Page 104 of A Searing Acquaintance
Elizabeth, her face buried in his T-shirt, nodded.
“And from what I see, you are nothing like either of your parents. Sometimes that’s a choice, sometimes it’s just the strength of your individuality. And you are an original. Thank God.”
She blew out a shaky sigh. “I don’t know about that. I seem to have judged you from the lofty perch my father sat me upon.”
“But unlike him, you stepped down and joined the rest of us mere mortals.” He cupped her chin and turned her face to his. “You saw me as I am. And you gave me a second chance.”
Elizabeth shifted in his arms, sitting up until their faces were level. He gazed at her openly, inviting her trust. This vulnerability, frightening and intense, was new to him as well. As different as his childhood had been, he had little more experience with a happy family. Death and dysfunction surrounded them.
Elizabeth took his hand and held her smaller one up to it. He laughed softly at the sight. “You do have man-size paws. They’re Darcy hands.”
“Somehow, I don’t think you’d like me touching you with lady hands.” He curled his fingers around hers.
“Probably not. But you have quite a bit of your mother in you: your love of Pemberley and baseball, animals, art, and music. Besides your hands, do you have any bits of your father in you? As he was…before?”
“You wish to know if I’m like him? That’s what my aunt said?”
She nodded. “You have his business sense, right? And his seriousness?”
He half-laughed. “I suppose that’s true. The board seems to appreciate my corporate bloodlines.”
“Will…”
“She and my father never got along, you know. Aunt Catherine liked him, but not Aunt Patricia. It’s weird, really. Part of me wonderedif she fancied him or resented my mother for abandoning America for ‘that man.’”
He looked at her and swallowed. “I loved my father, but as I grew older, I knew I didn’t want to be like him. I don’t know what he was like as a young man, but he was always serious around me. I don’t remember him laughing much. Georgie, um, she made him smile. She was a little girl, so of course she did. Maybe I did too when I was small.”
“Of course you did, honey. I’ve seen the pictures.” Elizabeth wrapped her arms around his neck. “You all looked very happy. He was handsome. Not as handsome asyou, of course, with these Fitzwilliam eyes and cheekbones.”
Darcy tried to smile, but he was thinking about how his father had pushed him away, finding it too painful to look at his dead wife’s features on their son’s face. He wished he could empathize with him, but he’d never understand how a man could lose his wife and daughter and decide he no longer wanted his son. He couldn’t fathom how Sylvia Bennet could watch her daughter blow out the candles on her eighth birthday cake and then pack up and leave the next day. He closed his stinging eyes and pressed his lips to Elizabeth’s hair.
“Neither of us will make the mistakes our parents did.” Elizabeth yawned as her words hung in the air. She felt herself drifting off.
“What do you mean?” Darcy asked in a careful voice.
“We’ve learned from the past,” she murmured, yawning again and snuggling more deeply into him. “And you’ll be a great dad someday.”
Elizabeth was so tired she didn’t feel his heart start racing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Darcy read his e-mails and replied to the pressing ones. He managed to skim a few stories in theWall Street Journal.He stared at his shoes and wondered how old he’d been when he started wearing wing tips. More often than was proper in a public corridor, he stared at the pictures on his phone, nearly all of them taken over the past few weeks and nearly all of them featuring Elizabeth: smiling, pensive, silly, unaware, undressed…While she claimed not to be a fan of the camera, she asked that he share all of his photos with her. He could refuse her nothing even if it did mean she now had the photos he’d snapped of her in May as further evidence of his then unrequited affection. It occurred to him that he should ask whether she had any similar surreptitious photos.
But he’d been sitting outside the D.A.’s office for more than an hour now, and he couldn’t hear a sound through the thick oak door. It was possible, he thought, that his head might explode. Elizabeth had been nervous that morning about giving her statement while he had been all calm assurances. Now it was quite the opposite. He sat, tapping his foot and jiggling his knee, and wondered exactly when he’d lost his vaunted power of concentration. The woman behind the door was responsible for that, and he certainly didn’t begrudge her beguiling ability to distract him. She’d done a bloody good job of it last night.
Certain activities had been off limits, and he’d had his first confirmed look at how a hormonally charged Elizabeth Bennetbehaved. Although he wasn’t terribly well versed in the ups and downs of a woman’s monthly mood swings, he’d rather enjoyed her need for back rubs, craving for dark chocolate, and most especially, her desire for him. He’d never seenthatmentioned on the covers of all those magazines boasting about “Best Sex Ever!” and “Fab Summer Hairstyles!” and “Inside Secrets of Casseroles and Hot Bachelors.” Not that he’d actually looked at those magazines, of course, but he did spend enough time in airports to have noticed them.
Yesterday, when Elizabeth discovered Darcy had never seenAn Affair to Remember, the movie that inspired Charles and so many other couples to get engaged or married atop the Empire State Building, she’d insisted they watch it. It was a lot longer than she’d recalled—and more maudlin than he would have preferred—but it had taken her mind off weighty legal matters, and something about Cary Grant had put her mind on him. A certainpartof him, anyway. She curled up in her UM sweats and played with the buttons of his shirt while they watched the film. Soon enough, he felt her fingers on his skin, touching the fine hair that covered his stomach. Within minutes, her lips followed, the movie paused, and she was kneeling between his thighs, tugging his jeans down past his hips, her mouth hot and her lips and tongue insistent upon him. Darcy had briefly wondered where she learned that brilliant trick with her bottom lip. “Lizzy,” he moaned, lost to her powers of oral persuasion. That had been his last intelligible word before she took him on a long, highly personalized journey to his favorite destination.
He groaned and grabbed the newspaper next to him to set atop his misbehaving lap. Within seconds, the door across from him opened. He sat up guiltily and crossed his legs; fortunately, the danger was nearly past by the time Elizabeth emerged, and he could stand without fear of embarrassment. She took his hand, he kissed her cheek, and they headed off for lunch. She was free of her worries, she said. Wickham and the specter of athletes imitating Lance Armstrong no longer weighed heavily on her mind. She’d provided the authorities the little information she had, and she was of no help to Wickham’s defense, so it was over and done. They had that happy thing to celebrate, and both hoped it would overshadow a much-dreaded separation.
Darcy’s twice-postponed trip to London and Berlin finally had to be undertaken. It was so frustrating. All he’d done for five years was work, and now all he wanted was a bit of vacation, a holiday awaywith his girlfriend. But money couldn’t buy him love, happiness, time, or even a clone to sign letters and read contracts; he had to meet with his operations chiefs and executives overseas. So Darcy did what he always had and buckled down to work. For two consecutive nights before he left, Elizabeth found him in the wee hours at his desk or at her kitchen table, tapping away at his laptop. It worried her, but he promised it was temporary, just a way to shorten his trip away from her. It was who he was, she knew: a man holding up the family legacy. Besides, she was working too—on her book, on Jane’s wedding, and on a birthday surprise for her man.
More than once when mulling over this trip, he’d blurted out the words he kept thinking: “Come with me?” But every time, Elizabeth had reminded him of her own responsibilities as an employee and as a maid of honor. His suggestion that she stay at his apartment had also fallen to her reasoning: “My office is here.” Thus, he flew off after a long, passion-filled and misty-eyed goodbye. Two days sped by when she took her long-planned, whirlwind trip to Chicago to promote the book.
With her trip to the Midwest over, and with Darcy gone for another unimaginable six days, Elizabeth buckled down and focused. An editor at Kelleton Press had expressed interest in her novel and asked to see another two chapters and the full outline before a decision could be made. When she wasn’t at Philips/Hill, she was writing or working on Darcy’s birthday gift or focused on wedding details, specifically listening to Jane’s worries and planning the bachelorette party with Charlotte and, unfortunately, Caroline. After much back and forth e-mailing, they had settled on a Saturday morning meeting at Caroline’s apartment. On the bright side, Darcy would be home on Tuesday after their first weekend apart. The following weekend had him heading to New Orleans for Charles’s bachelor party. Maybe sheshouldhave gone to London and Berlin with him. Each had proven highly successful at hiding—and finding—the notes and cards they’d tucked into drawers and suitcase pockets for the other. But Darcy had sounded subdued and tired on the phone, and he admitted he was fighting a head cold. He never failed, however, to give her a wakeup call and gently talk her into embracing the light of a new day without him. And late every afternoon, she called and did her best to lull him to sleep.
Although she’d stayed in New Jersey every night since he’d left, Elizabeth stopped by Darcy’s apartment on Saturday to retrieve a blouse and visit the cats before heading to Caroline’s place. Unsure ofMrs. Reynolds’s schedule, she knocked before tapping in the key code. Sure enough, the housekeeper opened the door. Expressing delight with the visit, she ushered Elizabeth inside. It was the first time they’d seen each other since the trip to Pemberley, and Elizabeth sensed that Darcy had discussed the hours they were keeping and requested a bit of privacy. Or perhaps Mrs. Reynolds had offered it. No matter. She knew the family history and cared deeply about Darcy. Whatever intimate secrets she knew, she kept them to herself. None of that saved Elizabeth from feeling slightly bashful around the woman, but Mrs. Reynolds appeared pleased to see the girl who’d spilled raspberry jam on 800-thread count sheets, popped the buttons on at least one dress shirt, and left lingerie drying in the bathroom.
