AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Bennet laughed aloud, and Darcy looked over quizzically.
“Second-hand embarrassment,” Bennet explained. “Serenading a crush. No better way to scare a man off.”
“That’s not a romantic gesture?”
“Sure, if the attraction were requited—can’t go wrong in that case, really—but when it’s entirely one-sided . . . painful.”
“You don’t like singing? You sang well at the pub.”
Bennet reined in his surprise. “Yes, I like singing. But under no circumstances would you ever see me serenading my love interest.”
Darcy returned to his spiral-bound tome with a little smile. Bennet longed to know what he seemed to be reading a second time through, but couldn’t bring himself to ask.
Bennet’s phone rang, and he hurriedly answered the video chat.
Lyon’s voice burst animatedly into the quiet. “I’ve gone through all your things, Benny. You have nothing to wear for the ball.”
“Hold on a sec,” Bennet whispered, setting his laptop aside. “Need to move somewhere we won’t disturb—”
Darcy shook his head. “Please. Take your call.”
Bennet hesitated, then resumed his seat. Lyon looked well enough. A little tousled and rumpled but otherwise like himself. And he was at home. “I’ll see about finding something.”
“So you’ve decided to go after all? Even though you’ll be dateless?”
He didn’t particularly want to go, but if he engaged with this village, showed he appreciated the good in Cubworthy, hopefully they might come to appreciate the good in gay.
Darcy was watching him curiously.
“I . . . yes. I will definitely be at the ball.”
In the evening, Caroline came over with baguettes and compliments to Darcy for being “so magnanimous letting Bennet stay with him.”
She set up a little picnic at the corner table, her gaze continuously fluttering to Darcy.
She picked up a sheet of the lined—somewhat crumpled—paper that sat on the table in front of Darcy’s chair. “Are you writing a letter? How old-fashioned.” She laughed, and stopped abruptly, cheeks pinking. “Not that I think you’re old. You’re timeless, really. Forty-eight, and you could be mistaken for thirty.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Bennet amused himself watching her flirt out the corner of his eye. She and Darcy interacted exactly as he thought they would. Her with a sort of sophisticated silliness, and him with bored bluntness just shy of being rude.
“I find it charming that you handwrite your letters.”
“Those are not my letters.”
She quickly set the papers atop a shelf. “We need room on the table for the food.”
“Thank you for the baguettes. It was unnecessary.”
“My pleasure. I’m homely like that.”
Darcy looked over his reading at her. “Yes. Nothing homelier than setting bread and butter on the table.”
Caroline beamed, and Darcy resumed scanning his page.
“Turning the page already. Gosh, such a fast reader.”
“Faster still when uninterrupted.”
“Then let me butter your baguette for you.”
“Thank you, Caroline, but I prefer buttering my own baguette.”
Bennet’s key-tapping momentarily filled the silence, and then Caroline did what Bennet had been so desperate to do all day. She angled her head and read the title of Darcy’s text.
“You’re reading a thesis on . . . the charioteer?”
Bennet stopped typing. The Charioteer? The first published gay love story without a tragic end?
Caroline continued, “Never heard of it. Is it any good?”
Bennet stiffened, suspended on a quiet breath as he waited for Darcy’s reply.
Darcy shifted in his seat. “This thesis is better.”
“Are you saying that,” Caroline teased, “because your son wrote it?”
His acute look of unease stopped Bennet’s tongue. He’d pressed enough on their ride this morning.
Darcy set the thesis aside and invited him to join them for Caroline’s picnic. Bennet seated himself at the small table and busied himself with eating, helping himself to the wine, and observing how often Darcy glanced at him.
True enough, Darcy’s gaze did not much wander from his face. He studied Bennet like he was an enigma, seemingly unhappy he should like even his eyes.
Bennet felt sorry for him.
Caroline cleaned up and left, only to return five minutes later with a Kindle.
“Blasted flood,” she said. “Not used to an entire evening alone.”
Darcy welcomed her in, and she took the matching chair next to his.
“Look. I downloaded The Charioteer.”
Darcy stilled, which Caroline didn’t notice. She started asking questions about the book, and Bennet noticed how much Darcy struggled to answer her. No inflection in his voice; additional stiffness to his seat.
This book meant something to him, more than he was letting on. Caroline’s insincere questions dug under Bennet’s skin. She wouldn’t let up, and Darcy was too proud to show how her questions were affecting him, yet not proud enough to embrace his love of the book.
“Caroline,” Bennet said, before another question slipped out. “I’ve been couched here all day. Would you like to go for a walk?”
Caroline glanced dubiously out the window. “It could pour again.”
“Then we’ll stick close to the house.”
She turned to Darcy. “Will you come with us?”
“I’ll leave you to talk about Bennet’s Pride event and how generous you are to help him with it.”
