“Of course I want to help him with it. Two of my nephews, Harry and Martin, are gay.” She addressed Bennet with a curling lip that could barely be called a smile. Then glanced to Darcy. “I love the gay community.”
Bennet grimaced, but he could work with this. “I hope the pride you have for your nephews is infectious among the locals.”
“I shouldn’t think so,” Darcy said.
Bennet raised his brows, and Darcy obliged him by explaining. “Nothing is less genuine than pretending to be comfortable with something you are not. Fake pride will be quickly seen through—nothing infectious about it.”
“Are you calling my pride for Harry and Martin fake?” Caroline said, aghast. “I love them.”
“I don’t doubt you love them. But, yes, your pride is exaggerated, and I would suggest no display of pride is better than a faked display.”
Bennet felt the weight of his phone in his pocket and remembered the cringiness he felt every time it dinged with gossip. He remembered Lyon’s face when he had laughed and winced reading those fairy messages. It wasn’t perfect support, but it was an attempt at it.
“No display is better than a faked display?” He shook his head.
Darcy hugged his son’s thesis. “Insincere pride is no better than lying on a job application, saying you can code when you can’t. Eventually your colleagues will see there is no substance to the lie and you’ll lose all respect. It can only end in humiliation.”
Oh, Darcy.
“While true pride is always preferable, I think there is a case for faking it. Acting like you care for others may help others act like they care, and maybe in the course of acting they open up and learn that they no longer need to act. Love begets love. Pride, pride.”
Caroline’s gaze ping-ponged between them. “Oh, stop this ridiculousness. Darcy is an arguer by nature, Bennet. An excellent one. Being off work, he has nothing better to do than engage in these philosophical debates. We’d better stop now before he makes us both feel bad.”
Darcy inclined his head, but Bennet caught the turmoil in his gaze and held himself back from arguing further. He set his work aside and stood. “Let’s go for that walk and leave Darcy to read in peace.”
Later, Bennet paced Darcy’s porch, Lyon on the other end of the phone.
“What are you up to?”
“Well I’m definitely not hanging out watching Netflix at home or anything.”
Bennet smiled, relieved, and they spoke until Lyon grew distracted, murmuring something about looking out the window. Bennet figured anything through double-glazing was safe enough, and left him to it.
On his way back down the hall, he smacked into Darcy coming out of the bathroom, nothing but a towel looped around his damp waist. His flattened curls were dripping onto his strong shoulders. Water trailed down his hairy chest toward—. Bennet snapped his head up.
“Darcy!”
“Bennet.” Darcy paused. “I thought we weren’t starting conversations this way anymore?”
“We do when I bump into you gloriously half naked.”
Darcy didn’t seem affronted by Bennet’s description. Nor did he seem embarrassed. Whatever reaction he had, he kept it schooled. His hands finished tucking in his towel, thumbs skating over the thick dark line of his treasure trail.
God. So unfair, how outrageously gorgeous the emotionally unattainable could be.
Darcy stilled. “The way your eyes keep roaming over me. . . . So you . . .” he cleared his throat, “find me attractive?”
Bennet met his quietly curious gaze.
“Yes. Physically.”
Darcy’s nipples tightened visibly and goosebumps flared down his stomach.
Bennet was acutely aware of him as he stepped closer, watching Darcy’s pupils widen, the heat between them thickening. Electrical currents rippled over Bennet, and Darcy too by the shiver he gave. Darcy’s face remained impassive, though. Stubborn. “I like looking at more than your eyes, Darcy. Though they are particularly striking.”
Darcy swallowed.
Bennet brushed past him, the jolt of their touching arms causing his step to falter, but not nearly as much as Darcy’s rough voice coming after him. “Wait.”
Bennet stopped walking but didn’t look back.
“Thank you. For tonight, carving me some privacy.”
Something in his tone suggested a part of him didn’t want this conversation to end, but didn’t know how to prolong it.
Bennet nodded. “No problem.”
“I appreciated it. And . . .”
“And?”
The silence extended, one beat, two. Those dark eyes blinked rapidly. “Good night, Bennet.”
“Good night. May your dreams be filled with buttering your own baguette.” Bennet winked over his shoulder. “Or if you dare, someone else buttering it for you.”
Bennet hid a smile behind a sip of his coffee.
Darcy poured himself a mug from the other side of the kitchen island. They’d been for their morning ride and Darcy had redressed into an iron-sharp button-down, crisp white over dark slacks. As black and white as most of his opinions seemed to be.
“You’ve observed me long enough.” Darcy hooked Bennet’s watchful eye. “What do you make of me?”