There was nothing remarkable about his speech. He attempted a few jokes and got some laughter, although whether people thought he was funny or whether they were just being polite, he didn’t know. But finally it was over, and he hadn’t flubbed anything major.
He took a deep breath as he handed the microphone back to the deejay and dropped into his seat. The spotlight was on the older Mr. Bingley now, who sounded confident as he made a father-of-the-groom speech. Will waited for Mr. Bennet’s speech, but apparently the father-of-the-bride was not going to make one, because after Mr. Bingley, the microphone passed to a Bingley grandmother who offered the blessing over the meal, and then the waiters began to appear with plates of food.
As they were waiting for their table to be served, Mr. Bennet addressed him for the first time.
“So, I hear that you have daddy issues,” he said with a grin.
Will’s mouth dropped open as most of the table turned to watch the exchange.
“Dad!” Elizabeth said, looking disgusted.
“What? It’s like the elephant in the room!” Mr. Bennet protested. “Everybody’s wondering.”
Will sighed. He really hadn’t wanted to get into this at the wedding, but he wasn’t going to let this stand. “It’s all lies. I mean, I was adopted by the Darcys. But I lived with my mom, and I’ve never met this man claiming to be my father. It’s certainly not true that I somehow abandoned him when I had the chance at a better life.”
Mr. Bennet looked interested. “Wants his fifteen minutes of fame, does he? He wouldn’t be the first.”
Will struggled to find a more neutral topic of conversation. “What kind of work do you do, sir?”
“I’m a college professor in California. Flew back for the wedding, of course.” A memory came to Will suddenly, half-forgotten, from when he’d been looking for Lizzy as a boy. He’d called numerous Bennets with listed phone numbers, and one had been a college professor in California who had cursed him out when he asked about Lizzy. Could he have been so close, so long ago?
Mr. Bennet went on, “I did used to own a bookstore, as Elizabeth here knows!” He smiled at Elizabeth.
Elizabeth nodded and took a sip of her drink, but she didn’t look happy about it.
“Ah, well, she’s still unhappy with me about that. Thinks that with some marketing ploys and investment we could have kept it going. But really, she should have known the bookstore would fail. They all do, in the age of Amazon. There’s really no point in living in denial.”
“Not all bookstores fail, Dad. As evidenced by the fact that plenty still exist! If you’d just―”
“Now, now,” Mr. Bennet said, holding up his hands, “let’s not start this again. You’ll just have to trust me on this one. It was a fool’s errand from the beginning, and you should have known it.”
Elizabeth sat back in a huff and turned away from her father.
The waiters appeared at their table with their meals. Conversation was desultory during dinner, consisting mostly of observations about the bridal couple, the decorations, and the ceremony.
After dinner, the deejay announced the father-daughter dance.
Mr. Bennet sighed. “I suppose needs must.” He stood up and went to join Jane on the dance floor.
Will was appalled. “He doesn’t want to dance with his daughter at her wedding?”
“He pretends that it doesn’t matter to him,” Elizabeth said quietly, watching them with an unreadable look on her face. “But it does. He does love us, just . . . not enough sometimes.”
Will watched them dance. Jane positively glowed. She was truly the most objectively beautiful woman he had ever seen. And she did have what they used to call a certain “je ne sais quoi” about her, a grace that was hard to define. He had at first thought that it was faked, that no girl could ever be so kind and sweet. But Jane was. She wasn’t perfect, not at all. She was sometimes a bit of a pushover, a bit too gentle when firmness was needed. But Charlie would be a good husband for her.
Mr. Bennet seemed to be enjoying himself, for all his feigned reluctance. At one point, he closed his eyes and rested his head on hers, and Will could imagine how he himself would feel dancing with Georgiana at her wedding someday. Oh, he wasn’t her father, of course, but he was so much older than her that he felt a bit of the same protective instinct.
When he returned to the table, Mrs. Bingley got up to join her son on the dance floor. Will smiled to see their easy affection for each other as they danced.
Ms. Gardiner was chattering to anybody who would listen about how she had known Jane would marry Charlie from the start.
“I’ve always told my daughters, ‘you deserve rich men who will take care of you,’” she said blithely. “All of my daughters are beautiful enough to win the heart of any man, so I always say, why not a rich one?” She laughed.
“That is an impressive philosophy,” Caroline said in a drawl. “How do you manage it?”
“It’s not easy,” Ms. Gardiner said. “They fight me every step of the way! Fool girls, they don’t know what’s best for them. Some of them, like Lizzy here, will most likely never marry, because they can’t be bothered to make the slightest effort. But Jane, you know, has always listened to me on how to make the best of what she has.”
“And you’ve taught her how to attract rich men?” Caroline asked, giving Elizabeth a sly look.
“Why, of course. She’s far too beautiful to be wasted on a poor one.”
Elizabeth sighed. “Mother . . .”
“Don’t you “Mother” me,” Ms. Gardiner scolded. “You haven’t treated me like your mother in years. Ungrateful―”
“Would you like to dance?” Will asked Elizabeth abruptly. “I mean, we should anyway. I think they want the wedding party to join in the next dance, and that’s us.”
She nodded without saying anything and joined him on the dance floor.
“I’m so eloping someday,” he thought he heard her mutter as she stepped into his arms.
“Your mother is . . .” Will thought to say “a piece of work,” but he realized at the last minute that that probably wouldn’t go over well.
“My mother,” Elizabeth finished for him. “Now you know why I spent most of my childhood hiding from her.”
“I think I would have, too,” he said softly. “Sorry.”
He had to spin her away quickly to avoid bumping into Richard, who was dancing with Charlotte. It was a slow dance, but Richard was having far too much fun on the dance floor, and Charlotte was laughing as he twirled her.
“What was yours like? I mean, not Mrs. Darcy. Your birth mom.”
Will closed his eyes for a few moments as he thought. “She was pretty once, I think. I saw a picture once of her as a teenager. But I only remember her being, well, excessively thin and kind of gaunt-looking. Probably because she was usually on some sort of drugs. She invited men over a lot, and we moved from house to house when she would change boyfriends.”
Lizzy winced. “Yeah, that’s rough.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, but he held her a little closer. She rested her head on his shoulder. He couldn’t help resting his chin on the top of her head and taking a deep breath of her scent. Some sort of fruit―apple, maybe? He closed his eyes. Bliss.
Their movements slowed, until they were barely moving to the music. But Lizzy didn’t pull away, and he wasn’t about to. He savored the last moments of the song until the music died away and they finally separated.
“Will,” Lizzy said, looking up at him. “I have something I need to show you. I don’t know if―”
“Will!” a voice called from behind him. He turned to see Caroline beaming at him. She took his arm as soon as he turned.
“Now that you’re done with your dance obligation, you can have that dance with me you were waiting for!” she said brightly. “Oh, you’ll forgive me, Elizabeth—now that the bridal party dances are out of the way, everybody is free to dance with whoever they want!” She angled her
body so that she and Will were facing each other, with Lizzy slightly apart.
Lizzy grinned at Will. “Well, have fun, then!” she said, and disappeared into the increasing crowd of people who had joined them on the dance floor. Will glared at the spot where she’d disappeared. Was this some last piece of revenge for his mistakes? He wouldn’t put it past that mischievous imp she’d been at eight.
“You’re welcome,” Caroline said as she took his hand and slid her other arm around his shoulder. Will followed her lead without intending to, and they began to dance.
“For what?” he asked, although he had a feeling he knew.
“For the rescue. I could see you were dying of boredom during your dance with her. Why, I don’t think either of you said a word for the entire dance! And she was all over you. A friendly warning, Will: you really shouldn’t encourage her.”
He wasn’t sure what to say to that. Telling Caroline that he wanted to encourage Lizzy didn’t seem likely to lead to anything good. And he didn’t want to sic Caroline on Lizzy, which might happen if Caroline knew exactly how much of a threat Lizzy was. And yet he didn’t want to just let her comments stand.
“So,” Caroline said after Will wasted precious seconds trying to think of how to tell Caroline off without creating a scene, “there’s really nothing important left. The cake-cutting and bouquet toss, I suppose, but neither really requires a best man. How about the two of us sneak out a bit early? We could go out for a decent dinner―Jane’s a dear, but really, these caterers! I can’t think why she chose them―and maybe a bit of real dancing. You could loosen your tie,” she said smilingly, tugging at it.
He pulled away. “Caroline―”
“Oh, Will, come on, you can’t really want to stay here for, what, two more hours of this? It’s so tedious. Charlie won’t care, you know. There’s a new club, the Taiga, that I’ve been wanting to check out.”
“No, Caroline.”
She sighed. “Will, I know clubs aren’t your thing. But they are mine. And sometimes you need to compromise in a relationship.”
“Caroline, we’re not in a relationship! There’s no reason for either of us to compromise on anything.”
He had never been quite so glad to hear the last bars of the song. He stepped away from her. She tried to reach for him again, but he gently took her wrist and removed her hand from his shoulder.
“That’s enough, Caroline. I’m not interested, and I never will be. Find somebody else and leave me alone. The Bennets as well.”
Caroline looked to be about to protest when he felt a hand on his back.
“May I have the next dance?” his cousin Anne asked, giving him a huge grin.
Making Plans
October 2016
Will glanced behind Anne to where she’d been sitting. Her mother, his Aunt Catherine, was watching them, her face lit with joy.
“Is that a good idea?” he asked.
“Oh, it’s an excellent one,” she said, moving into the spot recently vacated by Caroline.
He held his cousin as far away as he had Caroline, not so much because he disliked her but because he didn’t want to give Aunt Catherine any ideas. Which did beg the question . . .
“Why are we giving Aunt Catherine ideas?” he asked.
“Because it’s ever so entertaining!” Anne said with a saucy wink. She peeked over Will’s shoulder to where her mother was sitting, then gave Will a disturbingly amorous look and kissed his chin.
“Will you stop!” Will protested, pushing her away from him.
She laughed. “Okay, okay. But you have to keep dancing with me! We’re putting Mama off the scent.”
This, at least, was intriguing. “Is there a scent, then?” he asked.
“Most definitely. But not one that Mama would approve of, hence the need for a bit of a diversion. Hope you don’t mind too much.”
“Who’s the guy?”
“His name is David Torres.” Her look turned distant. “He’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. Inside and out.”
“Hey!” Will said in mock protest.
“Who’s not related to me by blood,” Anne quickly added. She gave him an impish grin. “So there.”
“Better.” He paused. “Hey, wait. We’re not related by blood.”
She smiled angelically. “Anyway, he’s a car electronic technician.”
Will winced. “Solid job. But totally not highbrow enough for Aunt C, huh?”
“Not in the slightest. ‘He hasn’t even gone to college!’ and all sorts of blah-blah-blah like that. Apparently blue collar is not acceptable for a de Bourgh, regardless of how much he earns. Or the fact that I have a trust fund with enough to supplement our income for life! It’ll never be enough for her.”
Will gave her a bit of a spin, making her laugh. “Are you sure he’s good enough for you, Anne?”
“Positive.” She smiled.
“Then are you sure you’re good enough for him?” This time he dipped her for good measure.
“Will!” she said, laughing as he let her up. “Yes! He’s asked me to marry him, you know.”
“How old is he?” Was Aunt Catherine’s concern about Anne’s age? She was young to marry.
Anne could see right through him, as usual. “You’re not concerned about his age—you’re concerned about mine.”
Will shrugged.
“Look, I’m legally an adult, and I know what I want.”
“You’re legally an adult . . . who will be too young to drink alcohol at her wedding reception.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not marrying him tomorrow, you know. By the time we actually get married, I’ll be twenty-one.”
He looked again to see Aunt Catherine. She was chattering happily to her neighbor, watching him and Anne all the while.
“When will you tell her?” he asked Anne quietly.
She shrugged. “A quarter to never? Do people still elope in this day and age? Vegas or something, right?”
“They do,” he said. “But she can’t stop you, you know. If you run off and get married in Vegas, your relationship may never come back from that. If you have a regular wedding and she chooses not to come . . . then it’s on her. And she can choose to mend the relationship someday if she wants.”
“You always were the voice of reason,” Anne grumbled. “Fine. But you’d better come and help handle her if she makes trouble.”
“Of course.”
“So I suppose you’re going to tell me to make sure to get a pre-nup,” Anne said. She raised her eyebrows.
Will swallowed. “I . . . I . . .” He sighed. “I think it’s a good idea, yes, but ultimately it’s your decision. I’ve recently learned some reasons that it’s not the best choice for everyone like I used to think.”
Anne grinned. “Jane won you over to her side, huh?”
“You brat!” Will said, spinning her out and back. “You already knew about it!”
“Yep.”
He shook his head. “Just when I finally learned to butt out of the situation, you had to go and bring it up again.”
“That’s me, always stirring the pot. “
“How do you know about the pre-nup, anyway?” Will couldn’t help but ask. “Wait, how do you know Jane? You don’t even know the Bingleys that well, do you? I was wondering how you and Aunt Catherine ended up here.”
“Oh, that’s easy. Caroline invited us.”
“Caroline Bingley?”
“Yep. She found out about Mama’s money, I guess, and figured Charles had some tenuous connection to us through you and your father. She’s a gold digger if ever there was one. Found out, invited us totally last minute to the wedding, and decided to become my new best friend. It’s been hard to shake her this past week. I wish I’d found the invitation first and tossed it before Mama caught wind of it. Anyway, she’s been whining about the pre-nup ever since it got sorted.”
“Sounds like her.”
Suddenly, they both jumped when a hand landed on ea
ch of their shoulders.
“Will, Anne!” Aunt Catherine cried. “I’m so delighted to see the two of you dancing! Don’t you just make the sweetest couple?”
“Mama,” Anne said, groaning. “First cousins. Geez.”
“It’s perfectly legal,” Aunt Catherine said contentedly. “I looked it up.”
Anne rolled her eyes at Will and took her mother’s arm. “Let’s go talk, Mama.”
Will was left shaking his head in amusement.
He was heading back towards his table when Arun Pancholi and Borami Park greeted him, along with Arun’s wife. He hadn’t been surprised to see them sitting with the Darcys, as Arun and Borami were the two youngest board members and the friendliest with Charlie.
“Will!” Borami greeted him. “Good to see you!”
He shook hands with both and greeted Arun’s wife, whom he hadn’t seen since the company Christmas party last year.
“Will, I don’t want to talk business here,” Borami said, her face suddenly serious.
That was what people always said right before discussing business. Will sighed.
“But we need to fix this, and we need to do it fast. This guy is doing his best to keep you and AirVA in the news in the worst way, and it’s not blowing over.”
“Yeah. I think that ignoring it might have been the best tactic at first in case people just wrote this crackpot off. But since they seem to be believing him and he’s not going away, it’s clearly not working.”
“You should know that Leonard is angling to get you permanently removed as CEO.” Arun looked uncomfortable. “Not that a board of advisors can force it, of course, but he can certainly make things difficult for your father if he doesn’t. Borami and I disagree with him, of course, but some of the older board members think it’s not a bad idea.” He glanced at Borami.
The forced vacation suddenly made a great deal more sense. His father was trying to salvage what he could because the board was pushing him to get Will out entirely.
“You will still inherit the company, right?” Borami shifted, and her dress rustled. “With everything?”
A Good Name: A Modern Pride and Prejudice Variation Page 23
