Prom and Prejudice

Darcy shrugged. "We needed a key to get upstairs, and this was the only room they had available. How's your hand?" He came over, unwrapped the towel, and gently examined my hand.

"That was stupid. I don't know what came over me."

"George Wickham -- that's what came over you."

"Darcy, I'm so sorry."

"You don't have to keep apologizing." He took another towel and ran it under cold water. "Not that I didn't enjoy the spectacle, but you have to be careful with your hands, Lizzie." I hadn't even thought about how my little violent outburst would affect my playing. Darcy carefully wrapped the towel around my hand.

"Thank you."

He nodded.

"No, thank you for helping. I don't know what we would have done without you, truly."

He looked sad at my comment. "I guess I did hide behind my money today."

"What are you talking about?"

"The room? Mr. Meryton? I guess you were right about me after all."

I grabbed one of his hands with my good hand. He looked shocked. "What you did was thoughtful and kind. And I, I ..." The words got caught in my throat.

The bathroom door opened and Jane emerged, escorting a bathrobed Lydia by the arm. "You are going to sleep this off, and I will try to think of how to explain this all to Mom and Dad." She dragged Lydia to the bedroom and put her to bed.

When Jane returned to us in the living room, she was clearly rattled and exhausted.

"What happened?" she asked when she saw my hand.

"Oh, nothing." I was completely embarrassed by my behavior.

"Darcy, how can you be laughing?" Jane scolded him.

I turned around and saw that Darcy was indeed laughing. "I'm sorry, Jane. I am, but ..." He turned to me. "Do you want to tell her or shall I?"

I was horrified that my reputation was about to get worse. I couldn't tell if it would be better to be known as a bruiser than a charity case. But then maybe people would think twice about messing with me....

Jane eyed us both suspiciously. I shrugged.

"It seems as if Miss Elizabeth Be

"What?" Jane shook her head in confusion.

"I punched Wick," I admitted.

"She knocked him out," Darcy added.

Jane's eyes went wide. "You what?" Her shock wore off quickly, and before I knew it, she was grilling me on how it felt.

"Excuse me," Darcy interrupted. "As much as I would love to relish those details, I do have to go. I got the room for the night, so feel free to stay here. I'm going to take care of things with the front desk, so you don't have to explain any hotel charges to your parents. Mr. Meryton and I have some things we need to do."

Jane and I both expressed our deepest gratitude to Darcy. Then I filled Jane in on the details of what happened in the room after she'd left.

"I can't believe Darcy. If it weren't for him ..." Jane looked pained for a moment. "I can't even begin to think about it. I also don't want to think about what I'm going to tell my parents. Something has to be done about Lydia. There is no way she can come back to Longbourn after this." She got up from the couch and went to the window. "I'm just tired. I don't want to talk about Lydia anymore. I'll deal with her tomorrow. I'm sure she'll be passed out for a while. For now, there is something else I would like to talk about."

"Anything." I couldn't imagine what Jane was going through. I'd be willing to talk about whatever she wanted in order to get her mind off of today's nightmare.

"What were you doing with Will Darcy?" She winked at me.

I recounted the previous day to Jane. She'd known his mother was a performer of some kind, but hadn't realized she was a famous pianist.

"So ..." Jane prodded me.

"So?" I replied. "So, Will Darcy isn't evil incarnate. I, however, am apparently a lousy judge of character. It nearly destroyed everybody close to me."

"You can't beat yourself up about Lydia. She would've found Wick eventually. Or some other version of him. She can always find trouble. You are the reason Darcy was here."

"I know -- I was so lucky he was with me when you called."

Jane shook her head. "That wasn't what I meant. Lizzie, he didn't do all this for me. He didn't even do all of this to get back at Wick. Yes, those were probably huge factors, but I'm pretty sure he did this all because he cares about you."

I didn't want to admit that I was hoping that Darcy's feelings for me hadn't changed. But I couldn't really blame him if they had, after all the horrible things I'd said to him. The last two days had been great, but they couldn't erase the past.

My feelings for him had changed immensely. I was begi

Twenty-Eight

I SPENT THE REMAINDER OF MY SPRING BREAK STARING AT my cell phone. I naively thought that Darcy would call me. He sent me a few texts inquiring about my hand, but that was it. I didn't want to bother him after everything he had done to save Lydia from Wick, but I was hoping he'd want to see me again.

For the first time, I was excited about returning to Longbourn. I even accepted Jane's offer for a ride. Especially since Jane's parents were taking Lydia separately. After Jane told them about Lydia's behavior, Mr. and Mrs. Netherfield threatened to enroll Lydia in a strict Catholic boarding school in Maine, even though they were agnostic. They even drove up there during the break so she could see the nuns and uniforms and gated fence (and, most important, not a single boy in sight). I believe the term "scared straight" was coined because of places like that.

Nothing at school really changed after spring break, but I felt hopeful for once. The recital was coming up in a couple weeks, and despite not practicing as much as I wanted to because of my sore hand, I was making great progress with Rhapsody. Practice with the orchestra started the week we arrived back, and although the majority of the students in the orchestra despised me even more because I was being featured in the concert, the practices went well.

I was even excited about work, convinced that Darcy would return to his regular visits. But he didn't. I wouldn't have even known he was back on Pemberley's campus if it wasn't for Jane.

But fortunately, Jane was back with Charles, which meant that she was happy ... and that I was able to get Darcy intel.

Jane returned from a date in a particularly good mood. "So, Charles thought it would be fun for a bunch of us to go out to di

"A bunch of us?"

"Yes. I know how much you normally dread these invitations, but for some reason, I think you might actually want to come this time. But if you don't ..."

Jane wasn't one for teasing, but after all the grief I had given her over the course of the year about going out, I fully deserved this ribbing.

"I think I can suffer through it."

She patted me lightly on the shoulder. "Thank you for making such a sacrifice."

"That's what friends are for. Speaking of friends, do you know which of Charles's friends are going to be there?" I tried to look i

"Let's see, I don't know. Charles has so many friends...."

She wasn't going to let me get away with this so easily.