Pride: an austen reimagined novel | 1

Chapter Thirteen: Lily

I tried really hard to get the image of a sweat-drenched Austin out of my mind, I promise to God I did. It was second in my head only to the look on his face when he'd seen Liam.

I had no idea what was up with him and Liam, but Liam had a similar look of distaste on his face when he'd seen Austin; there was obviously something going on between the two. God knew I did not want to get caught up in all the drama, but I was intrigued.

"Lil, are you listening?" Anne asked; I had the feeling it wasn't the first time.

"I wasn't, sorry."

She chuckled. "I'm having a hard time getting that look out of my mind too. Damn, Jax is gorgeous."

My mind, thankfull,y diverted to her happiness. I smiled. "He is. He is gorgeous and he is very keen on you, I think. Now, what were you saying?"

There was a knock on the door and I huffed as Anne answered it. I went back to my computer, feeling the need to kill things; I'd been doing that a lot in the last few days since the Great Incident, as Anne had taken to calling it.

"Oh, um, hi," I heard Anne say. "Yeah, she's in here."

"Lil, you decent?"

I groaned as I heard Kate's voice. I spun my chair around and found her and Gemma escorting a very boring looking guy into our room.

"Uh, not really decent, but don't suppose it matters now," I said, looking down at my daggiest tracksuit skirt, jumper and knee-length ugg boots.

"Oh well. Lil, this is Sebastian Chambers..." Kate, who stood in front of him, gave me a very obvious look.

I blinked for a few seconds, and then remembered, and stood up. "Oh, right. Hi, lovely to meet you."

Sebastian wore a black shirt tucked into black pants, with black shoes. I could vaguely see the family resemblance to Gemma. His dark hair looked kinda greasy and his dark eyes were trained on Anne.

"Hi," he said with a weird grimace I assumed was meant to be a smile.

"Uh, Seb, meet Anne, Lily's roommate," Gemma said, circling her hand next to her head, implying he was crazy.

"Pleasure." Seb swept into a low bow, took Anne's hand and kissed it.

"Oh, wow, okay," I blurted out, then clapped my hand over my mouth with a smile at the look on Anne's face.

"Allow me to bestow upon you a great compliment on the alignment of your features, Miss Anne," Seb said, standing straight again.

I swallowed a snigger. "What brings you to Netherfield, Seb?" I asked.

He barely glanced at me. "Your parents invited me to dinner so I could meet you."

"Oh good, well, as you clearly haven't seen, I'm lovely," I said, exchanging a smile with Gemma and Kate. "When's dinner?"

"Not 'til tomorrow, but Seb thought he'd pop in and say hi," Kate replied.

"Please say you will join us for dinner?" Seb asked Anne.

She looked at me in panic, but I held my tongue. I knew if I opened my mouth, I was going to burst into laughter.

"Of course she will," Kate said, hiding her laughter better than I ever could.

"Right, that'll do Seb," Gemma said, grabbing his arm.

I finally composed myself enough that I thought I could speak without making an arse of myself. "Yes, Seb. Anne and I need to go and wash our negligée."