Longbourn's Songbird

by Beau North

  “Go ahead!” Richard roared. “Say it! Say the thing you’ve been waiting to say for two fucking years! I know how much it kills you that I’m the one still standing, and James didn’t even make it two lousy months!”

  “James,” his father said, nodding. “James was a good son. He understood family and duty. Things you’ll never grasp! I wish—”

  “Please,” Richard said, quaking with grief and rage. “Say it.”

  “It should have been you I lost. Not my James.”

  Richard nodded. It was much as he expected.

  ***

  May 1945

  Folly Beach Fishing Pier

  Charleston, South Carolina

  Richard watched the girl on the end of the pier with detached interest as she put her feet up on the railing and looked down into the water some thirty feet below. The ocean wind, turning cool with a coming storm, played with her skirt, showing off a shapely pair of legs.

  Shifting his gaze to the steel-colored waters of the Atlantic, Richard wondered whether today would be the day. All of the preparations had been made, his last will and testament, some deeds, letters for his family—all put together in a packet back in his room. His life was tidy at last.

  Georgiana and Anne would get everything he had which, thanks to his investments with Darcy, was considerable. It quieted that nagging voice of guilt. His father would be the last Fitzwilliam. The thought gave Richard immense satisfaction, petty as it was.

  He hadn’t seen his father since Liverpool. The admiral’s instructions had been clear: Richard was to return to Annapolis and assume his father’s place as head of the family while the admiral focused on the Pacific.

  Richard had returned to Annapolis long enough to pack a bag and get on a train to North Carolina. He stayed with Darcy and Georgiana for a few days but found even their cautious, quiet presence to be suffocating. He left early on a Tuesday while everyone still slept, disappearing into the mists like Heathcliff. He hadn’t seen or spoken to any of his family in over five months. For all they knew, he was dead already.

  A loud cracking noise and a high-pitched scream interrupted his reverie; he looked up to see that both the girl and the railing had disappeared.

  Forgetting his own troubles, Richard ran down the pier. He reached the edge and looked down to see part of the wooden railing still dangled off the side of the pier. The girl was clinging to that precariously hanging bit of wood for dear life, her legs kicking wildly at the open air. Richard could see a number of large rocks in the shallows below her. The drop would be crippling if not fatal.

  “Hold on!” he shouted, pulling off his belt. He looped it through what he hoped was a sturdier post, hooking his foot through it. He lay on his stomach, hanging over the edge as far as he dared, holding out his arm.

  “Take my hand!”

  The girl’s eyes were wild with fear, but there was a stubborn determination in them as she reached up and grasped his arm. With a heave of effort, Richard pulled, glad that the months of working construction had helped him build his strength.

  A moment later, they both lay gasping and shaking on the pier. Cold drops of rain began pattering down on them, darkening their clothes in little round spots.

  “You…you just saved my life.”

  “It’s my pleasure,” he said, still trying to catch his breath around the incredible pounding of his heart. There was a deep throb from the mass of scar tissue on his abdomen. He touched it gingerly just to make sure he was still in once piece.

  The next thing he felt were a pair of soft lips pressed against his. It felt natural for him to wrap his arm around her small waist like it belonged there. Daringly, he tasted her lips with his tongue: ocean salt, raindrops, and cotton candy. She pulled away from him.

  “Thank you,” she said without a trace of embarrassment, her breath still labored.

  “Well, I don’t usually get thanked nearly that well when I rescue pretty girls.”

  “Oh? You do this often, do you?” She laughed shakily as she struggled to stand up, inspecting the bloody scratches on her arm, the worst of her injuries.

  “Let’s just say it’s a good thing you’re so skinny or this might have gone very differently.”

  “Skinny? I’m not skinny!”

  “Whatever you say, Slim.”

  ***

  Richard looked at his hands again. They were calloused, work-roughened from the odd construction jobs he’d taken since his return to the States. He liked construction—the simple pleasure of seeing a pile of lumber and metal become a wall. It was also the kind of job that didn’t demand much outside the physical. Richard could go entire days without speaking a word to anyone. He found it restful. In any case, he much preferred holding a hammer to holding a gun, and now that he remembered what it felt like to hold a woman, he was sure he preferred that most of all.

  She’s too young for you, he chided himself.

  But he’d shown up anyway to the place where, only a day ago, he saved her life. The pier was gated and chained shut now with a sign that warned it was unsafe. He waited, sitting on the seat of his motorcycle, listening to the sounds of the waves coming in and out. It soothed him. The ocean was patient; he could be too. The packet of letters back in his room was still there. Another day wouldn’t hurt.

  Absently, he fingered the scar just below his collarbone where a German knife had tried to cut him open. Half a year later, it still stung if he pressed the spot.

  “Hello, again,” a voice said at his elbow. Richard jumped, his hands going for the sidearm that wasn’t there. He wondered whether he’d ever be able to lose that habit. He turned to see the owner of that voice standing beside him with a curious look in her dark eyes, her head tilted slightly.

  “I wondered if I’d see you again,” she said with a smile. “You didn’t even tell me your name before you rode off into the sunset.”

  “It was raining.”

  Her lips twisted in a wry half-smile. “And I still don’t know your name.”

  He smiled, his first real smile in as long as he could remember. It felt strange.

  “I’m Richard,” he said.

  She nodded then pointed to herself.

  “Lizzie.”

  ***

  There was something comforting about diners, Richard thought. No matter what state you were in, you could count on being greeted by the smell of frying bacon and burnt coffee, the clatter of dishes, and a short order cook yelling from the kitchen. He scanned the room and saw her sitting by the window reading a newspaper. A small smile played across his lips at the sight. He found himself smiling more in the week that followed than he had in all the long, quiet months since he’d come back.

  He made his way to her, moving through the busy room as silent as a ghost. She didn’t startle when he sat down but went on reading the paper as if he wasn’t there.

  “It’s not polite to sneak up on a lady, Richard.” Her tone chastised, but the twitch of her mouth told another story. She was teasing him again. A waitress arrived with a tray before he could reply. She put a cup of black coffee in front of each of them followed by two slices of peach pie. Richard frowned at it. He ate for energy, fuel for the long hours of working construction. Peach pie didn’t appeal to him. The idea seemed indulgent. Decadent.

  “Everything all right, hon?” The waitress eyed him suspiciously. Richard supposed people didn’t normally scowl at their desserts.

  “No, everything’s fine. Thank you.”

  When he looked back up, the waitress was gone and Lizzie had put aside her paper.

  “If you want to sneak up on someone, you shouldn’t drive a motorcycle. I could hear you coming a mile away,” she said, and the amusement he saw earlier played across her face.

  Richard chuckled. He couldn’t help it. He hadn’t even thought of that. He took a bite of his pie without realizing what he was doing.

  His fork fell to the table with a clang as the taste of warm summer peaches filled his mouth. With painfu
l clarity, he remembered the last time he had peach pie: standing in the kitchen with James the night before they left, trying to keep their laughter quiet so as not to wake their father or Aunt Catherine, both notoriously light sleepers. He looked down at his plate, struggling to get a grip on himself. When he looked back up, he met her dark eyes. They were soft with sympathy or understanding; he couldn’t tell which. All that mattered was that it wasn’t pity.

  “How did you know?” he asked hoarsely. She tilted her head, studying him.

  “All I know for sure is there are few complaints that can’t be solved with dessert. You looked like a man who’d gone far too long without something sweet.”

  Richard nodded absently. Of course, she hadn’t known. It was still an eerie sensation that this strange girl’s intuition had so accurately suspected what he’d been longing for. It made him wonder what else she knew that he didn’t.

  “Did it make you think of someone special?” she asked. “I can’t have orange marmalade without thinking of my Granny Gardiner.”

  “My brother,” he said, picking his fork back up. “The last time I had this was the last night I saw him.”

  “The war?” He nodded again, continuing to eat his dessert. “What was he like?”

  Richard washed the pie down with his coffee. It was an effort to get his hands to stop shaking long enough to lift his cup. He looked back up at her to see that same curious look on her face. He thought for a moment before answering her.

  “James was… He’d give you the shirt off his back. He was just good. And funny. A lot of people don’t know that about him, but he was. He was our father’s favorite, but he bore it well. Father and I never did get along.”

  “Not even when you were a boy?”

  Richard shook his head. “He liked me little as a boy and less as a man.”

  She surprised him by reaching across the table and covering his hand with her own.

  “It’s his loss,” she said seriously. “And you grew up to be the man who saved my life. He should be proud of you.”

  Richard wondered what his father would make of the lovely, intelligent creature now squeezing his rough hand. Would she charm the admiral as thoroughly as she charmed him? It seemed a kind of blasphemy that anyone would ever reject her.

  “How old are you anyway?” he asked suddenly.

  “Nineteen,” she said, smiling quizzically. “Why do you ask?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll never believe it. You’re too damn wise to be nineteen.”

  She laughed and squeezed his hand again. “Funny, my mother frequently tells me the opposite.”

  ***

  June 1945

  Fort Sumter Hotel

  Charleston, South Carolina

  “Come on,” she said with a laugh. “It’ll be fun.”

  Unable to help himself, Richard let her take his hand and pull him to the dance floor. His arm went around her waist as if it belonged there.

  “We aren’t even supposed to be here.” He couldn’t keep the grin off his face as he looked down at her. “We’re crashers,” he whispered.

  “Shhh. They don’t know that!”

  She gave the father of the bride a dazzling smile and a slight wave. He returned the wave good-naturedly if a tad befuddled. Richard shook his head with a chuckle. It had been a month since that fateful day at the pier—the day he saved her life. The day she saved his life.

  The packet of papers in his room had been put away. For safekeeping, he told himself. Every day he thought of it less and less—and her more and more. He’d been relieved when his last job had ended, freeing up his days to spend with her. He didn’t worry about money. He had saved up a tidy sum in the months he’d been back, and he could always dip into his accounts if needed. Thanks to Darcy, he had an ocean of wealth sitting untouched and waiting.

  He liked that she didn’t know about that part of his life. The rich boy. The admiral’s son. To her, he wasn’t the disappointment he’d been to his father or the rake he’d been to countless women before the war. She only asked him about his family the one time. After that, she never asked again. If his lack of a past ever bothered her, she didn’t let it show.

  Richard wondered whether he might be falling in love and found that he liked the idea. He’d never been in love before. She was intelligent and kind, funny and lovely in an artless way. His only reservation was the eight-year difference in their ages. She was only nineteen, full of the joyous vivacity that time and war had long since sapped from him. He found himself thinking on more than one occasion that there had to be something else out there for her, someone pure and unsullied by violence and death.

  “You’re in a brown study again,” she said, smiling up at him as they danced to “I Wish I Didn’t Love You So.” Their steps were unconsciously graceful. They moved well together, and this pleased him too. Her dark eyes shone in the evening light, her curls pinned back to show off her neck and shoulders in a tantalizing way. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his, catching him off guard. He pulled back, breaking the kiss.

  “Slim…”

  “Stop it,” she said. “I want what I want, Richard. Now kiss me before I get sore with you.”

  Richard did as he was told.

  ***

  July 1945

  Riverfront Park

  Charleston, South Carolina

  “How did they turn out?” Richard slung an arm around her shoulder, peering at the strip of small pictures from the photo booth.

  “You weren’t looking,” she said, showing him. While she smiled at the camera, he only had eyes for her.

  “Oh, I was looking, all right.” His hand roamed greedily down her hip, giving her bottom a playful pinch. A couple of passing sailors saw and wolf-whistled.

  “Rascal!” She laughed and slipped out of his arms, her sandals slapping against the boardwalk.

  Richard smiled and followed her contentedly. He vaguely remembered the days before he met her. He found it was like trying to recall the faces in a faded series of photographs.

  The packet of papers stashed away in his room was all but forgotten. His room had become a special place. When they made love in the afternoons, it wasn’t a tattered seaside studio but a palace, and she its jewel.

  Not a jewel, he thought. She was the sun, banishing the shadows and dark corners he had lived in before. Watching her run, he felt a familiar stirring. While she had become an adept learner, he still felt new and coltish in her arms.

  Something caught his eye, glittering in a shop window.

  ***

  Harbor Inn Motor Lodge

  Charleston, South Carolina

  “I honestly can’t believe you did that.”

  Her dark curls tickled his face as she leaned over to look at the new tattoo on his arm, the skin around it still bright pink.

  They were lying in bed, the covers and sheets kicked off in the afternoon heat. He winced slightly as she touched it, The Sacred Heart. The dark-skinned sailor who’d drawn it had called it the milagro, the miracle.

  “People are going to wonder why it says ‘Slim.’” His other arm went around her waist as if it belonged there. He was tired but contented for the moment. His sleep had been troubled the night before. The memories he’d pushed down were beginning to surface like bubbles. He woke up some nights covered in cold sweat and convinced that his guts were hanging out; the smells of gunpowder and blood seemed to fill the room.

  It was turning out to be a strange time for Richard. He was so happy, so full of love and love of life, but there was darkness under it all that he tried not to see. He worried that the dirt he kept sweeping under the rug might really be quicksand and one day swallow him whole.

  Lately, he’d taken to long walks in the evenings after she’d gone back to her aunt and uncle’s house. The sound of the tide on the beach, the rumble and hiss of the water on sand, calmed him.

  “Let them wonder,” he said, looking deep in her eyes as he brushed her hair back fro
m her face. Here was something pure and lovely and good that chased away his ghosts for as long as he held her. “You can tell them all that I called you skinny the day we met.”

  She laid her head against his chest and laughed. “Rascal,” she said, play-punching him, careful to avoid the shiny patchwork of scars he’d brought back from France.

  “I have something for you,” he said, reaching into the nightstand. He pulled out the locket, a simple gold oval on a delicate chain.

  She gasped. “This is beautiful! How did you afford it?”

  Richard only smiled, happy she was happy. He felt a little guilty using the Fitzwilliam account at Croghan’s. It’s where his father had bought his mother’s engagement ring—where they’d bought the sapphire earrings that Anne Fitzwilliam had worn when she married John Darcy and the little pearl bracelet for Georgiana’s fifth birthday. To Richard, this offering was no less special.

  “Open it,” he said, smiling broadly. She sat up, her fingers finding the delicate clasp and popping it open, making a little sound of surprise at the photo inside. It was one of the pictures from the photo booth they’d taken that day on the boardwalk.

  He wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. “I could only ever look at you.”

  “Help me put it on,” she said excitedly, handing the locket to him. She pulled her hair up out of the way so he could slip the chain around her neck, locking the clasp.

  “There,” he said.

  She let her hair fall and turned around. The oval rested on her breastbone, the chain twinkling in the afternoon light that filtered through the thin curtains. “How does it look?”

  “C’mere,” he said in a growl, pulling her to him and kissing her deeply.

  “Do you like it?” he asked finally.

  “I love it.” Her smile faded, and her face turned serious. “And I love you. Do you love me?”

  “Oh, Slim.” He sighed, touching her face with trembling fingers. “I’ve never loved anything else.”

  ***

  August 1945