by Jessica Daw
“Well, either you have to blame me or not blame yourself,” I said, managing a bit of a smile.
Her mouth twitched like she’d almost smiled too. “Why do you always have to be right?”
“Just the way I am.”
She sighed. “Gia called around midnight. Mom answered, but when Gia told her Lydia was gone, she overreacted and Dad took the phone. I’ve never seen him look so old, Lilly. . . . None of us knew what to say. I’m not sure any of us could have spoken. Eventually, I thought of asking the Gardiners to come home to help, and you too. I needed you to be the voice of reason,” she said with a small smile. “When Gia told us that Lydia was pregnant . . . I didn’t think Lydia would ever do anything like this,” she said, her eyebrows folded in a genuinely distressed expression.
I wished I’d been more surprised. “I’m so sorry you had to face this alone,” I said, knowing Jane well enough to know how it would kill her to think of Lydia hurting and not helping her.
“It’s okay. You’re here now,” she said, smiling up at me.
Someone knocked on the door. “Who is it?” I asked as Jane said, “Come in.”
The knocker laughed. “Your father,” he said before entering.
I jumped up and hugged him, which made him laugh, but he hugged me back. When I pulled away, I saw he looked terribly tired, ten years older than the last time I’d seen him.
“Oh, Dad. This is awful,” I said.
His mouth twitched in a smile his eyes didn’t even attempt to echo. “Yes. It is, isn’t it? You were right, of course—I didn’t forget. She shouldn’t have gone. Now it’s only a matter of time before she’s splashed across every trashy gossip magazine your mother loves so much as a—”
My eyes widened and I glanced at Jane and back at him.
“As a not very nice girl,” he amended whatever he’d been planning on saying. “And it is entirely my fault.”
“No, Dad, it’s not your fault,” Jane protested immediately.
He held a hand up. “Thank you, Jane, but it is. And I deserve to feel guitly. I have failed Lydia. And there is nothing I can do about it. Going to the police would only hasten her public demise. Without the police, I’m rather useless.”
“Does Uncle Ted have any ideas?” Jane asked hopefully.
He shrugged. “A few. Hire a private investigator, trace her phone, credit card accounts, that sort of thing. Though I believe she left both the phone and credit card accounts behind, and I can’t afford a private investigator.”
“She’ll come back,” I said. Not adding, for Jane’s sake, When Yuri’s bored or runs out of money, most likely both.
“I believe we’ll just have to wait for that,” Dad agreed, probably hearing everything I didn’t say. He exhaled long and heavy. “At least I have you two.”
I snorted. “Yes, two spinsters to support for the rest of your life. Though,” I amended, “it’s more likely there will only be one spinster.”
“Mary does have little chance of marrying,” Dad said, nodding with exaggerated sobriety. I wished that the joke lightened his eyes, but it didn’t. However he talked about it, this Lydia debacle had hurt him deeply. I guess all of us were affected.
The next day, Ted and Nel left for LA, where they’d ask around and try to find a way to discover Lydia and avoid the press explosion. Dad stayed at the studio much longer than he possibly could have needed to, Mom persisted in refusing to leave her room, Mary worked and preached when she was home, Kitty attended school and stayed out “studying” until one or two in the morning, and Jane and I waited and worried.
Two weeks passed and nothing changed. No news. Nothing. Though, somehow, the entirety of Meryton caught ahold of what had happened to Lydia, everyone repeating the story with varying degrees of accuracy. I was fairly certain the news leeked through Aunt Fee and Deborah Long, but Mom insisted that she would never tell Debroah Long, and Aunt Fee would never spread the news. Sure she wouldn’t.
I never found the time to tell Jane about seeing Will. It was never the right moment, and what would I say anyway? I hardly knew what I thought myself. What I felt.
After two weeks, none other than Collin Williamson called. Me. I stared at my phone until it rang out.
“Who was that?” Jane asked. We were sitting around the dinner table, Mom and Dad gone as usual, Kitty with us for once.
“Collin Williamson,” I answered. I hadn’t thought about him in months, except as he related to Charlotte, and even then . . . I’d been distracted.
Kitty made a gagging sound. “Him? Why on earth would he call you?”
“He probably heard,” I said distastefully as I realized the probable cause of Collin’s sudden desire for contact. “And wants the inside scoop.”
“Oh, dear,” Jane said, which was tantamount to condemnation for her.
“You should cultivate such a valuable acquaintance,” Mary said. Kitty scoffed.
My phone buzzed again.
“I don’t want to answer it,” I said even as I reached for it.
“Lilly. Don’t throw away an opportunity,” Mary advised.
I wouldn’t have answered, but if Collin was going to spread our story, he was going to get it straight.
“Hello?”
“My dear Elizabeth. I have had the misfortune to hear the dreadful news about your youngest sister, Lydia, and her unmaidenly plight. The very moment I heard, I immediately and unhesitatingly called to offer my condolences and my assistance. I have on many times played the part of a mediator between the press and a sorry victim such as your sister and would be more than happy—that is to say, most willing to offer that same assistance to you. I have proved to be very diplomatic and—”
“Hi, Collin,” I interrupted firmly. I’d put him on speakerphone and gestured to my sisters to be quiet. “That’s really nice of you. I mean, especially considering what you’d be giving up to do so.”
“Giving up? Elizabeth, I don’t believe I understand your meaning. If you are alluding to the time it would require to appease the ravening wolves of the paparazzi, I understand this and accept it, but—”
“No, not the time, Collin, though I’m grateful for that sacrifice. I was thinking of how damaging this sort of affair could be to your professional reputation. Aligning yourself to such a fallen girl . . .”
“Oh. Oh, I see.” The silence that stretched then was even more speaking given Collin’s inability to stay quiet for any length of time.
“It is a very generous offer, but have you thought of Catherine de Bourgh? She may be sullied by association,” I said, fighting the urges to laugh and to hang up.
“Oh. Yes, you are most correct, Elizabeth. Yes, indeed, it would be wisest to . . . to maintain a proper distance, for Catherine de Bourgh’s sake.”
“Yes, I think that’s absolutely true. Goodbye, Collin.”
“Farewell, Elizabeth. I pray that you will be ever joyful.”
“Sure. Bye.” And I hung up. “That man . . . I don’t know how Charlotte deals with it.”
“He meant well,” Jane said uncertainly.
“No, he did not,” I said harshly, and realized I was angry. Really, really angry, actually. “He wanted to snatch his fifteen minutes of fame by giving an exclusive interview on the troubled Bennet family and how Lydia became so wild.” I gasped. “How did he find out?”
“Deborah Long is his aunt,” Jane said.
I took a deep breath, bracing myself. “Google Lydia.” I tried to believe that Deborah Long had told him, but . . . “Now!”
Kitty pulled out her phone. “It’s out,” she said, not sounding particularly upset.
I grabbed the phone from her hand and scanned the article, then stopping and reading it again, eyebrows drawn together. It was titled, “Yuri’s Cinderella.”
“What does it say?” Jane asked anxiously.
“It . . . it spins it in a really positive light,” I said, my mind incapable of processing it. This wasn’t a fallout. This was a fairy tale. The article made Lydi
a out to be a deserving, hopeful girl who the great prince Yuri Wickham had fallen in love with, and despite all obstacles (none of which were specified) they were getting married in three days.
What?
I was on my feet without thinking, ignoring Kitty’s protest as I held her phone out of her reach. “I have to tell Dad,” I said, and then began the race toward the studio. Footsteps followed after me, and I assumed it was Jane but I didn’t look. I needed to talk to Dad.
He sat in his office, looking more tired than ever. “Hello, Lilly. And Jane,” he said, nodding to my panting sister behind me. “Well?”
I handed him the phone. “Cinderella,” he said bemusedly. “Well. Your uncle was very successful, wasn’t he?”
“Uncle Ted?” Jane asked, still breathless.
He nodded. “He emailed me this morning.”
“What did he say?” I asked urgently.
“Read it,” he said, gesturing to his desktop. I sat in his chair, eyes already fixed to the screen, and Jane hovered behind me.
Robert,
We’ve found Lydia. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you right away. Things have been pretty crazy.
Lydia’s going to marry Yuri in three days. It’s what she wanted, and he’s willing. Her due date is in six months and she wants to be home for the delivery. She also wants to come visit after her wedding with Yuri for a few days.
Ted
“That’s all he said?” I asked disbelievingly after reading the note twice.
“Yes. I need to call him. Soon.” He sighed. “I can never repay him.”
“Repay him?” Jane asked, confused.
“How did he find them? How did he convince Yuri to marry her? I assume he’s putting on the wedding. And what else has he done? I have no idea, and I have no way of returning the favor. I don’t like feeling so helpless, so reliant, but what choice do I have?”
“Dad, Uncle Ted was happy to help,” Jane insisted.
He laughed humorlessly. “All the worse. If he’d grumbled I wouldn’t feel half as obligated.” He sighed again. “I need to call him. Will you two tell your mother?”
“Oh, of course! She’ll be so happy,” Jane said.
“Yes, lucky us, gaining a virulantly irresponsible son-in-law,” Dad said dryly.
“At least he’s handsome,” I said with a careless grin.
Dad managed a laugh, then shooed us away.
Mom was hysterical with joy. “Oh, my baby! My little Lydia, all grown up and getting married! To Yuri Wickham, too! Lucky thing—I always wanted to marry an actor, and now she gets to! I knew this was how it would end! I just knew it! But she can’t get married without me! I have to go! I have to fly out! Give me my phone, I’m going to call Ted and tell him I’m coming,” she said, fumbling around for her phone, which I held.
“Mom . . . I think they’re trying to have a quiet wedding. You know, for the press’s sake,” I said. It was more conjecture than anything, but I didn’t think it would improve the situation in the least to have Mom barging in on everything and insisting on lace.
“Not attend my own daughter’s wedding?! Are you insane? No, Lilly, I’m going,” she said, the steely glint in her eyes at odds with her disarrayed blond hair. She was halfway out the door in her ridiculous white nightgown.
“Mom, wait. Are you going to the studio like that?”
She glanced down at herself. “Oh. Well. I’ll call your father. Where’s my phone?” she asked, rooting through her blankets.
I slid her phone into my back pocket. “Dad’s calling Uncle Ted now. He won’t be able to talk anyway.”
She continued looking, ignoring me. “I hope they didn’t let Nel choose her wedding dress. I don’t want Lydia wearing some odd costume piece from one of her films. And I don’t want them skimping on her dress—it has to be perfect. I’m sure it’ll end up in magazines and on TV!” she said, her excitement returning. She gave up searching for her phone, laying back down and launching into what was bound to be a very long monologue about how our life was going to be now. I left Jane to listen, quietly depositing the phone on her dresser. I needed to think.
Lydia was found. She wouldn’t show up at our door and bring all the paparazzi bloodhounds lathering behind her. Yuri was with her, which would make the scandal a lot quieter. I let myself imagine, then, when it was over, what it would have been like if he’d abandoned her and she’d come home. With a star as big as Yuri, I was sure people would be itching to follow the story, from who her family was to when the baby was born. What Yuri did about it all, what Lydia did. We wouldn’t have been able to hide. We would have become the family of that girl. Famous because my sister slept with an idiot.
I took a deep breath. Why did picturing Will seeing that sort of gossip about my family—about me—and thinking less of me for it bother me so much? I couldn’t stand the thought of Will somewhere and not . . . not caring about me anymore. Sitting there, alone in my room, I was pretty sure he had. Cared about me, when I’d been there in England.
For the first time in a long time, I let myself go back and really think about what had happened in Hunsford. I tried to see it through Will’s eyes. He’d been falling in love with me and been trying to tell me—those times when he’d tried to tell me something, then changed his mind—then finally worked up the courage to confess, and confessed everything, good and bad. And I’d rejected him because of a lie told me by the man who’d broken his sister’s heart and stolen from her all in one go. Then when I showed up in England, breaking and entering in his own home, he’d been pleased to see me.
Oh, no. He really had loved me. He’d forgiven me for my mistake, somehow, and had wanted to try again.
Did I want to try falling in love with Will Darcy? Had I already fallen in love?
It hit me like a fist to my stomach when I couldn’t immediately answer no to that question. I wasn’t in love with him, not yet, I didn’t think. But I was closer to in love with him than I’d ever been to being in love with anyone else.
How had that happened? When? I sank onto my bed, laying face down, my phone in my hands. I had Will’s number, if he hadn’t changed it since he’d been in Meryton last. But what would I say? “Hi, Will, remember when you told me you loved me and I told you all sorts of rude things and completely rejected you? Well, I may have changed my mind. Want to get something to eat the next time we’re in the same country?” Yeah. Right.
I needed to talk to Jane. Incapable of moving, I texted her. Two minutes later, she was in my room.
“What is it, Lilly?”
I was still staring at my phone—staring at Will’s number. “I saw Will Darcy when I was in England.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
I still didn’t look up. “It didn’t seem as important. And . . . I was afraid, Jane. How could I face him if Lydia’s story got out? If Yuri abandoned her? If she was splashed all over every trashy magazine in the country?” I finally looked up, pleading for her to understand.
She looked confused. “Why do you want to face him?” she asked.
I swallowed. I couldn’t voice my wild thoughts. “I just . . . I can’t stand the thought of him out there thinking less of me.”
chapter fourteen
“I’m home!” Lydia shrieked as she ran in the door. She ran straight into Jane and me, as we happened to be in the front room, hugging us and shrieking the whole time, then running past us. Mom started shrieking too, but I didn’t turn around, intent on the celebrity walking through the door.
Yuri smiled his most charming smile. “Lilly—and Jane. So good to see you,” he said, coming forward and kissing me on the cheek, then Jane. I had to work not to wince away. “Both as lovely as ever.” His accent seemed bogus, like the rest of his overgroomed self. I knew that was ridiculous—his name was Yuri, after all, but I couldn’t help it. Everything about him was blindingly fake.
“And you’re just as charming as ever,” I said with a smile that I was sure read as false.
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br /> He looked disconcerted for a fraction of a second, but recovered. “How have you been? Both of you,” he said, nodding to Jane.
“Pretty good,” Jane answered, and I was surprised to see her struggling to hide her hostility toward him.
“And you?” he prompted when I didn’t say anything.
“I’ve been fine,” I said flatly.
He was saved from answering by Mom shrieking at him and running forward. Apparently she was finished reunioning with Lydia. Mom flung her arms around him. “I’m so happy to have you here, Yuri! You’re the best son-in-law!”
Yuri gracefully extricated himself from her embrace, smiling to make up for escaping, and said, “I’m so happy to be here too,” with utter sincerity. He sold it so well that it shook my certainty that he was here against his will. But only for a moment.
Lydia came barging in, immediately attaching herself to Yuri’s arm. My eyes automatically traveled to her middle, which was only fractionally less flat than usual. “Well, Lilly, don’t be too jealous since I know you had a crush on my husband. We can’t all marry celebrities.”
“Don’t worry on my account,” I said dryly.
“Do any of you have boyfriends?” she asked.
“No,” Mary said firmly, followed by Jane’s subdued, “No,” Kitty’s irritated, “Not at the moment,” and finally, reluctantly, my, “I don’t.”
She smiled triumphantly. “You don’t even have boyfriends, and I’m the youngest and married.” She sighed happily. After a moment of silence that I made no effort to break, she said, “Please tell me you have something good to eat. I’m starving. Aren’t you hungry, Yuri?” she added, more for backup than because she cared.
“Sure,” he said in a normal I-don’t-want-to-trouble-you way. Though I didn’t particularly like Lydia’s rudeness, I preferred it to Yuri’s pretend politeness. Like he cared about any of us at all.
“Of course!” Mom said, smiling proudly, as if her favorite daughter hadn’t just proved herself an absolute brat.
We filed into the kitchen, where Dad sat at the table, reading.
