Chapter 4

GOOD ADVICE

The next was an advice game, located in the formal dining room area. They sat across from one another at the table—a Restoration Hardware dupe that Charlotte had proudly found on Amazon—and studied the new challenge.

Jane and Bingley had written a series of five questions, and their guests were invited to submit their advice on each. The best advice would be judged by Fran Bennet, as the lone grandmother, operating without knowing who had submitted which answers.

Elizabeth picked up one of the pages and immediately groaned at the questions listed. What is the best way to take a baby’s temperature to see if it has a fever? How can you get a baby to sleep through the night? How do you introduce solid foods? What if I can’t get my baby to latch on? How long should tummy time be?

For a moment, Elizabeth considered asking Darcy whether he wanted to just scratch this particular event. After all, he knew nothing about babies, and neither did she. Why not save them both the effort?

Of course, she did have the advantage of some years of babysitting as a teen, although she’d never babysat a newborn. Actually, the youngest child she’d ever sat for was four, so perhaps... She snuck a glance at him. Darcy looked untroubled, calmly writing away on his sheet. She shook her head. No doubt his insufferable pride made him believe he was an expert on baby-rearing too! No, no way would she give up. Picking up a pink-inked pen, she began to write.

The last game they played wasn’t really a game at all. A pile of plain white onesies was laid out on the table with an assortment of fabric scraps, needle and thread, fabric-paint pens, a glue gun, some bedazzles, and the like. Guests were invited to design a onesie for the baby, either boy, girl, or gender neutral. The favorites would be selected by the guests themselves, although Elizabeth seriously doubted the baby would ever wear any of them.

Darcy took up a paint pen and a brush—does he not know how paint pens work? Good lord, he’s squirting the paint out of the pen and putting it on a brush—and set to work. Elizabeth briefly considered educating him on the finer points of paint pen usage but decided to take her advantage where she could. His loss for sure, she thought smugly.

This was one area in which she intended to shine. Sorority life had been huge for Jane, and she remained the president of her alumni chapter. Elizabeth took up material in Jane’s sorority colors (pink and green) and made mock-Greek letters spelling out the word ‘baby’. A few rhinestones completed the look.

Sneaking a look at Darcy, who was using his arm to hide his design, she noticed he was still using black, only black. Well, that’s a lost point for sure, she thought. I might not win but he definitely won’t.

After a visit to the powder room, Elizabeth went into the family room. Darcy had evidently finished his onesie in the interim, and appeared to be deep in conversation with Mr Bennet, who had eschewed participation in any of the games. She immediately made her way over to them.

Mr Bennet smiled broadly at her when she arrived. “There’s my baby girl.”

Elizabeth protested immediately, as she always did. “Dad! I’m twenty-five years old, don’t you think it’s time you stopped referring to me as your baby?—”

Her voice died at the sight of Darcy’s wide grin. He and her dad high-fived each other. “That was low,” she said. “Thanks a lot, Dad.”

Scowling, she handed Darcy her necklaces, noticing, after a quick glance around, that it easily made Darcy the winner of their first game.

Jane noticed it just as quickly, and alerted Charlotte who beamed and clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Looks like we have a winner for the Pacifier Game! Congratulations, Darcy! Good job to Lizzy too—she gave you a good run for it!”

“I was sabotaged!” Elizabeth called back in reply.

Bingley came over, bearing the basket of prizes for the games. Among them was a nice bottle of wine which Darcy selected immediately. “Thanks Bingley, I think I might have a date later, and this will do nicely for it.”

After Bingley walked away, back toward Jane, Elizabeth said, “Date? I’m sure you don’t mean me. Even if I lose—and I am still very much in the running—it’s one kiss, not a date.”

“That’s true but I’ve been thinking, I’m going to need to feed you first. I wouldn’t want you to pass out while I’m kissing you.”

“Pass out?” She sniffed. “Hardly.”

He leaned into her. “If all I’ll get for this is a kiss, I intend to make of it what I can. You are going to be very thoroughly kissed, Miss Bennet. Trust me when I say you’ll require sustenance.”

Elizabeth huffed and rolled her eyes, hating his ability to simultaneously agitate and intrigue her. She took a seat then, unsurprised when he joined her.

They sat quietly while cake was passed, and the presents were unwrapped. Elizabeth made all the expected remarks about the items being opened, the little outfits and the various baby accoutrements which were evidently required. Jane and Bingley were indefatigably delighted by it all, and Elizabeth smiled with pleasure at their pleasure.

The only blight on the proceedings was when they arrived at the gift from Kitty and Lydia, a book titled Hot Mama: Your Guide to Reclaiming Your Sexual Self Post-Pregnancy. They had included some faux-leather strappy thing in the package, much to the utter humiliation of all, particularly their young cousins, the Gardiner twins, who immediately began to pester their father about what the belts were for.

Jane quickly shoved the package aside, and announced brightly, “So…let’s find out who won our games!”

Charlotte stood up then and began to announce the winners.

“Okay, so Darcy here...” She pointed toward him and he smiled in acknowledgment. “Darcy is the proud winner of the ‘don’t say baby’ game, so yay Darcy!” Everyone clapped politely.

“That’s Darcy-one and Bennet-none, in case you lost count,” he muttered toward Elizabeth.

“Yes, I know,” she hissed back. “Because you and my father tricked me.”

“I told you, I play to win.”

“More like cheat to win.”

Charlotte went on then, so they stopped talking. “Now for the name game! There were lots of good ideas in there, but unfortunately no one guessed correctly for both sexes! Two people guessed the girl’s name correctly—Elizabeth Bennet and Caroline Bingley, with Lila Grace!”

Another polite smattering of applause ensued, and Bingley leapt to his feet, happy to bring them each the basket of prizes. Elizabeth took a bottle of hand lotion.

Darcy leaned in to speak to her again. “So, you have lube, and I have wine. I didn’t really expect things to go that direction, but I’m game if?—”

Elizabeth snort-laughed, shocked that he could be so funny. “It’s not lube, it’s scented lotion.”

He took the tube from her, examining the ingredients written in fine print on the side. “Says petrolatum right here,” he said, showing her the words on the tube. “That’s the scientific term for lube.”

She gave him a little shove, taking her lotion away from him. “You know, if you were always this amusing, I might not despise you so much.”

“You don’t despise me,” he told her. “You just tell yourself you do so you don’t fall in love with me.”

Fortunately, she was spared from replying by Charlotte. “Now for the boy’s name, we had just one winner. Congratulations to Darcy again for guessing Charles Hubert as the name of choice for a baby boy!”

“Darcy had an unfair advantage,” Caroline Bingley opined, looking over at him with a pout that aspired to be sexy. “He’s one of the only people here who knew my father.”

“Well, you certainly knew him,” her brother retorted teasingly. “Why didn’t you guess it?”

“Because I think if it’s a boy you need to call him Winston. It’s so much more dignified,” she whined. Louisa, Bingley’s older sister, moved past the moment by cheerfully saying, “Let’s just hope that they never, ever call him Chubs like they did for Dad!” More applause, mixed with some ‘awws’ and a few light titters of laughter went around.

“Okay, so you have two points and I have one,” Elizabeth said.

“So we both get the point for this one?”

She nodded.

Louisa was summoned to the front to announce what had been ‘her’ game, the food tasting game. “A disappointing number of entries for this one! Where are all my brave foodies here? Come on, your kids eat it, why won’t you? Anyway, we had one person who filled in all the entries although only two of them were correct... Elizabeth Bennet, way to go!”

Bingley was quick to offer his prize basket again, pulling out a bottle with a rose-colored gel inside of it. “Since you already have the lotion, better give you the shower gel that goes with it!” He handed it to her, while Elizabeth blushed, refusing to even look at Darcy.

Bingley appeared somewhat baffled when Darcy put up his hand to high-five him as he passed, but being Bingley, he cheerfully smacked his friend’s hand and walked on, seemingly without further thought.

“Go ahead,” Elizabeth said quietly. “Make a thing of this. Yes, ooh, I got shower gel, that must mean we’ll be showering together later, after your wine and all the lube.”

“You said it, not me.”

“Anyway, we’re tied now, two to two. So there.”

“So there, indeed.”

With Charlotte’s encouragement (claiming tired feet and a wish to sink into a soft couch next to her husband) Louisa had gone on to the good advice. From the entries, one had emerged as a clear winner, Jane’s friend, Anne Elliott. Anne waved tiredly from her seat at the edge of the room. She was an unmarried, childless woman who served as the unacknowledged, unpaid, and disrespected nanny to her sister’s two wild sons. Elizabeth smiled at her, glad to see that her sacrifices got her something, even if it was just a box of chocolates at a baby shower.

Louisa continued, “That’s not all though! Even though the advice he gave was a little dubious, Mrs. Bennet, and her panel of assistant judges thought one man’s responses were so funny, that they deserved a mention of their own! So hurray for Darcy!” More clapping. “Who wants to hear what he said?”

The guests all did apparently, and so Louisa began to read from the card:

“Okay, so our first question was: ‘What is the best way to take a baby’s temperature to see if it has a fever?’ To this Darcy replied as follows:

“‘It has always seemed to me to be a bit cruel that an ill child must be subjected to the further indignity of having something placed into its bottom. In my admittedly limited experience, I would say hot is hot—why bother to quantify it, to the further distress of the child? Just call it a fever and be done with it’.”

The room erupted with laughter at this, Louisa included. “Wait, there’s more!” she said, once the laughter had died down. “Our next question was: ‘How can you get a baby to sleep through the night?’ To this, Darcy replied, ‘You can’t. Just sleep with it in the day. Things will eventually right themselves’.”

More wild laughter. Definitely not that funny, Elizabeth thought, but by this time they were all on a sugar high from the garishly-hued punch, so it seemed hilarious.

Louisa went on. “Now, how do you think Darcy answered the question: ‘How do you introduce solid foods?’ He said, ‘Baby, may I present to you this banana. Banana, this is the baby’.”

The crowd laughed again but Elizabeth favored him with a roll of her eyes. “So corny.”

“Looks like we stumped him with the next one! Sorry guys, didn’t realize this one might get confusing! We asked: ‘What if I can’t get my baby to latch on?’ To this, Darcy said ‘To what?’” There was a roar of laughter from the ladies in the room followed by a great many confused grumbles of commiseration from the men. “Sorry guys,” Louisa said, “we did not consider that so many of you did not realize what the term ‘latch on’ meant!

“And lastly,” Louisa continued. “We asked: ‘How long should tummy time be?’ Here’s where Darcy’s sensitive side has emerged—ladies, you will really like this one! Darcy wrote: ‘I assume tummy time means how long until a woman’s shape is regained. I feel there is too much emphasis on regaining the pre-pregnancy figure. Ladies, your body has created a miracle and if your tummy is left altered because of it, so be it. Do not worry about fitting into jeans or bikinis or anything of that sort; I say wear that tummy as a badge of your achievement’.”

There was a pause while every woman in the room turned soft, teary eyes on Darcy who shifted uncomfortably and looked out the window nearest to him. Then, after a moment, loud applause from the women broke out, accompanied by a few claps from the men.

It was, not surprisingly, decided that Darcy was also a winner of the advice game. Elizabeth gritted her teeth while the prize basket came around again, but he selected chocolates.

“For your information,” Elizabeth said, “tummy time means putting the baby on his or her stomach to play and reach things, and to learn to push up.”

“For your information,” Darcy replied, “winning the advice game puts me ahead at three to your two. I win.”

“No,” Elizabeth replied, "because I can still win for my onesie.”

“The onesies weren’t a contest.”

“Guests will pick favorites.”

“I’ll still win.”

Elizabeth snorted. “Your black and white onesie? I wouldn’t count on it unless Jane and Bingley are into the Goth look for their infant.”

“Do you want to eat first, or kiss first?” he asked, infuriatingly smug. “It’s up to you.”

She ignored him. The onesies had been carried into the room by Jane and Charles, who had pre-selected their favorite designs for girls, boys, and gender-neutral onesies. The guests would clap for their favorites beyond that.

Elizabeth was disappointed to see that hers wasn’t among the girl designs, but when she saw the elaborate creation that Bingley’s sisters had designed jointly, she wasn’t surprised, although she did protest just a little. “C’mon,” she said to no one in particular. “No way was that onesie made today.” The onesie had been monogrammed with a large letter B, with a pink tutu attached and ribbon sewn around the neck. A matching headband bow was included, naturally.

“Definitely not,” Darcy agreed.

The boy design, made by Elizabeth’s sister Mary, was equally precious. She had painted a scene from Lord of the Rings on the onesie, somehow managing exquisite detail despite the limitations of the paint pens.

“I keep hoping she’ll pursue art school,” Elizabeth told Darcy.

“She should.”

“She says her art is what she does to de-stress and the last thing she’d want is someone telling her how to do it.”

Then came the unisex category. The first onesie earned immediate adulation for going the intellectual route, boasting a simple quote in black and white, written in the sort of penmanship reserved for professional calligraphers.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on. ~William Shakespeare.

There was a brief “Ooh!” that went around the room followed by almost thunderous applause. Elizabeth gave Darcy a glance. He smiled back, broadly and happily. “Four to two, Bennet. A resounding victory.”

“Double or nothing,” she said urgently. “They haven’t revealed the gender yet. What do you want?”

“So double or nothing means what? I get two kisses? Or two dates?” He spread his arms wide. “Who would walk away from those odds. Okay, you’re on. Double or nothing.”

“Girl,” she said. “I am positive they are having a girl.”

“I am going to say twins,” Darcy said. “One each.”

“Twins?” Elizabeth raised her brows. “One each?”

Darcy nodded firmly.

Ten minutes later, they watched the pink and blue balloons float up to the ceiling while Bingley made some proudly absurd remarks about his ‘swimmers’ and Jane patted her attractively-sized bump and exclaimed, “This is why I’m so huge!”

“You knew,” Elizabeth accused, glaring at Darcy with as much indignation as she could summon.

“Not really,” Darcy replied. “But your mother does have a fraternal twin sister. It runs in the maternal line, you know. We might have them, too.”

“We? You are assuming this date is going to go really well.”

“You’ve already gone from hating me to dating me.” He gave her a surprisingly boyish grin. “Sorry but from where I’m standing, it feels like anything could happen at this point.”

With that he took her hand, and kissed the back of her knuckles, a courtly gesture that she had to admit, charmed her completely. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”