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Darcy knows that he has a long way to go to make up ground with Lizzie, but on the day when he and Bing return to Netherfield, he discovers exactly how bad things are.
They arrive just after noon. Darcy throws his suitcase in his room, and then—with a careful look around—he pulls out his phone. He hasn’t wanted to watch Lizzie’s videos with Bing around. He’s afraid he’ll betray too much emotion.
This video starts with Lizzie, Jane, and Lydia huddled together in front of the camera. “Hey everyone,” Lizzie whispers. “I bet you’re wondering why we’re being so quiet.”
Darcy leans forward, bringing the screen of his phone kissing-close. Not that he would ever kiss the screen. That would leave mouth prints, for one. Besides, he’s not that desperate.
Well, okay. Perhaps he is that desperate. Maybe it’s more that silicon makes a poor substitute.
A tinny crash echoes through her iPhone speakers.
Lizzie gestures to her side, pointing to that noise. “My name is Lizzie Bennet,” she stage-whispers, her face contorted in a grimace, “and Mom is watching my videos.”
The intro plays. Darcy doesn’t understood why they didn’t tell Mrs. Bennet about the tape—or at least about Lydia’s break up—and the Bennet sisters don’t explain that gap now.
“OMG,” Lydia says, when they come back from the break. “Is she getting the knives sharpened?”
Jane puts her head to one side. “She was saying something about it,” Jane says, in that perfectly amiable way that she has.
At that moment, there’s the sound of the door opening, and the three girls jump guiltily apart. There’s no question in his mind who has just come into the den.
“So,” Darcy can hear Mrs. Bennet say, in her distinctive Southern accent, “you three are filming another one of those videos.”
Lizzie stands up. “Mom,” she says, “I can explain. Or, at least—it’s my fault. Blame me. It was my idea—”
Mrs. Bennet snorts and sweeps into the view of the camera. “Oh, Lizzie,” she says. “I’m not upset about your adorable little videos. Of course you exaggerated my character for comic effect. I approve of that. Boys love girls that can make them laugh.”
The sisters exchange confused glances. Darcy is rather surprised, too.
“No,” Mrs. Bennet says, “the reason I’m so all-fired upset is that I just watched—” She sniffs. “I just watched the episode where that nice young man—Fitz—told me that that creep William Darcy separated Jane and Bing.”
Darcy feels the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
“Can you believe it? The gall of the man! I swear, if I ever see him, I will slap him in the face.”
Lizzie glances at the camera. “Mom,” she says quietly, “I—you know, I think—there’s a possibility—he might still watch my videos.”
Mrs. Bennet frowns. “Watch your videos? Why would the CEO of a major entertainment company watch your videos?”
The daughters exchange another set of glances.
“Girls, you are not keeping things from me any longer,” Mrs. Bennet says quietly. “I mean it.”
The video shifts, indicating a jump in time. Mrs. Bennet is still there. She’s seated now, though, and staring at a laptop screen. Lizzie is watching her, ever so carefully.
“You’re telling me William Darcy was in love with you?” Mrs. Bennet’s voice is quiet.
Lizzie nods.
“And you told him you didn’t want him.”
She nods, more warily still. Darcy doesn’t want her mother browbeating her into a relationship. If she does, it will just make him worry—worry that she doesn’t like him for himself, that she’s been pressured into it.
“You rejected the wealthy owner of Pemberley Digital, all because he made your sister miserable?” Mrs. Bennet repeats.
“Yes,” Lizzie says, “I did, but—”
Mrs. Bennet breaks out in a smile. “I am so proud of you, Lizzie,” she says. “Any man who prevents one of my daughters from marrying is bad news, no matter how much money he has. Chicks before dicks!”
Darcy likes this turn of events even less. He frowns at the screen, in no small part because Mrs. Bennet interrupts her daughter before she could finish her sentence. He very much wants to know what Lizzie was going to say after “but.”
It’s too late. “I hope he does watch these videos,” Mrs. Bennet lifts her chin. “To hell with you, Mr. Darcy. We don’t need you. Go break up someone else’s budding relationship.”
#
“Darcy? Are you coming?”
“I’m…not feeling well,” Darcy prevaricates. “You should go by yourself.”
There’s a pause at the door, and then it swings open. Bing stands in the frame, tapping his foot, looking for all the world the way he did back at Harvard. Then, he’d have been waiting to drag Darcy out to a play or a party. “You haven’t gone out in five days,” he would say, as if he kept track. He probably did keep track, come to think of it.
Back then, Bing didn’t listen to Darcy’s protestations. He doesn’t look like he’s going to do so now.
Bing simply shakes his head. “I see you watched the latest letter to Charlotte,” he says, deadpan.
“I can’t go over,” Darcy says. “Did you see the part where Mrs. Bennet threatened to—”
“Don’t worry about that,” Bing says, reassuringly. “It was an exaggeration.”
“She was instructing Lizzie in the difference between what she would do if she encountered me with a paring knife versus—”
“Stop worrying. I won’t let her hurt you.” Bing cracks a smile. “I’ll tell her that would be an unlicensed practice of medicine, and that the AMA will come after her.”
Darcy snorts, not reassured at all.
“Bring Mrs. Bennet flowers,” Bing says. “Flowers solve everything.”
#
When she lays eyes on Darcy, however…
“Darcy,” she says coldly. “I see you carried flowers for Bing. You are good for something, after all.” She takes them from him before he has the chance to explain, and turns away rudely, smiling at Bing.
He rubs his hands together for warmth.
Lizzie scarcely looks at him. The only person who smiles at him is Lydia. In fact, Lydia gives him a grin, and that scarcely helps with the uneasy roil in his stomach.
Mrs. Bennet soon spirits Bing and Jane away.
“You must see my meditation room,” she says to Bing. “Jane will show you, and you can tell her what you think about the feng shui.” She pronounces it “fong shooey”; Jane and Lizzie exchange pained glances.
“Uh, I don’t know anything about feng shui,” Bing is saying, as she shepherds them away.
Lydia winks at Darcy. He’s trying not to look at her—she keeps making faces at him, and he’s afraid that she’s going to give everything away. Before he can start a conversation, she drags her father away on the pretext of asking him advice about her classes for next semester.
This leaves him alone with Lizzie. His heart is racing. He has this whole speech planned. He wrote it out and everything. Now, he can’t even envision the paper he penned it on.
“Hello, Lizzie,” he says. He feels more awkward than ever. The rapport they were beginning to develop at Pemberley has been utterly destroyed. All he can think to say is, “Please don’t let your mother castrate me,” and since that is the least sexy thing he can think of to start off this conversation, he doesn’t say it.
“Hi Darcy.” She isn’t looking at him. That can’t be a good sign, can it? At Pemberley, she had started to touch him—his shoulder, his hand. Now they sit, separated by several yards, unable to meet each other’s eyes.
Now is the time to be affable, polite, and completely unawkward. Now is the time to bring his A game.
The problem is, Darcy has always known that he is distinctly lacking in game. He doesn’t have an A game. He’d settle for his D game right at this moment. Any game whatsoever, however flawed, would be good at the moment.
He manages to stammer out another sentence. “You are…well, I trust?”
“I’m doing about as well as can be expected,” Lizzie says. “Under the circumstances.”
He’s not sure whether this means that she’s as well as can be expected under the circumstance that they’ve been shoved in a room together, awkwardly, or whether this is a reference to other recent events.
“I see,” he says shortly, even though he doesn’t.
“How is Gigi?” she asks.
At the moment, Gigi is probably waiting by her cell phone, ready to bombard him with questions about tonight. He can almost hear her response when he tells her about this evening. “No, Darcy!” she’s going to wail. “Are you serious? You sat there for fifteen minutes and didn’t say anything to her at all? What is wrong with you?”
Thinking about Gigi isn’t making things any better.
In a rush, he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “Did you watch the…hockey game last night?”
She looks up at him finally, faintly incredulous. “Do you like hockey?”
“Not…as such.”
She gives her head a little shake. “I don’t, either.”
That’s when Darcy’s phone vibrates. He’s almost relieved to pull it out, to have some excuse to escape the conversation that is going so poorly. Maybe he’ll have to take a call. He can retreat and regroup, reread that speech that he wrote. If he commits it to memory, he can try again later…
But no, it’s not a message about Pemberley’s latest earnings statement. It’s a text from Lydia.
Smile, Darce. Do you want my sister to think you hate her again?
He thinks a little bit before he taps out a reply and hits send.
“Lizzie,” Darcy says, “I was wondering…”
She looks up at this, expectantly.
“Before you left Pemberley,” he tries again. “I was…”
He had been trying to ask her out. But now, he can’t casually mention the box that he and Gigi maintain. The possibilities for stealth-dating Lizzie here in Southern California have diminished substantially. He has no excuse for asking her out except the fact that he loves her, he wants her. And she likely feels something for him that is somewhere between mild indifference and hatred.
Please let it be mild indifference, he pleads with the gods of the universe. Mild indifference would be nice. I can work with mild indifference.
His phone buzzes again. He glances at it in annoyance, and then taps out a longer answer.
“You were…” Lizzie prompts.
“Museums!” he blurts in an awkward gasp. “What do you think of museums?”
“I…like them?” She looks puzzled. “Mostly? What kind of museums?”
His phone buzzes again. He glances down, reads what Lydia has written this time.
He swallows.
“Do you have to get that?” Lizzie asks pointedly, and he’s remembered of that conversation at Pemberley—that terrible conversation where he waited on pins and needles while she was distracted by her phone.
And at that point, Lydia sticks her head in the living room. “Darcy,” she says, with a hint of playfulness, “are you fake texting?”
Lizzie’s face turns red at this reminder of her videos. “Lydia!” she scolds.
But somehow, that teasing is precisely what he needs. He simply raises his eyebrow at her and says, “It’s super important.”
The three of them burst into laughter which, surprisingly, is not awkward at all.
When Lydia winks at him again, and makes a not-so-subtle gesture with her head, he turns to Lizzie. He might not have A game. He might not even have D game. He’s terrible at asking girls out, and even more terrible at trying to make idle conversation. But he can flirt—lamely, it turns out—but then maybe that’s all he needs.
He leans toward Lizzie.
“I read Dr. Gardiner’s latest paper on the plane ride down,” he says, looking into her eyes. “And I wanted to ask you what you thought about her theories on forcing intimacy across internet boundaries.”
It was the right question. Her eyes brighten; her shoulders lift. “I was just talking about that with Charlotte!”
They’re off to the races.
#
He e-mails Gigi. He goes over the financials from one of his internal departments. He sends a threatening e-mail to a supplier that’s been balking on a delivery. Finally, the video shows up. When he clicks in, there are only 27 views, proof positive that he’s been reloading the page with a little too much vigor.
He curses Diet Pepsi for thirty seconds, and then squeezes his hands together through her intro, waiting for her to say something about their hours-long conversation.
But what she says instead…
“My name is Lizzie Bennet,” Lizzie says, “and there is nothing to talk about.”
Darcy is pondering this—he’d hoped that their conversation would merit something slightly above a “nothing.” Instead, the cheery intro screen plays.
When she comes back on camera, Lizzie is looking at him. “Like I said,” she says, “it’s been pretty uneventful these last days. Other than Bing being back in town, there’s—”
“Lizzie,” says a voice from the side, “are you lying to your viewers?”
“I—” Lizzie cuts off, looks at her nails, and then looks over, just as Lydia comes into view. “No.” She gives an unconvincing snort. “What would I be lying to my viewers about?”
Lydia slides next to her on the seat by the camera. “Nothing to talk about? I think we could talk about the state of your hormones.”
Darcy bites his lip and leans forward.
“My hormones?” Lizzie says with an uncomfortable laugh. Her eyes slide away from the camera, and her voice seems just a touch too loud. “Why would we talk about my hormones? They’re uh, functional, adult-level hormones. Standard issue.”
Darcy swallows. His functional, standard-issue, adult-level hormones have been in overdrive for the last forty-eight hours.
Lydia shakes her head. “That is not what I saw when you and Darcy spent two hours last night talking to each other in the corner of the living room.”
Lizzie looks even more uncomfortable at that. “Ah—Lydia—I think Darcy still watches these. Maybe it’s not such a good idea to talk about him?”
Lydia simply preens. “Maybe it’s a very good idea to talk about him, am I right?”
“Costume theater!” Lizzie says suddenly. “Let’s show them… Let’s reenact Bing picking up Jane for a picnic this morning! Here… Wait, where is Bing’s mirror?”
“In my room,” Lydia says. “On my desk. You can’t hide from your hormones, Lizzie. Why don’t you just come right out and say that Darce turns you into a puddle of—”
“Oh my God, Lydia,” Lizzie says, with a flush on her cheeks that could be annoyance. “Why did you need Bing’s—never mind. Whatever it is that you’re going to say, I’m just going to edit out anyway. I’ll be right back. And then we’re going to do costume theater.”
Lizzie disappears. Lydia winks at the camera, coquettishly—and then, moments later, holds up the child’s toy that is Bing’s doctor mirror. She puts one finger to her lips. Darcy folds his arms, frowns at the camera. He has no idea what Lydia is up to.
Not that it matters. He can’t even stop it. It’s already happened. There’s nothing he can do but watch this all play out in front of him. Whatever this is.
Lizzie comes back into view a few seconds later. She’s holding a rectangular piece of cardstock in her hand. She pauses on the edge of the camera. Darcy can only see her torso, but there’s no mistaking the tension in it.
Her stance mirrors the feeling of nervous anticipation that runs down his spine. He recognizes what she’s holding in her hand—the white-on-blue emblem of Pemberley Digital, the raised lettering.
She sits down and looks at her sister.
“Lydia,” Lizzie says, “I swear I wasn’t trying to snoop, but…I found this on your desk. Why do you have Darcy’s card?”
Lydia looks at the card in her sister’s hand. She doesn’t look put out or surprised. In fact, she looks satisfied—so much so that Darcy is quite certain that she left that card out strategically and sent her sister to go find it.
“Why do you think?” Lydia asks. “I got his number so I can text him! Duh.”
“Be serious.”
“I am!” Lydia protests. She holds out her phone. “I wouldn’t lie to you. See? Texts.”
“I’m not falling for that one again.” Lizzie grabs her sister’s phone. “These aren’t really texts to…” She stops, comparing the card in her hand to the number in Lydia’s phone. “You are texting Darcy.” She starts to read them aloud. “Smile—”
Lydia pulls her phone away. “That is not how we do things around here, Lizzie Bennet. You want to do costume theater?” She brandishes her phone. “This is costume theater.”
Lizzie looks at the camera and grimaces. “Hey, I think he might still watch these. We’re not going to do Darcy costume theater.”
Lydia blows a kiss at the camera. “He won’t mind. Am I right, Darce?”
Darcy shakes his head. “Lydia,” he says aloud, even though he knows she can’t hear him. “What are you doing?”
Lizzie looks at the camera—looks straight into Darcy’s eyes. “Sorry, Darcy,” she says. “I guess we’re doing this. But if it’s at all mean, I’m going to edit this whole thing out. Promise.”
It has been a long time since Lizzie performed costume theater of him. Since before Thanksgiving, if he remembers, unless you count that one episode where he played himself. The image flickers, and then that too-familiar hat and bowtie appear—this time on Lydia.
“Smile, Darce,” Lizzie says, in a voice that’s a little too energetic, a pale attempt to imitate Lydia. “Do you want my sister to think you hate her again?”
Lydia squares her shoulders and lowers her voice. “I dislike smiling,” she reads.
Lizzie delivers Lydia’s next text. “We all know. It contorts the face. OMG, how do you ever expect to get laid?”
Darcy can’t take his eyes off of Lizzie as Lydia reads the next line. “I had braces as a child. Every time I smiled, they called me brace-face. Smiling makes me feel self-conscious.”
Lizzie’s expression alters as Lydia talks—shifting from vaguely amused to somewhat worried. She takes the phone from her sister’s hand, scrolls down. “Oh my God,” she said. “He really said that. Lydia…”
She looks up at the camera.
“That is not your line,” Lydia says, with a sad shake of her head. “Stay in character!”
Lizzie sighs. “Get over it,” she reads, almost mechanically. “If you actually talked to her, you would forget how uncomfortable you are and you would smile despite yourself.” She puts the phone down. “Seriously, Lydia, when did you start texting William Darcy about his childhood? About me?”
“Yesterday was the first time he mentioned his childhood,” Lydia says evasively.
“But…”
“We bonded,” Lydia says airily.
“When? You haven’t seen him since…” She trails off. “Lydia. Is there something you’re not telling me? You hated him before I left for Pemberley, and there’s no way you could have seen him, except…” Lizzie swallows, doing the math in her head, recognizing that three-week gap between when she left Pemberley and when Darcy showed up at Netherfield again. He can almost see her make the connections.
“Lydia,” Lizzie says slowly, “did Darcy do something about George Wickham?”
“I promised I wouldn’t tell,” Lydia says, giving the camera a wink. “I promised Darcy I would never tell you what he did about George, and I always keep my promises.”
She says this brazenly, as if speaking that sentence is not a complete violation of that promise in and of itself.
“Smile, Darce,” she says. “And Darce—stop worrying about whether my sister will feel a sense of obligation. Did you not hear what I said? She wanted to jump your bones before I said a word.”
“Lydia!” Lizzie says, blushing.
But Lydia just smirks. “If she didn’t, she would just edit this part out, too. She’s going to leave it in. Just watch.”
Lizzie stands up. “Lydia, I cannot believe—”
Lydia just blows another kiss at the camera. “Think about it, Darce. She’s not doing anything Thursday night!” She grabs her phone and runs.
This leaves Lizzie looking at the camera—looking at Darcy, even though that look is filtered through pixels and miles of fiberoptics. “Yeah,” Lizzie says. “This is totally not awkward at all.”
And then Lizzie swallows and looks down at the card she’s still holding in her hand—that blue-and-white logo, the raised lettering.
“Hey Darcy,” Lizzie says. “I don’t know if you’re still watching these, but, um…” She looks away. “Math is not my strong suit,” she explains. “But if you watch these when they first go up… You should check your phone. Right about. Now.”
The endscreen plays just as Darcy’s phone buzzes.
Darcy almost trips over his desk getting to it.
An unknown number—a number that he hopes will become very familiar very soon—has sent him a text.
I didn’t edit it out, Lizzie has written.
He reads it twice. He thinks about Lizzie—what was it that Lydia said about her? He thinks about Lizzie, stewing in a pool of hormones. He thinks about last night, about how when he stopped worrying about whether his game was adequate, he actually had a lovely conversation with her.
His finger hovers over her number. He doesn’t let himself think.
He hits call.
#
Darcy insists on a small wedding. It’s what Lizzie wants. It’s what he wants. The only person who decries the tasteful affair is Mrs. Bennet, who wants the whole neighborhood to know that her daughter is marrying—and that she’s marrying a very wealthy man.
It didn’t take Mrs. Bennet long to come around to Darcy—and to start referring to him as her future son-in-law. In fact, watching the video that disclosed that it was Darcy who saved her youngest daughter was all that was needed to change her from his fiercest enemy to his biggest fan. She still remembers it, though, and she teases him about it.
She stops now on her way to her mother-in-law’s seat, and sets her hand on Darcy’s shoulder. “Good thing I didn’t castrate you,” she says to him in a mock-whisper. “If I had, you wouldn’t be able to make me beautiful grandbabies now, would you? Now get started on that!”
He blushes and hopes that she is not about to offer any advice as to how best to achieve that aim.
“Mom!” Lizzie says in protest, but Mrs. Bennet simply pats her cheek.
“I have to do it, dear,” Mrs. Bennet says. “It wouldn’t be fair to leave you out after all the fun I’ve had with Jane. And when it’s Lydia’s turn…” She turns to Lydia and shakes her finger.
Darcy knows that—at least for a little while—this is going to be an evening of embarrassment. He’s not surprised when Lydia stands to offer the first toast. She’s smiling broadly at him.
“Everyone knows that I’m the reason that Lizzie and Darcy got together,” Lydia says.
Two seats down, Darcy hears Gigi gasp in protest. “You are not!” she mutters.
“And so I thought I’d offer a toast—a list of reasons why William Darcy and my sister are perpetually into each other,” Lydia says. “Reason number one: They both flirt lamely.”
The assembled crowd laughs.
“Number two: They would both rather spend the weekend at the library. Number three: They share a love for books, jazz, and new media.”
“Number four,” Lydia say. “The only time I ever thought they might break up with each other was when they came here for their first Thanksgiving. They got into a huge argument about…” Lydia pauses for dramatic effect; Darcy remembers the argument all too well and puts a hand over his eyes. “About a book. Lizzie didn’t like the ending, Darcy thought it was perfect, and neither one of them would back down. Darcy had to send three gallons of Mom’s turkey soup to Pemberley by courier, where he foisted it on his employees, before she would forgive him.”
“He was wrong, wrong, wrong,” Lizzie calls out, but she puts her hand over his and smiles up at him.
The crowd is laughing now. Lydia keeps going, though, and embarrassing as her reasons are, they’re also hilarious. He can’t help but smile, and when Lizzie laughs next to him, he finds himself chuckling with her.
“Reason number nine why William and Lizzie are perpetually into each other,” Lydia finally says, “is that together, they are the best big brother and big sister that a girl could ask for. It would be wrong to say that I’m getting a brother out of Lizzie’s marriage. The truth is…” Lydia swallows, and for a second, she chokes up. “The truth is, I got a brother before that. When Darcy fell in love with Lizzie.” Lydia swallows, chokes up a little, and Darcy can feel a lump in his throat, too. “I got a brother when I most needed one. Thanks, Darcy.”
She winks at him. And Darcy—because he’s been practicing—winks back.