Chapter 9

It was a long, frustrating drive back to London. Elizabeth kept playing their conversations over in her head. How could she have let herself get so invested in a client? She had never been anything other than friendly with any of the other clients she had worked with. Honestly most of them had been old men or their rich wives, but there had been a few who wouldn't have been so bad to see out of the office. But that thought had never crossed her mind before.

Why now? Why was he so special? He wasn't special. He was handsome. And rich. And well spoken. And, and, what? What was the word that wouldn't come to her?

She needed a distraction. She voice dialed her sister to see how she was doing. Her sister was ecstatic to be moving in with Charles and told her sister all about it. They had gone through his flat and decided what changes they wanted. He had told his sister that she was losing her unlimited access to a guest room; if she decided to stay downtown, she could stay with their sister. After the fiasco with deciding to ask Jane to move in, he didn't want his sister particularly close all the time. She hoped that he was looking at Jane moving in as just getting one step closer to asking her to marry him. She certainly did not need his sister underfoot while they were courting.

Elizabeth was very happy for her sister. They had decided to have a housewarming party the following Saturday. Elizabeth assured her that she would be there and would come over early to help her get ready. Jane teased her that she could bring a plus one if she wanted. Elizabeth's mind immediately went to a tall handsome man who she just happened to know would be in London that day. No, she could not ask him. She needed to keep their relationship on a strictly professional level. By then the project would be nearly completed and she likely would never see him again. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.

Elizabeth spent Monday and Tuesday in the office. She had other clients that she was working with and after being out of the office for a week, and being unavailable at least Wednesday, and possibly Thursday this week, she had things to attend to. She was slightly disappointed to not receive an email from the Pemberley client, as she now took to referring to him, but figured it was just as well as she gave it a decent chance that he would change his mind and tell her to get a voice actor for the project. It might be for the best, but she hoped he would not cancel. For professional reasons. She really thought he had the best voice for this narration. She could not decide if she was looking forward to Wednesday, or if she was dreading it. Well, she was determined that her courage would rise to this challenge; it was not like she didn't do this everyday. But, still, well, she could maintain a professional air in any situation. Couldn't she?

She arrived early at the recording studio to make sure everything was set up properly and the sound technician understood that they were using an amateur voice for this project. She didn't want to embarrass Mr. Darcy by the technician spouting jargon at him that he was not familiar with. She was doing sound level checks for the technician when Mr. Darcy arrived. He was shown into the control booth of the studio by the desk attendant and she did not notice him immediately as she was reading part of the script into the microphone in the sound proof studio as the technician fiddled with his knobs and sliders.

She was interrupted by the technician. "Elizabeth, your voice actor is here," he said over the intercom. She immediately colored as she had been reading the script trying to mimic his deep baritone voice.

"Um, yes, send him in. I'll get him set up with the microphones and then you can do your sound checks."

Mr. Darcy came into the small booth and stuck out his hand to shake hers. "Welcome Mr. Darcy, I assume you had no trouble finding the place?" He nodded. "Good, good. Well, let's get you set up here. You can sit on this stool here, the script is on the stand there. Nothing has changed from when you read it last, so we should be good there. Here are your headphones. Yes, thank you. Now you want your lips to be about four inches from the microphone at all times. Good, good. Now, if you could just read the first paragraph so the sound technician can get the levels set for your voice timber, then we can begin."

He was perplexed. He had expected that she would act professionally in the studio, this was her realm afterall, but he was still trying to figure out what he did to make her mad at him. She was coldly professional to him. She would not look him in the eye. Something had changed and he wanted to get to the bottom of it. He still would like to ask her out to dinner, but right now, he was not sure she would accept. He noticed that she was staring straight ahead at the technician as he pondered and apologized and began the reading.

When he was done with the first paragraph, she turned back to him, but would not look him in the eye. "Yes, that was very good Mr. Darcy." She turned to the glass wall separating the control panel from the sound proof booth. "Scott? All good?" The technician gave her a thumbs up. She turned back towards Mr. Darcy but kept her eyes on the script. "We're all good to go. If you could go ahead and read the script for the first location, including the titles, just there, we'll begin. Just like you did at Pemberley, same pace, same volume, same tone. Alright? Any questions? No? Good. Oh, just so you know, we usually end up reading each section multiple times so the tech can get the levels just right. We don't want to make you come back and we do appreciate your patience." She gave him a small smile then turned and left the room and shortly he saw her standing next to the technician and she gave him a thumbs up.

The rest of the morning went well, he thought. They had him reread a few of the sections more than once, but overall things went smoothly. As it approached the lunch hour, he wondered what the protocol was. Would they take a lunch break? Should he have brought something to eat? Would she offer to take him to lunch, as she had when she took him out to dinner? Should he offer to take her, and he supposed Scott, out to lunch? She had offered him coffee, tea or water after the first two sections were read. He figured that time would tell and he would just go with the flow. This was her world afterall.

At about 1 PM, she asked if he wanted to take a lunch break. She said she thought they were on a good track to finish today, she had the studio booked until 7 PM, and did he want to join them for sandwiches from the shop around the corner? Sure, he replied, why not? Lunch was a casual affair. He got to know more than he cared to about Scott, but he also found out more about Elizabeth. She had grown up in Hertfordshire and had four sisters, including Jane who was dating his friend Charles Bingley. She had worked with this studio twelve times and with Scott six times. They seemed like a well oiled machine, but he thought, hoped, he did not detect an attachment there. When Scott excused himself to take a call from his wife, he had his answer to that particular question.

He was glad to get a few minutes to talk to Elizabeth alone. He asked how her trip back to London was, how her sister was doing, how work with her other clients was coming along. Elizabeth had been friendly, but not warm during their talk. She had asked after Georgie and Richard and asked how his trip to London was. He said that he had taken the train since he kept a car here and he could get work done on the way. They had a nice chat until Scott returned and they decided they must get back to work.

The afternoon session went well. By 6 PM they had all the locations recorded and they were listening to the playback in the control booth. Scott said he was happy with the results from a technical standpoint and Elizabeth agreed with him.

She turned to William, "I'll need to edit out a little dead air here and there, but overall I think we've got what we need. Give me a few days to massage the files and I will send you the finished result by next Wednesday, Mr. Darcy. Georgie has the technical side down pat and I think you will be ready to go live as soon as the signs are installed. Do you have any questions?" He had noticed that Scott had already left. He wondered if he dared. Now or never he decided.

"Just one." He paused. She looked up at him. "What are you doing for dinner?" He looked squarely at her. He could not read her reaction. He thought he detected a little smile at first, before she plastered her professional mien back on her face.

"Um, I, um, hadn't thought about dinner. I never know how late these sessions will run, so I guess I just planned to make a sandwich when I got home."

"Let me take you out to dinner. I know a nice little Italian place nearby. I just think it would be a nice way to wrap up this project. I have enjoyed working with you. Please say yes." He gave her his best smile as he waited patiently for her response.

"Um, alright Mr. Darcy. Thank you, that is a generous offer. I hope this isn't any place fancy," as she motioned to her business attire. "I'm not dressed for the Ritz."

"You always look nice, Miss Bennet. No worries. Shall we?" and he motioned towards the door.

They had a nice dinner, even if Elizabeth was a bit hesitant to discuss anything outside of the project. They talked a lot about Pemberley and dealing with all the players involved in a project of this scope. She told him a bit about working with some of the other Historic properties that she had managed projects for. He tried to keep to subjects he thought she would be comfortable with. It was not time to push for anything deeper, just yet.

"Let me drive you home. Woolwich isn't that far and traffic is light."

"I can certainly take the Underground. It's only two trains and I have a pass."

"Nonsense, I have a perfectly good car here. I would feel better knowing you were not on the Underground this time of night. Please?"

"Oh, alright Mr. Darcy, if it makes you feel better, fine. And thank you."

They did not talk much on the drive to her flat. As they pulled up to the curb, she said, "I will email you the final cut for your approval before we load the files for the handsets. It should not be any later than next Wednesday. If you have any questions before then, please email me. Thank you for dinner, again, I think I still owe you a dinner, or two. Good night Mr. Darcy," and she got out of the car.

He did not think he should walk her to the door. This was a business meeting in her mind, not a date. He sat in his car until she entered her building and he knew she was safe. Before he drove away he wondered what Elizabeth would think when she saw him at Bingley's party on Saturday. Small world huh? He smiled as he drove away. It was going to be a long three days.

As she was walking to her door, she berated herself. Why did you go out to dinner with him? What were you thinking? And telling him that you owed him dinner? Or two? What were you thinking, girl? Why did he get to her? She was a professional. She had done dozens of projects like this, several with good looking men. Why him? Why now?

She let herself into her flat, threw her keys in the basket and plopped down in a most unladylike fashion onto the couch. Her only consolation was that she would never see him again. She would email him the files, get his approval and finish the project. Done. Finished. Easy peasy. She could get going on her next project, at Godolphin, in Cornwall. As far away from Derbyshire as you can get and still be in England. Maybe her next project would be in Ireland. Or Scotland.

A soak in the tub, followed by Chocolate Mint ice cream was definitely on the agenda for this evening. Maybe another episode of Downton Abbey. No, bad idea. Maybe an episode of Top Gear. Yeah, that sounded like a plan.