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"Look, Lizzie," Caroline says. She's standing at the door to Lizzie's office with her arms crossed over her stomach, one of her hands gesturing slash flailing over its corresponding elbow. She speaks up just as Lizzie's turning the camera off after Charlotte's left. "I know you don't think very highly of me right now."
Lizzie snorts. "You think?"
Caroline's lips press together sharply. Lizzie raises her eyebrows, waiting for whatever Caroline came here to say. "I think we should talk."
"I'm not filming."
"Privately," Caroline specifies, her eyes closing like she's trying hard not to roll them. "We have some things we need to say to each other—"
"No, we don't," Lizzie cuts in. "I've already said everything I had to say to you, Caroline."
Caroline disentangles her arms, and one of her hands goes to rest on her hip. "Well, I haven't. And I have been very, very good to you, Lizzie. Remember when you and your sister Jane stayed at my home? I did nothing but make you feel welcome. So I think you owe me the chance to have a say."
"A say," Lizzie echoes incredulously.
"Yes, a say," Caroline confirms. "A say in your opinion of me, and my motives. There is more to me than you think there is. I'm not just some—"
Lizzie raises her hand to interrupt Caroline. "Fine. Do you want to do this now?"
It takes Caroline a second to respond; she looks extremely surprised Lizzie's agreed, but that could be part of her little act. "How about dinner?" she suggests, her mouth widening into a bright smile. "My treat. I'll text you the time and address."
It's all still a little suspicious, but it's just dinner. Nothing much that could go wrong in an hour, which they'll probably spend half of eating and a quarter glaring at each other. Caroline can have the remaining quarter of Lizzie's time. "Sure," Lizzie sighs.
"Wonderful," Caroline says, and Lizzie swears Caroline bounces a little on her presumably horribly expensive heels. "Wear something nice. I'll see you tonight!"
*
"Excuse me, miss," a voice says behind her, and Lizzie turns to see a perky dark-haired hostess extending a hand over her station. "Do you have a reservation?"
Lizzie looks back to the inside of the restaurant—the fancy, fancy restaurant; she spares a glance down at herself and tries not to second-guess the dress she picked out—and realizes it's not the kind of place you just waltz in. Well, Caroline should have warned her. "Ah, yes, I guess," Lizzie says.
"Name?"
"Bennet," Lizzie says quickly. The hostess's eyes have just begun to scan the list when Lizzie amends, "It's probably under Lee. Caroline Lee?"
The hostess looks up and nods. "Of course. Your dinner companion is already seated," she says, stepping around the station. "If you'll follow me." She sets off in the direction of the deep left of the restaurant, and Lizzie follows a step behind, clutching her purse over her stomach and attempting a smile to squash the instinct to grimace. Charlotte's taken her to a couple of nice places since she started working for Collins & Collins, but nothing where Lizzie felt quite this out of place.
Of course, Charlotte is her best friend, and Caroline is the person who presented her with a three-digit-dollar gift five minutes after they'd met, and on camera.
When they come into sight of Caroline, Caroline gestures Lizzie over from a the corner table, which sits a step above the rest of the restaurant, just to be that extra bit more teeth-gnashingly posh. The hostess takes a look at Lizzie, and Lizzie says, "I'm fine," and walks the rest of the way on her own.
"I'm so glad you're here," Caroline says as Lizzie slides across from her into the L-shaped leather booth. "I wasn't sure you'd come."
"I wonder why," Lizzie whispers, smoothing her dress under her thighs. Caroline appropriately ignores her.
"I took the liberty of ordering a bottle of wine before you arrived." She sure did, Lizzie thinks, and reaches for it. She feels a little better just watching her glass fill up. "I remember your liking this kind from your dinners with us."
Lizzie looks up with a small frown. "I do," she says. She's not sure why she's surprised; you have to be observant to be successful at manipulating people. Still, Caroline got it down to the year and grape; Lizzie's not sure she would have remembered. "Thank you." She takes a sip; god, it's good. "Yeah, thanks."
"Great," Caroline chirps. "Have a menu," she says, handing Lizzie one. "I recommend the salmon. It's delicious, and leaves lots of room for dessert."
*
Dinner starts off relatively painlessly, relatively meaning in comparison with the last time Lizzie dined at Catherine de Bourgh's house. It's not high praise, but there are positives. For one thing, there is no dog. There also isn't anyone Caroline can talk to in order to discreetly ignore Lizzie, which is both a blessing and a curse. And Lizzie can talk back freely, without endangering anybody's job or income.
"So," Lizzie says after their waiter leaves with their order, "how about that weather?"
Caroline laughs like she's charmed, or amused, or something else she cannot possibly be. She picks up the immaculate white cloth napkin in front of her and spreads it over her lap. "Oh, Lizzie. Surely we're past such inane chatter. After all, we are friends, aren't we?" She touches a finger to her collarbone. "Forgive me. I forgot you don't think we were."
"Do you ever act normal?"
"Excuse me?"
Lizzie sets her hands on the edge of the table, turning further toward Caroline. Caroline looks like she's genuinely confused, but Lizzie doesn't trust her judgment when it comes to Caroline anymore. "This whole nice act. I caught you out, you're not on camera, you can just, you know, drop it. Be normal for once. Relax."
"You make that sound very appealing, Lizzie," Caroline says earnestly. Lizzie is about to remark on the lack of substance or really even acknowledgment of what she said when the waiter comes back with appetizers.
*
Rescue me, Lizzie texts Charlotte from the restroom before the main course is served.
You're the one who wanted to go, Charlotte texts back. After a second, another message pops up: You have no one to blame but yourself.
Lizzie makes an undignified face at her phone screen, half grateful and half disappointed that nobody but the mirror can see it. Sure I can. I can blame Caroline. A few seconds later, she types, And you for not holding me back. With restraints if necessary. She clicks send.
She washes her hands again, checks her makeup and her hair, her dress, her shoes. Charlotte's reply doesn't come until she's sitting back at the table in front of Caroline.
Oh please. Like that would have stopped you.
"Is that one of your sisters?" Caroline asks casually.
Lizzie smiles, a little too forcefully. "Charlotte. She wanted to make sure you hadn't brainwashed me yet."
To Lizzie's surprise, something in Caroline's face turns unpleasant. "I'm not evil, Lizzie. I am many things: I am ambitious, and clever, and I guess you could call me calculating, but I am not evil. I don't set out to make people suffer, and I don't get any enjoyment out of it. So I would appreciate it if you stopped acting like I ruined your and your sister's life for no reason."
There's—Lizzie's not sure there's anything she can say to that, not right away. She slides her phone into her purse, and she crosses her arms over her chest, and she looks at Caroline. She doesn't drop Caroline's gaze until the waiter comes back.
Unfortunately, neither does Caroline.
*
The issue of Darcy doesn't come up until halfway through Caroline's second dessert. She's polishing off the last of the vanilla ice cream when her spoon suddenly stops on its tracks a few inches above her cake slice.
"Look," she begins. "I know you think I must like Darcy. I must be desperately in love with him, the way you make it sound." Lizzie raises an eyebrow, waiting for the 'but.' "But that is simply not true. He is a great addition to the family circle. But I personally find him far too.." She bites her lip as though she's trying to come up with the right word, and licks the melting ice cream off her spoon in the meanwhile, setting it down with a clinking sound.
Lizzie rolls her eyes. "Pedantic? Robotic?" What else had Caroline told Lizzie she agreed with?
Caroline tilts her head and smiles that overly sweet smile of hers, the one that Lizzie's surprised never struck her as incredibly fake until now. "Dry. I was going to say dry. Don't get me wrong, there are many things about William Darcy that I find appealing, but he does not, shall we say, satisfy all of my requirements."
"Why am I not surprised that you have requirements?" Lizzie mutters. If Caroline hears, she sure doesn't give it away with a response.
"Well. My point is, I have better things to do with my time than meddle in whether you and Darcy could ever make a viable match." Caroline leans back in her seat and picks at the corner of the napkin on her thigh, looking satisfied.
Lizzie stares at her.
"What?"
"What, you have better things to do with your time?" The effort to keep her voice down makes her words come out in something close to a whisper. Caroline sits up. "Like unmake matches for other people? Perfectly nice other people, may I add, who could have done nothing but benefit from each other's love and companionship."
"Oh, will you shut up with that already," Caroline snaps. "I wasn't trying to break anyone up for anyone else's sake. I was trying to keep you away from Darcy."
"For your sake," Lizzie says, eyebrows going up despite herself.
"Yes," Caroline says, her voice weirdly low. She leans forward over the table, setting her hand on—Lizzie's wrist. Lizzie's too shocked to pull her hand away. "For my sake."
Lizzie's eyes flicker from Caroline's face to Caroline's hand to her hand. She is honestly too stunned to speak. There is hysterical laughter rising in her chest, because this is the last thing she'd have expected Caroline to pull on her. I did it for your own good: that would have been normal. You don't understand how hard it is to maintain a good reputation, how easy to see it crash down before your eyes: not something Lizzie would put past Caroline. Surely you didn't think I'd let you or any of your sisters marry into my family: maybe a little more aggressive than Lizzie would expect from Caroline, but certainly in line with the theme of the day.
But this—this is just egregious.
Lizzie jerks away from Caroline's hand. "You cannot seriously be pulling that card."
"What card?" Caroline sounds and looks like she's genuinely confused, and Lizzie almost feels bad. Almost.
"The lesbian card? Seriously? I knew you cared about what my audience thought of you, but this is a new low."
Caroline is gaping at her, or looking the closest to gaping she can while maintaining her composed façade in a public restaurant. "I'm," she begins, then blinks. Then her face turns harsh. "I'm actually serious. Let's put all the games aside for a moment. Do you really think I'd have sucked up to you if I'd cared about Darcy? He wasn't going to watch those videos. I wasn't going to show them to him. And all the people who watch your videos—they wouldn't even know who I am if I hadn't showed up on them. 'Caroline Lee,' like that's a name that would stick. My reputation would be perfectly intact. You would only have mentioned me in passing."
"So you just wanted the positive publicity?"
"Of course not," Caroline says, directing a grimace at Lizzie, the kind of look that screams, god, can't you even keep up? "I wanted you to notice me. I thought you'd go over your videos and realize that. I know how this works, Lizzie. I know no one watches your videos as many times as you do. Not even Charlotte. You're the one putting yourself out there, you're the one who needs to know what you're letting your viewers see. If I was going to make an impression on anyone through your videos," and here Caroline pauses, leaning over the table again and forcing Lizzie to meet her eyes, "it would have been you."
Her face is still cruel, hard lines, but her focus on Lizzie is eerie. It makes Lizzie wonder, for the first time, if Caroline is actually being truthful. It makes Lizzie—it makes Lizzie want to believe her. Because the way Caroline's looking at her—wow. Lizzie's not sure anyone's ever looked at her like that.
She didn't even know she wanted someone to. Even someone like Caroline. Maybe especially someone like Caroline—someone who has her life together, someone who knows exactly what she wants.
"Well," Caroline says conclusively. "Now you know."
Of course, that is the trap. Caroline is very, very good at making people see things her way.
"Let me take you back to my apartment," Caroline says, and Lizzie's eyes widen. "Not like that, silly. I just thought you could crash there. And we can talk privately."
"I thought this was us talking privately," Lizzie points out.
Caroline tilts her head, considering. "To an extent. But I can't be entirely straight with you here." She leans in and says in a low voice, "It would be considered indecent."
Well, if she's trying to shock Lizzie, it sure is working. If she's trying to seduce Lizzie—well, that may be working, too. Caroline is gorgeous, and Lizzie is a free woman with a perfectly healthy sex drive. There's nothing wrong with at least considering what Caroline's saying.
"I should get back to Charlotte's place," Lizzie excuses herself. Something in her brain goes, what the hell.
"I assume Charlotte knows you came out to see me. Doesn't she?" Caroline asks. Lizzie doesn't reply, which must be answer enough for Caroline, because the next thing Caroline says is, "I thought so."
"You haven't exactly earned her approval," Lizzie counters with. Caroline shakes her head like that's completely irrelevant. She... has a point, Lizzie guesses. "She knows perfectly well how I feel about your schemes."
Caroline makes a sweet, sing-song-y sound of acknowledgment. "And she wouldn't want you to tell her all about your evening with me. After all, you were right about everything."
"I was," Lizzie says, but it sounds empty even to her own ears, and she's not particularly surprised when she finds herself in the passenger seat of Caroline's car, going in the opposite direction from the one Lizzie took to get to the restaurant.
*
"I would have thought you'd be staying with Catherine de Bourgh," Lizzie comments as Caroline unlocks the door to her apartment. "Did she change her mind about you?"
"Don't be silly, of course I'm staying with her," Caroline says, like it's completely obvious. "How would you have felt if I'd taken you to the de Bourgh estate? Be honest."
It's a rhetorical question, so Lizzie doesn't bother with an answer. It's also an offhand remark, though, and it still makes Lizzie feel... something. Weird. On the one hand, it's kind of creepy that Caroline planned ahead enough—and assumed enough—to have a place to take Lizzie that wouldn't make Lizzie run in the other direction. On the other hand, Caroline is right—and Lizzie knows under any other circumstances Caroline would have delighted in Lizzie's discomfort. Anything to show how unsuitable she and her sisters were to become part of the family.
No doubt Caroline still thinks so.
"I have always been honest with you," Lizzie says. It's hard to fight the instinct to defend herself, even if it's true that Caroline likes her.
The door opens to a large living room. It doesn't look particularly lived in, but there are papers on the coffee table, a knit sweater on the back of the couch and jackets hanging from a rack by the door. Lizzie recognizes one of them as Bing's.
Caroline moves aside to let Lizzie in, saying, "I have been extremely honest tonight," Caroline says. She takes a step forward, effectively backing Lizzie against the doorframe. "Let me show you how honest I can be."
It's a little mortifying how hearing Caroline like this makes Lizzie feel. Something rises in her chest, and her knees are weak, and Caroline isn't even touching her. "Okay," Lizzie chokes out, and Caroline's smile widens in a way that's both terrifying and incredibly promising.
Lizzie finds herself holding her breath, waiting for Caroline to cover that last bit of space. Caroline touches Lizzie's arm, drags her hand down to curl her fingers into Lizzie's, and leans in, and Lizzie tilts her chin up and begins to close her eyes—and then Caroline's gone and moving, walking Lizzie across the loft by their linked hands.
Lizzie bites her lip and follows, squashing the odd urge to skip. That's the kind of thing Jane would do; Lizzie likes to think of herself as a little bit more cautious, especially in possibly-still-enemy territory that hasn't been given the all-clear.
She still lets herself be led into a large bedroom with a large bed and the whitest, plushiest comforter she's seen since she left Netherfield. "Well," Caroline whispers, and her lips brush Lizzie's cheek, and Lizzie feels her head tip back before she can help it. "Stop staring. Or do I have to do everything myself?"
Lizzie opens her mouth to point out that it would be helpful, seeing as Lizzie's still not sure what she's doing here, with Caroline, or here with Caroline, but as always, Caroline's sense of timing kicks in at just the right time, and Lizzie can't speak because, well—she's kind of busy being kissed.
And apparently that's the cue she needed to start participating actively in this whole thing. Her fingers go straight for Caroline's hair, which always looks unnaturally soft, and Caroline moans appreciatively when Lizzie's thumbs rub the back of her ears, her scalp. Caroline keeps a hand on Lizzie's waist, and uses the other to undo the side zip of her own dress, stepping out of it in just a pair of lacy underwear when it pools around her feet.
It's a lot more of Caroline than Lizzie expected to see today. It's impossible not to follow her when Caroline walks backwards to her bed, lying down and pulling Lizzie down with her as soon as Lizzie comes within reach. Lizzie sets her knees at either side of Caroline's thighs and splays her hands over Caroline's stomach, her ribs, her breasts. They feel really, really good in her hands, and it's even better when Caroline returns the gesture, pushing the straps of Lizzie's dress down her arms and getting rid of her bra.
Lizzie's just getting used to how good it feels to make out with Caroline when Caroline rolls them over and lifts Lizzie's skirt up over her waist. Caroline looks at Lizzie with a playful smile, biting her lip, and hooks her thumbs under the waistband of Lizzie's underwear.
"Honest enough for you?" Caroline asks, and Lizzie's eyes widen in surprise at being expected to string any words together. Caroline seems to enjoy the lack of answer, though, and Lizzie lets it go. It's hard to care about petty sniping when Caroline's kissing her collarbone and dragging her mouth down to suck on Lizzie's nipples.
Caroline only pulls away again to get Lizzie's underwear down her legs and off, and rises up saying, "A Lee knows how to make an apology stick." Her tone is much too serious for someone who's half naked and kneeling between a half-naked someone else's shins.
"I really hope you didn't learn that from your parents," Lizzie says, and Caroline responds by biting her stomach and trailing her tongue down between Lizzie's legs.
*
Lizzie wakes up to noises in the kitchen, and opens her eyes to a glass of orange juice Caroline is leaving on the bedside table.
"Good morning," Caroline says with far too much cheer this soon after waking up, sitting down on the bed. She's dressed and she has a half-drunk mug of coffee in her hand.
Lizzie yawns and groans. "What time is it?" she asks blearily.
"Early," Caroline says. "I have to get back to the de Bourghs' for breakfast. You can stay as long as you want. Help yourself to anything that's in the kitchen—half the stuff we keep here goes bad before anyone eats it."
"Okay," Lizzie says, "thanks?"
"You're welcome," Caroline says, straightening up just that bit further. Lizzie forces herself to snap out of frowning; she grabs the glass on the table, sits up in the bed and sips at it suspiciously. Because it's cold, not because she thinks Caroline may be trying to poison her. Well, not much. "Is it good? I can also get you raspberry and—I think the apple juice went bad, but I can check. Or coffee. I didn't want to bring that to you first thing, in case you reached all like—" She closes her eyes and swats blindly at the bedside table. "Like that. Didn't want you to burn yourself."
"That's nice of you?" Lizzie says, frowning again.
Caroline sets her mug on the bedside table and scoots further into the bed, her arm curling over Lizzie's thigh, the mattress dipping behind Lizzie under the weight of Caroline's hand.
"It may be hard to believe, Lizzie, but I actually like you." And that is what Lizzie expects from Caroline: a compliment dripping in condescension. The thing is, the compliment seems to win out in this one. At least with Caroline mouthing at Lizzie's neck, nosing at her earlobe. It's nice, Lizzie thinks. It tickles.
She giggles without meaning to, and Caroline giggles with her. With her. Lizzie doesn't feel like Caroline's laughing at her at all. That's new.
Caroline kisses her softly on the lips before sliding gracefully off the bed and onto her feet. "See you around, Lizzie Bennet," she says as her hair whooshes out the bedroom door, leaving Lizzie far too dazed to come up with an answer before Caroline's gone.
Lizzie's mouth curves downward in a mildly satisfied sort of surprise. "I guess you will," she says belatedly, frowning, and collapses on her back as the front door shuts.