“Two baseball players.”
“Two!”
“Apparently.” She couldn’t even look at him.
“But, you onlyhadtwo baseball players.”
“I know, sir, I know.”
“Can you fix this?”
She nodded even as her stomach lurched. How in the world was she going to find sports stars as noteworthy as those she’d lost? Andfind out whether they’d ever been tested and what the results were, or whether there was a hidden history of performance-enhancing drug problems that she couldn’t find on Google.How?
Mr. Philips gave her an understanding smile. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll have Tim Hudgins help you with research. He always has his nose on that ESPN app, and he’d love to be part of this. He can help you with names, and he’ll do all the research into medical records and these drugs.”
Tim, the vacant-eyed, Red Bull-swilling intern? Mr. Hill’s nephew? Okaaay.She’d take any help she could get. It was time to call in every chit she could think of and have Tim help thoroughly vet every single person she’d already profiled. Football was easy; there was no official drug-testing policy enforced in the NFL. There was anhonor code. But baseball players and Olympians—now there was the rub. She needed squeaky-clean, well-known superstars. In the next week or so.
Okay, Bennet. Focus.
It wasn’t easy to text when there were bandages on two fingers, but Darcy wasn’t about to take them off. And they weren’t going to fall offeither. Apparently, Elizabeth Bennet was highly talented and perhaps deeply experienced at securing Band-Aids on wounded fingers. He’d been tending his own cuts and scratches for so long that he’d forgotten what it was like to let someone else take care of him. It was…wonderful. Awkward, but wonderful.
He was still breathless when he thought about the quiet moments they shared at Pemberley, listening to music, talking, even laughing together. And when she smiled at his questions about her book on the blacklist, it seemed she wasn’t simply thanking him for cutting off her family’s inane comments but acknowledging a connection between them. She’d dismissed him months earlier for making such an assumption.“It’s not like we had a mind meld or something…”
But this wasn’t Netherfield. This was different. For a few hours, it felt as though they were on the cusp of some new, unspoken understanding. A friendship, perhaps. Something that wasn’t wary or angry or mistrustful. There, hehadfollowed her into the house, hoping to talk about her research, learn more about her interests, and perhaps touch base on their responsibilities as best man and maid of honor—anything that might provide him with a chance to see her when they were back in the city. But it all went south when he found Elizabeth sitting on his couch, shocked and crying, so he backed off. She barely wanted him in the room; he knew that. But he had to push as far as he could. The best he managed was to get her to talkto him, a “disinterested party,” unlike her judgmental father.
And she allowed him to drive her home though she didn’t seem particularly happy that he knew where she lived. That was a kick in the gut. And God, he was an idiot for even touching her phone, but she was drained, and he wished her a little peace. The flare in her eyes when she realized what he’d done brought back uncomfortable memories from months ago when shereallydidn’t like him and he’d presumed far too much about her feelings. At least she’d accepted his card. She might not accept his assistance, but he had ways to help her. Had she forgotten, or had she missed, his family’s connection to the Yankees? She’d hate that it was he who helped. His assistance wouldn’t negate the fact that it was someoneheknew, a man whomhehadn’t prosecuted, who had been her connection to these disgraced, tainted athletes:George Bloody Wickham.Has he been arrested yet?How can I help facilitate it?
He could almost laugh at the perfect irony of Wickham being a sports agent. He hadn’t known him well; he was just a slick-talkingsummer kid in Southampton who could throw a baseball and rig a sailboat when his father wasn’t making him help out on landscaping jobs. Jerome Wickham: the man who designed gardens and planted the seeds that led to everything that went wrong.
During the short time he was in the therapy that his Fitzwilliam aunts and uncles forced on him, Darcy was able to work backward in time and figure out all the “ifs” that had led to his family’s devastation.Ifhis mother had never decided to tear out the front garden.Ifshe hadn’t gotten Jerome Wickham’s name from a neighbor.Ifthey hadn’t hit it off.Ifshe hadn’t slept with him.Ifshe hadn’t written him letters and let him take pictures.Ifhe hadn’t been careless in storing them.Ifhe hadn’t been the first chip in the crumbling of her love of England.Ifshe hadn’t been angry and decided to drive off to London. AndifWickham’s wife hadn’t discovered his pattern of affairs and told George to blame his father and the Darcys for their downward economic spiral.
Idly, he wondered whether George had gone after any of the other families his parents had known.That would be some pleasant Hamptons cocktail party banter:“When did Jerome shagyourwife?”Darcy could only be grateful his mother’s affair with the man was short-lived and seemingly as deep as a wading pool. And that his father was an ocean away and apparently unaware of it.
Now the question was how far Wickham had gone. How desperate was he? Did he simply represent clients who took PEDs? Was he somehow involved in supplying them with the drugs? And most importantly, had he implicated Elizabeth in ways that damaged her beyond her still-unpublished book? More fucking “ifs.”
Darcy stared at his phone, willing it to ring. How long could it take Rich to call him back? What was he doing on a Sunday afternoon anyway? His cousin hated golf, and the Yankees were in Baltimore.
Sighing, he clicked through the weekend photos. Some pictures showed their subjects posed. He smiled at the pirates, wet and victorious, Ava showing off her sandcastle, and Elizabeth smiling with Jane and Charles at the clambake. Others, taken furtively, had a singular subject. He gazed at Elizabeth at the pool, in profile while talking to her Aunt Maddie, and standing on the dunes, sunglasses in hand, gazing at the water. He was still staring at the last one when his phone chirped. He nearly dropped it on his foot.
“Hey, are you up for an early dinner?”
Richard Fitzwilliam was used to his cousin’s often brittle approach to social niceties, but he was less accustomed to the quietly angry, laser-focused Fitzwilliam Darcy whom he found waiting at their club an hour later, sitting at a dark corner table with a half-empty glass of Laphroaig in hand. Scotch at six o’clock was an unusual choice for the man, but after a moment’s reflection, he realized thatunusualwas a good word to sum up Darcy’s behavior these past few months.
It took less than two minutes for Darcy to get to the point: the Fitzwilliam connections to the New York Yankees. “How chummy are you with Jeter these days?”
Rich raised his eyebrows and sat back, waiting for an explanation. When Darcy finished, his eyebrows rose again.
“You spent the weekend with Elizabeth Bennet?”
Darcy frowned. “That’s not the material point.”
“Well, of course it is.” He stroked his goatee. “You spent two days in the company of a woman you purport to love, and you’re focused on baseball?”
“Are you even listening? Her career is on the line.”
He frowned. “Got it. Strictly business. I’ll make a call or two, see if Jeter might be interested. He’s probably bored being retired anyway, so he has time, and his agent owes me for letting him win a few poker games.” He glanced at Darcy and noted he looked slightly less miserable than he had ten minutes earlier. “Perhaps my father can mention something to a friend. He knows a few old players.”
“Spectacular idea. Much appreciated.” Darcy absently tore apart his dinner roll. “I know the timeframe is near impossible to swing, but I think?—”
