Page 53 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

She tensed, unsure what to do…what he was about to do. He slowly slid his hand up her stomach, slipping it beneath his jacket and firmly cupping her breast. Her breath involuntarily caught, and he gently pinched her hardening nipple.

She deplored his hands on her, but her body reacted to his touch.The three F’s.

She could remember few things quite as humiliating as this, her own body's betrayal of her actual desires, even though her body's reaction kept the mission alive. In no other honeypot mission had she been touched so intimately.

Wickham's breath was hot on her ear and neck, warm while the wind was cold. "Good girl. You know what you want, what youtrulywant." He rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, exerting a calculated pressure. Her breath caught again. Time passed, and her consciousness contracted to the space between Wickham's fingers, concentrated in the sensitive flesh of her nipple. She was unsteady on her feet.

The French doors opened behind them. She had not realized she was holding her breath until she released it as she spun around. Lady Catherine was standing with Ned, a smirk on her face.

Ned's face was a black cloud. "Fanny?"

Wickham stepped toward Ned and Lady Catherine. "Fanny got chilled. She was putting on my jacket."

Lady Catherine looked sideways at Ned, assessing his reaction. Fanny blushed. She jammed her hands into the pockets of Wickham's jacket.

Ned stepped toward Wickham, reducing the distance between them to arm's length. Wickham's sneer was visible in the light from inside. "I've had enough of…whatever…this is Wickham. Fanny's engaged to me. She saidyes,and you owe her?and me?respect. I understand that you and Lady Catherine live by other rules, in some Noel Coward fantasy,Eyes Wide Shut.Well, Fanny and I are no part of that world. We don't live by your corrupt rules, this sexual vanity…"

As Ned jabbed his finger at Wickham, Fanny felt a piece of paper in Wickham's right-hand pocket. Lady Catherine was focused on the two men, as were Father Robyn and Crispin from inside the dining room.

Lizzy summoned the presence of mind to peek at the slip of paper. The faint light from inside made some numbers on it barely legible?numbers in blue ink, a phone number. Lizzy immediately committed it to memory and shoved it back into the pocket. She glanced around. So far as she could tell, no one had noticed what she had done.

"NoelCoward? Really, Ned, that's the best a supposedly educated man can do? I was only…assisting…Fanny. Warming her. She has a mind of her own, you know. An engagement ring is not a ring through her nose."

Lizzy knew enough to remain silent. This scene was Ned's to play, and Fanny's reaction needed to be…ambiguous. For Wickham's sake.

"You son of a bitch!" Darcy cried. He swung heavily at Wickham's smiling face, but he missed; Wickham had ducked easily. Lizzy knew Darcy’s miss was intentional. The scars she'dseen told a story of violence endured and proved that he could more than hold his own with Wickham or anyone else.

Wickham sprang up after ducking and saw Darcy had overbalanced from his savage but ineffective swing. Grabbing his shoulder, Wickham pushed him up against the French doors, causing Father Robyn and Crispin to jump back.

Lady Catherine threw up her hands, palms out. "Stop! Enough! George, release my guest! This is intolerable!"

Wickham stepped back. Darcy turned toward Lizzy and put out his hand, fingers extended, inviting. "Fanny?"

The cold wind and Wickham's warm hands had broken the spell of the wine, and she was in full possession of herself. She delayed for just a beat and then reached for Darcy's hand.

Once Fanny stepped to him, Ned glared at Lady Catherine. He bowed shallowly and ironically. "Thank you for dinner. We'll take our coats now and go."

Wickham chuckled disdainfully as Lady Catherine opened the French doors, walked to the table, and rang her bell.

Fanny shed the jacket and handed it to Wickham as she passed him, meeting and holding his eyes for a second.

In her head, Lizzy repeated the phone number again.

***

As they watched Rook drive away in front of Fanny’s apartment building, she breathed out a long breath. Darcy looked at her and nodded sharply. "That went badly—and well."

She swallowed hard. She could still feel Wickham's hand on her, his fingers rolling her delicate flesh. It made her queasy. "Can we go inside?"

He nodded and took out his phone as they turned. "Bingley found airline tickets in Wickham's room."

Lizzy took his hand for the cover, squeezing it as they walked to the door. "Wickham said something about leaving town briefly tomorrow. I found a piece of paper with a phone number in his jacket pocket.”

Darcy slowed and smiled at her, although there was reservation in the smile. "You're damn good, Agent Bennet."

On the elevator, the wine Lizzy thought she had overcome on the patio of Rosings returned, and her head began to swim. Maybe it was the safe feeling she had on the elevator, still holding Darcy's hand. It was as if she had surfaced from the wine, gotten a quick breath, and then submerged, sank again.

She led them off the elevator and into her apartment. Wickham's hands, his breath on her neck, came back to her, the memory so vivid as to almost seem the reality. Despite her body's response to Wickham's hands, it had been—and she had felt it as—a violation, a transgression of her integrity. Those natural responses might not be wholly under her control, but it was up to her to decide whose hands prompted them, creating those natural responses. Even in high school, in college, in sometimes hasty, unplanned, hand-beneath-the-blouse make-out sessions, she had never let anyone touch her that she did not want to touch her.

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