Dave chuckled. “If ever I wanted a woman chasing me, it was you, counselor. I guess I’ve had so many women, well,” he cleared his throat, “to put it bluntly, so many women throw themselves at me because of my money that I just expected you to do the same. The minute I felt the sparks fly, I went into my repelling mode. When you didn’t come after me, I was shocked. I finally figured out you didn’t give one flip about my money.”
Shaking his head, he shifted away from her. “It really dealt my ego some grief when I realized you didn’t give a hoot about me, either.” His final words held a hint of uncertainty.
Eddi’s focus lowered to the gentleman’s scarf under his shirt collar. “Well, I didn’t care about your money, anyway,” she admitted and dared make eye contact again.
His gaze warmed. “But you still made me eat my own conceit.”
“I, I . . .” Eddi looked down. “You aren’t the only one who ate conceit. I was so sure I could trust my first impressions. I was so wrong and so judgmental.”
“Well, don’t feel like the Lone Ranger,” Dave comforted. “The last few weeks, I’ve repented of my arrogance a hundred times.”
“Sounds like we’ve kept God busy between the two of us.”
Dave stroked the side of her face, and Eddi leaned into his touch.
“I woke up one day and realized I’d give everything I owned for you to chase me—and you were the one woman determined not to. Oh, Eddi . . .” he breathed.
“You once told me not to get my hopes up about a relationship between us,” she whispered. “Even then, I was hoping.”
“Hope all you want,” Dave encouraged, “because I want to fulfill all your hopes and then some.”
His warm hand slid to the base of her neck as his attention again settled upon her lips. Eddi lifted her chin and closed her eyes, fully expecting a kiss that would tilt the library.
Thirty-Three
The library doors scraped open. Eddi and Dave jumped back as if they were teenagers caught in a secret tryst. Mrs. DeBloom invaded the room. She peered over the top of her steel-rimmed glasses, and the pearl chain swung wildly on either side of her face as if she had been leading a frantic race.
“What are you two thinking?” she exclaimed as if they were preschool escapees. “The curtain is supposed to go up in two minutes!”
The words hurled Eddi and Dave into action. Eddi lifted her skirt to her knees and ran toward the hallway with Dave in her wake. By the time she took the stairs two at a time and claimed her position on stage, she barely remembered the harried trip from the library. Mrs. DeBloom, as stern-faced as ever, hadn’t uttered a word of rebuke or praise upon Eddi. But she could only imagine the lady’s disapproval at finding her prized nephew in the company of the very woman she didn’t want him to marry.
Act by act, scene by scene, the play unfolded into the work of art the cast had anticipated. Eddi, committed to a professional performance, spoke her designated lines with Dave in such a manner that no one would have guessed the two had been involved in a library rendezvous minutes before the curtain rose. By the time they neared the end of the famous dance line, Eddi recalled the evening Dave twirled her across stage in a waltz that left her reeling.
The second Dave spoke his final words from that scene, he bestowed a discreet wink upon Eddi and whispered, “Meet me in the library later. We can finish our waltz there.”
Eddi, swept along by the play’s choreography, moved away from Dave. Although she never answered him verbally, her heart answered without hesitation. Eddi possessed no doubt that Dave held full intentions of reissuing his offer of potential matrimony. This time, Eddi longed for the opportunity to better acquaint herself with the man who had stolen her heart.
By the final scene, her exhaustion was overcome with a giddy high. The cast had miraculously enthralled the audience. After every scene, the crowd clapped and cheered so profusely that Eddi was certain a Broadway scout would soon whisk them all to full-blown acting careers. Even Carissa Barclay, as undedicated as she had been to the play, shone as Jane Bennet, Elizabeth’s supporting character.
At last, the play’s closing scene was upon them. Carissa and Calvin, posing as Jane and Bingley, had announced their engagement and were strolling through the countryside with Eddi lagging behind just as she perceived Elizabeth would have done. Her hands clasped behind her, Eddi walked alone and appeared to be in deep thought, although her every fiber was honed into the audience. She strode in front of the lush greenery that had transformed the stage into a grand outdoor set.
Soon Eddi was on stage alone. On cue, she paused near a Styrofoam boulder that appeared to be hard as granite. Out of the corner of her eye, Eddi glimpsed the cast, backstage right, as enraptured with the scene as the audience. She saw no signs of Dave, for he was backstage left. Mrs. DeBloom had written a section of script that involved Eddi speaking Elizabeth Bennet’s thoughts. Eddi knew the exact syllable when Dave would enter the set. She now anticipated his arrival with as much excitement as Elizabeth might anticipate Darcy’s.
“‘All afternoon I have watched Darcy,’” she mused aloud. “‘When he walked away to another part of the room, I followed him with my eyes. I envied everyone to whom he spoke and scarcely had patience enough to help anyone with coffee.’” She moved in front of the boulder and settled upon a bench disguised as a pile of rocks.
Eddi looked up, as if gazing at the sky, and continued her monologue. “‘A man who has once been refused! How could I ever be foolish enough to expect a renewal of his love?’” She fretted with her bonnet’s tie. “‘Is there one among the sex who would not protest against such a weakness as a second proposal to the same woman? There is no indignity so abhorrent to their feelings!’”
She sensed Dave’s presence as he entered from stage right. The faint tap of his shoes upon the wooden floor announced his nearing. Eddi turned toward him. As if surprised, she stood and laid her hand over her heart.
“‘Mr. Darcy,’” she said, purposefully infusing her words with breathless amazement, “‘you gave me a fright.’”
“‘Miss Bennet.’” Dave stopped within two feet of her and bowed with all the reverence of a nineteenth-century romantic. “‘Your mother told me you had joined Bingley and Jane for a stroll.’”
“‘Yes, yes, I did,’” Eddi answered.
“‘I hope I have not ended your necessary reverie with my presence,’” Dave continued.
Eddi held his gaze and could barely speak her lines for the memory of his lips on the back of her hand two hours before. “‘No, I assure you, dear sir. You have not.’” Eddi began the slow stroll back in the direction she had come. Dave fell in beside her.
“‘I have spent most of my day reflecting upon a matter of utmost importance,’” Eddi said.
“‘Oh?’” Dave asked. “‘Does the lady care to share her thoughts?’”
Eddi stopped in front of the thickest silk tree, her dress whispering with every move. “‘Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature; and for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings, care not how much I may be wounding yours. I can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor sister. Ever since I have known it, I have been most anxious to acknowledge to you how gratefully I feel it. Were it known to the rest of the family I should not have merely my own gratitude to express.’”
“‘If you will thank me,’” he replied, “‘let it be for yourself alone.’” Eddi was nearly overtaken with the finesse and grace that Dave portrayed in his black suit and hat. “‘That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you.’”
Eddi looked down and feigned embarrassment exactly as Mrs. DeBloom had dictated.
“‘You are too generous to trifle with me.’” Dave touched her arm, gazed directly into her eyes, and posed his question as if he wanted Eddi’s—not Elizabeth’s—answer
. “‘If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject forever.’”
Again, Eddi moved toward the boulder. Keeping her back to Dave, she looked over the audience and enunciated every word with the earnestness of a woman in love. “‘My sentiments have undergone so material a change since the period to which you alluded, as to make me receive with gratitude and pleasure your present assurances.’” The lines held a conviction that Eddi had transcended her role.
Dave neared and rested his hands on her shoulders. Eddi tensed. That move had never been a part of any practice. She stole a glance backstage to see Mrs. DeBloom standing at the curtain’s edge, her eyes bugged, her reading glasses shoved atop her head. Some of the cast huddled behind her, as if expecting the play to take an unexpected turn.
“‘When my aunt told me you refused to deny our engagement, it taught me to hope as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before. I knew enough of your disposition to be certain, that had you been absolutely, irrevocably decided against me, you would have acknowledged it frankly and openly.’”
Eddi turned toward Dave. He gripped her hands and caressed her palms with his thumbs. She had no idea what gesture was planned for the coming lines. Dave had altered the whole scheme of things. Eddi stood captured by his nearness and babbled forth the lines engraved upon her memory.
“‘Yes, you know enough of my frankness to believe me capable of that. After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations.’”
“‘My dearest Elizabeth,’” Dave continued, the stage lights reflecting the ardor of his inky eyes, “‘what did you say of me that I did not deserve? For, though your accusations were ill-founded, formed on mistaken premises, my behavior to you at the time had merited the severest reproof. It was unpardonable. I cannot think of it without abhorrence.’
“The only thing that brings me relief,” Dave continued with a mischievous turn of his lips, “‘is your present willingness to be my wife. Have I mistaken your affections in any form?”
“That’s not in the script!” Eddi hissed out of the corner of her mouth.
“Now it is,” Dave whispered. His eyes danced as she floundered for the appropriate line. Never taking his gaze from Eddi, he slowly lifted her hand to his lips and repeated the kiss from the library. Once again, Eddi was engulfed in a tide of tingles that heightened her bafflement.
“What’s he doing?” Mrs. DeBloom’s aghast question from stage left barely brushed Eddi’s ears.
“I think he’s proposing—for real,” Calvin’s whisper floated from stage right.
As the realization penetrated Eddi, she sensed the audience’s tension . . . as if they suspected something was amiss but had yet to decipher the clues.
“Must you keep me in suspense another minute before answering my appeal?” Dave prompted, and Eddi marveled at his ability to produce language so fitted to the play yet so spontaneous.
“Mr. Darcy, you have taken me by such surprise.” She laid her hand on her chest and her heart thudded against her palm.
“And you, my dear, have captured my heart,” he breathed and wrapped his arms around her. “Please assure me you will be my wife.” Dave bestowed a kiss on her forehead and pulled her closer.
“Ah, Eddi,” he breathed into her ear. “I can’t stop. I love you. I don’t know when it happened or how it happened. But there it is. I love you. I’m not suggesting we get married next week, but can’t we give us a try?”
Eddi closed her eyes and drank in his nearness. Her hand inched across the front of his suit. His heart hammered as wildly as her own. She moved back and slid her fingers into the hair at his neck. The waves proved as soft and inviting as Eddi imagined they ever would. She leaned closer and begged to be kissed.
“I have been certain of my sentiments for you for so long, Mr. Darcy,” she said, “that I dare not keep you in suspense a moment more. Presently, I must assure you that I dream of nothing more than our eventual matrimonial felicity.”
When the last syllable left her mouth, Dave pressed his lips against hers.
The audience erupted into applause. As Eddi clung to her hero, a series of wolf whistles floated from backstage. She assumed the matchmaking cast was gratified at last.
When Dave released her, the whole stage felt as if it were spinning. A script fluttered from behind the curtain, and Eddi caught sight of Mrs. DeBloom’s rigid back as she retreated from the curtain’s edge. A light flashed from the front row, and Eddi caught sight of the London Times editor behind the camera. She could only imagine the society page’s next headline.
Epilogue
One year later, Eddi stood in front of a full-length mirror and fretted over the short veil atop her head. “It’s crooked!” she snapped and tugged at the ecru-colored mesh with shaking fingers.
“Here, let me help.” Jenny moved to her side just as their mom and Linda stepped into the bedroom—one of six in Dave’s sprawling home. The poster bed was piled with the clothing Eddi, her sisters, and mother had changed out of. The mother of the bride and Eddi’s sisters were all dressed in satin the color of sage. The muted color complemented Eddi’s tea-length bridal gown and created an appealing fashion scheme for a wedding that had been the talk of the summer.
“I promise, I am a nervous wreck,” Mary worried.
A harpist’s mellifluous notes floated from downstairs as Linda swung the door closed.
Mary perched on the edge of a settee covered in striped polished cotton. “I’ve never seen so much finger food in my whole life!” Her fingers twittered with nothing as she rocked back and forth. “And the caterers are refusing to change the groom’s cake to German chocolate. We had German chocolate at Jenny’s wedding. Has spring been so long gone that they forgot our preferences?”
“Calm down, Mom,” Linda said as she jostled her baby, a rosy-cheeked, four-month-old girl who looked exactly like her mother, except for Rick’s brown eyes.
“Dave requested milk chocolate frosting because he hates coconut,” Jenny explained for the sixth time.
Eddi tugged a strip of bangs back into place as Jenny removed the veil’s comb and reinserted it into her hair.
“Whoever heard of a groom who doesn’t like coconut?” Mary stood. She paced to the end of the cherrywood bed, toward the matching dresser, and back again. “If it weren’t for the fact that Dave somehow got those stingy Boswicks to sell us our house, and everything he did for Linda, and that national ministry he has, I would say he was too odd for you to marry, Eddi!” She paused behind her daughter and peered around her into the mirror.
The bride focused on her veil and tried not to let her mother’s nerves get on her nerves. Mary Boswick had yet to completely recover from her first impression of Dave.
“Oh, I almost can’t stand this!” Mary exclaimed. “My third daughter to get married in a year! It’s too much for my poor nerves.”
“There!” Jenny said as she put the final touch to Eddi’s veil. “You’re set now.”
Eddi gazed at her image in the mirror. The lace-trimmed dress and simple pearls made her skin and hair come alive. She hoped Dave appreciated all the work. With a smile, she turned and gazed at herself from a side angle. Upon Dave’s insistent determination to shower her in chocolates and fine dining, she had gained ten pounds in the last year. The last time Eddi fussed over the pounds, Dave proclaimed he liked a size twelve much better than a ten.
Mrs. Boswick rested her hands on Eddi’s shoulders and sniffled. “You look nearly as pretty as Jenny and Linda,” she quivered out.
“Thanks, Mom,” Eddi said with a wry grin.
“I just don’t know how you got so grown up like this,” Mary continued.
In a rare moment of mother-daughter bonding, Eddi wrapped her arms around her mom and held her close. The smell of her Chanel No 5 perfume reminded Eddi of a childhood laced with the same fr
agrance.
“It’s all going to be okay,” Eddi whispered as the two parted. “The wedding will be over before you know it.”
“I just don’t know how to act. Jenny’s wedding was in a church. Who ever heard of having a wedding way out in the boondocks like this?” Mary complained. She waved her hand as if Dave’s estate were a shack.
Eddi released her mother and was exasperated at having to explain her and Dave’s choice all over again. After their encore performance the play’s first night, Eddi and Dave had become the town’s hot item. Never did Eddi expect the community to take such ownership in their romance. For weeks, everyone from Dina to the corner grocer had insisted upon a wedding invitation. Finally, she and Dave decided to limit the guests to their family and the theater’s cast, along with a few close friends. Otherwise, they would have had five thousand guests with no church in town big enough to hold them.
“Mom,” Eddi said, “Dave and I decided we’d be better off here because everyone would assume it was a small wedding, and we wouldn’t have to invite the whole town.”
“A small wedding!” Mary exclaimed. “There are a hundred people out there!” She pointed toward the door. “I don’t see what it would have hurt to open up a church and add a few more guests to the list.”
Baby Nicole whimpered. Mary turned to Linda, who scrounged through her diaper bag for a bottle with one hand while clutching Nicole with the other. “Oh, are you hungry, baby?” Mary crooned and stroked the infant’s cheeks. “Well, we’re all hungry, and there won’t be any German chocolate for any of us.”
“She’s driving me crazy,” Eddi mumbled under her breath.
“Okay, okay,” Jenny responded. “I’ll take her down so she can drive Dad crazy.”
“Just don’t let her throw any tomatoes at him, okay?” Eddi whispered.
Jenny winked and looped her index finger and thumb into an okay sign. Her one-carat solitaire sparkled on her ring finger. Eddi was certain her mother would proclaim the superiority of Jenny’s engagement and wedding for the rest of her life. Eddi eyed the modest ruby on her own ring finger. The ring had been Dave’s mother’s. When he quietly asked if Eddi would like to wear it for her engagement ring, she had been thrilled. She understood the ring meant far more to Dave than the four-carat rock her mother had suggested.
First Impressions: A Contemporary Retelling of Pride and Prejudice Page 29
