“Is the woman who went alone to Saudi Arabia chickening out?”
“I’m not pretending that I’m not interested,” Liz said. “It’s just that—holy shit, is that it?” A wrought-iron fence that was easily eight feet high enclosed a massive, verdant lawn on which trees and a combination of modern and older sculptures stood at intervals. As Charlotte continued driving, they reached the fence’s gate, which was closed. Beyond it, a long gravel driveway led to a brick mansion that in its grandness and symmetry evoked a southern plantation.
Charlotte pointed through the gate to a larger-than-life bronze statue of a nude male. “You think Darcy posed for that?”
“No one lives in the house,” Liz said. “Darcy’s parents have died, and his sister is a grad student at Stanford. But can you imagine how—” The thought went unexpressed; it was at this moment that a black van with tinted windows approached from the opposite direction and stopped next to them, its driver’s-side window descending. A middle-aged man with a crew cut said in a brisk tone, “Can I help you ladies?”
“We’re friends of the family who owns this place,” Charlotte said. “Friends of Fitzwilliam Darcy.”
The man appraised Charlotte, then Liz. “Is one of you Caroline Bingley?”
This wasn’t what Liz had expected him to ask, and if she’d thought the situation through, she’d never have uttered what she did next. But she did not think it through. Instead, she raised her hand and said, “I am.”
The man’s demeanor became marginally friendlier. He said, “Just a minute.” He held a phone to his ear, but before they could hear him say anything, his window rose. Charlotte turned and whispered excitedly, “We’re on a caper!”
“What’s wrong with me?” Liz said. “Why did I tell him that?”
The tinted window descended again, and the man said, “Fitzwilliam will meet us in front of the main house. Follow me.” By some invisible mechanism, the hulking doors of the gate opened, and the man drove through.
“Let’s get out of here,” Liz said.
“I thought Darcy was in Cincinnati,” Charlotte said.
“So did I.” Panic was quickly overtaking Liz. As Charlotte turned left up the driveway behind the van, Liz said, “What are you doing?”
“I’m not leading that guy on a chase. What if he has a gun?”
“Charlotte, we can’t see Darcy. Stop the car. Let me out.”
“What are you worried about? You and Darcy know each other biblically now.”
“He’ll think we’re stalking him. Charlotte, right before I left Cincinnati, Darcy told me he was in love with me! Except in this completely weird, unfriendly way, and I was really rude back to him, and the whole thing was bizarre.”
Charlotte laughed. “Liz Bennet, you seductress! Is there any man who hasn’t fallen for you this summer? Besides, we are stalking him. Or at least his land.”
In front of the house, though house did not seem an adequate descriptor for the gargantuan structure before them, near the steps leading to an enormous front door was a figure that, even from a distance of twenty yards, Liz could tell was Darcy. She thought of the two of them writhing in the bed in his apartment and felt a multifaceted confusion. Near Darcy, the black van made a U-turn and continued back down the driveway, the way they’d come; Charlotte stopped in front of the steps and without warning automatically lowered Liz’s window. Darcy walked closer to them, and by the time he recoiled—in surprise, Liz hoped, rather than revulsion—he was truly upon them.
“Liz?” He looked shocked.
Charlotte leaned forward and waved. “Hi, Darcy.”
“Charlotte?”
Liz heard Charlotte say, “We were in the area,” and it was impossible not to believe that her friend was relishing this encounter.
“That guy,” Liz said. “Your bodyguard or whatever—he assumed I was Caroline Bingley, but I’m not.”
“No,” Darcy said. “You’re not.” He didn’t, as Liz had feared, seem angry; he still seemed simply puzzled. “I thought you’d gone back to New York.”
“I came to visit Charlotte.”
Darcy glanced at Charlotte. “I understand you’ve become a Californian.”
“Who’d have thunk, huh?” Charlotte said.
“Why are you here?” Liz asked Darcy.
“At my own house, do you mean?” But Darcy sounded warm, not mocking—indeed, he seemed to Liz warmer than he ever had in Cincinnati, though perhaps the difference was less his affect than her perception of it. “Georgie and I hold a Labor Day get-together every year,” he was saying, “or we host it the years I don’t have to work. That’s why Roger confused you with Caroline Bingley. She’s due here tomorrow.”
Liz tried not to demonstrably register this troubling bit of news and instead strove to sound pleasant and breezy. “With Chip?” she asked.
Darcy shook his head. “No, he’s still filming, but a few of our classmates from med school are coming from San Francisco, and some friends of Georgie’s.” Darcy looked between Liz and Charlotte. “As long as you’re here, would you two like to see the house?”