Page 34 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

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 thecloth. 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:Personaeby 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?"

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