Page 55 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

She continued, "Wickham doesn't suspect me at all, not yet anyway, and he did not expect me to check his pockets. My guess is that itwasa mistake, that it will reveal something…"

Nodding, Darcy stood as if he could no longer remain seated, could not keep listening without motion. He walked to the laptop on the counter and opened it. He wiped his lips with his hand, either to make sure there was no tell-tall trace of Lizzy's lipstick or to force himself to forget the touch of her lips.

A moment later, Charlie was on the screen. Even across the room, Lizzy could see that he looked tired but pleased with himself. She walked over and stood next to Darcy at the counter.

"Hey, Darcy, Lizzy." Charlie’s brow furrowed. "Are you both okay? You look upset, like something's wrong."

She glanced at Darcy, who licked his lips before answering. "No. Just an eventful evening at Rosings for Fanny and Ned. Wickham managed to separate us for a few minutes."

Charlie nodded, frowning. "Oh…but you're okay, Lizzy?" He looked at her carefully from the screen.

She nodded once, a shallow nod toward Charlie without quite seeing him. She did not want to linger in discussion of the evening, the patio, and Wickham’s hands. She wanted to linger—waslingering, despite struggling to refocus—in the memory of Darcy, his lips, how good he tasted. That wouldn't do. Darcy would not want Charlie guessing what had happened when they entered the apartment. She could see the tension in his shoulders.

But the apartment was still thick and warm and fragrant with what happened, thick with their mutual desire. That kiss was the heady atmosphere in which they stood. Lizzy could feel it…and she knew Darcy could, too.

"You found tickets?" he asked, the question pertinent to the debriefing as well as an attempt to change the topic. It seemed he no more wanted to think about Wickham touching her than she did.

"Yes, airline tickets in another name—Keith Sanders. He'd printed them, probably because of the alias, although I didn't find any matching ID. The tickets were a round trip, Chicago O'Hare to Rapid City Airport."

"Rapid City? South Dakota?" Lizzy asked. "Why? Mount Rushmore? The Black Hills? The Badlands?"

Darcy glanced at her, taking in her rapid-fire questions. "That's where Mount Rushmore is?" he asked.

"Yes, the Rapid City airport is the closest to Mount Rushmore, I think. I traveled there one summer with my father a long time ago, through Rapid City."

Charlie spoke from the computer. "It's not a long flight from O'Hare. Just a little over two hours. He leaves tomorrow morning and returns tomorrow evening."

They stood silently for a moment. Then Darcy waved the piece of paper. "Lizzy found a phone number in Wickham's jacket pocket…"

Charlie smiled. "Go, Lizzy!"

He copied it down and continued to make notes as Darcy gave him instructions. "Send that to Langley and see what they can find out. We need to know about it before tomorrow. We also need someone on the ground in Rapid City ready to establish a tail on Wickham when he arrives. We need to know what he's doing there." He waited until Charlie stopped writing and had looked up again. "Did you find anything else?"

Charlie colored. "Um, yes, in a drawer in the nightstand. A Polaroid Now camera and some unopened film along with a bunch of pictures."

"Pictures?" Lizzy repeated his last word as a question.

He fidgeted noticeably. "Yeah, mostly of Wickham and Lady Catherine…" He stopped to allow what he hadn't said to sink in, and then he shrugged. "They, ah, used the self-timer a lot."

"Oh," Lizzy said after a beat.

She glanced at Darcy, who seemed to be gritting his teeth. "Were there any other women in the Polaroids?" He leaned toward the computer intently.

"One other. Much younger than Lady Catherine, younger than Lizzy. Frankly, she looked like a college girl, maybe even high school. Beautiful. Blonde hair, dyed. Dark skin. A bikini model without the bikini…but with the tan lines. I photographed the Polaroid and will send that to Langley, too." Charlie stopped. "By the way, Lady Catherine was in that Polaroid, as well."

"Oh." It was Darcy's turn to say it, and he blushed. Lizzy felt her stomach twist in response to a fresh memory of Wickham'shands and this newly-acquired knowledge of where else they had been. She imagined a blinding Polaroid flash.Self-timer.

"Good work, Charlie." Darcy’s blush was fading. "It was a successful night." He glanced at Lizzy and then back at Charlie. "I'll stay here tonight." He paused and then added, as if reminding himself, "On the couch. We can talk again in the morning, early. Ned's supposed to leave in the morning."

Charlie’s pleased-with-himself smile had returned. Lizzy liked it; it was boyish and without a touch of conceit. "Sounds good. I'm tired. That security system wasn't easy to foil."

"Goodnight, Bingley," Darcy said. Lizzy waved at the screen, and it went dark.

He stared at the screen a little bit longer, as if the darkness held an answer to a question he had not asked. With a sigh, he turned to Lizzy. "I'll get the bedclothes from the closet."

She nodded, not quite able to face him. The atmosphere in the apartment was still heady, but it had been tainted by Bingley’s talk of the Polaroids. She stood and waited for Darcy to come back into the living room. He did, carrying a stack of blankets, a sheet, and a pillow that was already encased.

Lizzy smiled at him, a genuine smile, wistful. He returned the smile, matching it briefly after he put the bedclothes down. She hoped that he might touch her, take her hand, or hug her, orsomething.Instead, after an awkward, pregnant pause, he did none of those things. She would have been happy with any?any would have chased away the faint taint of the Polaroids. Would have recalled his taste and smell.

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