Page 70 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

Cursing under his breath, Wickham walked back to the apartment window. He looked out on dark Chicago and rolled his shoulders as if to loosen them. "The longest damn day…" he muttered quietly.

Fanny texted Ned back.

Miss you too

Your arms

Last night

She put the phone down on its face and took a couple of steps toward Wickham, careful to stay out of his arm's reach.

Darcy had timed that perfectly, a spell-breaking text just at the moment when Wickham thought his black magic had succeeded. She wanted to speak her thanks to Darcy aloud, into the air. She knew he would hear, that he had heard everything. But of course, she could not.

"You should go, George. I—" Fanny paused. "Nottonight. You're out of sorts, tired and distracted, and I'm…"

"Otherwise engaged," he snapped bitterly, turning to face her.

She let the conflict of her feelings show on her face, trusting that he would interpret it one way while she knew it meant something else entirely. She wanted Darcy near her and wantedhim to kiss away all memory of Wickham's kisses.I hate this job.Why am I here?

She nodded weakly. "I'm confused, George." She told the truth since she knew he would misunderstand it. "I know what I want, but I don't know how to have it without losing something else I want."

He looked at her with obvious frustration. "If it's a contest between will and desire, desire should always win."

"Why? And what if it's a matter of desire versus desire?"

She had decided to play his game for a moment, to think like him, to see if Fanny could regain some of what Ned’s text had cost her without ending up pinned against the counter again.

"Then the strongest desire wins.Simple. Ned doesn't have to know. I'm not looking for anything permanent. Iwantyou, Fanny Prince." His voice lowered, intense, and she could still see the evident truth of it pressing forward in his pants. "More now,right now, than I can remember ever wanting anyone. We can't keep doing this dance, taking the first few steps but never dancing…to completion."

She hated having to do it, but she knew that she was going to have to keep him in the state he was in. She made an instant decision. Lizzy needed to know more about what Wickham was doing, and that meant she had to insinuate herself more into his dealings.

"I know! I do…and I'm sorry. Maybe…Maybe if we were somewhere else, not here at my apartment, but not at Rosings, either. Are you traveling again anytime soon?"

He seemed surprised. She thought she saw a glimmer of suspicion in his eyes, but she let her eyes sink just below his belt momentarily—and when she lifted them again, the suspicion had vanished.

The suspicious glimmer had been replaced by a hard glint. "Imayhave to leave town on business again." He was thoughtful…and cautious. "Not tomorrow, but the day after. Don’t you go back to work tomorrow?"

Lizzy nodded. "Yes, but I still have one personal day left, and it's a time of the year when my particular responsibilities are light. Besides, the day after tomorrow is Friday. It would mean a long weekend for me…" She let the sentence trail off, encouraging him to consider how it might end.

After pausing to think, he said, "I'll see if I can make arrangements. Can I call you tomorrow evening?"

Fanny agreed wordlessly, and Wickham caught her eyes with his. "But if we leave town, we travel all the way, do you understand? No more unfinished dances."

She returned his look, keeping her eyes steady despite her stomach's twisting. "I need a change of scenery, that'll help me with…other changes. You know, like they say,what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

He raised an eyebrow and stepped toward her. "We won't be in Vegas."

"No, I know. I mean, I didn't expect us to be in Vegas. I was just thinking of the…attitude. Adopting it." She took a step toward him so that they were quite close again. "A new dance floor and no more unfinished dances."

He studied her eyes, measuring her sincerity. Then he smiled, sensing a coming victory even if tonight was a defeat. "This trip will be good for you, Fanny. Think of me as your…one-man bachelorette party.I'll make sure you understand all you are giving up for Ned." He continued to stare into her eyes, the hard glint harder. "Think of it as a journey of self-discovery, a slow tracing of the far-flung boundaries of your passions, far farther-flung than you yet know. I will teach you, acquaint you with what is yours by right."

As he kept her eyes captive in a hypnotic gaze, he reached out and rubbed her nipple beneath her sweater using the back ofhis knuckles, never looking down. She could smell whiskey again and see the dilation of his pupils. He pulled back his hand, and she knew that she had finally cornered herself.

This was the fatal flaw in the logic of seduction. For a seduction mission to succeed, the spy had to make her mark believe that she would sleep with him. The decisive moment,H-Hour, so to speak, could be delayed, but never indefinitely.

It was like playing chicken, except one person was determined to avoid the collision while the other was determined to cause it. Both had to be moving at pace the entire time, both had to steer toward collision. As the moment of collision drew nearer, the spy's control over her mark typically grew, but her chance of avoiding the collision shrank. Wickham knew he had cornered Fanny. Without knowing it, he had also cornered Lizzy.

If she traveled with Wickham in two days, her chances of finding out what he was planning increased. So, too, did her chances of ending up in a position where she could no longer control Wickham, and he could assume real control of their situation. She had yielded the high ground, so to speak, in hopes of learning more. He now had the choice of locations, times, and so on?not only of where they went, but how.

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