Page 1 of A Searing Acquaintance
CHAPTER ONE
October
As much as she appreciated the Industrial Revolution and all the comforts and pleasures its developments brought to her life, Elizabeth Bennet still suspected that escalators were nothing more than a death trap. If you didn’t fall down one or get your shoe sucked into the eager stair teeth, you were relying on steel gears and cogs to move you when you should be stretching your own legs and shedding the calories you’d just enjoyed. Escalators, she thought, were a less than innocent factor in America’s obesity epidemic. Where was the outrage?
“Yo, Bob! Get me a dog and a beer!”
Elizabeth grabbed her sister’s arm and nodded toward two pear-shaped men in orange sweatshirts, pointy black hats, and striped face paint. “Be still my heart. Jane, I think we’ve found the perfect sperm donors.”
Jane smirked. “That’s us, always on the lookout for a hottie.”
The sisters loved going to football games at the University of Meryton—the autumn leaves crunching underfoot, the marching band playing tunes in the crisp air, the crowd roaring in unison for the boys on the field—but there were just as many drawbacks. After all, one did have to rub elbows with fans unabashed (and sometimes underdressed) in their fervor for the team.
“I see no hotties here,” muttered their friend Charlotte Lucas. “Averitable sea of orange. I didn’t know orange existed on the color palette when this place was founded in 1850.”
Elizabeth’s retort about the seventeenth-century William of Orange went unspoken as Charlotte grabbed her arm and gasped.
“Wait, hotties alert!” she cried, as they neared the top of the escalator. “I spoke too soon. Look there.” Charlotte pointed at two men standing near the elevator bank. Both were clad in black, and only the orange baseball cap atop the head of the grinning blond gave away which team they were there to root for.
“My oh my,” murmured Jane. “Mind your manners.” She reached past Elizabeth and pushed down Charlotte’s hand. As they stepped off the escalator, she pulled out her ringing phone. “It’s Jessica. Wait a second.”
Elizabeth, trailed by a still-gawking Charlotte, followed her sister and leaned against a pillar, listening to the conversation between the two unfashionable fans.
“For God’s sake, Charles,” spat out the man dressed more for a jaunt to a mausoleum than a football stadium. “Have you seen how these people are attired? Why do adults dress up like children to go scream at semi-professional athletes trying to kill one another?”
The blond man rolled his eyes. “They’re having fun letting off steam. They’rebonding, Darcy. Like us.”
“Bonding? Hell no.”
His friend laughed. “They’re cheering for the home team, man. C’mon, you cheer for the Yankees.”
“But they wear blue. Orange is a bloody fashion crime.”
A guy with an English accent roots for the Yankees?Elizabeth wondered.Go figure.
“Hey! You do remember I went to Princeton, right? Our mascot is the tiger?”
The other man, his hair nearly as dark as his clothes and his gray eyes flashing with disgust, shook his head. “I resent bad taste.” The piercing tones of the marching band’s brass section filled the air. “Oh great,” he muttered. “Thick-ankled tuba players marching in lockstep.”
“Geez, lighten up. Let’s find our seats.”
Elizabeth stared after the pair, less shocked than amused by their sentiments. Pity that a much-loved American pastime is offensive to the sensibilities of a British prig. Has he never been to one of his own country’s football games? Talk about a bunch of brawlers!She looked down at heroutfit: black jeans and turtleneck with an orange sweatshirt and hair tie.Not too garish. Perfect for October.
Jane grabbed her hand. “Okay, Jessica said we’re in box 202, section 50.”
“We’re in a skybox?” Charlotte squealed. “On the fifty-yard line! Oh my God!”
Jane nodded. “Hurry. I have to pee, and I’d rather use a luxury restroom than deal with the long lines out here. Let’s go.”
Ten minutes after sinking into their cushioned leather seats, the three women were sipping mimosas and sampling from a platter of flatbreads settled between them. Jane, an insurance executive, was worried that she hadn’t yet seen their host nor met the clients he was eager to please. After a few minutes, she recognized the clients and moved to a seat in the first row, intent on making enough small talk to feel she’d repaid her boss for the use of the company’s skybox tickets. Charlotte, an accountant, was busy calculating the net worth of their dozen or so fellow occupants.
Elizabeth kept her focus on the game. She’d never had a view quite like this—so clean, so clear, so sheltered from the wind—and with servers at her beck and call. She could get used to this arrangement even though she felt the box was a bit claustrophobic.
Without the roar of the crowd, she could hear almost every conversation in the room, even the one in the row behind her featuring two unfortunately familiar voices.
“She’s gorgeous. I’m going to introduce myself.”
“Wait. You don’t know a thing about her. You don’t know if she’s with the other firm or?—”
