giving them a doll-like appearance. Furthermore thick, dark lashes framed them and when she looked up from under them, Darcy's heart seemed to do strange things. Her eyes were clear and almost glassy and when the light hit them at a certain angle or her eyes filled with tears of laughter, there were moments her eyes suddenly seemed grey.

She looked in his direction and he pretended not to have noticed, ignoring her gaze. She was telling her friend, who appeared to be the daughter of the hosts, a story. Her conversation was animated and she was smiling, her nose wrinkling at the bridge as she laughed.

He looked away from her and his eyes found Bingley and the blond girl amongst a crowd. They had shared several dances and Darcy could tell his friend was smitten. The song that was playing ended and the two of them broke apart. She smiled at him and spoke, nodding in the direction of her sister and her companion. Bingley smiled back, his face beet red. Once he had seen her join in the conversation with Elise and Carla, Bingley turned to walk towards Darcy's corner.

"Oh jeez. Here he comes, to spread some stupid joy," Darcy thought. Bingley was so pleasant, that sometimes Darcy had to restrain himself from punching his friend. He was convinced that it was unnatural to be so jovial all the time. No matter how hard he tried, Darcy could not find a time when his friend was in a bad mood. Even when he'd deliberately called Bingley from England at 4am 'just for a chat' the man had been as chirpy as ever. "Douchebag."

"Darcy, dude, why are you just standing here? We're at a party! Look more alive!"

"Charlie, I'm working. I don't like to play on the job."

"Darce, it's the first night. You're supposed to be getting to know your charge." Bingley sighed as Darcy ignored him. "Alright then, let's get something to drink."

The two men moved to stand by the bar. Darcy almost rolled his eyes when he realised that from where they were now standing Bingley had a better view of Jenine Bennet and her friend. He noted that his charge seemed to have disappeared, but as Bingley had pointed out, they were not technically on the job tonight and so Elise Bennet was not his problem right now.

"I think I'm going to like this job," Bingley told his friend eagerly.

"No surprises there," Darcy replied sardonically.

"Jen is so lovely, she's so beautiful and kind. She's a teacher you know?"

Darcy mumbled, not really listening to Bingley enumerating all of Jane's positive qualities.

"She's an angel!"

"She seems nice," Darcy said non-committedly.

"What about Elise? What's she like?"

"Ok, I guess."

"Have you even spoken to her?" Bingley chastised.

"Yeah, you were there when we were introduced. Although your focus was somewhere else entirely."

"No, I mean have you tried to get to know her? You know, to find out a bit about her, even if it's just to gauge what her schedule is like?"

"Charlie, just because you got the pretty one and you guys hit it off doesn't mean you have to harass me about becoming BFFs with my charge. She's just a client."

"Dude, why don't you just ask her to dance or something? Just to be polite and stuff."

"Bingley, why don't you understand? I have absolutely no interest in getting to know my Kim-Kardashian-bimbo charge. All I need to know are her whereabouts and I can find those out without spending any extra time with her. She's not completely ugly but she's not pretty or smart enough for me to want to devote any more time to her than absolutely necessary."

Bingley sighed, realising there was no point arguing any further with his stubborn friend. Darcy wasn't an asshole, he was just a nice guy in an asshole shell.

Elise had exited the bathroom, the entrance to which was right by the bar, when she had overheard the Darcy and Bingley's conversation. Bingley was mooning over Jen and her numerous attributes.

"Aww, they're just so cute!" She had just been listening to Jen's proclamations about how Charlie was 'the nicest guy ever…he's just so… nice!' The two of them were so sweet it was almost sickening. If they ever had babies, those kids would probably be able to end war and world hunger by pouting and turning corrupt politicians into bumbling softies.

Elise almost snorted when she heard Bingley ask Darcy if he'd spoken to her, thinking of how he seemed incapable of anything other than one-word answers. She knew she shouldn't have been eavesdropping and should either leave or alert them to her presence, but when Bingley asked Darcy what he thought of her, she couldn't help but keep listening.

If she had known that he would essentially call her both stupid and ugly she might have decided against continuing her espionage. She was seething as she heard him compare her to Kim Kardashian. "'Not pretty or smart enough'? Hmph. It's not like you're a catch, grinch!"

Elise stormed off, not caring if they noticed her presence. She went to find Carla and Jen so she could rant about the horrible man she was going to be stuck with.

Darcy caught a glimpse of moonstone fabric and bouncing chestnut ringlets from the corner of his eye and realised that his conversation with Bingley had been overheard by it's very subject.

"Oh shit," he thought to himself although unsure of why her opinion mattered to him.

For the rest of the evening Elise alternated between making rude comments about Darcy, imitating his haughtiness and glaring at him. Jen attempted to calm her down, but was unable and both she and Carla grew weary of Elise's ranting. When at last the evening ended, Elise chose to ride home with her stepmother and stepsisters over riding with Jen, her father and the two bodyguards.

When Elise got into bed that night, she bitterly came to the conclusion that Darcy's distaste for her was actually a good thing. If he didn't want to spend time with her, so be it. She didn't want a bodyguard anyway. She would spare him the trouble of her company and it would be a win-win situation.

A/N:

Thanks again to those who followed/reviewed and to my beta who reads this stuff in the early hours of the morning :) So now you've met Darcy! After this one, the chapters are getting longer, so look forward to more Darcy time. Please review and let me know what you think of the characters and all thus far. -N