by Jessica Daw
“I don’t think it’s bad to pretend to a little humility,” I shot back.
“I wasn’t aware I was displaying vanity by utilizing my abilities,” he said, his accent coming out stronger than usual.
“And the fact that you weren’t even aware of it makes it worse.”
His lips tightened slightly. “You have a very negative view of me.”
I was a momentarily stunned by that forthright comment. To hide my discomfiture, I grinned. “I didn’t say that,” I said.
“Then you don’t dislike me?” His haughty look made me want to snap back at him, but I was conscious of Jane.
“I hardly know you,” I said airily instead of laughing out loud at the idea of not disliking him.
“Don’t worry, Lilly, Will knows just how to push people’s buttons,” Cade said with a grin. The man in question folded his arms and stared straight ahead with his jaw set. “But we’re not here for that. Let’s look at the changes Will made, hmm?”
“Yes, let’s,” Jane said, giving me a worried look. I threw her an apologetic face, telling myself I would rein my temper in.
And I did pretty well, in my own opinion. Okay, I may have disagreed with all but half a dozen changes Will had made, but I thought the compromises we came up with were better than either, and said so after Cade razzed me for contradicting Will on the last change.
Cade laughed, but Will said, without the least hint of chagrin or praise, “She’s right. What we have now is better than what she came with, and what I came up with.”
“Thank you,” I said, surprised.
“It wasn’t a compliment,” he said brusquely, and though I’d known it wasn’t, it rubbed me wrong that he said so.
“You could have said you’re welcome,” I told him.
“Now you’ve done it,” Cade told me with a sympathetic look. I was confused for about two seconds.
Will, heedless of his friend, replied to my comment. “I don’t believe in encouraging misunderstandings.”
“It would have been a nice thing to mean it as a compliment. You don’t want to be seen as nice?” I asked.
“I would rather be seen as what I am.”
“So not nice?” I pressed.
“Not always, no,” he replied candidly.
“That was honest,” I said without really thinking. After a beat, I added, “Though it would have been better to say something like I try to be nice.”
“I shouldn’t have been honest?”
“Would it have been dishonest to say you try to be nice?” I asked disbelievingly.
“Yes,” he said, and my eyebrows flew up.
“Oh, enough, Will,” Cade interrupted, nudging Will, making the latter blink and look away from me. I realized he’d been meeting my eyes pretty intently, and that I’d been returning the favor. And, I had to acknowledge, not even because those eyes were incredible. It was because I’d been interested.
Just because the man’s a jerk doesn’t mean he can’t be interesting, I told myself. Feeling inexplicably disoriented, I glanced at the clock and saw it was much later than I’d thought. When had I last checked? It must have been at least two hours ago.
“Jane, we need to go home,” I said, only noticing halfway through my sentence that Jane didn’t look at all inclined to leave. Her eyes shifted reluctantly from Cade to me.
“Oh, do we?” She looked up at the clock and made a little noise of surprise. “When did it get so late?” she asked, mirroring my own mental reaction.
“You should stay here tonight,” Cade said, staring straight at Jane. When she blushed and looked down, he surprised me by blushing too. “I mean—I just mean—the rain, you know, still pouring. Your car’s probably stuck still and we have extra rooms . . . you don’t have to, of course, just if you—”
“We’d love to,” Jane interrupted smoothly.
Cade smiled hugely. “Good.” They stared at each other in an embarrassing way. I turned to make a conspiratorial face at Will, but when my eyes met his—had he already been looking at me?—his expression didn’t change beyond a subtle firming around his mouth. He didn’t look away for a beat, and neither did I. The beat stretched into a measure, and a line, and would’ve gone on if Jane hadn’t spoken, making me automatically look at her.
“—and I don’t have a toothbrush or anything,” she was saying.
“Carrie,” Cade said, as if her very name were the solution. He stood up. “Come on, let’s go find her.” Jane followed him out the door without hesitation. I didn’t move for a moment, my eyes sliding back to Will, whose deep blue gaze was fastened on me.
Something witty to say had half-formed in my mind, but finding him staring at me made it slip away. Instead I said, “I think my hair air dries very well, don’t you?”
“Quite a nice wave,” he said without a pause. “Beach hair, isn’t it called?”
I giggled at hearing beach hair in his deep British voice.
“Or not,” he said with a faint smile.
Curse him for smiling. I couldn’t think straight when that smile graced that full mouth.
The smile faded, and as soon as it was gone I realized I was behaving strangely. Flushing slightly, I stood. “I should go find Cade. And Carrie.”
“Yes. Go.”
“Um, goodbye,” I said, remembering that I didn’t like him. Who just says yes and go when you’re leaving the room? Who did he think he was?
He didn’t even respond to my goodbye. He just looked at me, his expression unreadable. Discomfited and annoyed that I was discomfited because of a pompous Academy Award winner, I turned and left.
chapter four
Jane and I both had our own tastefully furnished rooms, across the hall from each other. We were both supplied with satin nightgowns—who wears nightgowns?—and toothbrushes and were both told by Cade to just yell if we needed anything. Carrie, more practically, told us to knock on her or Cade’s door.
I stayed up reading until I was tired, like I did most nights, falling asleep around two or three in the morning. I was awoken by my phone ringing at 6:14. Once awake, I lay flat on my back, staring at the ceiling, waiting for it to ring out.
It did. Then it started again.
Moaning and cursing, I rolled out of bed and crawled across the floor to where I’d set it on the overstuffed armchair the night before.
“Mom. Of course,” I said to myself. I considered hanging up but knew she’d just call again.
I answered. My “hello” was overrun by, “Thank heaven you answered, Lilly! I’ve been worried sick! I—”
I knew she’d go on in a similar vein for a minute or two so felt no compunction against taking the phone away from my ear, seeing that I hadn’t missed any calls, putting it back to my ear and interrupting with, “Come off it, Mom. You were ecstatic when we didn’t show up last night.”
She spluttered for a moment before saying, “Well, Cade hasn’t even officially asked Jane out!”
“And every war has casualties,” I said dryly, referring, of course, to myself.
She didn’t catch on. “What casualties? The car? Is something wrong with your car? You know we really can’t afford repairs right now, what with Lydia and Kitty’s graduation party going so far over budget, but you know how it is. When a mother loves her children, there’s—”
“Nothing she won’t do for them,” I finished tiredly. “No, my car’s fine. At least, I think it is,” I said, suddenly worried getting stuck had damaged it. Not the time to think about that, though. “We got stuck on the drive up to Cade’s house. It’s a dirt road. Anyway, Cade invited us to stay the night.”
“Ohhh,” Mom said significantly.
“Us, Mom. Us. Not Jane. Meaning in a perfectly platonic way.”
“Platonic?”
“Non-physical,” I said, figuring it was more important to get the point across than give her an entirely accurate definition of the word.
“Oh,” she said again, sounding disappointed this time.
<
br /> I couldn’t help but laugh. What mom is disappointed that her daughter isn’t staying the night in a non-platonic way?
“What’s so funny?” she demanded.
“Nothing. I’m just tired since you called so early. Why are you up anyway?”
“I’m a concerned parent!” she said with affected innocence.
“Well, thank you for your concern. Glad it didn’t extend to Jane, even though she’s the early riser—well, relatively,” I amended, because compared to most Jane was a late riser, but almost everyone was an early riser compared to me.
“Of course, Lilly. I just want to do what’s right for you girls, you know. And nothing would make me happier than to see all of you happily married. I know it’s old-fashioned, darling, but I really think that my daughters would be happiest with husbands at their sides and four or five children surrounding them. I’m getting old! I want my grandbabies!”
I snorted. “I hardly think forty-five qualifies as old.”
“Well, Jane is twenty-seven, and you know a mother really measures her age by her children. Besides, by the time I was Jane’s age I’d already had you three older girls and was pregnant with the twins!”
“I don’t really think getting knocked up at seventeen and married at eighteen is the way to go,” I said unkindly.
Not that she noticed. “No, and I’m not asking that! But twenty-seven, Lilly! And you’re not exactly fresh out of high school either at twenty-four.”
“Twenty-five, Mom,” I corrected automatically.
“I knew that.”
Taking advantage of a momentary lull in conversation, I hastily told her I had to go, and she agreed breezily, telling me to not hurry Jane or get in the way of her and Cade spending a little alone time. I hung up, collapsing back in bed and letting out the laughter that I’d made at least some effort to hold in while I’d been on the line.
When I finished laughing at my silly mother, I lay flat on my back and lost myself in a haze of half-composed melodies, not getting up until the sunshine spilling through my window was bright as midday. Not that that meant much, with how early the sun was coming up now, but I had work that afternoon and figured I should get going. Besides, my stomach had begun growling.
I looked distastefully at my borrowed clothing on the floor, reluctant to put it on, but I didn’t know where my own clothing was. The nightgown, though ridiculous, was reasonably comfortable and would do for breakfast.
Upon entering the kitchen, I quickly discovered I was the only one of the opinion that showering and dressing could be completed just as well after breakfast as before. Jane wasn’t down yet, and neither was Jacob Hurst, but everyone else sat around the breakfast table, eating toast and yogurt and fruit and drinking coffee and orange juice and tea. All four were already dressed, designer, naturally, and Carrie and Louise had styled their hair and were perfectly made-up. The only one that could possibly have had bedhead was Cade, but it was difficult to tell with his softly curling dark hair. Will was even clean-shaven.
I nearly slunk back out of the room, but Carrie, though ostensibly perusing a National Geographic, was too alert.
“Lilly, good morning,” she said, the tightening around her eyes giving me the undeniable impression that she was annoyed, though her tone was flawlessly smooth.
Will looked up from his book—a real, live book, nothing electronic about it; in fact, it looked old—at the mention of my name. His eyes collided with mine, and my hand, of its own accord, went to smooth my too-messy-to-just-call-mussed hair. I forcibly stopped myself from doing more than tuck a strand behind my ear, the sensible part of me rolling its eyes at the idiot part of me that was so struck by Will Darcy.
For whatever reason, instead of saying good morning like Carrie, Will, after making me do the whole hair-smoothing thing, looked hastily back at his book and simultaneously took a hefty swig of coffee.
“Good morning,” I said belatedly.
I was trying to decide if I should ask for food or just sit down and start eating when Cade jumped up. “Lilly, sorry, I guess my mind was on vacation.” He smiled charmingly. “Please, come sit down. What do you want?” He came and ushered me to a seat and waited for me to speak.
“Oh, um, coffee is fine,” I said, feeling odd. I was unaccustomed to being served.
“How do you like your coffee? And you have to eat something else, Lilly, you just have to, or I’ll never win Best Host of the Year.”
I laughed, my discomfort waning. Cade was very good. “An apple will be plenty, and I like it black.”
“Black, and apple,” Cade repeated, committing it to memory and then going to retrieve it.
Louise and Carrie kept glancing furtively at me and exchanging looks. Will did not once look up from his book, though I didn’t see him turn his page once either. What was his deal? Could he not tolerate the presence of someone as un-tempting as me? Was anyone really that bigoted? Or did he resent me for the way I talked to him? Did he hate me for not falling down at his feet like every other girl seemed to do?
When Cade returned with my coffee and apple and I thanked him, I saw Will’s eyes barely flick up, not quite looking at me before returning to his book. That confirmed my suspicion that he wanted to look at me. Why wouldn’t he? He didn’t seem to harbor any qualms about making it clear he disliked me, for whatever reason. Could he not stand the sight of me? Was he trying to pretend I wasn’t in the room?
I laughed into my coffee. Why should I give him a single thought? I had better things to occupy my mind with, and proceeded to ponder them. Jane and Cade, for example. Would that go anywhere? What if it did? Would he stay in Meryton? It seemed unlikely, but not impossible. It was nice here. Quiet, beautiful. He had enough money to travel to wherever it was movie people went to do their movie things. And Jane was worth it. The main question on my mind was whether he’d realize how worth it she was. And if he’d prove himself to be worth it to her. Or, more realistically, since I was pretty sure Jane was in love with him already, prove himself worthy of her by staying. I hoped so.
And then there was the arriving film crew. Lydia had crowed about some of the famous people working on Cade’s film—or, more accurately, Jacob Hurst’s film, of which Cade was a co-producer. When were they supposed to come? Cade had left the room and I didn’t want to ask any of the remaining occupants when filming was supposed to start. I didn’t really know how all that worked anyway. The film industry had never been of supreme interest to me, especially considering my tendency to get bored ten minutes into pretty much every movie I’d ever seen. I imagined telling that to Carrie Bingley and laughed to myself.
“What’s so funny?” the lady herself asked sharply.
I choked back more laughter. “I really shouldn’t tell you.”
Her perfectly shaped eyebrows drew together. “You shouldn’t tell me?”
I shook my head. “It’s not very funny.”
She looked doubtful but didn’t press the point.
Will, I noticed, still didn’t look up.
“I’m glad you liked the nightgown,” Carrie said after a moment.
“It’s very comfortable,” I said mildly, fairly certain she was looking to get a rise out of me.
A flash of disappointment crossed her face, but she hid it well. “It is, isn’t it?”
“And kind of fun. I don’t think I’ve slept in a nightgown since I was seven.”
Carrie’s smile was more of a smirk, but apparently no other retort came to her mind. Satisfied, I stood. My chair scraped against the floor, but—I had to check—Will still didn’t look. Did he hate me? I mean, really? It was disconcerting. Sure, I’d been rude, but no ruder than he’d been.
Walking out, I caught myself and laughed again. I kept thinking about Will Darcy. Enough.
Passing Jane’s door, I heard Cade’s voice and then her gentle laughter. Smiling, I didn’t knock like I’d been planning to and went into my own room.
I showered, turning up the water as hot as
I could stand, my favorite shower temperature, and it stayed hot for the whole of my admittedly very long shower. Our hot water never lasted that long, and I couldn’t help but think that there were actually advantages to being rich.
Sighing, I climbed out and wrapped myself in an insanely soft and fluffy white bath robe. Hair dripping, I padded barefoot back into my room and remembered I only had Carrie’s clothes. After a quick debate I decided the bath robe, falling to my wrists and ankles and wrapping nearly to my chin, was plenty modest to venture forth in search of my clothes.
Naturally, the first person I found was Will. He’d moved from the table to the window seat, perusing the same old book from earlier. At least until he heard me, at which point he looked up with an expression I could only read as resigned.
“Lilly,” he said, as if that was a greeting.
“Will,” I replied in kind, my mouth quirking up.
“Do you need something?” he asked brusquely.
“My clothes,” I answered unhesitatingly.
He was visibly taken aback, though he tried to hide it. “Your . . . your clothes?”
“Yeah, I don’t really want to drive home in this,” I said, gesturing at the bath robe.
“Oh. I don’t know where your clothes are.”
I waited, but that really was all he said. “Do you know where someone is who may know?” I prompted.
“Carrie.”
“And where is she?” I asked slowly.
He seemed to catch on that I thought he was acting like an idiot, since he sounded annoyed when he said, “She was here a minute ago. I didn’t notice where she went.”
I nodded, resisting the urge to laugh at him. “Thank you,” I said a bit dryly.
Either he ignored my tone or honestly didn’t notice. Whichever it was, his voice was completely free of irony when he said, “You’re welcome.”
I couldn’t hold back a snort of laughter.
“What?” he said, definitely annoyed now.
“You haven’t really helped me,” I said honestly.
“And that’s amusing?”
“It’s amusing—” I couldn’t resist echoing the word that had sounded about two centuries more formal in his accent “—that I was welcome to your not-too-helpful help.”
