Chapter Nine Salon

Lizzy cursed inwardly, silently. She had hoped for time to recoup, to gather herself, before she had to deal with Wickham.

Not answering was a possibility. She tried quickly to reckon with it.

On the one hand, it would keep Wickham on the hook and give her a chance to breathe, reorient. On the other hand, it might suggest to Wickham that she was better able to withstand his charms than he hoped and that she would not yield before his timetable demanded he leave Chicago. She did not take him to be easily dissuaded, but could she risk it? Risk that she might have to make it up to him if he did seem dissuaded―make it up in the flesh, so to speak?

She inhaled slowly and ran her hand through her blonde hair. Then she answered the call.

"George?" Lizzy was careful to speak his name with enthusiasm.

"Fanny!" he responded with equal enthusiasm, "I know you told me to text but…um, I confess, I wanted to talk with you. I enjoyed yesterday. Enjoyed it immensely ."

Lizzy considered his action, his calling, his explanation for it. He wanted her; his actions continued to confirm that. Last night, he had taken the issue between them all but settled, the deed all but done. The question was only how long Fanny would make him wait, how long her already fraying loyalty to Ned would restrain her. He had called her, she realized, not only to hear her voice but deliberately to do something other than she had (twice) asked him to do: text her. This was Wickham not being Gentle Ned ( too gentle ); it was Wickham's assertion of himself.

He takes Ned to be a…simp.

Lizzy had not understood Ned that way, but now she recognized that Darcy must have, and he had intended for Wickham to, as well. Such an understanding would make Wickham more confident that he could steal Fanny from Ned. Wives and Daughters. It had been a brilliant stroke of backstory, a backstory to convey a lurking weakness in their relationship, a weakness someone like Wickham―an alpha in his own estimation―would be confident he could exploit.

Lizzy had blushed at Salonica when Wickham had rated Ned too gentle. It occurred to her that she actually had been embarrassed for Darcy. Whatever Darcy was―and Lizzy wasn't sure she knew exactly what to call the MI-6 agent ( vexing man! )―he was no simp .

She could not dwell on that realization, though. Wickham was waiting for Fanny to respond. Darcy needed to be separated from Ned in her mind so that she would not respond on behalf of one to what was aimed at the other.

"It's okay… good, actually." She breathed out the word. "I'm glad you called. I enjoyed last night, too." She started to use his word, immensely , but then dialed it back. "A lot."

"I'm delighted, and I’m delighted you aren't offended by my call. I want to mention a dinner idea to you to see if you like it."

"Okay."

"There's a fancy place in Chicago on lots of foodie bucket lists, a place called Alinea. Have you heard of it? Some magazines have rated it the best restaurant in the world."

The big guns, Lizzy thought. Wickham's breaking out the big guns . She blushed at her own term. "No, I haven't heard of it. But I do love food. How could you get a reservation at a place like that on the spur of the moment?"

He chuckled, the sound low and obviously intended to seduce, the first time he had treated her to that particular sound. Big guns. "Let that be my secret. But I do have reservations in the Salon. They have various dining rooms and different tasting menus in each. The Salon is probably the most…intimate. However, since the presentation of the food is decidedly theatrical, it's not private."

He really is good at this. "That sounds interesting…I mean lovely. Sure. When will you be by?"

"Rook and I will be there at 7:30 p.m. Our reservation should give us ample time. You needn't dress too formally, but I will wear a suit."

Lizzy thought of the fuchsia dress. "I have something, I think."

"Very good. I will look forward to seeing you in it. That black mini dress at Lady Catherine's party has…lingered in my mind." The way to capture a man is through his imagination.

Lizzy stalled again, letting the silence stretch as she tried to decide how Fanny should respond. "That's too much praise, too much flattery, George. But…I'm glad you liked it. Ned did, too." Can't let Ned disappear too fast.

"No doubt, no doubt." He brushed Ned aside. "I will see you this evening."

"Thanks, and thanks for such…generous plans."

"Think nothing of it. I have wanted to go for a long time, and they don’t take reservations for one, so you're doing me a favor." Definitely good at this. He collects women, as Father Robyn had told her.

"Okay, see you this evening. 7:30 p.m."

"Bye, Fanny."

"Bye, George."

Lizzy put down the phone, swallowing hard. Alinea proved it. Despite his graceful remark about Fanny doing him a favor, Wickham was prepared to push her for her favors. She already dreaded the evening to come.

She took a minute to slip off her jacket and kick off her shoes. Darcy or Charlie or both would soon follow up on the phone call from Wickham, but she was not ready to face that follow-up.

She filled the bathroom sink with hot water, sank a washcloth in it, wrung it out, and wiped her face and hands. Her face in the mirror reflected her weariness.

A nap before Alinea would be prudent. For a spy, especially one under cover, sleep was perhaps the most important of all weapons, a break from the pressure of pretense, a chance to recharge. The problem with being under cover awake was that nothing about it could ever be truly relaxing…except sleep. While undercover, lounging was pretending to lounge, relaxing pretending to relax. Nothing was what it was; everything was itself and another thing and, thus doubled, exhausting.

But before sleep, she must do the obligatory follow-up. She dried her face and hands on a clean towel, returned to the kitchen, climbed on a stool, and opened the laptop.

When Darcy appeared on the screen, Lizzy could tell that he was troubled, though he tried to hide it. His neck was flushed.

"You heard?" she asked, forgoing any introduction.

Darcy nodded, his brows contracted. "I did. Bingley's already at work on Alinea and its environs. He'll trail you again tonight. I will be here keeping up with the video and audio. Wickham's not wasting time."

That was Lizzy's view, too. Something about Darcy's delivery of it irritated her, though. "That's what we want, right? We don't want this to stretch out longer than necessary. More chances for accidents."

"True, but hurrying Fanny, or trying to, could also be a test by Wickham, deciding whether you are already corrupt or if he will have the satisfaction of corrupting you himself."

"By finding out how long I will cling to Ned?"

"It's second nature to Wickham," Darcy said. "He’ll balk if Fanny's too hard to get…or too easy. You need to manage to achieve"―he paused and smiled without humor―"the proper, improper seductive medium of easiness and resistance."

Lizzy smirked darkly at his complex phrasing. "How do I do that, Agent Darcy?"

"You seem to be managing it well. Continue dropping poor Ned in just enough to make Wickham know there are hurdles to clear but not enough to make him despair of…crossing the finish line."

She knew Darcy was talking about Fanny, not her. Although she acknowledged the justice of it, it still upset Lizzy to hear that description. After all, she'd been saying much the same to herself. Strange the way the same words, when spoken by you, could seem so different when spoken by another—the strangeness measuring the distance between I and you. Darcy always managed a delivery of lines about Fanny that provoked Lizzy.

She ignored the provocation; she had her job to do. "So, what should I expect tonight?"

"Wickham's taking you to Alinea to contrast with Ned," Darcy said, his eyes focused elsewhere, thinking. "He doubts that poor editor Ned could afford anything like that. Fanny's already given him reason to believe that she can be swayed by affluence—you did that well at the Rosings party, your reactions to it, to Lady Catherine. He's also taking you to obligate you. My guess is that a table for two in the Alinea Salon costs more than a thousand dollars. He'll find a way to mention that―offhandedly, no doubt―to make sure you understand how much he's invested in you." Darcy paused to let Lizzy hear the pun on invested exposing his earlier pun on poor. "He'll almost certainly start pushing physical contact tonight. You need to let him…travel a certain distance but not let it go too far."

Distaste showed on his face, and Lizzy felt hers blush. She pressed her lips together and nodded, willing the blush away unsuccessfully.

"And you say Charlie will be tailing me?"

"Yes, and nearby while you are in the restaurant, though he won't be inside. After all, it's a public place."

"Like the Chicago River?" Lizzy asked, scoring a point against Darcy and last night's debrief. He nodded, owning it. "Yes, like the Chicago River." His dark eyes shined.

Lizzy leaned back, surprised but pleased by his response. He was a hard man to read. If not totally inscrutable, he was often enough illegible. "What if he wants to go somewhere afterward?"

"That's fine, although not ideal. Try to make sure that his plans―if there are any―are settled well before you leave Alinea so we can plan, so Bingley can anticipate where you'll be. But don't take Wickham to your apartment, not yet. Too much could go wrong, and it might seem like too early a capitulation on Fanny's part. Soon, but not yet."

"Okay. I'll do my best to refuse any plans afterward if I can. I'll mention Ned. But I'll be sure to encourage Wickham before we part company."

"How so?"

"He forgettably kissed my cheek last night. Fanny will kiss him tonight, while she says goodnight…not seductively but still unforgettably."

Darcy looked at her, and then his eyes dropped. She remembered his kiss at her apartment door, Ned saying goodnight. Unforgettable . She hadn't intended the parallel, hadn't intended to recall that. She rushed on. "What do you think?"

"You know what you're doing. You have to make the final call at the moment, in the moment. No one but you can do that. The decisions have to rest with you, your feel for things.”

"Okay. Look, I'm tired. I'm going to nap for a while, and then I'll get dressed. I'll talk to you again before Wickham is due to show up."

"Good. Sleep well, Elizabeth."

She stalled. Has Darcy used my first name before? She shut the computer, trying to remember. He had, she thought, but he had not said it quite as he just had, almost with audible regard, personal concern.

Lizzy quickly made and ate half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then went to sleep, too tired to play hide-and-seek with her own emotions or tag with her thoughts. She let the pitchy hurdy-gurdy inside her play on its own as she sank into a blank unconsciousness.

She woke in the afternoon later than she intended, the groggy after-leavings of a too-long nap clinging to her despite large, long yawns and repeated eye-rubbings.

Standing, she went to the closet and retrieved the garment bag with the fuchsia dress. She found a pair of bright pink heels in the closet and again marveled at how well she had been provided for in terms Fanny’s costuming. After showering and dressing, she put her blonde hair up in a messy bun and applied light pink lipstick and the barest hint of blush, hoping to obscure the real thing if it happened. When she stepped back and looked in the mirror, she was surprised by the effect.

The blonde hair was complemented by the fuchsia dress differently than it had been by the black one. With her hair up, her graceful, slim neck and well-made shoulders were further accented, and her brown eyes seemed larger, a deeper cappuccino brown. Although the dress had no transparent back as the black one did, it hugged her figure much more tightly, revealing her in another way.

For a moment, she regretted the dress and all the moisturized, glowing skin it left uncovered, top and bottom. The dress was going to pressure Wickham with its pink exposure of Fanny.

The video necklace and the audio earrings went on next to last.

As Lizzy sat down on the bed to put on the heels, a soft knock on the door caused her to startle and drop one. She picked it up and slipped it on. Tiptoeing in the heels, she made her way into the kitchen and picked up the knife she had used to slice her sandwich earlier. It still had remnants of strawberry jelly on it. The red smear made her stomach clench. Knife out, she crept to the door. Her elaborate caution was borne out of habit and the fact that the visit had not been preceded by notification, either from Darcy or Charlie—or from the security desk.

She peeped out, only to see Charlie standing in the hallway nervously glancing around, shifting his weight foot to foot. Running to the kitchen, she put the knife in the sink, then ran back to open the door. "Charlie? What are you doing here?"

"I came through the tunnel and up the stairs," he whispered. "Please let me in. No one's seen me."

Lizzy stepped aside and closed the door after Charlie hustled inside. He turned to her immediately. "Have you heard anything from Jane?"

"No, nothing. I haven't checked since I napped, though. Let me look." She went into the bedroom and got her phone from her bag. There were no calls, no texts. Lizzy shook her head. "Nothing."

"Damn," Charlie muttered, his hands clenching at his sides. "She hasn't contacted me, either." He stopped and seemed to be weighing something in his mind, his weight shifting from foot to foot again like the slow balancing of a scale.

His face eventually showed resolve. "I told you not to tell Darcy, that he'd be pissed. The truth is that he's already pissed. He dressed me down last night for being distracted, unprofessional. And all day, he's acted extra stiff…"

"Is that possible?" Lizzy would have guessed that the stick up Darcy's ass was at the maximum northern height.

Charlie laughed without much conviction. "He's always been sort of terrifying…awful when he wanted to be. Even as a boy he used to make me nervous. Especially on Sundays when there wasn't enough classwork to keep us busy. He's never known how to relax, play. Always driven by some internalized self-demand. He handled free time about as well as Sherlock Holmes."

"A seven-percent solution?" Lizzy asked, puzzled.

Charlie waved a hand. "No, nothing like that. But he would be at sixes and sevens with himself, and he'd take it out on me. Criticize me for being too changeable, too quick. He repeated all that to me last night. I ended up telling him who I was calling, telling him about Jane."

"Why, Charlie?"

He shook his head. "Because he's Darcy, and I'm Bingley. The pattern was established long ago, and now I can't seem to break it even though I'm a grown man and not just his… sidekick."

"God, what an ass!"

Charlie shrank back and put up both his hands. "No, not really, Lizzy. No. I have to be fair. He also did so much for me in school. Lent me money and never asked for it back. Always protected me from older boys who tried to bully me. He helped me with my schoolwork and tended to me when I was sick enough to need help but not sick enough for the school to call my parents. I admire him. I just wish he had more tolerance for human weakness, human needs."

Lizzy worked to understand that. Typical male friendships had always puzzled her, been opaque to her, those curious, deep ties, real ties, that grew out of and were sustained by what seemed antagonisms.

Her only close friend was Jane. Their friendship had no such dynamic and never had, although she knew women could have friendships like that―her friendship with Charlotte had a tincture of that. But she didn't think female friendships were typically that way. Maybe it was just her inexperience with them.

"I'm sure we'll find out that Jane's phone is broken or that she's been tied up with a recruiting assignment. She's the last person to leave someone she cares about waiting and wondering. Let's get through tonight. If we still haven’t heard from her tomorrow, I will do everything I can to help. Right now, with Wickham looming, let's not do something that will convince Darcy we're both unprofessional. Suck it up for a few hours, Agent Bingley!" She said it with a God-and-Country intonation but also with an encouraging smile. "Then tomorrow we'll figure this out."

Darcy's comment about his changeability was true, Lizzy granted to herself. She wondered if Charlie was projecting his own mercurial states of mind onto Jane, who was not mercurial in the least. Jane was steadfast, reliable. That made her radio silence nag at Lizzy more.

After a moment, Charlie nodded his agreement, standing straighter. "Okay, I'd better get back before Darcy knows I've been here." He reached out and took Lizzy's hand, giving it a squeeze, a friendly gesture. "Good luck tonight. You look fabulous.”

After he paid her the compliment, he seemed sorry that he had. He shrugged. “These missions suck."

She said nothing but showed him out after squeezing his hand in return.

***

As she walked to the car, Wickham waiting and watching, Lizzy wished she had a longer jacket, one that kept her legs more out of view. Short skirt, long jacket —like the Cake song. But she had gone with her short leather jacket after deciding that Fanny would leave her legs exposed.

Fanny was playing a dangerous game. Lizzy knew it, because Lizzy was playing Fanny's game.

Wickham almost licked his lips. He watched her with a feline intensity. As she neared, walking in the last sunlight of the day, she could feel his radiating appreciation of the fuchsia dress, feel the animal heat radiating from him as she stepped to him and he took her hand. His hand was as heated as his gaze, his immediate atmosphere. He allowed her to glimpse that heat before he hid it in a practiced shift of features, desire donning a mask of elegant charm.

Elegant. That was the word. His bespoke gray flannel suit and Italian leather shoes were classic Gregory Peck. In college, Lizzy had a celebrity crush on Peck and always thought of him as elegant, refined…a true gentleman. His flawless clothes were a part of him. Wickham was not a true gentleman―Darcy was right about that―but he certainly could look the part and could approach the visual standard of Peck. Wickham's face was narrower, not as strongly masculine, but the general look, the gestalt ―Lizzy recalled Ned's word, Darcy's word—was similar.

She made herself stop thinking of comparisons. Work. Don’t make it harder for yourself, Lizzy.

"Hi, George," Lizzy said as Fanny, smiling brightly.

"That dress, and with that jacket! Stunning! A feast for the eyes." He leaned close to her as he helped her into the car, much closer than when he had helped her in or out the day before.

The dress is already applying pressure.

She slid into the back seat, nodding a greeting at Rook, who nodded in his falling rock way. She did not slide all the way to the opposite window as she had the day before. She slid halfway and stopped. When Wickham got in and seated himself, he was not in contact with her, but there was precious little distance between them. He noticed, but Lizzy pretended that Fanny didn't…that the encroachment was unnoticed.

"Alinea, Rook," Wickham said. He glanced at Lizzy's bare legs, exposed so far up that she had crossed them to make sure that she did not reveal anything beneath the dress. However, crossing her legs had the regrettable effect of exhibiting them, especially the leg across the other leg, her top calf made yet more curvaceous by resting on her other leg.

She saw Wickham swallow, his Adam's apple bobbing deeply. He put his arm on the back of the seat. She was close enough that it was all but around her except that it did not touch her. He was careful to keep it resting on the seat, not on Lizzy's shoulders. Darcy had predicted correctly―Wickham was wasting no time. His smile at her as he put his arm on the seat was possessive, even if his arm never touched her. She pretended not to object to the movement, the almost-encircling arm.

Rook pulled the car into traffic with an amused glance in the rearview mirror that was not a check of oncoming cars. He was estimating the come-on.

Lizzy made herself focus, biting the inside of her lower lip to force herself into wary full awareness.

Alinea was indeed fancy. They were shown into the Salon, where most of the walls, the fixtures, the tables, and the seats were white. The non-white walls were pale blue, and some of the white walls were covered with abstract paintings. Other guests, pairs, were seated at some of the tables. A lovely brunette waitress pulled out the table so that Lizzy and Wickham could be seated.

Wickham gave Lizzy a commanding smile. "I've been told the best experience here is to yield yourself completely to the meal, give yourself over to the presentation, and sink yourself into the details."

Lizzy nodded and looked around. She could not meet Wickham's gaze after his thinly veiled salacious advice. She glanced at the other couples. It may have been the honeypot mission, or Wickham's aroused vocabulary, or the room itself and the other pairs of customers, but the air seemed charged with an eerie erotic electricity…as if they were all about to commence a comestible orgy.

She did her best to concentrate on Wickham and ignore everyone else. But Wickham took her attention to him as permission to attend to her in turn. His eyes kept slipping from her eyes, down to her dress…its tell-tale fuchsia revelation of her body, every curve and line…and from there to her legs, her ankles, her pink heels.

After an uncomfortable few minutes for Lizzy, during which she studied the abstract paintings to no effect, the waitress returned, followed by two waiters. They began carefully serving the first course and its accompanying champagne.

The pairing of food and drink was perfect. Upon completion of the first course, the plates were whisked away, and the couples talked among themselves quietly.

Wickham sighed. "Never imagined that I would one day be able to eat at a place like this, with company like this. Eleven hundred dollars a table." He added the last in an even softer voice. Darcy was right again―Wickham made sure to mention the cost.

"You haven't always been…comfortable?" Lizzy asked.

He glanced at her with a hint of suspicion, but it passed immediately, and he sighed again. "No. When I was young, I often woke up with no idea if I would eat that day. My mother raised us alone, trying to feed herself and seven children on a meager factory wage that would hardly have fed her alone or kept her warm. Damn northern towns. She often didn't eat so that we could…wrapped us in her clothes and coats when we had no heat, her teeth chattering."

Lizzy listened without shifting her posture or reacting. She felt like he was telling the truth, or close to it, and that it was a truth he did not often tell, if ever. Her intentional lack of reaction was both to avoid disturbing the moment and to be sure Darcy heard.

Unfortunately, the waitress and waiters were back to serve the next exquisite course before Wickham could continue. They ate and drank in silence, savoring the flavors.

After the table had been cleared again, Lizzy leaned toward Wickham and softly put her hand on his arm, trying to rekindle his reflective mood. "I'm sorry about that, about how hard things were when you were a boy. Your mother must have been wonderful."

"She was." Wickham’s eyes were harder than his intonation. "She kept her head up even as the world beat her down. If this were a remotely just world, she would have had servants and been celebrated. Instead, she had a long series of worthless men who only made her plight worse, including my father. Each got her pregnant a time or two and then disappeared, abandoning us. She kept hoping one of them would turn out to be a good man.”

He redirected the subject. “When I was small and we had meals, the meals were often enough just boiled potatoes, a little salt."

"Is your mother still alive?" Lizzy kept the question pertinent, innocent, the kind of thing Fanny would ask.

"No, long dead. Worked to death. Dead before I was old enough to help her, lighten her load."

Lizzy had left Fanny's hand on Wickham's arm. She squeezed it and stared into his eyes to express her sympathy. He put his free hand on top of hers.

Then the next course arrived. He moved his hand, and she moved hers. The meal continued, a heady procession of rich and amazing courses, courses all with names Lizzy forgot, lost in the welter of tastes and smells and wine pairings.

Wickham did not revert to the subject of his mother or his childhood again. He was intent on his food and on helping Lizzy to enjoy hers. At one point in the meal, he fed her himself. She knew that this was upping the intimacy between them, but he wanted it, clearly, and the public setting was safe enough.

As the remains of dessert were cleared, Wickham sighed again, this time contentedly. "I never eat so much, but the way they serve it, the pace, the small size of the individual courses…it keeps you from realizing how full you've become."

Lizzy agreed. Her stomach was full, her senses all hyped and buzzing. "This dress will show that I've had too much."

"No," Wickham said firmly, "all that dress shows is that you're perfect. That hair…and that dress…and those eyes! I don't know that I've ever had a more resplendent dinner companion." He leaned toward her to kiss her cheek again, a gallant act after gallant words.

Lizzy seized the moment and turned her lips to his. She let him kiss her there, although only for an instant. Then she smiled shyly at him as he leaned back, surprised.

She spoke in a husky whisper. "Thank you for an…extravagantly memorable evening. I've never experienced anything like this."

"Not even with Ned?" Wickham asked. Ouch.

"No, this is…beyond Ned. Beyond his means, I mean. He's been saving—" She stopped herself. deciding to adlib and raise the stakes. "I think he's hoping to propose to me."

Wickham raised one eyebrow slightly at that. Two can play this game, Lizzy thought to herself.

They left Alinea and got back in the car. As before, Rook let Wickham handle the door. They seemed to have agreed to that ahead of time. Lizzy slid across on the bench an even shorter distance than when Wickham had picked her up. When he got in, his leg was pressed against hers, and she saw one corner of his mouth lift.

"Can I take you somewhere for a nightcap?"

Lizzy shook her head. "I'm sorry, George, I'm just too full. I need to go home and recover a bit before bed."

He let both corners of his mouth lift when she said bed. "Can I tuck you in?"

"No," Lizzy said, chuckling, Fanny treating the request as a joke. But then she met his eyes. "Not tonight."

"Miss Fanny's apartment, Rook," Wickham said, and the car began to move.

He put his arm around her again and, since she had chosen to sit closer, it was fully around her. She gazed up at him as the passing streetlights created a strobe light effect in the back of the car.

He lowered his head to hers, his lips to hers. The pathway had been created and cleared by Fanny in Alinea. He kissed her. He turned, reached across with his other arm, and put his hand on her bare knee. Lizzy did not open her lips, but she let Fanny melt against Wickham. He slid his hand up her knee toward her thigh, then onto it. She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. He slid his hand to the edge, the very edge, of her short skirt.

It had been a long time since any man's hand had touched her like that. Against her will, her body responded with an immediate damp warmth. This was the danger about which Darcy warned her, about which her instructors at the Farm warned her. Shifting sandbars in a strong river. She willed her legs closed.

It was not that she wanted Wickham. She didn't, despite his elegance and charm. He was an evil man. But the evening, the champagne, the wine, the food, the overstimulation of her senses, the length of time since a man had touched her with such pleasurable intention, arrived so close to his destination, the Gregory Peck comparison―it all affected her.

"No, George," she whispered as she shut her legs, trapping his hand. "I can't . This was wonderful, you're wonderful, but I can't. Ned ." She un-trapped his hand, placing her hand on his wrist and removing it from her, but gently.

"Have you been faithful to him?"

She nodded. "Of course. From our first date."

He placed a finger under her chin and tipped her head up so she would look into his eyes. "I can do things to you, Fanny, things Ned has never dreamed of…things you've never dreamed of. Teach your body to know itself, its possibilities," He said this close to her ear in a hot whisper.

Lizzy trembled. "Don't, George. I need time. Time. To think."

He nodded and smiled, his smile disappointed but pleased at the same time. "Don't take too long, Fanny. I won't be in Chicago forever. And what Ned doesn't know…"

They were silent the rest of the way to her apartment and parted with only a quick, awkward hug.