Chapter Eleven Parlor Games

Lizzy and Darcy had dessert, tiramisu. Darcy ordered one dessert with two spoons.

Celebration.

Lizzy could not stop smiling as she ate it, and neither could Darcy.

Delicious.

She wasn't sure how to explain her giddiness, but she was impressed by Darcy's acting skills. Anyone watching would have thought that the woman he loved had accepted his proposal, truly. He beamed at her. The other customers smiled and nodded at them, eager to participate in their apparent happiness.

He paid and tried to lead her quickly out of the restaurant, but it took a few minutes, as they were stopped by customers who wanted to congratulate them. Ned held Fanny's hand as they navigated the phalanx of well-wishers (" Beautiful couple!" "You both look so happy!" "You're a lucky man!" ) and continued to hold it as they strolled down the street, not letting go until they got into the elevator to her apartment floor.

Once the doors slid closed, Darcy turned to her, his smile at last fading as he dropped her hand. His look was serious, and he rolled his shoulders before speaking in his normal accent, the physical shift a mental shift.

"While we were at dinner, Bingley moved some of my things into your apartment. It probably makes the most sense for Ned to be staying with Fanny during this visit, given what just happened. I imagine knowing that Ned is here will motivate Wickham even more. Of course, I'll sleep on the couch and do my best to stay out of your way. It'll just be for a couple of nights—tonight and tomorrow. Ned will head back to the city the day after the Rosings party."

Lizzy nodded as the elevator opened on her floor. "Okay," she said quietly, waving her hand, the ring. "I suspect Wickham will now be actively interested in our sleeping arrangements." Although the hallway was empty, they walked to Fanny's door hand in hand. She was not sure whether Darcy had retaken her hand or she had retaken his.

In the apartment, a worn leather duffle bag stood on the kitchen counter next to the computer. Darcy gestured to it. "Bingley's been here. This is mine." He walked over, picked up the bag, and moved it to the couch. "There's extra bedding stored in the bathroom closet…at least there should be." He headed in that direction.

Lizzy, sitting in the armchair, stared down at her left hand, the ring on her finger, stared fixedly at it, and she shook her head. It had all felt so real—so very, so unexpectedly real in the restaurant. Now she did not know how it felt, how she felt. It was all fake, a pretend proposal. The ring was real, of course, a real diamond, shining at her, small but bright. But the ring did not mean what they pretended it meant at the restaurant.

A fake thing is often a real something else . A teddy bear is a fake bear but a real toy. Fanny's engagement was fake, but her ring was real, a real ring. Ned was fake, but Darcy was real. The ring should not have made Lizzy feel as happy as it had, but it did. It still seemed to hold out a prospect of happiness.

Darcy marched back into the room, his arms full of pillow, blanket, and folded sheets. He smiled at her above the stacked bedding. "You were terrific in the restaurant." He put the bedding down and turned to face her. "Your smile, your face …when you said yes… " He looked at her as if trying to decide something, holding himself taut and then shaking his head and grinning. "Convincing, utterly." He stared into the distance past Lizzy, his grin lasting as long as his stare.

Finally he sobered, giving himself a visible shake and refocusing on Lizzy. "We'll need to be as convincing tomorrow. That dinner party is going to test us both, but especially you. I'll just need to be jealous, subtly or obviously, depending on what happens, but Fanny's got to straddle having said yes to me tonight and still wanting to say yes to Wickham on some night soon. She's got to convince him that tonight only delays the inevitable."

Lizzy glanced down at her ring…the ring…again. Fanny would have to betray that ring, making Wickham believe that she was capable of both accepting it and being false to it. It was a lowering thought. It turned her stomach and made her regret eating so much of the tiramisu, more than her half. Darcy had enjoyed it, too, but had seemed to enjoy watching her eat it more. His pleasure caused her to let herself go. She put her hand on her stomach and then slid it up to her chest.

Darcy had directed his attention to the couch, converting it into a bed, unfolding the sheet and tucking it in. "We still need to discover why Wickham is here. He wasn't lured here only by Lady Catherine's well-preserved curves. This second visit to Rosings may give us a chance―not only for you or me to perhaps get Wickham to slip, to reveal something―but also to slip someone into the house. Bingley."

"Isn't the house guarded?"

"Not like it was the first night we were there. Most of the time, Lady Catherine relies on a state-of-the-art security system and only a couple of security guards. There were more the other night, but that was for the large party. Bingley should be able to get inside and into Wickham's room—that's the target. Once you and I are inside, we need to make sure that Wickham stays with us until we know Bingley is out of the house. We'll finish the plan tomorrow, but I wanted you to know the basic idea."

Lizzy contemplated what he had said. "Charlie can do that, you think?"

Darcy turned. "Yes. He’s a good agent."

"But what about his distractions? His girlfriend?" she asked, not giving away any particular knowledge of the situation, of Jane.

"He eventually took my advice and put all that on hold."

"Advice? He did?"

Darcy nodded but rotated back toward his bed, putting the pillow in place and spreading the blanket. "He did. He saw that it was a problem."

"Spies can't have attachments?"

Darcy stopped his work but did not turn toward Lizzy. "We already covered this, you and me, Agent Bennet, when we first talked about Bingley and his girlfriend." He plumped his pillow with a hint of unnecessary violence. "The mission is what matters. Everything else has to be secondary. Attachments interfere with that."

"But we need to care for each other and about the feelings of others in our team," she said, not entirely sure why she was continuing, insisting. Partly it's Mom. My phone call.

Darcy straightened but continued to face away from her. "Yes, but caring about the mission is how we care for each other as integral parts of it." He faced her again. "If we just start…caring for each other independent of it , then the mission's likely to fail out of dysfunction. The mission has to come first."

His ultimatum to Jane had worked so well because of her past, the failed mission for which she had been an analyst. Jane lived in terror of bearing such responsibility again. Lizzy realized that Darcy, knowingly or unknowingly, had tapped into that terror. Which? “So if I have to choose between saving you and ending The Wicker Man, I should do the latter, no second thoughts and no hesitation? And you would do the same if forced to choose between me and The Wicker Man."

Darcy's motions hitched for a second. "Checkers," he offered by way of answer as he leaned and tucked his blanket again with unneeded violence.

The whole bed-making scene was now frustrating Lizzy. The shift from Ned to Darcy, from restaurant to elevator to apartment brought back her annoyance. She had left the restaurant hand-in-hand with Ned, but now she was expected to talk spy shop with Darcy. She could not match the shift. Her current reactions were divided; part of her still lingered in the restaurant…Fanny lingering over the tiramisu, licking her spoon as Ned watched.

Lizzy stood up, needing movement, a change of posture. "All right. Well, I'm going to go to bed."

At first, it was as if he didn't hear her. He unbended and paused after finishing with his blanket, a tension visible in his shoulders as if he were silently arguing with himself.

"Goodnight, Fanny." His voice was soft, the words and tone surprising her as he turned to her again. It was a partial shift back to his manner at the restaurant despite the different accent. "The customers were right. Ned's a lucky man." The words were sincere―as sincere as they could be in context, anyway. And somehow they were…an apology.

Lizzy walked to her bedroom and closed the door.

Later, in her bed in the dark, Lizzy extended her hand up from the bed, catching a bit of pale streetlight from her bedroom window. She examined the diamond, rotating her left hand.

Imagining a wedding, or imagining who she would marry, had never been one of her pastimes. Even at Haverford, when she had fallen in love with a young man named Jim Haden, she had never really unlocked her imagination toward the future, toward a wedding or a life together. She had been vaguely afraid of what the future might hold and, she had to admit, more than vaguely afraid of marriage, commitment.

She had grown up inhaling the unhappiness of an unhappy marriage, and it had affected almost everything in her life. Lizzy had learned a brutal lesson in the subtleties of unhappiness. Her parents had never divorced despite being poorly matched, and living with them had led her to think of unhappiness as bearable, as a source of a carping dissatisfaction, efficacious enough to destroy true comfort but not efficacious enough to rouse anyone to address it. A slow-as-molasses misery. Thinking of unhappiness as bearable, Lizzy found, was somehow worse than thinking of it as unbearable.

The ring caught the pale light and glistened.

It had not been just her parent's marriage that had made her afraid of commitment. The foundation of her mother’s bridal gown business was marriage as a commercial enterprise, love reduced to the nonsense of dollars and cents. That hadn't helped her any, either.

Still, the whole scene in The Made Man, the whole pretended proposal, Darcy―it had shaken her…or shaken something loose in her, some secret cherished hope that she had kept secret even from herself. Love, marriage, a family.

Maybe she had hidden that hope to keep it from vying with remembrance of the unhappiness her parents had demonstrated. Maybe it was because she had believed what Darcy believed, that spies could not afford attachments. Few agents married, and the few who did almost never stayed married.

But the ring seemed meaningful to her…or it seemed as if it could be. With one last turn of her wrist in the light, she tucked her hand beneath her cover and rested it on her chest. A lingering, longing moment more, and she was asleep.

***

Tuesday, October 20

The next morning, she awoke from a dreamless sleep, slightly disoriented, the disorientation produced by Chianti and tiramisu and recollections. She stood, blinking, and then stumbled toward the bathroom.

Rubbing her eyes, she saw Darcy standing in it, door open, his back to her, wearing only boxers. He had taken a shower. The bathroom air still had wisps of steam. The mirror had steamed over, but Darcy had used a hand towel to wipe a small circle in the mirror and was leaning toward it, shaving.

Lizzy gaped, her eyes and mouth wide. His muscled back led down to a trim waist, a taut bottom, and strong, well-shaped legs. He was, head to toe, firm, manly. A man . There was a round scar from a bullet wound on his upper shoulder. A long, thin scar—from a knife?—ran down the other side of his back and around to his ribs. One calf carried a mottled blue scar, another bullet wound, a bad one or, more likely, shrapnel. Lizzy had her scars, too, an occupational hazard, but either she had none so severe or the CIA's plastic surgeons were better than MI-6's.

Darcy kept shaving, whistling a tune to himself. Sinatra?

She felt an immense pulse of heat, a solar flare of desire. Ducking back out of sight and into her bedroom, Lizzy closed the door softly and took a minute to collect herself. She fanned her face with her hand and then sat on the end of the bed, waiting until she heard Darcy finish and leave the bathroom. Only then did she reappear.

He was dressed, all but his shoes, and she said good morning. He smiled and returned the greeting, then sat down to put on his shoes.

The bathroom felt different to Lizzy when she entered than at any time before. Steamier. The steam had evaporated from the mirror, which showed a clear reflection of her still-flushed cheeks.

When she finished dressing, she found Darcy had stayed long enough to share the coffee he had made with her. They didn't talk much except a little about how Ned and Fanny would approach the dinner party.

In the space of the evening, they would have to bridge from announcing their engagement to Fanny flirting with Wickham while Ned moved from lighthouse pride and joy to subtly resentful suspicion and sourness. The hardest part to play, unquestionably, would be Fanny's. They talked about that for a while in a general way, neither seeming willing to envisage particulars, the topic making their interaction a plod uphill, lugubrious.

A seemingly downcast Darcy left shortly afterward to coordinate the infiltration of Rosings with Charlie. He had decided that Lizzy would have too much on her mind to be worried about any of the details of that, and she agreed.

She was already depressed, anxious, and emotional. This mission had started bad and gotten worse. How did I let my pride maneuver me into this mission? A part of her wanted to be where she was and was willing to face the predicament the mission had become and was still becoming. She did not explain that willingness to herself.

It was better to leave that alone, unexamined.

The afternoon clouded over, and wind whipped in from the Lake, picking up intensity between the skyscrapers. Lizzy dressed early and poured the last of the morning coffee over ice. She stood sipping it as she watched the graying, moody sky and the miniature motion of the distant street below her. She wanted a stronger drink, but that was a bad idea. A very bad idea. Wickham and Lady Catherine might ply Ned and Fanny with alcohol later. Providing them with a head start was dangerous. Lizzy would have to walk a line all night long, no wavering, no missteps.

If the sky had been sunny and blue, it might have given her strength, been something to lean on. As it was, it seemed to lean on her, to drain the last of the fortitude she needed to face the evening.

Her phone rang, and she walked to the counter to look at the screen.

Mom

Damn.

Attachments.

Lizzy’s first impulse was to let the call roll over to voicemail and deal with a message. Later. It was likely more fallout from the window display fiasco.

Sighing, she answered. Duties and conflicts of duties. She walked to the couch and plopped down in an unladylike slouch. "Hey, Mom, I was supposed to call you, not you call me."

Her mother had launched on a word but hitched. A moment of silence followed. "—Sorry, Lizzy. I know, but I needed to talk to you. It's about your father."

Now it was Lizzy who hitched. Her hand tightened on the phone. "Dad? What about Dad?"

It felt like a ghostly visitation. Her mother never mentioned her father except to blame him for something. Dead, he was unable to defend himself. But this sounded different.

"I went to his grave today," her mother volunteered softly, then stopped.

Uncharacteristic. Lizzy did not know that her mother had ever visited the graveside since the service there the day her father was buried. She’d always refused to accompany Lizzy there. "You did? Why?"

"I felt guilty, I guess, about just leaving him lying there alone. With no one to visit."

"But he's been there…for a while, Mom. I visit when I’m there in Rochester."

"I know, Lizzy. But I was talking to some people at church, and they mentioned visiting the graves of their loved ones. And then my priest gave a homily. He quoted Shakespeare, something about 'to rot, to lie in cold obstruction'..."

Lizzy knew the lines. Her mother had reversed them. They continued, “This sensible warm motion to become a kneaded clod.” Measure for Measure. Claudio . It was a play her father loved, and they had read it together when she was in—what?—junior high. She had never thought of the lines in application to her father.

Her chest ached. She put her hand to her forehead. "Yes, I know the lines. So, what's wrong? How can I help?" Had her mother really visited the gravesite due to parish peer pressure? "What's going on?"

"One of my new friends at church, a woman named Clay—she's a dear, despite still having freckles at my age and despite a strange, protruding tooth as well as this strange thing she does with her wrist… Anyway, she asked about your father, and we discovered our dear departed are both in the same graveyard. She asked me to go with her when she visited her husband. And I did. Her husband's headstone not only had his dates and a comment about beloved husband and father, but there was a quotation on it, something fitting…although I don't just now quite remember it.

“When we came round to Thomas’s headstone, there were only the dates. No quotation. However, there's lots of blank space for one. Mrs. Clay seemed to think it a pity that Mr. Bennet faces the afterlife without a trailing motto, and now so do I. The whole visit upset me and…well, shamed me. I should have done better by your father."

You mean you should have done better by his headstone. "So, how can I help?"

"Can you think of something? You and he used to spend hours reading to each other in the study, chatting, laughing, and turning the pages of dull, musty books that always hide good mottos." Her mother's voice contained an old resentment, an old envy.

"So you called me so I can come up with an epitaph for Dad, a motto for his life or afterlife?"

"That sounds… cold . But yes."

Lizzy knew that tone of voice. This request would not go away. "Okay, Mom, I'll mull it over and I will call you when I have an idea. Won’t adding to the stone necessitate removing it from the graveyard for it to be carved?"

"Yes," her mother said in a whimpering way, "but it's not that expensive."

"Okay. How's the bridal shop, the front window?"

"Boring, boring , boring. I drive the other way through town so I do not nod at the wheel."

"Well, give my best to Aunt Christine." Her mother made an ambiguous huffing sound, non-committal. "I'll call you when I have an idea. Bye, Mom."

Lizzy ended the call. Her mother calling her was bad enough, and now this task would be on her mind along with everything else. She had grieved her father for a long time. Perhaps he had not been the best of fathers, but they had enjoyed one another's company. She was a daughter after his own heart, as he liked to say, and she had learned a lot from him. Not all of it was good, she knew, but much of it was. Some . She did not want to lift the lid on the cold obstruction of her father's death, risk letting loose the viewless wind of grief again. The first time, it had blown Lizzy into Langley.

Thanks, Mom.

At least she didn't ask me about meeting anyone this time. Lizzy glanced down at her ring finger, then glanced away.

I’m pretending to be a committed woman on the verge of infidelity. Vows make infidels.

***

Darcy arrived at her apartment in the mid-afternoon with his game face already on. He seemed reluctant to talk to her, reluctant to look at her for long.

She modeled the emerald sweater and jeans she planned to wear, the soft green suede boots. He nodded without any comment. Since Darcy was with her, and Charlie would be otherwise preoccupied, she wore a non-tech set of earrings and a necklace of plain gold.

Darcy wore a shawl collar sweater, terra cotta. It looked handsome on him, but she knew, almost immediately, that it had been inspired by the same thought that had inspired Wives and Daughters. It was a bit too much, a bit too fine, and the cable stitch a bit too noteworthy. Not effeminate, but soft. That particular effect was muted for her as she recalled the scars she had seen when he stood in front of the steamy mirror, the hard muscles of his back. Not soft .

He put down his coat, sat, picked up the copy of Moby Dick, and started reading. She made them coffee. Her stomach felt knotted, tense. She was glad of the silence. She was sure he sensed that, was silent on her behalf, and maybe was glad of the silence, too.

Once again, she tried to avoid imagining the evening ahead of time. Stay blank and let the moments come to me, meet their demands without any prejudice. Trust my first impressions .

She poured them both a cup of the coffee, gave Darcy his, and took hers back to the window. Letting her mind wander, she watched the gray clouds billow, form, and reform. They spent the afternoon like that together, apart, drinking coffee until the pot was empty and it was nearly time for Rook to arrive and drive them to Rosings.

Darcy sighed, closed the book, stood, and put on his coat. She was still at the window, now curtained up and closed, but she faced away from it.

He crossed to her and, unexpectedly, put out both his hands. She took them without hesitation. They were warm, and he smiled tightly. "I'll be there with you all night. Bingley will be nearby part of the time. You and I will leave together, no matter what. Focus. It's like American football players never tire of saying: One play at a time . I'll follow your lead. Remember, don't be with Wickham anywhere I can't see you. That will be in character for Ned tonight, a show of his mounting jealousy, suspicion. Are you ready?"

She nodded once, picked up her leather jacket, put it on, and grabbed her purse. They entered the elevator hand-in-hand, although Lizzy wasn't sure who had initiated the hand-holding outside the apartment.

Rook was already standing outside the car, the rear door open, when Ned and Fanny approached holding hands. Lizzy thought she saw one eyebrow twitch on the driver’s stony face, and she was careful to rest her left hand on the top of the door as Darcy helped her in. She was almost sure Rook saw the engagement ring but became certain after he came around and got inside―a smirk like a crack in concrete was visible in the rearview mirror.

Darcy slid her close and put his arm around her, chatting merrily and emptily, telling a funny cover story about stopping for coffee on his way to the office in New York. Ned and Fanny chuckled together and she kissed his cheek, snuggling into his arm tight against his body. Rook stared at them briefly in the rearview as if he knew Fanny's actions were, if not outright lies, some form of hypocrisy.

At Rosings, it was Lady Catherine and Wickham rather than servants who stood waiting at the top of the stairs for Fanny and Ned. Wickham rocked on his feet as the car stopped and vaulted eagerly down the stairs.

Once Rook opened the door, Ned got out and helped Fanny, who glanced up into Wickham's face and gave him a weak, nervous smile―Lizzy’s first salvo of the evening. Something passed between Ned and Wickham after Wickham looked at her, but whatever expression Darcy had worn was gone by the time Lizzy could see his face.

"Welcome. You're the last guests to arrive. We're a small party, but intimate. " Wickham inflected the final word with relish.

"George, let the guests come up the stairs so we can all get inside. It's chilly out here, and it may rain again." Lady Catherine gestured into the building with one graceful hand, the other holding her sweater closed. She led them inside with Ned and Fanny side-by-side behind her and Wickham bringing up the rear.

Darcy held Lizzy’s left hand, swinging it gently, happily, positioning it so the engagement ring was facing Wickham. She thought she heard a soft inhalation from behind them, a sign that Wickham had spotted it. Glancing out of the corner of her eye, she saw a small smile on Darcy's face, but it passed immediately.

Inside the door, they were met by one servant, an old man Lizzy did not recall from the previous party, and he quietly and efficiently took their coats. Lady Catherine again waved for them to follow her, smiling.

The large front area of the house where the party had been before was not as brightly lit as it had been previously. Instead, it was subdued, shadowy. A light shone down a hallway that had been blocked at the party, and Lady Catherine led them down it toward that light. "It's just a few of us. I think everyone's face will be familiar, though perhaps not everyone's names."

They stepped into a small dining room dominated by a large oak table, the top gleaming reflected light from the many-candled candelabra hanging above it. Father Robyn and a slim, middle-aged but youthful-looking blond man stood around the table.

The two men were beside the couple Lizzy had noticed Lady Catherine talking to at the previous party. The man's eyes immediately latched onto Lady Catherine. "This is Henry and Maria Crawford," Lady Catherine said. "I didn't have the opportunity to introduce all of you the other night, but you must have seen each other.” She waved her hand in Darcy and Lizzy’s direction. “And these are Ned Moreland and Fanny Prince."

Henry pulled his eyes away from Lady Catherine long enough to acknowledge them. He was a small, handsome man with a bright, boyishly mischievous smile that age had not dimmed. His gaze swept over Fanny from head to toe. Maria, his wife, did not glance at Ned or Fanny immediately. Instead, she watched her husband look at them. She frowned, the expression emphasizing her double chins.

"Hello! Yes, I remember seeing Fanny…and Ned," Henry said. Maria nodded her agreement, turning to fix her dull eyes on Ned.

"And you know Father Robyn from the party," Lady Catherine went on. He stepped forward to take Fanny's hand, giving her a quick, smiling look of secrecy.

Lizzy nodded. "Yes, I remember him from the party, certainly. We had a discussion…about submission, I think."

Wickham laughed from behind them. "Father Robyn's hobby horse. Let's hope we can keep him from climbing on it tonight." The priest rolled his eyes at that but turned and shook Ned's hand, finding a smile for him, too. Then he motioned to the blond man, who stepped forward. "This is Crispin Smith, my friend." Crispin gave a courtly, shallow bow.

"Let's sit," Lady Catherine commanded. "Notice that I've placed nameplates in such a way that the group is broken up a bit. I am sitting at one end of the table with George at the other."

Lizzy found Fanny’s place between Crispin and Wickham at one side of the table, and Ned’s seat was diagonally across from her at the opposite end, next to Lady Catherine. There continued to be a few moments of awkward, music-less Musical Chairs, and then everyone was seated.

Lady Catherine gave Wickham a quick significant look, and he nodded. She picked up a small bell beside her plate and gave it a soft ring.

Almost immediately, the older man who taken their coats entered with a large silver bowl of soup. An older woman was with him, and together they served everyone. "Boston clam chowder," he announced.

Lady Catherine smiled beneficently. "Just the thing for a cold Chicago evening."

Crispin happened to lean back in his chair, providing Fanny with a clear view of the other side of him to catch Henry staring at Lady Catherine's chest as if he had another prescription in mind, another way of sheltering from the cold. Directly across from her, she saw Maria taking the first slurp of soup while keeping her eyes firmly trained on Ned over Father Robyn.

Desultory conversations began around the table, talking interspersed with spoonsful of chowder. Wickham carefully scooted his chair a bit toward Fanny. She was seated so that her left hand was toward him, and he stared at her ring.

Ned had been watching, waiting. Before Wickham could say anything to Fanny, Darcy pushed his chair back and cleared his throat. As he stood, he said in his midwestern voice, "Fanny and I don't know you all well, but tonight is a night of celebration for us, and we’d like to share that celebration with you. At dinner yesterday, I asked her to marry me. She said yes. ” Ned smiled big at the assembled group, his smile settling on Fanny, her eyes on him.

He looks so lovely standing there , Lizzy acknowledged before disowning her thought.

But not the ring. She owned that. Fanny held up her hand, back of her hand out, fingers down, so that everyone could see her ring.

As Lizzy shifted in her chair to display her ring, she felt Wickham's foot settle secretly on top of hers. She smiled at everyone in turn as they congratulated her, facing Wickham last and briefly holding his eyes to acknowledge the contact below the table. She did not smile, but she did not move her foot. Wickham's eyes flashed. He grinned at Ned and picked up his glass to toast.

Let the parlor games begin!

The toasting ended, and everyone recommenced conversation and soup. After making sure that Ned was talking to Lady Catherine―presumably about Ned’s and Fanny's plans―Wickham leaned close to Fanny. Father Robyn, Crispin, Henry, and Maria were talking about the change in the weather, the plummet in temperature, and the ominous gray skies.

"So, engaged ? You were right. I see Ned carefully guarded against undue ostentation when he chose your ring."

Lizzy gritted her teeth. Wickham could talk about almost anything but that ring. Off limits. She put her hand on her lap. "It's beautiful. I love it."

"I'm glad. How long is Ned staying?"

"Why does it matter?" Fanny asked ingenuously.

"Because I want to know when I can see you again. Alone."

"I don't think that's going to happen," she said softly. "Last night changed everything."

Wickham's foot pressed hers beneath the table. She left them in contact. He smiled. "I don't think it changed anything. Not really. You may marry Ned…or not, as you choose." He ran a finger languorously around the top of his wine glass, eliciting a small sighing sound. “But you will welcome me to your bed one way or the other." He leaned even closer, taking advantage of Father Robyn's loud laughter. "You are still waiting for my hand to finish its trip up your leg."

Lizzy looked up. Darcy had turned toward them, had seen and maybe heard the end of Wickham's gesture with his glass, his head near Lizzy. Darcy glowered at them.

Fanny ducked her head, blushing. It was a real blush.

Her earlier flirtations with Wickham had affected her the same way all of Lizzy’s honeypot assignments had, as intervals of self-betrayal. This time, with Wickham's foot still on hers, his words heatedly echoing in her ears, the remembered image of his slow-moving hand…it felt like a betrayal of Darcy.

Of Ned.

By Fanny.

But there was no Ned, and there was no Fanny, and the ring was fake.

Except she felt like it was all real. Too real. The ring felt heavy on her finger, and the continued contact with Wickham's foot felt as though she was being true to the mission and false to everything else.

Everyone else.

Ned went back to conversing with Lady Catherine, although he turned frequently to look down the table, trying to control himself and his features. Darcy was good, very good. Suspicion and jealousy.

Fanny lifted her head and separated her foot from Wickham's, but she gave him a watery, submissive smile with bile rising, burning in her throat. She took a spoonful of chowder and blew on it.

And Mom wants an epitaph for Dad.

It was too much.