This follows on from my other oneshot 'Neon' but you don't have to have read it. All you need to know is that Wickham knows about Amanda. I love getting these two together. Enjoy!

A fortuitous match

"Aren't you going to congratulate me Miss Price?"

Amanda glanced at the source of the sound and saw Wickham strolling towards her down the gravel path. The shadow of Pemberley loomed behind her as she wiped the unhappy look off her face before he was close enough to see it.

"What would I be congratulating you for?" she queried, wary at the smile on his face.

"Why, I am engaged Miss Price. I thought perhaps the news might have reached here ahead of me, but we have not yet announced it to the newspapers." She could see him relishing the look of surprise on her face (she tried to hide the spark of jealousy) and decided to give him no more satisfaction.

"Well, I'm glad for you," she said cheerily, trying to keep her expression neutral. "Congratulations."

She began to walk away, hoping he'd get the hint, but he merely fell into step beside her.

"Miss Price, you have not yet asked who the lady, Chiefess of my affections, is." He was teasingly chastising and she sighed with exasperation.

"I'm sorry. Who is the unfortunate victim?"

George smirked wider. "Well it is you we have to thank, after all Miss Price. I recall that you suggested the fortuitous match."

She started to scramble through her memory. Who could she have possibly...she was sure she'd warned him off everyone...except...she stopped dead. He stopped next to her.

"Not Miss Bingley?" she groaned.

"The very same."

Damn. Why did it have to be frosty knickers. The proudest, snootiest, coldest of them all. She couldn't believe that such a woman could attract Wickham, although as the man himself had pointed out in the past, she was very beautiful, and her substantial inheritance merely added to her attractiveness. She was a little surprised that Wickham had acted so shallowly though. She wasn't sure why she should have but she'd always assumed he'd been joking about Miss Bingley as a prospective wife.

"You seem lost in thought Miss Price." He was enjoying this far too much.

"Just examining your motives Wickham,"

"I told you before," he said solemnly, "Miss Bingley is the love of my life." The twinkle in his eye gave it away.

On second thoughts…

"How did you manage to convince Miss Bingley to marry you?"

"I am hurt that you are so suspicious Miss Price." He gave her an injured expression and she snapped.

"You're right," she said patronisingly. "It must be your title and your fabulous wealth that attracted her, or your amazing personality, your standing in society, your estate...or it could just be your hair."

"What makes you think any of that matters and I am not the love of Caroline's life in return?"

...and then she remembered.

"Miss Price?" She realised that she had just frozen. There was an amused smile of his face that irked her. She considered not telling him, imagined the look of surprise on his face when, a couple of years in to their marriage, he walked in on Caroline and another woman...actually he'd probably enjoy that…

What business was is of hers anyway?

She looked up at the most irritating man on the planet and opened her mouth to say that it was nothing and she was happy for him...except that she couldn't. Her own decision earlier in the day, that had sent her into such a black mood, overshadowed her thoughts. She could make him just as miserable...she could save someone else from a loveless marriage...just as she had saved herself earlier. She shook herself mentally. It didn't matter. She was going home. Again she tried to tell him it was nothing but one look into his mischievous face and the feeling that welled up inside her would not allow it. What if, one day, he were to meet someone he loved? Someone he could not be with because he was bound to a person who could never love him back? and she supposed the same argument worked for old frosty knickers, but she didn't have quite the same vested interest...she stopped that thought right there. Like it or not she...cared about Wickham and could not let him go through with this without all the facts.

"There's something you should know about Miss Bingley," she began slowly, cautiously, and a strange look came into Wickham's eyes. His lips smiled but his eyes did not.

"You are, of course, referring to Miss Bingley's preference for the company of the female sex."

He said it so lightly, so off-handedly, that Amanda found herself stuck for words.

"Well...yes...I..." she stammered.

"Miss Bingley afforded me of certain facts before our engagement," he continued, strangely straight faced.

"How very...open of her." Amanda found herself floundering. Wickham examined her with almost disappointment.

"What I can't understand, Miss Price, is why you are telling me this." He gave her such a cold look, a look like no other he had given her before. "Do you hate Miss Bingley so much that would seek to destroy her by exposing her and betraying her confidence?"

Now she was mad.

"You think so little of me?" she replied sharply, voice hurt. "Do what you like Wickham, it is no concern of mine. I'm going home." She turned away and walked a few paces before stopping. "Oh, and congratulations. I'm sure you'll be very happy together."

She took two more steps before Wickham overtook her and she pulled herself up short. With a glare she made to move around him and he stepped into her way.

"George..." she warned.

"What do you mean 'going home'?" His voice was lighter than before. "What about Swellerando?"

She took a step back. "We broke up."

"Broke up?" The term was unfamiliar to him and he frowned in puzzlement.

"The wedding is off," she stated and hearing it suddenly made it feel so much more real. The unhappiness engulfed her again. That was two engagements down the drain before the age of thirty. What was wrong with her?

"So he has cast you into the outer darkness once more? Did you reveal a little too much once again?" He seemed annoyed; with her or with Darcy she could not tell.

"I did it." She saw the surprise in his eyes and felt some of that smugness that he must have felt a few moments ago. "I didn't believe he truly loved me." She flinched. She'd said that before. "Not the real me. He was attracted to me, sure, but he did not love me."

"Alas then, it was not to be," George stated, she could almost hear the thread of compassion, and moved to her side. "Where to next then, Miss Price?" He acted as he had before and she pulled him up short with her words.

"I'm going home George and you are going to Miss Bingley."

She did not see his face but felt him go still.

"Ah, yes. My own news must seem all the more callous and hurtful in the light of your own." His tone was strange, as though he were apologising, but his words lacked sincerity and seemed to be more mocking himself. She frowned a little.

"Not really. I'm disappointed and unhappy but not because I loved him, I don't think I did, not truly. I'm angry at myself that I got it wrong again. I shall have to give up on love and become a spinster with a thousand cats." She shook herself out of the imaging. "As for your news Wickham, what is there for me to find hurtful? What you've arranged with ol' frosty knickers is a marriage of convenience for you both, nothing more. Neither of you love the other and one day you may regret it. No, there is nothing enviable about your news."

He was silent for a long moment and when he spoke it was bitter, not with his usual gaiety. His face was as serious as she had seen it only twice before; once when he had spoken of Georgiana, and the other when he had spoken of Mr Bennet's condition.

"Miss Bingley and I bonded over a common disappointment, a common grief in our hearts. We, neither of us, could be with who we would choose. Her because society will not allow it and myself..." he paused and stared into the middle distance.

"Yes, George? What is your excuse?" she snapped, taunting him as usual and he moved his gaze onto her, more than a little irritated.

"My excuse, Miss Price, is that the woman I would be with is the most obstinate in the whole length and breadth of England and will not see me through the fog of her own stubbornness."

Now Amanda was not stupid; she thought she knew what he meant, but…

"Oh..." she managed weakly, her head spinning in confusion, that feeling in her chest fluttering hopefully.

"Yes." He was watching her carefully, she could see from the corner of her eye, but she dare not look properly – not yet. She fixed her eyes on a nearby hedgerow, trying to calm her breathing.

"Does she know?" Her voice came out as a squeak.

"I've had a mind to tell her for a while now," he responded, "but she had been otherwise occupied."

"Right," Amanda managed to force out.

"She has, in fact, recently become less occupied," Wickham continued in a light, airy tone, "but seems to be intent on leaving."

She looked at him, his eyes bright and face earnest and her breath left her in a gasp.

"You do mean me."

"And now she sees," he huffed.

Her mind whirled. She could not stay here. She wanted to go home and be busy and purposeful and useful. She wanted running water and a shower…

"As you were going home, Miss Price, I saw no harm in just..."

She grabbed at his jacket and looked up at him desperately.

"Come with me."

His eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Sorry?"

"Come with me. Come back to my world...with me." She took a deep breath. "I can't stay here Wickham. I don't belong here. I can't stand the rules and the snubs, the fact that nobody says what they really mean or feel, all for the sake of 'society'." As she said it she knew that it wasn't strictly true. There was one man that did as he pleased and he was stood in front of her. "So I'm going home, but I would really, really like to see if we...would work. I had you all wrong for so long and I was so determined not to see you because of what I thought you were like and then I was too busy chasing the wrong guy; but you were right when you said we are the same and I'd really like to try it..." she trailed off and looked up at him, "...if you do."

His arms encircled her and drew her closer, a smile on his lips and in his eyes. "I am fascinated Miss Price, mostly by your ability not to take a single breath." He was about to continue but she cut him off.

"I can't make any promises George." It was only fair to warn him. "We may be awful together. It might not work..."

"So let me see if I understand you Miss Price," his face was serious but his tone had a playful note. "You wish me to leave my home, my world, everything I hold dear," laying it on a bit thick George, "for the chance, the risk, that has no promise attached."

When he said it like that it sounded ridiculous. She swallowed and nodded and he smiled.

"You have spunk Miss Price, and fortunately for you I have it also. Will there be gaiety?"

She was trying to suppress her own smile.

"Oh yes, much more than here."

"Then, for the sake of gaiety, I will go," he announced and bent his head closer to her in a whisper, "chase it."

She nodded slowly, only half listening, very aware of how close his face was to hers.

"There is only one thing left to check," he told her and she didn't make a sound but closed her eyes as he kissed her. Her head swam and her legs went weak and she wanted to keep going forever. Damn he was a good kisser! When he drew back he smirked at her, in the full knowledge of what he could do, and she narrowed her eyes at him, still breathless.

"If I didn't know any better George, I'd say you've had a lot of practice at that."

He gave her his mischievous grin.

"I'm talented at many things Miss Price. I feel you have a deficit that is long over due in being redressed. I look forward to doing so." He swept his eyes over her and good God she was going to swoon. Now she was letting it happen the full force of their attraction was charging the air around them. She had to put a stop to that of they'd never get anywhere...but she just couldn't stop grinning. She was going home and the infamous George Wickham was coming with her.

"Shall we depart then?" he queried, "before Swellerando sets the dogs on us?" He looped his arm through hers and led her towards the stables and from thence to the Bennet's house.

"I must warn you Miss Price," he murmured as they walked, "that if I come with you then you will never be rid of me."

She smiled back, beaming up at him.

"Then I suppose I shall have to learn to endure it."