Page 3 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

"Yes, I do. We need you to get close to Wickham, seduce him, and allow us to at least identify the key figures in his network. Discover how the network is funded. And so on. I know this isn't your preferred assignment and that you're just back from deep cover, but I believe you're the woman Agent Darcy needs."

Darcy cleared his throat again. "Director, all due respect, but I have studied Wickham, observed him around-the-clock. I know him better than anyone in the intelligence community. Anyone." He paused to look Kellynch significantly in the eye. "Wickham prefers his womenblonde…"

Lizzy turned to him, immediately pissed by the tone and drift of his remarks. "I can be blonde by morning!"

He went on stubbornly, still looking at Kellynch and ignoring her. "Blonde, sir, and…voluptuous." He finally turned to her as if daring her to claim she could be voluptuous by morning.

Her face reddened, and she rarely blushed; she could not remember the last time that had happened. "I…I…" She looked at Kellynch, collecting herself, preparing to speak.

Instead, Darcy interrupted with his annoyingHouse of Lordsvoice. "Again, sir, all due respect, but Agent Bennet?while tolerable, pretty enough?she isn't handsome enough or sexy enough to tempt George Wickham."

Lizzy leaped to her feet and wheeled to face him, forgetting her distaste for such assignments in her fiery indignation. She had not known she had vanity enough for Darcy’s opinion to sting so much.

"Whether I can tempt George Wickham is not to be decided by surreptitious, side-eyed assessments of my tits and my ass,my figure, Agent Darcy. Seduction begins between a woman's ears. It's how she handles herself, not what the man sees to handle! I can tempt George Wickham! I guarantee it!"

Darcy sat back in his chair, apparently overwhelmed…shocked by her incandescent anger.

And then she realized with a sharp, sinking feeling that Kellynch was chuckling behind her.Damn!He had goaded Darcy into baiting her, and she had taken the bait.

"So, Agent Bennet," the director concluded in a smooth, final tone, his question purely rhetorical, "I take it you've accepted the assignment?"

"Yes!" she said, supplying the unnecessary answer. She then closed her mouth, hooked. She wanted to stomp her feet.

"No!" Darcy protested.

But Kellynch was already standing and had picked up his phone.

Chapter Two: Past Missions and Changes

Kellynch had taken the issue as settled and, after instructing the Company’s late-night analysts to meet with Darcy to discuss travel and equipment, the director dismissed them.

He made it clear in a brief, firm decree that Darcy was to be in charge of the team. Lizzy understood that but railed against it silently. Bad enough to be working with a team, but to have to work under Darcy, an MI-6 agent—it galled her.

Darcy spoke briefly with Charlotte, who instructed him on the way to the conference room where the analysts were waiting for him. After she finished, he stepped away from her desk and spoke softly to Lizzy and Charlie. "I will get in touch with you both later this morning. I expect our mark to leave D.C. soon, maybe as early as today, so be ready to leave on short notice." He made a final glance at Lizzy?at her dark hair?then turned from her and Charlie and walked down the hallway with long strides.

Charlie shrugged and smiled at Lizzy, narrowing his eyes as he considered her hair, too. "Trying to imagine you blonde…"

She sighed. "Is it that hard?"

"Maybe. Guess not.” He shrugged again. “After all, it's just a disguise, part of a cover, a mission. I grew a mustache once for one."

Despite her lingering anger and frustration, she smiled, finding it as hard to imagine Charlie’s boyish face with a mustache as he seemed to find imagining her with blonde hair.

"They say blondes have more fun…" he offered weakly when he saw her smile. She thought she heard Charlotte scoff softly.

Lizzy looked down the hallway at Darcy's retreating, tall form. "Not on this mission." She waved a farewell to Charlotte, said a quiet goodbye to Charlie, and headed toward the exit.

She needed to make a stop at a twenty-four-hour drugstore, and then she needed sleep.

***

Unfortunately, after the stop at the drugstore, sleep eluded her. She kept replaying the scene in Kellynch's office and cursing herself for a fool, twisting and turning in her blankets.

She did not like missions of this sort?honeypot missions. It was bad enough as a woman constantly to be objectified, but to objectify yourself, and so ruthlessly, and for so long…

It was awful.

She had done it a couple of times early in her CIA career, fresh from the Farm, which was the school for agents run by the Company. In those days, still proving herself, she had practically no say in her missions. She had not complained when the honeypot missions ended, but she was glad that they did.

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