Compulsively Mr. Darcy (26 page)

The New York City yellow cab slowed down and the driver looked for a spot to stop. Jane checked her makeup one more time. Mary chuckled. Blushing, Jane snapped it shut.

Once on the sidewalk, Mary said, “Don't be embarrassed. You're supposed to be alluring.”

“I'm only following orders. This is so out of my comfort zone. I can't believe I let you and Lizzy talk me into this.”

“You'll do fine.”

“Easy for you to say. Why am I the one who has to distract him?”

“Because we wouldn't have any success at all if I was the one doing it,” Mary returned calmly. “As Mom always says, you couldn't have been born that beautiful for nothing.”

“Very funny. I wish Lizzy or Lydia could take my place in this caper. They'd definitely think it's a lark.”

“Lizzy is too big, too pregnant, too married, and Lydia is too silly, too young, and too unpredictable. Besides, she's in Hollywood with mom. It's you and me, partner.” When Jane didn't respond, Mary added, “Think of Georgiana; we're doing this for her.”

That was the one reason why, dismissing all rational reasons why it wouldn't work, Jane had agreed to the crazy scheme. Yesterday, Georgiana told them she had received another email from the blackmailer on Monday. Within hours, Mary discovered the email was sent from a computer with an Internet protocol address registered to DDF. Jane didn't even want to know how Mary had figured that out, though Jane suspected it involved some of her genius sister's computer hacker friends.

They approached a building with
DDF
on the front. Mary said, “This is it. You go and distract Peter Pan, get his permission, and I'll do the rest.”

“Are you sure this plan is going to fly?”

“Relax. It's a simple plan.” Mary paused right outside the entrance and flicked her fingers over Jane's face. “There. You have some pixie dust. That's a must,” she sang softly as she pushed Jane through the door. “Just remember, Wendy, ‘You can fly! You can fly! You can fly!'”

Somehow, in the face of her sister's supreme confidence and silliness in singing the Disney movie song, Jane's nervousness lessened. Giving their names as Tina and Wendy Darling, they had called DDF and asked if Mr. Bingley was free to talk about the orphanage in Zambia. Elizabeth didn't want someone to recognize the name Bennet.

“We have to be suspicious of everyone. Charles or even Richard might be the blackmailer,” Elizabeth had said when she suggested they use aliases. “After all, who would have thought Georgiana's blackmailer would be someone from DDF? The only person from DDF we can be certain to rule out is William. You'll start at the executive floor.”

Though Jane had privately wondered if some of her brother-in-law's paranoid quirks were beginning to rub off on his wife, Jane had to agree with Elizabeth's caution. Jane had suggested telling her brother-in-law, currently in LA on some business, but everyone vetoed that.

In the elevator, alone with Mary, on the way to the executive floor, Jane said, “Are you sure this isn't illegal?”

“Of course it's illegal.”

Stunned by her sister's calm answer, Jane said, “William could—”

“Yes, he could. But by the time he gets back here, whoever it is will have changed the Internet protocol addresses,” Mary said. “For security reasons, companies change their executives' IP addresses frequently. That's why we had to get here pronto, incognito, and unannounced, so we have a better chance to catch the blackmailer before the IP address changes.”

“William may be owner and head of DDF, but he has a board of directors who—”

“Wouldn't look kindly upon his sisters-in-law hacking into the company's computer system, I know. But then, one of them might be the blackmailer,” Mary interrupted again in her maddeningly even voice. “If it makes you feel better, Georgiana is part owner of the company and she gave us permission, so technically, it's not breaking or entering.”

“Tell that to the judge!”

“You go and do your Mata Hari thing. I'll be flitting around stealing shadows.”

***

Bingley took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Before his next appointment, he decided he needed a little pick-me-up. He skulked to the closet where he kept a secret stash. Just another small sip, he told himself. He reached for the bottle on the high shelf. His fingers curved around a two-litter bottle.

The door opened. “Mr. Bingley, Miss Wendy Darling and Miss Tina Darling are here.”

Startled, he turned and accidentally knocked the two-liter bottle down. The lid popped off and Mountain Dew doused him.

“Mr. Bingley, you did it again,” his secretary said in an exasperated voice. She grabbed some paper towels off a nearby counter. “You're supposed to be off sugar and caffeine.”

“Are you okay?” Jane Bennet's angelic voice asked. “Here, let me help you.” She took the paper towels from his secretary's hand and started to pat his face and his shirt.

He opened one eye and waved his secretary off.

Jane apologized, “We didn't mean to startle you.”

“No, I was careless. How are you? How is your sister Elizabeth?” He had heard all about Elizabeth ad nauseam from Darcy daily, but he couldn't think of anything else to say at the moment. “Do you have sisters name Wendy and Tina I didn't know about?”

“No.” She blushed. “I'm… uh… called Wendy sometimes. My sister Mary… uh… I mean Tina… I mean Mary is here with me.”

He looked. Tina-Mary was at his desk, touching his computer. “Do you mind if I check my emails?” she asked while her fingers moved rapidly on the keyboard.

“Sure.” As long as her angelic sister was ministering to him, he didn't care what Tina-Mary wanted to do in his office. He turned to Jane-Wendy. “How long are you staying in New York?”

“A few days. I was wondering if we could talk about your experience in Zambia. Compare notes on orphanages?”

Happily, he nodded. “Yes, we should. We didn't get a chance to at the wedding. Perhaps we can go for a cup of decaf coffee?”

Jane-Wendy smiled. “I'd love to.”

Tina-Mary, still fiddling with his computer, spoke up. “I don't do coffee. I'll work on my emails here while you guys go off. I might wander around a bit if that's all right with you, Peter… I mean, Charles.”

“Uh… sure, of course.” He had no idea what she had just said, something about wandering and emails. His angel's soft smile distracted him.

***

Richard walked into his office and stopped short.

Mary Bennet was sitting at his desk smirking. “My brother-in-law knows you spend your working hours looking at porn? It's not even good porn. You can see more skin than this on TV.”

“Do you mind? This is private!” He wondered how he got so careless and left the porn site on.

“You didn't leave it on.” She read his mind. “I hacked into it.”

“You… you… you!”

She ignored his stuttering, took a pencil from his desk, and tapped it, a thoughtful look on her face.

He sighed and sat across the desk. “Why are you here on a Wednesday afternoon, bothering me? Aren't you back in school?”

She took out her cell phone. “It's me. We're here and the two men are clear. At least their computers are.” She gave him a sly glance. “Just some boring smut, but nothing exciting or incriminating.”

“What the hell? Who is that?”

“Okay, I'll clue him in.” She hung up and in a surprisingly calm voice, told him about Georgiana's being blackmailed, ending with, “And we can't let William know yet because both his wife and sister are afraid he'll freak and put them both in bubble wrap.”

He opened his mouth, only to close it immediately. She was right. Darcy would freak.

She said, “I need to get access to your IP log. I prefer not to have to look through it to find the match, though. Lizzy has a suspect in mind already, but she won't tell. She doesn't want us to zero in on one person and miss others.”

“This is not a game!” He grabbed his phone. “She damn well better tell me who—”

“She said to ask you why Wickham would have Georgiana invite you, her cousin and co-guardian, to her mass wedding.”

“I don't know.” Surprised at the question, he put the phone down. Cousin! He stood. “Damn it! I know who!”

“Who?”

“Mistaken Identity.” His brain clicked through the clues. “Could Wickham have meant Anne and Georgiana thought he meant me? It's so obvious. I can't believe I missed the connection.”

“You're saying you're suspecting Anne and Georgiana's cult-boyfriend worked together?”

“Yes, and Catherine.”

“The aunt?”

Richard paced, thinking out loud. “My uncle's will left Catherine with no real power over Pemberley Trust Foundation or DDF, but most importantly, no guardianship of little Georgiana, as Catherine had expected. When Darcy named me co-guardian instead of her, she threatened an ugly custody fight.”

“I'm beginning to see…”

“She had a good chance of winning custody. Darcy's tabloid behavior after his father died didn't help him. He sobered up and stopped partying. But she held that threat of a public custody fight over them throughout the years. Georgiana would have been traumatized.”

“The timing makes sense now. She was losing the leverage to pressure William to marry Anne, so she and Anne targeted Georgiana right before she turned eighteen.” Mary stood. “Where is Anne?”

“She was here briefly Monday but she returned to Chicago. She won't be back until our board meeting next week.”

“Does she have a computer here?”

“There should be a desktop computer in her office here. Both her laptop and her desktop are DDF property…”

He was speaking to an empty room. Rushing after her, he pointed to Anne's office.

Within minutes, Mary had hacked into Anne's desktop and discovered Georgiana's pictures, as well as pictures of Anne and Wickham in various bondage poses. She deleted Georgiana's but left the couples' on the screen.

Richard had to turn away to fight waves of nausea.

Mary clicked on a particularly explicit picture of Anne and nudged him. “Now that's what I call good, dirty porn. Not that cheap, lightweight stuff you had on your computer.”

One glance and he emptied his lunch into the nearby trash can.

Showing no concern for his state, she left the room.

After heaving a few more times, he scrambled after her. He found her in Darcy's office. He gasped. “That's the chairman of DDF's computer with classified information!”

“Then he should have had better safeguards so I wouldn't be able to hack into it so easily. Besides, I don't give a fuck what chairman he is. He's married to my sister and I want to see if he has kinky taste too.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard. “What do you know? All the smut is at the VP's level. The chairman is boring. No porn, nothing.”

“Darcy is going to cough up a cow when he hears how easily you've breached the security system.”

“Never mind that now.” She drummed her fingers on the desk. “So, what to do about slutty, wicked, greedy Anne?”

Anne's cell phone rang the minute she entered her hotel suite.

“There's a way for you to get rid of the two clowns and be back at DDF headquarters,” her stepmother said in greeting.

“Tell me how.” Anne put down her laptop. “I can't stand it here in Chicago anymore.”

“I know it's been hard, but it's wise to keep a low profile until my nephew forgets the hospital business.”

“He didn't even say anything personal to me when I saw him in Oakland. He treated me like I was a regular employee, giving my report.” She had tried to tempt him with provocative pictures of herself—her best pictures, she must admit—but she detected no spark of interest. The man behaved, as usual, like an asexual piece of rock around her.

“Never you mind that,” Catherine advised. “Focus on his weak area instead, his sister. Time to send her another email to keep her off balance.”

“I sent one Monday from New York,” Anne said. Richard and Charles were in her office looking over her figures from Chicago. Angry at being supervised by them, she had impulsively sent an email to Georgiana. “That's only two days ago. It's best to wait a while before sending another. If we overwhelm her, she might go running to Darcy and we'd lose the chance to pressure her to sell her voting shares of DDF to us.”

“Good thinking. Has that fool in Los Angeles sent you anything good yet?”

“Not yet, but I'm expecting it soon. He has it set up.” Anne had received an email the day before from Wickham telling her he would move soon. He sent her sample pictures taken with some other girl to assure her he knew what to do with the Bennet girl.

“Email the sample pictures to me,” Catherine ordered when Anne told her. “And tell him I also want to see all the pictures he takes of the Bennet girl before he leaks them to the tabloids. I want my nephew embarrassed good by his wife's family. I want him sorry he married into trash. Are you sure Wickham got the right girl?”

“Yes. I told him to target the Bennet sister who's graduating from Stanford.”

“Good. She's of age then. I paid a lot of my money for them and I want to make sure he's not wasting my money this time indulging in his perversion with girls too young for him.”

“Don't worry. He's not messing with underage girls,” Anne soothed, then reminded her stepmother, “though, don't forget that his perversion was what got us the pictures of Georgiana.”

“Be very specific with him in your instructions. If only he hadn't messed up last year. If only he'd specified you, not that fool Richard.”

“It wasn't completely George's fault,” Anne defended Wickham. “We didn't know she'd told Richard she had a boyfriend. And I myself should have thought of some work emergency somewhere to send Richard off that week, as I did Darcy.”

“I still say that fool Wickham ruined it for himself and for us with that mistake. He could be collecting alimony right now from my nephew for agreeing to divorce Georgiana, and you would be Mrs. Darcy right now and on the company's board.”

“There was no guarantee Darcy would have married me.”

“Of course he would have.” Catherine's voice was confident. “He would have done anything to have you help get Georgiana released from that Wickham fool and his cult. You have leverage with Wickham.”

“I do.” Anne knew Wickham wouldn't be able to resist getting Georgiana into some bondage getup, even if he was able to stick to the agreement that he couldn't touch the underage girl until her eighteenth birthday. Hiding herself in his apartment and doing a little subterfuge photography had been fruitful. With those photos, she had been able to control both Wickham and Georgiana.

“About my news”—excitement returned to Catherine's voice—“those two clowns in New York called a board meeting tomorrow instead of waiting until next week.”

“Go on.”

“Remember the company bylaws about board meetings? The one my father had put in to ensure that the DDF board couldn't meet in secret and outvote a Darcy if the family's ownership of the company's shares dipped?”

“Yes?”

“Any member who called such a board meeting and knowingly didn't inform or exclude a Darcy would be ousted. My nephew's never missed a meeting.”

Anne leaned forward. “And?”

“He'll miss this one. A little bird told me he's tied up with some emergency with his wife's pregnancy, and the two clowns aren't going to bother him.”

Restless with excitement, Anne paced.

“Without him, it's an illegal board meeting and you'll have reason to force their hands. Show up and remind them all of the bylaws. I bet they forgot about it.”

“Brilliant.”

“Darcy will have no choice but to dismiss or suspend the two clowns from the board. They're not expecting you at the meeting. You need to get to New York tomorrow and surprise them. Just show up and tell them you're there to report to the board about Chicago.”

“I'm going to check on flights right now.” Happily, she opened her laptop.

***

“Damn Hollywood.” Darcy leaned his elbows on his legs, clasped his hands, and fought the urge to get up and wash them again. He'd been away from his wife since Monday, and already it was Wednesday evening. His hands were now red and raw. He hated not being able to control the situation, though he had no choice but to stay put. Lieutenant Denny of the FBI didn't want to run the risk of having him accidentally run into Wickham in the hotel. He turned to the large man sitting beside him. “Are you certain Denny knows what he's doing?”

Brandon answered, “Denny's a little young and eager, but he's well supervised. I know his boss very well. Eleanor Dashwood is a sharp and sensible agent.”

“Then why isn't she here supervising?” Darcy said, peeved.

“Because, like many brilliant people, Eleanor's also a bit eccentric,” Brandon replied in a dry voice and a pointed glance at Darcy. “She's attending a
Star
Trek
convention.” He shrugged in response to Darcy's disgusted snort. “When you're head of the Law Enforcement Unit of the Anti-Child Pornography Task Force, you need to chill sometimes and have a hobby in order to deal with this kind of situation day in and day out.”

“While she's playing dress-up with some Vulcans, that bloody whelp Denny is going to falsely charge my mother-in-law.”

“You know it's not Mrs. Bennet Denny's after. He's only using the threat of charging her as Wickham's accomplice to keep you in line and get you to cooperate.”

“She's silly and starstruck, and that's all she is. No nefarious, deeper thoughts or complicity with Wickham's ugly doings.”

“I'm sure Denny knows that. Why do you think he arranged for her to be touring a few exclusive movie sets around Hollywood today? He wants her out of the way.”

“Damn Hollywood,” Darcy muttered again.

“I should have picked up Wickham's trail when he re-entered the country.”

“Don't blame yourself. I had our guys watch him to make sure he didn't get close to my wife and sister, not to track his whereabouts once he left the country.”

“Wickham's too much of a small-time guy to have the resources he's suddenly acquired, bankrolling a reality TV show. Eleanor is certain it's not the cult money behind this. Someone else is financing his child pornography.”

Brandon lapsed into silence after that, leaving Darcy to his thoughts. When Lydia and her mother went to Hollywood, Darcy automatically had Brandon check out whether or not the show was a legitimate operation as a routine precaution. After Brandon informed him Monday morning George Wickham was the director behind Lydia's show, going under his Dutch name of Ury, Darcy immediately flew down to Los Angeles.

They discovered the FBI had also been watching Wickham. With the FBI involved, it wasn't that simple to extract Lydia from the show without first proving to the FBI that Lydia's mother wasn't involved, for Mrs. Bennet appeared to be friendly—too friendly—with Ury/Wickham.

Darcy made a deal with Lieutenant Denny. He would cooperate and provide all necessary help with the operation if Mrs. Bennet would not be pursued legally when the FBI found no cause to charge her. He didn't trust the ambitious FBI agent not to trump up something to implicate his innocent, if exasperatingly silly, mother-in-law.

The door opened. An eager look on his face, Denny entered. “Bang bang. It's game time, gentleman. He has the two girls in the room and the equipment set up. We're sure it's not only cheerleading pictures he's planning.”

Irritated with the agent's manner and anxious about Lydia, Darcy ignored him.

Denny put his hand out. “We won't let any harm come to your sister-in-law, Mr. Darcy.”

Darcy headed toward the door.

“We're going to let him hang himself a little before we swoop in.” Denny raised his voice. “I'm in charge of the FBI operation here, Mr. Darcy.”

At that, Darcy dropped his hand from the doorknob and faced the agent. “I don't give a bloody damn if you're in charge of the presidency of the United States, I'm not going to let Wickham or you or even her put herself in jeopardy so you can call this operation a success.”

After a brief second meeting Darcy's stare, the agent nodded and backed down.

They walked in silence toward the hotel room where Wickham's supposed studio was set up. When they neared it, Darcy noticed undercover men already in place. A mere three yards from the room, they heard a loud scream from inside.

Darcy sprinted. Brandon pulled him back and shoved him behind. Undercover men appeared with guns drawn.

“You motherfucker asshole dirty old man! Ew! Ew! Gross! No way am I doing any of that with you! Gross!” Lydia's voice rang loud and clear. “Yuck! Yuck! Ew! Get somebody your own age! You pervert!”

A loud scream of a man in pain followed.

Denny opened the door to Wickham's suite. He stood still… and laughed.

Darcy escaped Brandon and lunged to join Denny.

Wickham was on the floor, wearing nothing but crotchless black leather pants, writhing and screaming with his hands over his groin. “Owwwwww! Help me! The bitch kicked me!”

“Don't call me a bitch!” Lydia, dressed in a cheerleading outfit, screamed back and lifted her leg to deliver another blow.

Brandon placed himself between her and Wickham.

She screamed at Brandon, “He did something to Ashley over there. She's all loony toony now. Look!”

Ashley, half lying, half falling from a couch in a corner of the room, idiotically smiled and waved.

Lydia noticed Darcy then. She ran to him. “Ew! William, he was gross!” she half sobbed, half shouted. “We were supposed to be posing for another set of cheer pictures when he ripped off the flap of his pants and tried to get me to… Ew! He's old! He must be over thirty at least!”

“Shh. You're all right, now,” Darcy soothed.

“Ew! Yuck! I'm going to get Mary to kick his ass. He bared his hairy ass and his old wienie. Gross! Gross! Yuck! I am never ever going to have sex with a man! So gross!”

The FBI men laughed quietly. Brandon motioned for him to take Lydia away while they dealt with the scene.

Darcy calmed his sister-in-law and arranged for Ashley to be observed at a hospital until her guardians arrived. When he later met up with Brandon for debriefing, he learned Wickham had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. Lydia, with her strong cheerleader legs, had kicked the man so hard his genitals developed painful swelling and bleeding.