Page 64 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

It was a delicate question. Until now, she had seen him only in public places: parties, restaurants, dinners. She had dressed to be in public. Tonight he would be in her apartment, alone with her?at least as he understood the situation. He would be expecting her to expect him to make love to her. No doubt he also expected a show of resistance, but he would expect that show to end with capitulation. And when it did, the curtain would go up and not down.

She was not going to take Wickham's pointed advice and dresscomfortably.Hell, no!He was probably hoping for pajamas, for something opaque and gauzy that suggested the bedroom while not conceding it immediately the way lingerie would…clothing foreshadowing Fanny's eventual surrender.

Lizzy was standing in front of her closet when her phone rang. Not Fanny's phone. Agent Bennet’s work phone…her CIA phone. Not the least of the demands of the mission was the three-phone jugglery: Fanny's, Agent Bennet's, and Lizzy's. Two of the three must be off and hidden before Wickham arrived. She would not commit her version of hisforgotten phone numbermistake.

She opened the drawer of her nightstand, grabbed the phone, and looked at it, certain that the call was from either Darcy or Charlie. But it was from neither.

Kellynch.His private number was on the screen. The same number had appeared on her phone the night she was called to his office in Langley?called to meet with Darcy and Charlie. That appearance of the number had started all this.

Lizzy exhaled as the phone rang again, this time in her hand.

Kellynch doesn't call me on missions, not in deep cover. Only once, near the beginning of my career on my first honeypot mission. If Kellynch needed to call, he should call Darcy, the Agent in Charge. What's going on?She glanced around the room, surveying it for no good reason other than that the number on the screen spooked her. The apartment was empty and quiet except for the ringing phone.

"Agent Bennet, sir."

"Hello, Agent. My apologies for calling, but I understood that you were not to meet with your mark until later this evening…"

"Yes, sir, that's right. 8 p.m. Still a while from now." It didn't feel that way to Lizzy, but there was no point in saying so. "May I ask why you're calling, sir?" She hazarded the question, knowing that he would expect it from her. The call was too unusual not to awaken perplexity.

She was surprised that he paused before answering. Kellynch was rarely at any loss for words. "Um, yes, well…yes,you may. I'm calling to find out how things are going."

"Things, sir?"

"The mission. I'm not second-guessing Agent Darcy's leadership…or not really, but this is allodd,and it has been from the beginning. His superior at MI-6, my counterpart there, promised me more information. I've waited patiently, but I've gotten almost none.

“As you know, having our agents operate on US soil is normally frowned on. I was able to secure permission since Wickham is not a US citizen and I had put an MI-6 agent in charge. Still, I’ve stuck my neck out?and yours and Bingley’s, too, frankly?and I wish I knew more. I don't like being made to feel like I'm a mere tool, Agent. And I'm beginning to feel that way, and to fear that you are being made a mere tool too. Darcy's tool."

Lizzy might have found this darkly funny some other day, a day after a different night, a day with bright sunlight and without the expected evening advent of Wickham. She might have found it a bit of shadowy irony because Kellynch made tools of people constantly?that was another name for his job.

"Yes, sir," she said when he paused, careful to make it unclear whether she was agreeing or only indicating that she understood.

"I know you don't like seduction missions, and I don't like feeling as if the mission's not mine…not the CIA's. Darcy's been no more forthcoming than his boss at MI-6. Is there something about the mission or his involvement in it I need to know?"

Kellynch had an intuition about the mission, but Lizzy was now sure that it was only an intuition. He felt something was off, and that feeling had finally spurred him into the unprecedented action of calling Lizzy.

Georgiana.

That was what—who—Kellynch intuited. Darcy had so far managed to keep her out of view. Hidden. Darcy's boss was cooperating and had kept Kellynch and almost everyone else in the dark.

Loyalty tugged at Lizzy, her old loyalty to Kellynch that went back to her earliest days in the Company.Loyalty.At any other time, in any other situation, she would have told him.

Not now, though. Not in this situation. She would not expose Georgiana, not give up Darcy's secret. Protecting her was personal to her now.

"No, sir, nothing. Darcy has been good—very good. He's not only overseen the mission effectively, but he has participated in the cover assignment even more effectively. He understands Wickham and how to draw him in."

"To draw him in…draw him to you?" Kellynch asked slowly, rhetorically.

"Yes sir,to me," Lizzy answered as if the question were genuine. "Agent Darcy's been completely convincing as Ned Moreland, and Ned has been crucial to Wickham's…fascination with Fanny Prince."

"You have no reason to think that Darcy iscompromisedon this mission? Somehow?"

She had never lied to him, never given a mendacious answer to a direct question. Doing so made her take a silent breath and close her eyes. She might be a practiced liar, but not where her boss was concerned. "No reason."

He said nothing for a minute. "You're sure?" He had never questioned her before…or he had not questioned her for years. Maybe he had, back at the beginning when she was still fresh from the Farm. But that had been so long ago she no longer remembered it; this seemed like the first time.

"I'm sure. Darcy…he's an unusual agent." She let herself talk, honest about everything but the crucial item "He's not like most agents, most of us. He takes what he does seriously. But in a different way. I don't just mean that he wants to do what he does well,skillfully. He's also concerned about doing right, aboutvirtue, old-fashioned sounding things like prudence and justice and courage and temperance. He’s thoughtful. Most of us try to avoid thinking."

A smirk colored Kellynch's voice. "He comes off as a smug ass, frankly. That night when I called you in, the night when he was in my office? After you left, he effectively told me how the mission would go, what I would need to do, supply. He didn't ask; he demanded. I chalked it up to him being a Brit, an aristocrat."

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