AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Somehow Elizabeth was not reassured.
***
“Rise and shine! Rise and shine!” Fitz put on his best Southern belle voice as he burst into Darcy’s bedroom. Darcy groaned.
Fitz prodded him with a hand on his arm, shaking Darcy’s entire body. “C’mon, sleepyhead. Time to get up.”
“Who let you in here?” Darcy groaned without opening his eyes. He usually wasn’t plagued by visitors until breakfast.
“I did.” That voice undoubtedly belonged to Bing.
Darcy rolled onto his back, keeping his arm over his eyes. “Who let you in?”
“I stayed overnight at the Residence. We both did.”
“Whyzat?” Darcy cleared his throat. “Why is that?” The night before was a complete blank, and apparently a small rodent had died in his mouth.
“You asked us to,” Fitz said, far too happily for this early in the morning. “To get you up in time for the flight to Pemberley.”
Pemberley. They were going to Pemberley. That was the first good news Darcy had heard since waking. Maybe that was a reason to open his eyes. They tentatively peeled open just a crack.
Damn! Someone had obviously installed klieg lights in his bedroom while he was asleep. Darcy blinked furiously. “Why is it so bright?”
With a grin, Fitz pulled a pair of aviator sunglasses from his shirt pocket and handed them to Darcy, who was not too proud to put them on. Bing regarded him more soberly as he provided a water bottle and two Advils.
The night before was returning to Darcy in bits and pieces. “How many bourbons did I have?”
Fitz shrugged. “Four? Before you switched to beer.”
“No wonder I feel like a tank ran me over.” Darcy sat up and rested his back against the headboard of the impressive canopy bed. It was noticeable how having a hangover in the lap of presidential luxury was no better than having a hangover anywhere else. “Why did you let me do it?”
Fitz laughed. “You are such a kidder! I tried to stop you before the third bourbon, but you said, and I quote, ‘I’m the leader of the free world, you can’t tell me what to do.’”
“And then later on, you said ‘the world can manage without me for one night,’” Bing added.
Those words did sound vaguely familiar. “Damn,” Darcy winced. He and Bing had occasionally gotten smashed at college, but it wasn’t something he did very often. “I don’t remember it ever feeling quite this awful.”
“It’s a good thing there wasn’t an international crisis, or I would have had to call the vice president,” Bing said with a smirk.
Darcy waved nonchalantly. “She’d be able to handle it.” She’s happily married. He finished off the bottle of water, which Bing took as he handed him another one. Darcy frowned at it mulishly. “Drink up,” Bing ordered. “You need to be presentable before we pour you into the limo.”
“Hilliard would kill me if the press got a picture of you in your current state,” Fitz added.
Darcy let his head fall back and bump against the headboard, wincing when the movement caused his brain to slosh around in his skull. “If I look half as bad as I feel, you’re probably right.”
Fitz gestured to the water bottle. “Finish that up, and your reward is a cup of coffee.”
The magic words. “I’d kill for some coffee.”
“I’ll get some started.” Fitz hurried from the room.
While Darcy drank, Bing settled into a chair by the bed with a sheaf of papers in his lap: the usual summary of world events that had transpired during the night. But instead of diving into them, Bing sat still, watching Darcy intently.
“What?” Self-consciously, Darcy tried to flatten down some of his unruly hair.
“Darce, it’s not like you to…” He trailed off as he tried to find a way to put it delicately.
“Get smashed?” Darcy chuckled. “You can say that to the president, you know.”
