Page 127 of A Searing Acquaintance
When he’d proposed to her a second time, more officially, in NewYork with the ring, Darcy had told Elizabeth he’d never liked surprises until he met her. Now, as he pulled her close for their first dance as a married couple, he leaned in and whispered in her ear. “You asked me once what song made me think of you.
“All of them.”
EPILOGUE
Ten Years Later
Every time they arrived at Pemberley and Elizabeth caught her first glimpse of the gazebo strung with fairy lights and a mostly ineffective bug zapper, she would remember her wedding day. The gazebo didn’t look the same. It was a bit more weatherbeaten, and instead of buckets of flowers inside, there was always a sand pail or a dump truck, a lost sandal, or an abandoned shell collection waiting to greet her.
Those were the little pieces that fit now, fit the life she and her family lived here at the beach during long, lazy summers. On her first visit to Pemberley, she’d encountered a man she’d met before but hadn’t recognized. On her second visit, she’d been introduced to the very essence of that man, to his goodness and his pain, to his passion and his love. It was like the sand that seemed to settle into every crevice of the house, to collect in her shoes or on the windowsills. Rocks worn down to their essence, to the fine, delicate, soft sand that clung to her as fiercely as her family’s love.
She’d shake her head when such thoughts crossed her mind. Age and experience, professional success and personal loss, joy and the happy life she had with Will Darcy and their children, were making her soft. She could almost hear her father gently chiding her for it.
He’d been gone for nearly four years now. Ted Bennet had seen three daughters married and one divorced, held five grandchildren, retired early after watching his beloved Classics Department continue to lose its luster among students and, inspired by his second daughter’s literary success, written a thinly veiled novel about life, love, and academic backstabbing at a sports-mad university. Three days after he finished his first draft, and before he could confess his secret toBarbara, he’d collapsed by the backyard bird feeder, dead of a heart attack.
After her father’s funeral, Elizabeth spent days cleaning out his den. No one else would volunteer to sift through, nor would they value, what he had collected there. She discovered his novel, printed out and fastidiously corrected in red ink. Shocked but pleased by his efforts, she found his writing was dryly pointed, his characters exaggerated, and his grammar perfect—though he appeared to have argued with himself over the Oxford comma.
Stacked in the shelves, she found first editions, borrowed reference works, letters from librarians at other universities, and a cache of cards, letters, and photographs from early in his marriage to Sylvia. Her curiosity warred with queasiness; there were some things no child wants to know about her parents. She steeled herself and gave them only a cursory glance, determined to share them with Jane.
As she filled bags and boxes with the jewels and castoffs of her father’s life, Elizabeth was grateful to be alone. Jane was busy at home with a five-year-old and two-month-old twins. Barbara, in shock, had gone to Boston to stay with Mary, who was struggling, post-divorce, to balance her academic career with single-parenting a toddler. Lydia had headed back to her job and boyfriend in San Diego.
Sylvia hadn’t made it to the funeral, of course. She’d been on tour with a John Denver revue in China’s western provinces. Apparently, the luxury hotels in Chengdu filled up with convention visitors who adored the long-dead singer, and Sylvia’s still flexible alto-soprano made her the perfect backup singer for two stage shows, including one that gave her a weekly solo spot. Sylvia Bennet-LaRue-Huang was a semi-star, thousands of miles away.
Elizabeth, occasionally and from a safe distance, followed Sylvia’s career and made sure Jane—who was in sporadic contact with the woman—never mentioned Darcy’s occasional trips to China. “Thank God it’s a very, very big country,” she would say to her sister.
Her husband was her strength through it all. At the funeral, he held their two-year-old son in one arm and her with the other. He knew too much about sudden loss. It hadn’t turned him bitter; it had turned him inward and forged both deep need and deep empathy. He listened to all her outpourings and wiped every tear that leaked from her eyes. But then the baby would kick, or Ian would toddle in for a hug or a snack, and all thoughts of loss would melt in the face of all she held dear.
Marriage to a man who respected her, admired her mind and her ideas, and adored her body and her silliness had altered her. Simply getting to know Darcy a decade earlier had changed how she viewed her father and herself. She was a most fortunate woman.
But her husband told her often that he was the lucky one. Of all the photographs and videos that now preserved the moments of their life together, she most treasured those flashes of time that went undocumented. The near disbelief on Darcy’s face the first time she said she loved him, the barely repressed joy as he watched her slip his wedding ring onto his finger, his look of stunned elation when she told him she was pregnant with Ian, the expression of sweet wonderment when he held their baby girl for the first time and she suggested giving her Georgiana as a middle name. And always, that soft glint in his dark gray eyes when he desired her: that slight, shared awe when he’d slide into her; those tender murmurings when he’d gasp her name. No photo album could hold those, nor would they ever be shared. They belonged to her alone.
Now, the day before they would celebrate ten years of marriage, she was lying on the big deck chaise, nursing their youngest child. The cushion was new, but the frame was old and sturdy. It had held them through every phase of their entwined lives: from absolution and understanding, through love and passion, to cuddling and nightmares and bedtime stories. She’d married a good man who was a wonderful husband and an amazing father. She could hear him now in the kitchen talking to their daughter in a gentle voice.
“Grace, when you finish your juice, would you like to help feed the kitties? Yogi looks hungry.”
“No, he’s not, Daddy,” the three-year-old responded in a confident voice. “He ate a spider for lunch. R.J. caught it for him.”
Elizabeth could hear him biting back a laugh. “Your cousin is always helpful, isn’t he? Just like Uncle Rich.”
“Mommy says ‘like father, like son.’”
Sometimes.Elizabeth looked down at the sleepy face of little Thomas Arthur Darcy.I hope so.
“My God, there’s a dozen kids here.” Charles overlooked the fact that he’d fathered three of them. “When Lydia and Josh start having kids, we’ll be outnumbered.”
“Practically a slew of them, and some are almost old enough to be locked in the south wing for the night so we can drink and hot tub in peace,” Rich observed. “Granddad Fitzwilliam would be pleased.”
The “children,” ranging from four-month-old “Tad” Darcy to nineteen-year-old Ava Gardiner, were at Pemberley with their parents for the long Memorial Day weekend. Most were tucked away in cribs and bunk beds for the night while the older ones were busy in the game room or hanging out with the adults. More would come by tomorrow. The Hursts would arrive with Isabella and her sister Portia. Michael and Patricia Fitzwilliam and three visiting grandchildren would drive over from East Hampton for the day.
Elizabeth sat curled up in a chair in the master bedroom, holding her distraught oldest child. Ian, influenced by his high-spirited cousin, had confessed to hiding his sister’s favorite stuffed animal, but the just-turned six-year-old didn’t remember why they’d done it or where it was. Now he’d broken down sobbing after a long day in the sun. “It was Aunt Georgie’s giraffe, Mommy! Daddy will be sad too.”
She looked up from reassuring her son to find her husband in the doorway holding their bereft, sleepy little girl in his arms. A huge black dog stood by his side. Silently, she put out her arms and took their daughter, while her husband knelt down and enfolded Ian in a hug.
“Ian, I’m not mad, and I’m not sad,” he said gently. “Sometimes silliness simply gets too silly and feelings are hurt.” Darcy leaned back, gazed tenderly into his son’s green eyes, and wiped away his tears with a handkerchief. “Your sister misses Raffi, so you and I have a job to do. We need to find him. Let’s be detectives and re-trace your steps.”
“And R.J.’s,” the little boy sniffed. “It was him and me, Daddy.” He wrapped his arms around the dog and buried his face in its fur. “Ferdinand can help us.”
The trio of father, son, and dog wandered through the house, smiling at Maddie and Joe out on the deck stargazing with Charlotte, Bill, Annabella, and her partner, Clive. Barbara and her new husband, Mike, could be seen down on the beach, walking in the surf.
