by Jessica Daw
She’d gone on talking, but I didn’t hear what she said until she said, “I’m sorry for leaving you with Will.”
“It’s fine,” I said immediately, my attention snapping back.
“Okay,” she said doubtfully, “but it won’t happen again.”
“Why not?” I asked as soon as her words sunk in.
“Didn’t I tell you? I guess not. Will had to go back to England, for a movie or something . . .” She went on talking, but my attention was gone again. I felt sick—really sick, like when I’d gotten food poisoning after eating out at this little hole-in-the-wall Mexican place while I was studying at Julliard. I’d come back to my room and everyone else was gone, and I’d just sat there, afraid I was dying, no idea if relief would come.
But this was worse. Because apparently Will, if he’d had any lingering feelings for me, had now cleared that up and was done. Gone. I mean, he was a composer, not an actor. Could his schedule possibly be so tight that he couldn’t have said something to me if he’d wanted to?
And I couldn’t even act heartbroken and miserable like I felt. Even Jane had apologized for leaving me alone with Will. No one would get it if I started crying over “that composer that didn’t like anyone.” So I sat through dinner and ate like a normal human being, trying not to listen to Kitty complain about how everyone was getting married but her and Mary lecture Kitty about how anything could be made worse by complaining and Mom babble happily on about how grand Jane’s wedding was going to be and watch Jane glow and smile at everyone else’s stupidity. Even Dad looked happy and told Jane, when there was a very momentary lull in conversation, “You two will be very happy giving your money all away to scam artists that you’re too nice to see through.” I was the only silent one.
No one had noticed three days later that I was acting depressed. I felt depressed. Jane was gone with Cade all day, and daily life went on for everyone else. But Mom happened to be home when Catherine de Bourgh rang our doorbell.
“Lilly!” I heard her call thinly from upstairs. I was in my room, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself Will wouldn’t be indifferent if I called him. It wasn’t working, so I got up and slouched upstairs.
“You have a visitor,” Mom said to me, though her eyes were focused on the doorway.
“Elizabeth Bennet,” Catherine said imperiously.
“Hello,” I said dully, trying to swallow all the feelings her reappearance brought up. Memories, regrets, mistakes.
“I want to talk to you,” she said. When I didn’t move, she added, “Alone.”
“Oh!” Mom said breathlessly. “Excuse me, I’m so sorry.” Catherine glared down her nose at Mom, who scurried away, looking starstruck and nervous.
“Come in,” I invited. She swept past me and sat down. I sighed inwardly and closed the door. I had not missed Catherine de Bourgh.
“Well?” I said, sitting and tiredly meeting her eyes.
“Well? You little nobody, you say well to me?” She looked furious.
I was confused. Catherine had always been condescending, but that was downright rude. “Excuse me?”
“I will not excuse you!” she exclaimed. “Not when you are trying to marry an engaged man!”
My mouth fell open. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You have no idea? You have no idea? Do you take me for an idiot, or are you stupider than you look?”
“Neither,” I said, starting to get offended. “You could have just called to yell at me, you know.”
“You never know who’s listening to your calls,” she said, oblivious to how paranoid she sounded. “And this is the sort of thing one must do face to face!”
“Yeah, what exactly is this thing?”
“An intervention! To prevent my nephew from marrying a little small-town, big-mouth nobody when he should be marrying my Princess,” she said, deadly serious.
It took every ounce of self-control I possessed to not go wide-eyed and beg her to tell me where on earth she’d gotten the idea I was going to marry Will. Instead, I said evenly, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, don’t you?” she asked poisonously. “I have my information from a very reliable source!”
My characteristic loathing of being falsely accused combined with my disdain for stupid people started building up, making my next words very sarcastic. “And who might that be?”
“Your own mother!” she declared.
I snorted. “You didn’t meet my mother until five minutes ago.”
“She called Collin to brag about your sister’s upcoming wedding to Cade Bingley and revealed Will’s presence in town! I knew he’d harbored something of a boyish fancy for you, which is why I immediately knew you’d somehow beguiled him to return with Cade and propose!”
I laughed out loud, even though I felt a pang at how close her words came to what I’d hoped. “You immediately knew? Your aunt’s instinct informed you, perhaps?”
She turned red with fury. “Do you know who you’re talking to? I am one of the most acclaimed actresses on the planet! Heaven and earth move for me! Do you think you and your, your bright eyes and pretty voice can come between Will and Princess?”
“If they were meant for each other, why would he propose to me?” I asked, my words flowing as rapidly as my heart beat.
Her nostrils flared. “How dare you?! You think you’re so high and mighty—well, let me tell you that I know about your youngest sister’s wedding! Pregnant from a married movie star! Eighteen years old and married to that flashy actor a decade older than her! How much did you have to pay him to marry her? Of course, I know your mother was proud to have such a marriage in the family! Would such a woman be the mother-in-law to my darling Will? Never!”
My lips were pressed into a line by then, my fists clenched. “Is that all?” I asked, feigning calm.
“That is not all! I will not leave until I obtain your word that you are not engaged to Will!”
I swallowed. I wouldn’t lie, however much I wanted the lie that leapt to my tongue to be true, both for myself and for the sake of throwing it into this unbearably proud lady’s face. “I am not engaged to Will,” I said flatly.
Her rage melted from her face, and she smiled at me. “And will you promise never to get engaged to him?”
“I will not,” I said unhesitatingly. Her eyes widened and I sensed another tirade coming on, so I cut it off before it could begin. “And I will never make you any promise like that. Leave. Nothing you can say or do will change my mind, and you haven’t got the brains to think of any more original insults about me and my family. Go. Now.” I went and pointedly opened the door.
Catherine glared at me, hatred written plainly on her face. “You are nothing to me,” she spat, then marched out the door. I watched, arms folded, as she retreated into a chauffeur-driven car, smirking when I saw Princess sitting in the back, looking bored and petulant. They deserved each other.
My heart was still pounding with the adrenaline of anger when Mom came back downstairs.
“Is she gone?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said fiercely.
“Oh. Close the door. Why did she come?”
I obeyed her order, but kept staring out the window. “I don’t know,” I lied. Through the high of triumph, I felt the urge to be depressed returning, but I fought it. I wouldn’t lay down and die, no matter how much I loved Will. And I did—I still loved him, standing there, staring at where his aunt’s car had been. And maybe there was still hope, however slim. I had to believe it.
chapter fifteen
Two days later when Cade came to pick Jane up, Will was with him.
Only Jane and Mom and I were home. Mom answered the door because Jane wasn’t finished doing her hair—which had been taking her a significantly longer amount of time since she’d gotten engaged. I was sitting in the kitchen, determined to read if it killed me.
“Cade! Hello, come in, Jane’s almost ready,” Mom said
happily, falling over herself to be nice to Cade as usual. “And Will. Nice to see you,” she added stiffly. I gasped. Will? Will was here? I heard footsteps—three sets—and froze. My heart started pounding like it had no business to pound.
Mom started babbling on about wedding details and how her day had been and did Cade like that new movie she’d just gotten around to seeing, but I still heard Will’s voice. As always, he simply said, “Lilly.”
I slowly turned, my hands shaking, and met his eyes. “Will.” Everything disappeared but him. He was back. What did that mean? Hope sang through, as bright as it was painful.
Neither of us said anything else, just listening—or, at least in my case, not listening—as Mom carried on and Cade interjected with the occasional agreement. I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away from Will. I was captivated. Was he? I couldn’t even try to laugh at myself for acting like a twitterpated highschooler.
Finally, Jane came up and rescued Cade with a kiss. Mom turned to me and said in a completely ineffective whisper, “You’ll have to entertain Will. I don’t want him ruining Jane’s date.”
I blushed bright red. I wanted to plead with Mom to not ruin things for me, not when I was most definitely on my last chance with Will, but I knew that’d make things worse. I still tried with, “I don’t mind.”
“You’re a good girl to say so, Lilly, but no one likes that man.”
“He can hear you, Mom,” I whispered.
She rolled her eyes. “Let him.”
Thankfully, Jane and Cade finally started paying attention to the rest of us. “We were just thinking of going on a walk. Do you want to come, Lilly?” Cade asked. Jane looked apologetically at me.
“I’d love to,” I said unhesitatingly.
“Okay! Let’s go, then,” Cade said, heading for the door. Poor thing was probably anxious to get away from Mom. I was. Even if most of the anxiety stemmed from worrying about Will and what was going to happen and what I’d say and what he’d say and . . . well, it went from there.
Cade held the door for Jane, and then Will waited for me to go first. I held my breath while I passed him. As we left, Mom called, “Lilly, I want you to come back and help make dinner soon!” I ignored her.
Jane and Cade were already halfway to the woods by the time Will and I left the house. We followed, both of us walking slow, though both of us had longer legs than our counterparts. If we could really count as counterparts, considering the current radical difference in our romantic statuses.
The silence stretched and stretched and stretched, until finally it strained my cowardice to breaking point. Jane and Cade were long since out of sight, as was Meryton. I stopped, determined I wouldn’t let him go, not again, not without saying what I felt.
He walked on for another half a dozen steps, stopped, and turned around, gazing questioningly at me.
“I know what you did for Lydia,” I blurted instead of starting with my feelings. He opened his mouth, and I held up my hand. “Wait. Don’t blame her. She let it slip that you were at her wedding and I called Nel and she told me.” I dared to walk forward and almost took his hand, but not quite. “And I can’t believe you did all that for her. You, you saved her, even though it meant giving money to Yuri and working with him when I know you hate him and I know it had to take a long time and you don’t have time, you’re busy, I know, but I just have to thank you for what you did for her and—”
“Lilly,” he finally interrupted. I couldn’t read his expression, however desperately I wanted to. “You have to know I did that for you. I didn’t do it for Lydia—I’m not that noble. Everything I did was for you.”
I was dumbstruck. I stared helplessly up at him, weakly caught in the ocean blue steel of his gaze. I felt like the stupid heroine of one of those paperback novels that always fill secondhand bookstore shelves, who does nothing but shriek and cling to her highlander. Or, in this case, Englander.
“I need you to tell me if you feel the same as you did when we were in Hunsford. If you do, say so now and I won’t bring it up again, I swear. You must know I still feel the same.”
For a long moment I couldn’t seem to speak. He was shaking his head and turning away when I finally said, “Will. I was so stupid at Hunsford.” He froze, not turning back toward me just yet. It was my turn; he’d told me how he felt that day, and now I needed to tell him. “Will . . . I love you.”
I heard his sharp intake of breath. “Why?” he asked, hope and disbelief mingled in his tone.
Why? Why did I love Will? I wanted to give him a real answer. Why not any of the other men I’d dated? Okay, admittedly he was better looking than any of them, but he’d always been as attractive as he was now and I hadn’t loved him for a long time. That wasn’t it, that wasn’t why. It was nice, but not the reason. No—and it wasn’t because he was rich, either. He’d always been that too.
I think it had something to do with the way he looked at me. Like he could watch me all day and never get tired of seeing me. And how he talked to me like I was the most interesting person he’d ever met.
But that wasn’t all of it. It was how he’d gotten my career started after I’d rejected him so heartlessly, after I’d completely misjudged him. It was how he’d helped Lydia marry Yuri even though he hated Yuri and didn’t like Lydia and hadn’t even told me about it. It was how he laughed when I surprised him and how he’d held my hand when I’d cried.
It was everything. That was why I loved him. I loved him because he was him.
“Because you’re you. I love everything about you, Will.”
I don’t know who moved. I think it was both of us. It wasn’t fast or confident or simple—both of us were still, I think, a little scared. Afraid to feel so much and lose.
But we still found each other. His arms slid around my waist as mine wrapped around his neck and then we kissed. That was simple, and in a few seconds it became confident, and then it was fast, fast as my wild heartbeat, fast as his heartbeat pounding with mine, reverberating through me and filling every empty space left inside me with love and promise and Will.
We kissed long and deep and burning, and every other kiss I’d ever had slipped away, one by one, until it was new and this was my first kiss, my only kiss—the only kiss I ever wanted.
Finally we parted because we had to breathe. “We should have done that before,” I panted, and was embarrassed that I’d panted it, but Will grinned and I forgot to care.
He smiled at me, and it was glorious and free. “Like after you told me I hadn’t confessed my feelings like a normal human being? Or maybe when you said my specialty was separating people in love?”
I groaned, burying my face in his chest. “Ugh. You remembered all that?”
“Every word,” he said softly, stroking my hair. “I’d play what you said in my mind, over and over. At first I was just angry, thinking how wrong you were.” I pulled away enough to see his face. He smiled at me again. “Of couse, you were right. And the longer I thought about it, the more I realized . . . I hadn’t even thought about you when I told you I loved you. I mean, I hadn’t thought about what you felt. I realized you’d let me down easy compared to what I deserved.”
“When I got your email . . . everything I’d known about myself seemed to change. I’d always thought I was such a good judge of character, but I’d been so wrong. And then when I saw you again, at Pemberly, I wanted a clean slate with you.”
“When you showed up at Pemberly, I was so hopeful. Somehow you didn’t hate me. I thought I may even have a chance. Then Yuri ruined everything. How could you consider—consider going out with me when I’d kept silent and now your sister was paying? I thought my second chance was gone.”
I laughed. “Will, I wanted to stay at Pemberly. I was so mad at Lydia for taking me away just when things . . . things were starting.”
He smiled. “Really?”
“Really.” I paused. “Why did you come back? Why did Cade change his mind?”
I saw a faint fl
ush appear on his cheeks. “I . . . confessed. I told him I’d interfered, and that she’d come to LA to see him. He was so mad at me,” he said, smiling.
“I can’t imagine it,” I said truthfully.
“He’s never been so angry with me in my entire life. But Cade being Cade, the friend no one could ever deserve, including myself, he forgave me. And I asked if I could come with him. I thought I was an idiot to try again. Then I came and I wasn’t sure . . . and then you went off about Cade and Jane and I thought . . .”
“You thought I still blamed you,” I finished for him, giving him a quick kiss right under his ear, thrilled that I could do so. “And I thought I’d failed some test, finally proved myself completely wrong for you. And Will, I was sure I was in love with you by then.” Somehow it was easy to say now, like it was a statement of the obvious and natural, a fact.
“Were you?” he asked.
I nodded. “But I was afraid you’d never come back.”
“I wasn’t sure I would, to be honest,” he told me. “But then my aunt Catherine called and poured out a diatribe against you. She told me you wouldn’t promise not to get engaged to me, and I knew you well enough to know that if you hadn’t changed since Hunsford you wouldn’t have hesitated at all to make that promise. It gave me hope.”
“You do know me,” I said with a smile.
“I love you,” he said softly, and I had to kiss him again, tangling my fingers in his dark hair and shivering as his hands trailed up and down my back.
Then I pulled away and looked expectantly at him.
“What?” he said, starting to smile.
“Will, I’ll be honest. I’m not interested in a long distance relationship.” His face fell, though he tried to hide it. I laughed. “So I was hoping you’d propose.” It was bold, but . . . I knew what I wanted. I didn’t want to risk losing him again, ever, even if it meant marrying someone I had been on exactly zero official dates with. I knew enough—he was a good, good man, and I knew his faults as well as I knew my own. I loved him, faults and all, and the idea of living a whole life with him at my side filled me with anticipation and desire beyond anything I’d ever imagined before.
