Prom and Prejudice Read Free Page A

instinctually I pulled away.
    It was Will Darcy.
    "Oh, sorry," I said. "Yes, I'm wonderful. Great party ..."
    I went to the corner to try to save Jane's dress. The last thing I needed was to go to the ladies' room. The bathroom was one of the most vulnerable places on campus, an easy trap. Just another lesson from my fine education last semester.
    "Here." Darcy came over and handed me a napkin soaked in seltzer water.
    "Thanks." I had to try to nonchalantly put my arm up my dress to wipe off my legs.
    "I agree with you on this being a wonderful party." He leaned in. "I hate these things. Charles had to drag me."
    "I guess that's something he and Jane have in common -- their powers of persuasion."
    "And we, despite our better judgment, allow ourselves to be persuaded."
    "Yeah, well, I guess the two of us have that one thing in common."
    Darcy looked perplexed. "What makes you think we wouldn't have anything more in common?"
    I let out a little laugh. I had forgotten that he didn't know about me ... and my situation.
    Darcy turned his attention back to the matter of the ruined dress. "Is it coming out?"
    I shook my head. While the dress was black, it had a delicate chiffon layer that was becoming crusty from the coffee.
    "Jane is going to hate me," I said with a sigh.
    Darcy was confused. "Why would Jane hate you?"
    "This is her dress. I could never own a dress as nice as this. But maybe now she'll let me stay in my room once and for all instead of trying to turn the duckling into a swan with some borrowed feathers."
    "Oh." Something had begun to register on Darcy's face. The amused look had been replaced with a slow understanding of what was going on. It irritated me that he seemed to be helpful and genuinely concerned for me ... until he found out about my deep, dark secret.
    "Yeah, I'm a scholarship student."
    Darcy grimaced at the word
scholarship.
It looked like the mere mention of us charity cases caused a migraine.
    "I see," he replied. He gestured again to the coffee stain. "Well, good luck with that." Then he left as abruptly as he'd come.
    I stood there with my hands full of dirty, coffee-soaked napkins. I shouldn't have been surprised that once he found out the truth about me he wouldn't want to be seen in my presence. I guess this was a reminder from the universe that nothing was going to be different this semester. I was who I was, and I should have considered myself lucky that there were at least a couple people who accepted me.
    I headed toward the exit. I had tried to make an effort, andnow my effort was done. It was best to not tempt fate any further.
    "Well, hello, Elizabeth," a voice interrupted.
    I stopped dead in my tracks. My evening certainly wasn't going to get any better.
    "Hi, Colin," I replied.
    Colin Williams was one of the few Pemberley students who would talk to me. At first I thought it was because he was a bigger person than his breeding dictated. (At least one member of his infamous family has had a seat in Congress for decades.) But soon I realized that Colins friendliness toward me was because he was quite possibly the most boring person in the world, and few other people could tolerate being in a conversation with him. Not surprisingly, nobody thought of giving me a heads-up before I got stuck in an hour-long discussion (although, can it be a discussion if only one person was doing the talking?) with him at the beginning of the year about the benefits of private education. (There were many, and he listed them all.) By the time he was through, he was as surprised as I was that I was still standing there. Ever since, he has sought me out at any social event our two schools have had.
    "How were your holidays?" he asked me now.
    "Fine. And yours?"
    "Fabulous -- we went to our house in St. Bart's for Christmas. The weather there this time of year is most agreeable. The record low temperature is sixty-five-point-three degrees Fahrenheit, and we didn't come close to that. In fact, we were well above