23. Lizzy
Lizzy
“Morning, all,” Darcy said as he appeared at the kitchen door.
He looked rumpled and bleary-eyed as he trudged in. He stooped to pet Max, who’d been down here for a while.
The rest of us were having coffee around the kitchen island, and we’d been up for more than an hour, and I’d already taken Oodles for a walk.
“Lizzy Bennet,” Darcy growled as he joined us. “I need to talk to you.”
The way Darcy said my name wrecked me. And that look of his, from under his floppy fringe of hair?
A definite smoky reminder of our time in the library last night that made my heart race.
I quickly looked around to see if anyone else noticed my reaction.
They must not have, because everyone slowly wandered off, though Emma glanced back.
“I need double the coffee this morning because of you.” Darcy reached for the pot.
“Why is that?” I was still confused, but he sounded bemused rather than mad.
“Why did I stay up all night reading your book, when I knew they were going to get together?”
I grinned. “All night?”
“Until three a.m. I wanted to finish it, but I wouldn’t let myself because I knew I would feel totally shite in the morning.
As it is, I feel like one of the rotten logs Max drags from our lake.
” He narrowed his eyes flirtatiously. “Even when I made myself switch off the screen, the pads of my fingers were itching to get back to my obsessive page-turning. So back to my question—why did I do that when I knew the ending?”
I felt my lips twitch with amusement, my chest swell with satisfaction. “I think that’s called good writing. You were compelled to keep turning the page. A point of reference. Do you watch action movies?”
“Yes, when I get a chance.”
“You know at the beginning of the movie the hero is going to win.”
He cocked his head. “I suppose so. I haven’t thought of it like that. And another thing—the book was quite…steamy. I think that’s the word readers use in Romancelandia?”
I smiled. “You’ve done some Googling of our terms. That’s a new one for the zeitgeist-averse you.” He probably shouldn’t have admitted during the dance that he didn’t remember popular cultural terms.
He smiled at our sort-of in-joke. “Yes, another departure for me. Anyway, I never imagined people in that era having sex like that. I assumed it was all enjoying each other’s ankles, because that was all you could see.”
When he’d said “sex,” the word reverberated through me with a thrum.
Though, he’d ignored me last night at dinner, and that still rankled.
Was this sudden interest in my writing even real?
Had he checked his behavior, worried about decorum or something?
I couldn’t get a handle on this man and my defenses were still up, but I’d go with the flow for now.
I laughed a little. “I’m pleased I have broadened your horizons and opened your mind to new experiences.”
I was waiting for him to ask, Is that based on your experience? But that question did not come.
“Thank you for not asking me if I’ve done any of that,” I said.
“People ask you that?” He clenched his jaw. “How appalling of them.”
“And as some of us romance authors say, would you ask a thriller writer if they’ve murdered anyone?”
“Good point,” he said with a smile.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Knightley starting to round up the dogs and others for the animal training.
I only had a few more seconds with Darcy, sort-of alone.
“Maybe you should write a romantic scene, and I will promise not to ask if any of it is firsthand experience,” I suggested with a challenging look in my eye.
“Maybe I will.” He gave a crooked smile.
“Okay, then.”
“All right.”
“People,” boomed a voice. Knightley’s head filled the doorway, hair sticking up all over the place. “Let the animal training begin!”