Page 83 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

He gave her a searching look but then nodded and turned toward the exit sign. "All right. There's a car waiting for us at Herz. We still have a drive ahead of us. I want to be there in time for the sunset."

"So, where are we staying? Can't I know now?"

"I already told you we’re going to Casper Mountain, and that's all I'll say. You'll just have to wait and see the rest."

Lizzy nodded and stepped closer, smiling, hoping she might coax more from him. "Casper Mountain sounds wonderful. I love the mountains. Sunset! Won't we need to stop and get…you know, supplies, groceries? You said something about being off the grid."

"It's a cabin," he said, mirroring her smile. "But that's all I'm saying."

He started toward the exit sign carrying his duffle, leaving her suitcase to her. She grabbed the handle, rolled it along, and then looked back. Agent McDougal had come out of the restroom and stood at a distance behind them carrying her huge purse and now wearing a pair of large cheap sunglasses. She was positioned in front of a vending machine, tapping her foot as if in indecision. Karen’s feet facing the machine made Lizzy think of Karen’s feet facing the toilet.

Lizzy turned and caught up with Wickham.

Not married but, yes, spoken for. Committed.

She wondered at her own words, the certainty she had felt in speaking them, her possessiveness. She needed to bridle herself, slow herself.Fitzwilliam said that word, and I feel like he promised something, but what? Are my sudden hopes distorting my understanding of him?even my understanding of me? For years, I've either lived without hope or substituted Kellynch's mission parameters in its place.

She pushed the questions down, the doubts unanswered, reminding herself that she was walking into the unknown with the Wicker Man…trailed only by the sunglassed Agent McDougal carrying her CIA Mary Poppins bag.

"Personal hopes are an encumbrance. Agents cannot carry hope. There is only the mission; its horizons are your life'shorizons. A hopeless agent stays alive."Instructors at the Farm had said that to Lizzy repeatedly.

***

The road wound and wound, up and up and up the mountain. Wickham, now wearing sunglasses himself, was driving. He had not been talkative. Lizzy had tried to keep her mind blank, preparing herself for whatever the next few hours might bring. She was in sunglasses, too, mirrored aviators keeping her eyes secreted, unavailable behind them…eyes that would betray her regret for each passing mile as the car climbed the mountain.

She had glanced behind their car a couple of times when she had been able to do so without making Wickham suspicious. There did not seem to be any particular car tailing them. Either Agent McDougal was better in the real world than at the Farm or Lizzy had lost her only present help.

The winding road had reawakened her seasickness, her feeling of being trapped in a vortex, whirling…whirling…but now in slower motion. The slower motion seemed more ominous somehow, not a relief, as if the vortex were sure of her now, no longer in a hurry. Deliberate. It could take its time.

She noticed that Wickham was more alert now. They must be getting close. She looked at her phone. No signal. It had lost signal earlier, a few miles back. Wickham noticed. "Off the grid?"

Lizzy nodded.

"Well, it's only the two of us now. Together. Admit it?you've been eager for this."

"Yes," Fanny said, "but—"

"No 'buts.' We're off the grid. It may not be Vegas, but what happens here will stay here."

The slogan now struck Lizzy as a threat. She made herself laugh, modulating the sound so that it captured Fanny's supposed state of guilty anticipation.

The rays of the late afternoon sun were long now, honey golden, as they shafted through the trees. The scenery would have been beautiful in different company, in a different life.

Wickham slowed the car. A narrow gravel road interrupted the trees on the left-hand side of the road, and he turned into it. It took them down to a cabin, its exterior logs stained rusty red. The roof was metal, dark green. The road—the driveway, Lizzy realized—curled tight against one side of the cabin and ended at the rear.

When the car stopped, Lizzy saw stone pavers covering the ground next to the driveway and forming a kind of patio that led to the back door, the door stationed on the near rear corner of the cabin. Beyond the patio was a small wooden deck, fenced around, with a charcoal grill on it. The deck led to stairs that went up to the far end of the cabin.

Wickham got out, waited for Fanny to emerge, and they both shed their sunglasses. "The Little Red Cabin. Leave the luggage; I'll get it in a bit. The view from the front deck is supposed to be amazing."

He led her onto the deck and then up the far stairs. The front of the cabin had been obscured by trees as they drove in. As she reached the top of the stairs, she involuntarily caught her breath. The deck stood on long stilts and wrapped around from the side to the front, the ground on the front side of the cabin falling away sharply.

The view was stunning, a prospect of rocks and trees and faraway green fields all unfolded beneath a clear, benign, forever-blue sky. The sky seemed like a lie. Casper was visible, but in delicate miniature, nestled near the far horizon. Even Wickham seemed speechless.

After a long moment, when he finally turned to her, his eyes were anything but benign.Hungry. Hungry for me. Fanny.

He moved, and Lizzy could see that the front deck continued as a wooden walkway that led to steep red-stained steps up to another deck stationed far above, a lookout that would presumably afford a view from above the trees.

"What do you think?" he asked, obviously pleased with the place himself. He gestured to the lookout. "I was told there’s a waterfall up there, along a path."

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