What if this Bazile was a catfish? The thought crossed his mind, but he quickly decided it was most unlikely. He had built the TrueNorth algorithm to require in-depth personal validation, a step that could not be bypassed easily. Everything else was encrypted to protect users’ privacy, even from the app itself. TrueNorth never revealed full identities, only what users chose to disclose.
Bazile had not chosen to disclose much. Just those few lines and the flower. But her messages were smart, funny, and fast.
They had been chatting for an hour.
Darcy scrolled through the messages again.
Bazile: I’m keeping my real name and face off until we meet. Adds to the mystery, don’t you think?
“Agreed. Anonymity has its charm,” he had said.
Bazile: Also, Mr F. reads like Mr Fictitious.
That one had made him laugh out loud, an actual sound, in the room he stayed in at Bingley’s house. It had not happened in weeks.
He typed, “Tempted to change it to Mr Fun. Or something else with an F.”
Bazile: Filthy? Frivolous? Fearsome? Fantastic?
His response was, “Dangerous ground.”
Bazile: I walk it daily.
He leaned back in his chair, a smile tugging at his mouth. She was absurd. And clever. And strangely familiar in a way he could not name.
Darcy knew better than to get carried away. This was data. This was just a controlled trial.
But for the first time since the gala, he felt interested.
And he was not sure if that was a win for his experiment or something else entirely.
Chapter FOUR
IT WASN’Tunusual for random people to follow Elizabeth and slide into her DMs—it came with the territory of being a journalist. Most of the time, she ignored them. Trolls, bots, or the occasional paid smear attempt—they weren’t worth the energy. But when a message mentioned Fitzwilliam Darcy by name, it caught her eye. And held it.
That afternoon, she had just finished lunch and was grinning into her phone, mid-conversation with Mr. F—who had, over the past one week, become an unexpected source of wit, insight, and laugh-out-loud commentary—when a notification appeared from her Substack comment section.
She squinted, as if the message had made her screen glow brighter.
The username was a simple one.
Wickham.
The message read:
“I saw your tweet about Fitzwilliam Darcy. Normally, I won’t do this, but when someone calls out a scam, I feel obligated to tell them more about the man behind the façade. If you need someone to tell you more about him, there’s no one better than me.”
She blinked at the message, then tapped the name. No links. No bio. He had liked a few of her articles before sending themessage. She realized this as she scrolled through his profile. Her Substack was set to notify her of comments or DMs, but not for simple likes—so she hadn’t noticed until now.
But there was a profile picture.
It was a man in military training gear—recruit uniform, sunglasses, half-smile. He looked confident. Young. Maybe her age. Maybe slightly older.
Elizabeth stared at the photo for a long moment. Not because he was handsome (he was, in that magazine-cover sort of way), but because it was the first time since all of this began that someone besides Jane or X had something to say about Fitzwilliam Darcy.
And this someone looked like he meant it.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
