A/N: We continue our third arc. We're at the middle of our story, roughly.
Pride, Prejudice, and Pretense
Chapter Thirteen: Vain
Man is as much affected pleasurably or painfully by the image of a thing past or future as by the image of a thing present.
— Spinoza, Ethics
Darcy produced a small piece of paper from his pocket and a pencil, like the ones used when playing putt-putt golf, and he wrote the number down.
He stared at it for a minute. Lizzy could see the flush still on his cheeks. "That's a Chicago number. I'll give it to Bingley and he can give it to the Langley analysts. I'm surprised Wickham made this mistake — assuming the number isn't just his dry cleaner."
Lizzy nodded, catching Darcy's eyes and holding them. I want you to hold me. "He was…eager…to get his arms around me, his hands on me."
Darcy's eyes narrowed and looked away.
Lizzy continued. "Wickham doesn't suspect me at all, not yet anyway, and he did not expect me to check his pockets. My guess is that it was a mistake, that it will reveal something…"
Nodding, Darcy stood, as if he could no longer remain seated, keep listening without motion, and he walked to the laptop, opened it on the counter. He wiped his lips with his hand, either to make sure no tell-tall trace of Lizzy's lipstick or to force himself to forget the touch of Lizzy's lips.
A moment later, Bingley was on the screen. He looked tired but pleased with himself. Lizzy joined Darcy at the counter "Hey, Darcy, Lizzy," Bingley said, his brow furrowing, "are you both okay? You look like something's wrong."
Lizzy looked at Darcy. He licked his lips before he answered. "No, just an eventful evening at Rosings for Fanny and Ned. Wickham managed to separate us for a few minutes."
Bingley nodded, frowning. "Oh — but you're okay, Lizzy?" He looked at her carefully from the screen.
Lizzy nodded once, a shallow nod toward Bingley although not quite seeing him. She did not want to linger in discussion of the evening, the patio, Wickham's hands. She wanted to linger — was lingering, despite struggling to refocus — in the memory of Darcy, his lips, how good he tasted. But that wouldn't do. Darcy clearly did not want Bingley guessing what had happened when they entered the apartment. She could see the tension in Darcy's shoulders.
But the apartment was still thick and warm and fragrant with what happened, with their mutual desire. That kiss was the heady atmosphere in which they stood.
Lizzy could feel it — and she knew Darcy could too.
"You found tickets?" Darcy asked, the question pertinent to the debrief and an attempt to change the topic. It seemed Darcy no more wanted to think about Wickham touching Lizzy than she did.
"Yes, airline tickets in another name — Keith Sanders. He'd printed them, probably because of the alias, although I didn't find any matching ID. The tickets were a round trip, Chicago O'Hare to Rapid City Airport."
"Rapid City? South Dakota?" Lizzy asked. "Why? Mount Rushmore? The Black Hills? The BadLands?"
Darcy glanced at her, taking in her rapid-fire questions. "That's where Mount Rushmore is?" he asked after a moment.
"Yes, the Rapid City airport is the closest to Mount Rushmore, I think. I traveled there one summer with my father, a long time ago, through Rapid City."
Bingley spoke from the computer. "It's not a long flight from O'Hare, a little over two hours. He leaves tomorrow morning and returns tomorrow evening."
They stood silent for a moment, then Darcy waved the piece of paper. "Lizzy found a phone number in Wickham's jacket pocket…"
Bingley smiled. "Go, Lizzy!"
Darcy read it off to Bingley, who copied it down. "Send that to Langley, see what they can find out. We need to know about it before tomorrow. We also need someone on the ground in Rapid City, ready to establish a tail on Wickham when he arrives. We need to know what he's doing there." Bingley kept writing. Darcy paused. When Bingley looked up again, Darcy asked: "Did you find anything else?"
Bingley colored. "Um, yes, in a drawer in the nightstand. A Polaroid Now camera and some unopened film, along with a bunch of pictures."
"Pictures?" Lizzy said, repeating the last word but as a question.
Bingley fidgeted noticeably. "Yeah, mostly of Wickham and Lady Catherine…" He paused to allow what he hadn't said to sink in. He shrugged. "They, ah, used the self-timer a lot."
"Oh," Lizzy said after a moment. She glanced at Darcy. He seemed to be grinding his teeth.
"Were there any other women in the Polaroids?" Darcy asked, leaning toward the computer intently.
"One other one. Much younger than Lady Catherine, younger than Lizzy. Frankly, she looked like a college girl, maybe even high school. Beautiful. Blonde hair, tanned. A bikini model without the bikini but with residual tan lines. I took a photograph of the Polaroid and will send it to Langley too." Bingley stopped. "By the way, Lady Catherine was in that Polaroid too."
"Oh." It was Darcy's turn to say it, and he blushed. Lizzy felt her stomach knot in response to a fresh memory of Wickham's hands, now accompanied by the thought of where else they had been. She imagined a Polaroid flash. Self-timer.
"Good work, Bingley," Darcy said after a moment, his blush disappearing. "It was a successful night." He glanced for a split second at Lizzy. "I'll stay here tonight," he paused, then added: "On the couch. We can talk again in the morning, early. Ned's supposed to leave in the morning."
Bingley's pleased-with-himself smile had returned. Lizzy liked it; it was boyish and without a touch of conceit. "Sounds good. I'm tired. That security system wasn't easy to foil."
"Goodnight, Bingley," Darcy said. Lizzy waved at the screen and then it went dark.
Darcy stared at the screen for a moment, then faced Lizzy. "I'll get the bedclothes from the closet."
She nodded, not quite able to face him. The atmosphere in the apartment was still heady but it had been complicated, tainted by Bingley's talk of the Polaroids. Lizzy stood, waiting for Darcy to come back into the living room. He did, carrying a stack of blankets, a sheet and a pillow, already encased.
Lizzy smiled at him, a genuine smile, wistful. He returned the smile, matching it. for a moment after he put the bedclothes down, she hoped that he might touch her, take her hand or hug her or something, but after an awkward, pregnant pause, he did none of those things. She would have been happy with any; any would have chased away the faint taint of the Polaroids. But he just said goodnight. The way he said it and his posture as he did spoke eloquently of his exertion, his effort at self-mastery. Lizzy loved it and hated it.
Lizzy said good night and retreated to the bathroom to prepare for bed, donning a black sleep cami, and black shorts covered in white butterflies.
She fell asleep quickly, contrary to her expectations, but she woke up a few hours later.
She had been dreaming of the kiss with Darcy at the door, and when she woke from the dream, she was intertwined with her blankets and her pillow, a silky snarl of sweaty desire. She lay there staring up at the shadowy ceiling, panting.
As her breathing returned to normal, as she cooled, she heard a voice from the living room, although she did not understand what was said.
It was Darcy's voice, one side of a conversation.
Lizzy disentangled herself from the dream and her blankets and sat up. It was 1:17 am.
She rose from the bed and tiptoed to her bedroom door. She turned the doorknob soundlessly and opened the door a crack, peeking through.
"Listen, love," Darcy said in a quiet but intent voice, emotional, "you know I'm always thinking about you, you're always on my mind. I will never forget you, I promise. I'm sorry I'm not there too, not with you, that I can't hold you — but it can't be helped. I'm working, and I shouldn't be on the phone, shouldn't be making a personal call. That I am should show you how much I care." He was pleading, his tone all fondness and urgency.
He was silent for a moment, listening. He was in a T-shirt and boxers. It looked like he had yet to sleep; the sheet on the couch was smooth, the blanket still folded at the end of the couch.
"I know, I know," Darcy said patiently. "The dreams are bad. But they're less frequent, aren't they? Good. That's progress. Eventually, they'll become rare, then they'll be gone."
He was silent again for a long time. "Yes, it's late here and I do need to sleep. You need to find something to do, some other direction in which to turn your thoughts." Silence. "No, don't call me unless it's an emergency. I will try to call you again in a few days. Yes, yes. I love you too, so very much. Goodbye." His final words were so tender that Lizzy teared up as she carefully shut the door.
She tiptoed back to her bed and stretched out, trying to process what she had heard and seen. Darcy's voice had sounded familiar. The tenderness, the fondness — she had heard them before, earlier in the evening. His refusal of her, of her offer of herself to him, had been spoken in a similar way. That was why she had not felt rejected. He had said no but it was clear how much he wanted to say yes. But that familiarity, that similarity was a two-edged sword, comforting and discomforting. Who was Darcy talking to? Who was she? Because it was a she — Lizzy knew that without hearing the voice on the other end of the call.
Her feelings were a jumble. She could not remember cycling through so many upheavals in so little time, an emotional gamut. Blowing out a breath, she rolled onto her side and closed her eyes. Then she opened them and looked at the engagement ring on her finger, its small, bright gem. Try as she might, she could not divest the ring of significance.
It was the last thing she saw as she drifted into sleep.
She woke to a soft knock on her bedroom door. "Lizzy, are you awake?" It was Darcy's voice, barely audible. She rolled onto her back and sat up, pulling the blanket up and holding it in place under her arms.
"Yes," she whispered back, making sure her voice was loud enough to be heard but no louder. Her heart rate elevated immediately, and she rubbed her eyes as he opened the door.
His wavy hair was a tangle and his stubble had darkened during the night, blue-black in the shadows as he walked to her. He was still in his T-shirt and boxers, the boxers, she now realized, were some light color, maybe sky blue.
She expected him to stand at the foot of her bed, tell her whatever it was that caused him to disturb her. But he walked past the foot of the bed to stand beside the bed, her side of the bed. He looked tired, wan, when she reached over and clicked on the nightstand lamp. His lips were pressed in a hard line.
"What is it, Fitzwilliam?" Lizzy hadn't planned to use his first name but she did. It seemed to jolt him. His hands flexed at his sides, fully extended, then fisted. He took a slow, deep breath and she could hear a tremor in his voice as she spoke, a tremor that found an answer in her.
"I shouldn't be here. In your bedroom. Especially after what happened tonight, earlier, between us. But I can't sleep and I can't forget it. My struggle with myself has been in vain." His eyes were dark in the shadows but his gaze caused Lizzy to blush; she felt her chest and neck heat up. It almost seemed that they started to glow. "Lizzy, I — "
He put out one hand but he did not touch her. He stopped it just above the thin strap of the cami, just above her otherwise bare shoulder. His hand shook.
She reached up and took it, her hand wrapping around the back of his, and she pressed it to her shoulder. He inhaled sharply. "I have to tell you how much, how…" he searched for a word, trying to convey emotion and desire all at once, deep feeling and deep arousal, "...how ardently I admire you, how much I want you. I've been in trouble since the first meeting with Kellynch but I was too clueless to know myself…"
She caressed the back of his hand. Her need for him was as great as it had been at the door, greater now. Her skin felt heated head to toe and her breathing shallowed. He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, warm and wet, the kiss a marvel of mutual restraint. Blood whooshed in Lizzy's ears and Darcy's boxers showed that he was as affected as she, further testament to the restraint in his soft lips.
And then she remembered the overheard phone call. The woman. She pulled back from the kiss.
Surprise showed in Darcy's eyes and she spoke. "Are you sure you want me — or do you just want someone? A stand-in?" She had not meant to sound kittenish, like her mother, not at all, but she did, sounded coy and complaining all at once. Darcy unbent, stood straight. His tented boxers began a slow collapse.
"What?" He seemed lost. "Someone? A stand-in?" He was repeating her words without attaching any meaning to them.
Lizzy was provoked. Why is he playing dumb? He must know what I mean. He was the one talking to another woman on the phone.
Darcy blinked, thinking. He looked at her, suspecting he understood. "Lizzy, I know what I said earlier, about attachments, and about drinking too much, and about these missions. But I'm sober now, and you are too, and, well, it may still be a bad idea, maybe a very bad idea, in the middle of this mission as we are and with who knows what still to endure but, Lizzy I can't fight — "
Lizzy removed his hand from her shoulder and let it go. It fell to his side. His face fell with it.
"I'm sorry," she said, composing a response on the spot, the words coming to her as she spoke them and not before, "I'm sorry for earlier. For kissing you. I was upset and tipsy and I've been so tired. I'm not myself; I'm not this blonde." She touched her hair then gestured to Darcy in his boxers. "This is flattering, and I'm grateful for the compliment, but let's just call it even. I made a mistake and you've made one, and we can just put both mistakes behind us and get on with Wickham, with the mission, with Ned and Fanny. We don't need to complicate our lie with the truth. It'll make the lie harder. Worse."
Darcy's mouth opened but he said nothing, then he closed it. He looked at her. The blanket had fallen down, revealing the lacy black cami. He did not allow his gaze to linger there; he looked her in the eye, cleared his throat and stood straight.
"If you need to replace me in the mission, I understand. Ned is leaving town tomorrow anyway, and I believe the hook is set in Wickham. Fanny will hear from him in the next couple of days. Bingley can manage as sole backup until a replacement arrives." Reluctance colored every word Darcy said, but so too did sincerity.
Lizzy had not expected such a dramatic reaction.
She put the blanket beneath her arms again, covering herself.
"Agent Darcy, that's completely unnecessary. It would endanger the meeting; Fanny may need Ned again. Nothing that's happened tonight will keep me from being able to work with you. I'm exactly as much to blame as you. Maybe more, because I acted first."
Darcy set his jaw and nodded. "Okay, we'll pretend the kisses didn't happen. Neither kiss happened."
Lizzy kept her eyes on his, trying not to steal another glance at his boxers. The collapse of the tenting was not yet total. Darcy turned and walked to the bedroom door. He turned just as he got to the door. "I know what I said in Kellynch's office, but you are the most tempting woman I have ever met."
With that, he left the bedroom. Lizzy stared at the door for a moment then threw herself back on the bed, pulled her pillow over her face and screamed silenced frustration into it.
Lizzy plodded quietly into the kitchen the next morning, yawning to herself and blinking, tying her robe.
The little sleep she got after Darcy left her bedroom had been light and fitful, jagged with fragments of dream, all of herself in Darcy's warm arms, of Darcy warm in her bed.
But Darcy was on the couch and she had awakened alone and cold, her blankets on the floor, her pillow on the floor at the foot of her bed.
She started a pot of coffee, and Darcy stirred on the couch in response to the gurgle of the coffee maker. Lizzy sat down on one of the stools. Darcy lifted his head and looked at Lizzy. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. After a moment, he put his hands down and regarded her seriously.
She started to squirm a bit on the stool, still not sure how Darcy was going to react to all that happened and didn't happen during the night. Darcy carefully draped his blanket across his lap.
"You heard me last night, didn't you, on the phone?" It was a question but it expressed no doubt. Still, there was no accusation in his voice; he stated it as a simple conclusion.
Lizzy nodded after a moment, slowly, speaking carefully. "Yes, I did. I don't have a ton…of romantic experience, but I'm not interested in being part of any…triangle."
There had been no accusation in Darcy's voice but there was accusation in Lizzy's.
After he left her room, after her muffled scream of frustration, she found herself angry, not understanding how he could have come to her after that phone call.
But the anger quickly became secondary. Mostly she did not understand.
Her time with Darcy had taught her that he took life seriously. He was not humorless but he was the kind of man who displaced water. Bingley, by contrast, was more of a hovercraft, a glider on the surface. Not Darcy. She could not imagine him playing with what was deep in anyone else, or betraying what was deep in himself. Lizzy had finally been able to sleep, at least such sleep as she had gotten, because she promised herself she would understand in the morning.
But it looked as though Darcy had figured out that she did not understand. Darcy smiled sadly and shook his head. "There's no triangle, Lizzy. You heard me on the phone with my step-sister, Georgiana. You've seen her in pictures; she was the blonde with Wickham."
"Your step-sister?" Lizzy sat quietly for a moment, replaying the conversation she had overheard. "Is she okay?"
Darcy's sad smile became a downright frown. "No, she's not. She's been…hospitalized for a while. At one time, we might have said she'd suffered a nervous breakdown. Now, she's been diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. Wickham used her, broke her,tortured her physically and psychologically, and abandoned her."
Lizzy thought about the first night in Hall Kellynch's office. "That first night, in Langley, when you were talking about the kind of woman who would tempt Wickham, you were thinking of Georgiana? Of your stepsister?"
Darcy nodded, his face bitter. "Yes, and at the end, when he was being as gratuitously cruel as he could to her, he told her she was one in a long line of similar women, women who looked like her, none of whom mattered. I thought he told her the truth about the women his type, until I saw his reaction to you. Now I think it was just the cruelest lie he could think to tell her. He convinced her that she was not only nothing to him, but that she was…nothing."
"God, Fitzwilliam, the man's such a complete bastard. Sick. I'm so sorry for Georgiana. This is why it's so personal for you. Why you hate Wickham so much?"
"Yes. Georgiana's doing better — but it's not clear she'll ever truly be well again, be able to reclaim her life. She was always delicate, nervous, and oversensitive. Fragile. Absolutely the wrong woman to be exposed to a monster like George Wickham." He paused, his voice dropping. "He savaged her, shattered her."
Darcy stood up, managing to drape his blanket around himself, holding it with one arm. He gestured to Lizzy with his other hand.
"You're not her, not so fragile, but, still, the thought of seeing another woman I — " He stopped, pain in his eyes. "Watching him with you, it's like witnessing what he did to Georgiana while I also witness what he's doing and plans to do to you. It's like seeing the past, the present and the future all at once, and all of it damned awful."
He turned and walked into the bathroom, the blanket still wrapped around him.
When he shut the door, Lizzy felt tears well up in her eyes — for Georgiana, for Darcy, for herself.
The mission had been complicated enough in Kellynch's office, complicated enough before last night and this morning, but now?
She stood, sighed, and poured two cups of coffee.
She needed to talk to Darcy before they talked to Bingley.
A/N: It's great that so many are reading the story but it would be nice to hear from more of you. How about a comment if you've been reading silently?
I'm feeling better, yet Fall teaching has begun, so the current pace may remain the pace until the end. But chapters will lengthen again. This last two were too important to overfill with narrative.