Chapter Eight Whirlwind

Lizzy got back to her apartment and quickly changed into sweats. She washed her face, using cold water to help revive her. The afternoon and evening with Wickham had drained her.

As she dried her face, she reviewed their conversations. It had gone well, she thought, as a piece of her mission. She needed to lure Wickham in, needed to make him sure Fanny was succumbing to his charms. But Fanny needed to succumb step-wise, little by little. There also would have to be a moment or two of her stepping back, trying to pull herself out of Wickham's gravitation if it was to seem real to him, if it was to tantalize him enough.

The fire Lizzy had seen banked in his eyes when they parted had been the surest sign of her success. He had already begun to imagine what he aimed for, and involving his imagination was the crucial thing. The way to a man's heart was not through his stomach; it was through his imagination—good guy or bad guy. Lizzy took that to be fundamental. To leave fingerprints on a man's imagination was to leave fingerprints on his heart. Mission success would require involving Wickham as deeply as possible, entangling him.

But Wickham presented two problems, not counting his dangerousness.

First, he was observant. He was not a man whose obvious self-satisfaction rendered him oblivious to the truth about others and to see only what he wanted to see. For all his conceit, he was clear-eyed, and that made her job much more difficult.

Second, he was in the States at Lady Catherine's for a reason. He must have a timetable, some schedule to keep. He was patient enough during the day, but for how long could she string him along before he would simply disappear? He would not wait forever. However strong his lust might be, however much stronger she could make it, he would keep to his schedule even if it meant losing the chance to bed her. He did not seem like a man whose womanizing would trump his terrorizing.

She hung up her towel, walked to the marble counter in the kitchen, and opened her laptop. Stifling a yawn, she rubbed her eyes with one hand and touched a button with the other.

A moment later, Darcy was facing her from the screen. When he saw her, he looked relieved. Once he launched into talk, his tone began as professional, detached. "Bingley's following Wickham on the traffic cam. I wanted to know if he went back to Lady Catherine's or somewhere else. Given the direction he's traveling, he does seem to be returning to Rosings."

Lizzy nodded. "Should we have a second team here now that we're established, one to keep eyes directly on Rosings?"

"Eventually, maybe," Darcy said, nodding, "but we don't want to do that too soon. It won't be easily done without being detected. Right now, Wickham shows no sign of leaving Chicago, and I doubt anything is being done out of Rosings itself. Wickham's too careful for that." He paused. "Besides, he now has something else to occupy…his mind." Word by word, his tone grew edgy, almost surly.

It grated on Lizzy. She fisted one hand out of range of the laptop's camera and asked, "Did I do something wrong, slip up, or make a mistake?" she asked. She could think of nothing and felt a sharp twinge of exasperation, which drove her extended list of possible failures.

Apparently realizing how he’d sounded, Darcy shook his head, retreating, hands up. "No, no! You were, so far as I could hear, pitch perfect. And so far as I could see , Wickham responded exactly as…we…hoped." Each of the final two words seemed high hurdles. Another pause and his hands had dropped. "Did he kiss you?"

She wasn't sure what to make of the question. "Yes…you know he did. You saw." Then she imagined what the necklace might have shown, the limits of its point of view. "Well, maybe you didn’t see where. On the cheek . A good sign. More than a handshake, less than a lip-to-liplock. About where we want him, I'd say. His lips, anyway." Lizzy chuckled, trying to tease away his sullen manner.

He responded with a scowl. "Yes. Right. Do you have anything to mention…anything that stood out? We should compare notes."

"His reaction to Mary Poppins was striking. Do you know anything about his childhood? It might be something I should know. Wickham pulled back a bit, grew distant for a minute…"

"No," Darcy said, shaking his head. "I…MI-6 doesn't know anything. No intelligence service has any intel about his childhood. Just guesses, at best. That comment was the only insight into it I've had. I don't know what to make of it or of that gnomic comment, everything worth happening already has ."

Lizzy made a soft sound of agreement. "That was weird, like a grudge against the world.” She shuddered and then controlled herself. “Do we have the full MI-6 file on Wickham yet?"

"Yes, surprisingly. I received it today while you were at the Robie House. I will forward it to your computer when we finish. It's not likely to enlighten you very much." He shrugged as if apologizing for his agency. "It's mostly movements and dates, a few names of contacts. Most of it is circumstantial or speculative―MI-6 analysts’ attempted coordination of Wickham's supposed travel with the claimed or reputed activities of the Wicker Man. Not much more. It starts only a few years ago. Further back than that, nothing concrete. Wickham seemed to spring into existence unborn and un-historied, as if he hatched a fully grown man. Don't trouble yourself about it tonight. We can discuss it tomorrow after you've had a chance to look at it if you have questions."

"Okay. Anything else?"

"Is Wickham as charming as he believes?" Darcy smiled tightly.

Lizzy spoke without reflection. "Oh yes, he is. He's pretty , and his…um… person is graceful, his manner attentive."

He blinked. "His person ?"

"You know," she said, blowing out a breath and speaking frankly but without looking at Darcy, "wide shoulders, small waist, and tight ass. He puts me in mind of a ship's captain. Or maybe a…matador." She grinned at her choice of word, imagining the sort of character who appears in a Hemingway short story.

She did look at Darcy then. His face had colored, his lips a thin-pressed line. "But you can handle him, handle yourself around him?"

This again? She heard Darcy in Kellynch’s office: Agent Bennet isn't…enough. "Of course I can handle myself! What about today or yesterday suggests I can't?" She leaned toward the screen, pointing at it―at him, her annoyance overcoming her. "You asked me the question, Agent Darcy. I assumed you wanted an honest answer.”

She leaned back and put her hand down. "I'm not in any danger from Wickham in that way, but I understand how he's done what he's done…his womanizing. He's a man a woman could like effortlessly. He’s compelling, and he affects every woman in a wide radius. The woman who is with him, so long as she didn't know who and what he was, would think she was among the happiest of happy women. That's my guess, at any rate."

"I see," Darcy said. His frown was bottomless but his voice measured. "Good to know. I acknowledge he has a gift of self- presentation, easy conversation. Prophet. Cantilevered roof . And he insinuates himself and his wishes like a serpent."

"You helped with that," she reminded Darcy, "by sending that text from Ned. You knew that would force us to talk about Ned and give Wickham a chance to tear you…I mean Ned …down."

"I wanted to ensure that he had a chance to suggest that you'd be better off with him. Someone less gentle, less piano. "

"Someone whose favorite book is not Wives and Daughters. "

"Right," he said without humor. His expression became more somber, funereal.

Lizzy found him frustrating. Even exhausted, however, her courage rose. She was not going to be intimidated or made apologetic by his severity. He would learn that she could be more stubborn than him.

She was bone-tired and had expected only praise, an acknowledgment that the day had gone well. Instead he made her feel like it had gone poorly, as if she lacked self-mastery. As if Wickham could tempt her into wanting him…for real. As if, instead of Darcy acknowledging her, she should apologize to him. Darcy had transmuted her success into failure—that was how it felt.

"You know, Agent Darcy," she started slowly, the words coming to her, "I'm too damned tired to deal with your bristling rectitude, your strange, immovable prejudice against my ability to do what this mission requires. But I remind you: I am doing it. I spent the afternoon and evening doing it. I'm blonde. I may not be voluptuous, but obviously what there is of me, my subtler curves, are sufficient to entice Wickham. So does my subtle mind, I suspect, although perhaps Wickham hasn't quite realized that yet. He does find me funny." Unlike you.

"Being funny, Agent Bennet, is not a mission requirement, and none of my intel suggests Wickham is especially drawn to wit in a woman." His words were clipped in his precise British cadence. "What you call my 'immovable prejudice' I call 'professional caution.' Kellynch warned me that you can be ironic, given to humor even at serious moments. That was another reason I was…hesitant…about his insistence that you were right for this job." Darcy straightened himself in his chair. "This is a serious business, Agent Bennet. At some level, you know that. I am trying to make sure you do not shelve the knowledge or lose track of it in the blizzard of Wickham's charm. He has managed to entice even clever women who had suspicions of who and what he is. Sometimes those suspicions actually made them more susceptible. No doubt during your training at the Farm you were warned how often the seducer becomes seduced. The matrix of seduction is unstable, and the power structures can shift like sandbars in a strong river."

"I was warned,” Lizzy stated. “Repeatedly. Take me as freshly re-warned. Now, I'm tired, and I need to sleep. Is there anything else?" She made her exasperation with him unmistakably audible.

"Just one thing. Wickham didn't mention Collingwood visiting your building, did he? I didn't hear it, but there were a few moments…especially on the water"―Darcy's lips tightened as if he were containing a rebuke―"when the mikes were fuzzy."

"No, it never came up. Do you think Wickham knows?"

He shook his head and shrugged simultaneously. "Hard to say. They don't seem to like each other. I'm assuming he doesn't. Maybe Collingwood will call again."

She leaned toward the screen again. "Do you need to warn me about the gay priest ?"

Darcy locked eyes with her from the screen, insulted and angry but controlling it. "No, no warning there. And no more warnings from me. I've said my piece. Goodnight, Agent Bennet."

"Agent Darcy." She closed the laptop softly but then clenched her fists, suppressing a cry of anger and frustration. Patronizing, pompous ass!

Huffing, she stood and paced slowly for a few minutes, using the rhythm of her steps to calm herself, an old trick, and feeling the heat and color slowly drain from her face. She hadn't realized how much anger she had shown. A long sigh stopped her pacing.

Glancing around, she noticed Wives and Daughters atop the small stack of books on the coffee table. She picked the book up and went to the bedroom, clicked on the lamp and, after a deep breath, stretched out on the bed to read for a few minutes and distract herself.

To begin with the old rigmarole of childhood. In a country there was a shire, and in that shire there was a town, and in that town there was a house, and in that house there was a room, and in that room there was a bed, and in that bed there lay a little girl…

***

Sunday, October 18

Lizzy woke up the next morning feeling less stretched but still sour, the Gaskell book open and face-down on the bed beside her. Yawning, she made a bowl of cereal and ate while staring at the closed laptop.

Since she was still in a sour mood, she decided pre-emptively to call her mother. If she didn't call, her mother would undoubtedly call her, ignoring Lizzy's instructions, and leave long, complaining voice-mails. Her mother refused to text.

Her personal phone was in her backpack in the closet. Off, of course. She retrieved it from the bag and turned it on. Luckily, her mother had not called her. But someone else had.

Jane .

No text, no voicemail. Just the record of the call. That was peculiar. Jane had never called Lizzy when she was on a mission. Very rarely, when Lizzy believed it was safe but felt especially lonely or demoralized, she would call Jane. Talking with her friend for just a few minutes would center her, encourage her.

But Jane never called Lizzy. Jane knew better; she had been an analyst. So why had she called, and so late last night?

Lizzy needed to know.

Her first thought was that there was some emergency, although if that were it, Jane would likely have kept calling. Jane had no family; she had grown up in an orphanage. Lizzy could return the call from her apartment. Neither Darcy nor Charlie should be surveilling it at this time.

Even so, she thought better of it. She hadn't made coffee yet, so she decided to buy a cup at a coffee shop. There was one nearby―she'd seen it when she went for her pedicure. A Starbucks. The call could be returned from there.

She still had on her sweats, so she slipped on her shoes and grabbed her leather jacket. With a wave to the security guard, she left the building and hurried to the shop.

A few minutes later, she was seated with a latte in a corner booth, back to the wall, facing the door, and calling Jane. The phone rang and rang. No answer. Lizzy ended the call and sent a text.

Is everything okay? Text me a Yes or No. I'll call again when I can

Since she was out of the apartment and still had coffee to finish, she decided to go ahead and call her mother.

She pressed Mom on her list of recent calls. The phone rang once, twice, and then her mother answered. "Elizabeth…Lizzy, is that you?"

At least her mother sounded sober. "Yes, Mom, it's me. Just checking in."

"I didn't expect to hear from you so soon."

"No, I know. I'm working, but I had a minute and thought I'd touch base with you. Is everything okay?" The same question she'd texted Jane.

"No. The shop's not doing well. Your Aunt Gardiner is driving away business. I had an idea for an amazing window display, very trendy and edgy―just the kind of thing she doesn't comprehend."

Lizzy's stomach sank. "What did you do, Mom?"

Her mother's tone became proud, defiant. "I went to the shop one night after hours and put a couple of half-price gowns on mannequins, and then I splashed bottles of Day Glow paint all around, on the dresses and the mannequins. I used a black strobe light in the window. It looked spectacular. People stopped their cars to look. One man was so entranced that he rear-ended the car in front of him."

Lizzy could imagine. The shop stood next to a busy intersection in town. The flashing lights and fluorescent paint must have created a dangerous, confusing spectacle. Her mother would be lucky to keep from being sued. No doubt liquor had played a role in her mother's late-night staging of an impromptu bridal rave.

"Late in the afternoon the next day when I came in, it was all gone. Gone! The dresses in the trash, the paint scrubbed off the floor and the window glass, the strobe gone. Christine will not talk to me. We're back to a virginal white window." Her mother made the last comments in her most aggrieved voice, obviously expecting sympathy and for Lizzy to take her side.

"Mom, who is supposed to want a Day Glow-splashed bridal gown? Who's going to be married under a black strobe light?"

Her mother huffed. "Forward thinkers like me, Lizzy! Customers who want to interject life and color into non-chromatic tradition."

Sometimes Lizzy forgot that her mother was a clever woman. Not as clever as Mr. Bennet had been and certainly not nearly as quick. But when she wasn't addled, she could talk. Lizzy knew she had inherited a large portion of her native verbal gifts from her mother, even if they had been tutored and quickened by her father―his demanding, give-and-take conversation, his constant play with the language. Her mother was not made for that sort of conversation. She lectured or she complained. Soliloquy was her thing. Her primary audience was herself.

"Mom, are you at the shop? Is Aunt Gardiner there?"

"No, she's not here. I'm at the church, helping prepare a luncheon for a youth group."

"You should have told me, Mom. I'm sorry to interrupt you."

Her mother scoffed. "They can do without me for a minute. The soup won't burn just because it's not being stirred."

"Mom, I'll call you again. Go stir the soup, please."

"Fine. Have you met anyone on this trip…any man?"

Thinking of Darcy and of Wickham, she told a lie that was responsive to the facts: "Yes, two. But one's too full of himself, and the other’s not quite reliable."

"How can you know that already? You haven't been there long."

"Sometimes a woman knows, Mom. Talk to you soon. See about the soup. Don't do any more late-night windows without talking to Aunt Gardiner."

"I'll do as I like with my shop, Elizabeth."

"Okay, Mom. Bye. The soup―stir it."

She ended the call hoping that the church did not burn along with the unstirred soup. She put her phone away and sipped the last of her latte, shaking her head.

She looked at “Fanny'” in black marker on the side of the cup. The name seemed not hers and yet hers, somewhat the way “Elizabeth” seemed hers and yet not hers. All the lies that are my life. She'd had so many names that her own name no longer seemed quite hers in the same way that her own life seemed not quite hers. Professional alienation.

Too long under cover. If you pretend to do something for long enough, when do you simply start to do it for real? But what is it to be fake for real?

About to get to her feet, she looked up from the name on her cup and was surprised to see that Charlie stood next to her table. He glanced around and then put his finger to his lips. A White Sox cap on his head was pulled low, the collar of his jacket standing high. He looked like an ESPN version of Dick Tracy.

Momentarily, Lizzy was annoyed with herself for losing focus. She should have seen him come in. This is why personal business in the middle of a mission is trouble.

He slid into the booth, glancing around again. "I'm waiting for coffee."

The look he gave her made her worry―that big favor look people wore just before they asked for one. "Have you talked to Jane?"

Lizzy sat back. " Jane? You know Jane?"

He gave her another look, a different one. She understood it immediately, too. "Oh. Oh!"

He smiled briefly, the smile watery, worried. "I can't get her on the phone today. We talk each morning. If you talk to her, please ask her to call me. I'm worried I did something stupid that I don't realize I did."

"Jane tried to call me late last night…early this morning. But she didn't text or leave a message."

His face paled. "That's not good. Should I be worried?”

A barista called out, "Two venti black coffees to go!"

"That's me. Tell her to call me. I'll tell her to call you. I can't imagine she won't call one of us soon. Please?"

Lizzy scanned the Starbucks. No one was watching them. She reached out and touched Charlie’s hand, briefly resting hers on his. "I'm happy for you both. I'm sure it's nothing." She wasn't, but it seemed like a moment for comfort.

He smiled, relieved. "Don't mention this meeting to Darcy. He'd be pissed."

Pretty much his constant state.

Charlie grabbed the to-go coffees and left. Lizzy waited and then left a few minutes later.

Once back at her building, she waved again at the security guard and went upstairs to Fanny's apartment. Her apartment. For now.

When she was inside, she got out the laptop, retrieved the MI-6 file on Wickham Darcy had told her to expect, and started reading. After a few minutes, she looked up at the ceiling, frustrated.

The file was exactly as Darcy had described. It reconstructed Wickham's travels starting three years ago. Since then, a number of terrorist attacks had been either claimed by or attributed to the Wicker Man. In almost every case, he had been in the relevant city or close enough to have traveled to it, but in no case was there actual proof that Wickham had been involved. It was all, as Darcy said, circumstantial.

However, assuming the coordination of the terrorist actions and Wickham's travels were more than coincidences―and there were enough of them to make that unlikely―Wickham had been busy. And brutal. A number of the attacks had been bloody, carefully planned explosions in public places with random victims. The photographs were horrible, stomach-turning, even for someone who had seen as much death and as much variety of cruel death as Lizzy had. Still, there was no proof that Wickham was involved in any of the attacks. They did not occur on any discernible schedule.

Lizzy stopped on the final entry, the most recent attack. It predated the Wickham file that Darcy had shown her on the plane by several months―predating Berlin, the city where Darcy's file began. This attack had happened in Spain, near the coast. Wickham had been in Barcelona.

He had traveled with a woman who had never been identified. There was one photograph, but it was from the rear, a head shot. Otherwise, there were only a couple of brief descriptions of her. The woman was described as tall, blonde, statuesque ( of course! ), and much younger than Wickham. Beautiful. The photograph only confirmed the hair―long, blonde, and straight. She wore a red jacket, only the collar visible. In the photograph, her head obscured half of Wickham's face as he gazed at her. Seeing only his one eye was enough for Lizzy to recognize the fire banked there; that coming-conflagration look had been directed at her last night.

She was about to start at the beginning of the file again when she received an alert on the computer from Charlie. She moved the cursor, clicked on the alert, and he appeared on the screen. "The priest is back. He's sitting on the bench outside the lobby but hasn’t made a move to enter. He has a book and a coffee. Looks like he's planning a siege."

Darcy appeared next to Charlie, Starbucks cup in hand. "You can leave him there and see if he leaves before Wickham arrives. That will be a while. Hours. Wait him out. Or you could pretend to leave the building, let him see you, and find out why he’s invested so much time and effort to talk to you in person when he could simply call. One visit might be an in the area, just stopped by happenstance. Two visits testify to action by the Holy Ghost."

Lizzy wasn't sure, but she thought Darcy had made a joke. She boggled for a second. His joking felt strange after her morning and after his hectoring about her sense of humor the previous evening.

She let it go. The immediate issue was what to do about Collingwood.

"I'll dress and go downstairs. It'll take me twenty minutes. I need to look like I'm on the way somewhere. Can you see him from your window?"

"Yes. Binoculars."

"Let me know if he leaves. I'm going to shower quickly, dress. I'll tell you before going downstairs."

Darcy simply nodded once.

Lizzy closed the laptop and hurried to the bathroom, shedding her sweats on the way. Once she was dressed (necklace and earrings included) and ready to go downstairs, she opened the laptop again and touched the button. A few seconds later, Darcy was back on the screen.

"Is Collingwood still there?" she asked.

"Yes, reading and watching the door."

"Okay, I'm going down. I'll find out what he's doing here."

"Press him for information on Wickham and Lady Catherine―anything he might know. Bingley will be downstairs nearby."

"Good. I will."

She went downstairs, taking the time she spent in the elevator to compose herself and settle on her story about where she was going. When she got to the lobby, she looked through the glass doors and noted where Collingwood sat.

Taking a deep breath, she went outside, Fanny's phone in her hand, careful to be looking at the screen.

"Fanny Prince!" Collingwood called. "Fanny!"

She stopped and turned. "Robyn Collingwood? Father Robyn?"

The priest ran clumsily toward her, dog collar beneath a black coat, with coffee in one hand and an open book in the other. When he reached her, he gave her a big smile and a half-bow, breathing hard from the short burst of God's speed.

"Sorry. Sorry to…disturb you, waylay you, like this, Miss Prince, but I visited the city today on minor business"― breath― "and it took less time than I anticipated―" breath "―so I thought I might sit here and read my book in the sun"― two breaths ―"as good a place as any, and that, if I was lucky"― a long breath, his breath finally caught "―I might also see you and get a chance to talk to you."

Lizzy smiled at him. "And you have succeeded. I’d intended to call you later today. The security guard gave me your card from your first visit."

"Ah, yes…" Collingwood's smile decreased in size. "That guard. Not helpful at all. I understand this modern mania for privacy, particularly on the part of young women, but I am a man of the cloth . Surely—"

She nodded sympathetically and interrupted. "Had I known you were coming, I'd have made sure you were told my apartment number."

He shrugged and took a sip of his coffee. "Yes, well, I should have called, but I believe in the personal touch, and both visits have been more whim than plan."

"I was going for a walk, taking advantage of the sun and a vacation day. Would you like to walk with me? Or we could go sit somewhere…"

"A walk would be fine." He looked skyward. "We won't have this weather, this sun, much longer. Soon the gray skies and winter lake wind will whip us all indoors. Could you hold this for me?"

He extended his coffee cup toward her, and Lizzy took it by its bottom―a Starbucks cup with “Robyn” on the side. As she held it, he relocated a bookmark from the last pages of his book to the spot at which he’d been holding it open and closed the book: Personae by Ezra Pound. He took the coffee back.

"Reading Pound?" Lizzy asked, partly out of puzzlement and partly because it seemed the appropriate question for Fanny to ask.

They started to walk, and he laughed. "Yes, the man was a loon, but a most musical loon. When you have the task of composing weekly homilies and caring for the souls of your parishioners as I do, you need mentally to restock, to fill yourself with musical language, so that it can sweeten the presentation of the gospel."

Lizzy had gotten a touch of Father Robyn's rhetorical exuberance at the party, but only a touch. "So, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

He slowed, requiring Lizzy to slow, too. His countenance became serious. "To be frank, Fanny, I came…to warn you."

"To warn me?"

"Yes," he nodded, "and I know it is…officious of me, intermeddling , but I liked you immediately at the party. I saw―I saw when the two of you weren't looking―I saw how well-suited you and your boyfriend are to one another. Such a lovely couple. I believe his name is… Ned ?"

"Ned, that's right. Thank you, but I still don't understand."

He stopped walking altogether and drew closer to her. "I want to warn you about Mr. Wickham. I have had the chance to know things about him…his habits. I noticed him interacting with you at the party and overheard him later talking―spatting, really―with Lady Catherine. He is…interested…in you. I believe will be in touch with you soon."

Lizzy was unsure how to react, how Fanny should react. Demur denial? Reveal that Wickham had already contacted her? That they had gone sightseeing, gone to dinner, were going to dinner tonight?

Her unsureness played in her favor. The delay in response caused Father Robyn to continue. "I have tried to convince Lady Catherine to break with that man, but he has an occult hold on her. That’s why I'm here, my worry about you."

"Father?"

"Women are Mr. Wickham's… hobby . He collects them, to put it bluntly. I know he has charm, a gift for making a woman feel as if he is sensitively heedful of her, that he is not objectifying her…much the opposite. But that's only because he objectifies slowly and in secret . Let’s say that he's an expert at being friendly, making friends, but that he keeps―that he can keep―only a few friends, if any. Particularly women." He searched Fanny's face. "Do you understand?"

Lizzy nodded hesitantly. "But what about Lady Catherine?"

Father Robyn frowned and seemed embarrassed. "He keeps her because she continues to be useful and because she's so rich. And because she's foolish. He stays at Rosings, uses her influence, her car and driver. Often, he uses her and her resources to pursue other women."

Lizzy mirrored his frown. "Mr. Wickham did…call me. We went…sightseeing yesterday and had a quick dinner. It wasn't a date, though. Ned had planned to spend my vacation days with me but was called back to New York. Mr. Wickham only invited me along on his architectural tour. It wasn't a date." Lizzy made sure Fanny hesitated and stumbled.

He nodded, shaking his head. "I feared I was too late. I should have called, but I find this deeply distasteful and feel it is wrong to make it easier for myself, to slough off any difficulty connected to my decision, my dilemma. Attacking another man's character is not the Christian way, but neither is standing idly by and watching one person abuse another…"

"But Father," Lizzy said, pleading a little, since the mission required Fanny to carry on with Wickham, "I'm in love with Ned. Mr. Wickham's been attentive, yes, but I'm in no danger. I know who I am, and I know who I love."

The conversation was beginning to bother Lizzy. It was too much like last night's debrief with Darcy. And too much, also, like her earlier musings about her name…her names. She'd blame men if her own voice hadn’t echoed theirs in her head.

Father Robyn studied her severely. "Good. I trust you are not overestimating yourself or underestimating Mr. Wickham. What a person knows and what she feels do not always interact reasonably. But you're a rational creature, a librarian, after all, so I'll leave off the warnings.”

He began walking again and shifted the topic. “What architecture did you see?"

"Marina City and the Robie House."

They walked on, chatting more about the House and about Frank Lloyd Wright and then about the beauty of the cool, sunlit late morning.

Lizzy parted company with the priest outside her building and returned to Fanny’s apartment. The laptop remained closed. She needed a minute to herself after such a whirlwind of a morning. Jane, her mother, Charlie, Father Robyn. And that debrief last night!

Her stretched feeling had returned…and the sourness had never left her.

Fanny's phone rang. Lizzy looked at it, her shoulders sinking.

It was Wickham.