Page 150 of Pride and Prejudice Resolutions

She bobbed a curtsy and left, taking her basket—and her secrets—with her.

Richard sat alone at the table, lost in thought. Or at least the answer to one pressing question. How had Caroline Bingley, of all people, become a puzzle he suddenly wanted to solve?

She was not just a lemon. No, she was a lemon with sugar. Hidden sugar. The kind she refused to sprinkle on her reputation, lest someone mistake her for nice.

And Richard, who had once declared he would rather eat a living frog than court her, was now grappling with a far more dangerous emotion than annoyance.

Guilt. And worse, curiosity.

He tossed a coin onto the table, reclaimed Black Thunder from the street boy (who, miraculously, still had all his fingers), and rode home in silence. He had a plan, of course. A scheme. A strategy. He was helping Miss Bingley find a husband, purely to determine if he could tolerate her as a wife.

But as he navigated London's streets, a far more alarming question gnawed at him.

What if she was too good for him?

Richard had made a tactical error.

The error was attending Lady Stanhope's rout.

He stood on the periphery of the room, sipping flat champagne, and doing his utmost not to think about lemon cakes. Or lemons. Or one particular lemon who, it turned out, had been secretly funding a child's education while he had been busy judging her pelisses.

He had managed a solid four minutes of not thinking about her when she materialised at his side like a vengeful spectre in pewter silk.

Caroline Bingley wore grey. Again. A gown so demure it could have been mistaken for a vicar's Sunday best. Her hair was twisted into a knot so severe it could be classified as a punishment, and her only adornment was a simple garnet cross that screamed,"I look respectable, and I hate it."She looked, in short, like a woman who had just been sentenced to a life of boredom and was considering arson as an alternative.

"Colonel Fitzwilliam." Her voice was as sharp as the heels of her slippers. "I require a word."

Richard nearly inhaled his champagne. "Miss Bingley. Good evening. You look—"

"Grey." She glared down at her gown. "I look grey. I am aware. You said subdued colours would make me appear selective, not invisible. I have been subdued for three weeks. I feel like a mourning dove."

"Mourning doves are dignified," Richard offered.

"They are also ignored by every eligible man in London," she snapped. "Which is, coincidentally, my current predicament."

Richard's brain, which had been operating at half capacity since the tea shop revelation, failed him entirely.Be nice,he ordered himself.She pays for orphaned nephews to learn Latin. She is kind beneath the thorns. Compliment her. Be charming.

"You are..." He swallowed. "...very... not orange."

Miss Bingley stared at him as if he had just suggested she wear a bonnet made of live eels. "Are you unwell, Colonel? You sound as though you've swallowed a hairball."

"I am perfectly well," he lied. "Merely surprised to see you."

"You told me to attend every event," she reminded him, crossing her arms. "I am attending. I am subdued. I am selective. And I am being systematically overlooked by every man in this room with a pulse and a title. Your strategy is failing."

"It takes time—"

"I do not have time." Her eyes flashed. "The Season ends in a few months, Colonel. And if I do not secure a viable prospect before then, I shall be forced to retreat to the countryside, where the only eligible men are vicars with gout and farmers who smell of sheep."

Richard's chest tightened. A deadline. He also had a deadline, which loomed like a guillotine. He shoved the thought aside. "What do you require from me?"

Miss Bingley stepped closer, and he caught the scent of her perfume—roses with an edge, kindness wrapped in barbed wire. "Information. And an introduction."

"To whom?"

"Lord Fawlton."

Richard choked on his champagne. "Absolutely not."