Page 52 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

"What are you talking about?What?" Lady Catherine demanded in a loud voice from the other end of the table. She had noticed the slight blush of anger on Wickham's face, although he exerted himself against showing it.

The priest beat the womanizer to the explanation. "I was comparing George to Errol Flynn'sDon Juan."

Lady Catherine smiled, amused and alarmed, hoping to make the moment a mere amusement.

However, Darcy seized upon it. "The heyday of toxic masculinity has passed, and no one mourns its passing." To underline the comment, he looked at Lizzy expectantly.

Following his lead, she lifted her chin and nodded with defiant agreement even as Wickham slid his foot softly against hers under the table. Lizzy left their feet in contact, feeling heat creep up her neck, torn between the two ends of the table and between what was visible above it and what was invisiblebeneath it, between the emotions moving inside her and the demands of the mission.

The room remained hushed until Wickham chuckled, now seemingly as self-controlled as Father Robyn. "Oh, I suspect the reports of 'toxic' masculinity's death"?he paused to make luxuriant, deliberate air quotes?"are grossly exaggerated by those who are soft, guilty of special pleading." Wickham squeezed infinite, sneering contempt into his final two words.

Lady Catherine laughed loudly, directing everyone's attention to herself and away from the suggestion of violence apparent in the postures of two of her guests. "Boys,boys!No need for this conversation now! In fact, it's barely a conversation at all." She picked up her bell and rang it again as if to send the combatants to their corners.

After another moment of tense silence, the servants entered with the entrees and sides. The interruption defused the situation. Soon everyone had been served, and the sounds of knives and forks on china replaced voices.

Wickham and Darcy each ate with studied indifference to the opposite end of the table. But Wickham's foot remained against Fanny's. Lizzy left it there?no choice?her left hand again fisted beneath the table.

Dinner continued.

As they all ate, Wickham had been mostly silent. When his plate was nearly empty, he put his utensils down and faced Fanny after flicking his eyes to Father Robyn. "When does Ned return to New York?" he asked with a neutral expression and tone.

Lizzy left her head down but lifted her eyes. "Tomorrow morning. And I'm going back to work soon."

He seemed to be thinking and then nodded. "I may have to leave town tomorrow myself. But I won't be gone long. A day trip. Do you go back to work tomorrow or the day after?"

She and Darcy had not decided this question, but she now needed to do so. "The day after."

Wickham nodded, thinking again.

Dessert came and went. Maria Crawford kept everyone drinking by repeatedly calling for more wine with Lady Catherine's indulgent blessing. She had tipped past tipsy and was launched on a half-hearted, soggy seduction of Crispin, still not realizing that he was more than just Father Robyn's friend and out of her reach, soggy or dry.

Lizzy kept careful tabs on her own drinking, doing her best to give the impression that it was more than it actually was. She was sure Darcy was doing the same. Still, she drank too much; there had been no avoiding it. She felt a beat behind the conversations around her, and one beat behind was actually two beats behind. Given the mission, she needed to be a beat ahead, maintaining an anticipatory receptivity. Unfortunately, she was slowly sinking into a simple passivity.

Wickham was jabbing at Father Robyn again, this time about the absurdity of organized religion and the uselessness of priests. Darcy was listening to them, as was Crispin. Lady Catherine had finally consented to pay attention to Henry, who was alternating between long tips of his head backward to sip wine and long tips forward to stare into her cleavage.

Lizzy desperately wanted to go, to be out of that house and out of contact, eye or foot, with George Wickham. But the evening stretched on. More wine?the dining room growing warmer as it grew smaller. Wickham seemed closer. Everyone did.

She assumed Charlie had come and gone. Darcy had not looked at his phone again. None of the guests had left the table.

Fanny stood. Ned stood, too, but Fanny smiled, wobbly, and announced to the room that she needed a breath of fresh air.She stepped around the table behind Wickham and toward the French doors that opened onto a dim patio.

Henry was by now gently snoring over his wine. His wife was nodding too.

Lady Catherine reached out to take Darcy's hand. "Fanny will be fine. Give her a moment. An engagement ring one night and a party like this the next? Her head is probably spinning. Why don't you let me show you the library? It's just down the hall."

Ned looked at Fanny as she reached the door. He nodded reluctantly, sending a look after her. Their hostess took his hand and led him from the table.

Lizzy saw the quick scene play out in the reflective glass of the French doors before she opened them. She had not intended it, but she had created a situation in which she was out of Darcy's sight, and he was out of Lizzy's. The thought of Lady Catherine alone with Darcy felt like an icicle in her chest.

She stepped outside into the bracing cold and wind, and her teeth almost immediately chattered. The cloying, claustrophobic warmth of the dining room was inhaled by the night and exhaled, vanishing.

Putting her arms around herself, she stepped into the deeper darkness of the patio, the tall bushes and short trees of the garden rising before her past the end of the patio like sage mummers in a poorly lit parade. She stood alone for several minutes. Despite her chattering teeth, her head felt clearer. She glanced back into the bright lights of the dining room through the French doors and saw Wickham stand.

She had not noticed a sports jacket hanging on the back of a side chair. It must have been there when she and Darcy came in and she’d missed it during the introductions. Wickham walked out onto the patio, the jacket held in one hand by its collar. "Here, Fanny. The change of temperature will make you ill." Heextended the jacket toward her, changing his handhold on it so she could slip into it.

She did. As she turned to do so, she checked the dining room again. Lady Catherine and Darcy had not returned.

Turning her back to Wickham for the jacket had made her trembling worse, but he slipped it around her shoulders as she put her arms into it. A moment later, he had tugged her backward against him. His arms encircled her. One was high around her shoulders, the other low around her waist. He opened his hand and splayed it out, large and warm, against her lower stomach.

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