Page 28 of A Searing Acquaintance
“Georgie has to stay a little girl,” he protested, putting the plate on the table and reaching for the glass of milk. “Big girls might not like pink dresses and pink ribbons and pink shoes.”
“Pink!” Georgie wiggled out of her mother’s arms and began twirling.
His mother reached over and smoothed his hair. “You’re a wonderful young man, Will. And there are a lot of wonderful young ladies out there. You have years of dances, parties, and dates to look forward to. And if you don’t want to dance, you never have to.”
His eyes shot up. “But…”
“But there will always be a girl who doesn’t get asked. Try to be the gentleman who remembers that, and ask her.”
“…So then I asked her which delegation she needed, and she said, ‘I’ve only had about half of them.’ Can you believe that? The Albanians thought it was hilarious.” Rich, a diplomatic attaché at the United Nations and always fond of his own jokes, roared with laughter until he noticed Darcy’s attention had waned. He frowned and cleared his throat.
“Will you be at Annabella’s opening tomorrow?”
“Of course,” Darcy murmured, idly rubbing his finger around the lip of his glass.
“Need a date? Michelle has a roommate who loves a good laugh. Darcy?”
Rich turned to see where his cousin’s attention had been diverted. He raised his eyebrows, and feeling his phone vibrate, reached in his pocket to take an incoming call.
Darcy’s eyes were focused on the hostess. She reminded him of Elizabeth Bennet except her eyes were the wrong color and her smile wasn’t as warm. Not that he’d been the recipient of many of Elizabeth’s smiles, but he’d seen her share a few genuine ones and heard her laughter, and he admired the sparkling intelligence in her eyes. This woman’s eyes didn’t shine that way. No one’s did, and he was getting tired of making the comparison. But he couldn’t get her face or her voice out of his head. It was exhausting.
“Lila’s not really the hostess, you know,” Rich said quietly. “She’s the co-owner. And divorced.”
Darcy shook his head. “What time is the opening?”
“I’m glad you’re with me,” Jane whispered. “I’ve never been to an ‘interpretive movement paint slam’ before.”
“I’ve never even heard of one,” Elizabeth replied.
“Charles says Annabella is quite talented if you can get past the anger. He says she likes to work with old barbed wire and twine.”
“A cowboy motif?”Angry much? Poor little rich girl.
Jane nodded, crinkled her nose, and gestured to the stuffed bears and old computer motherboards wrapped in barbed wire and piled on the floor. “Fitzwilliam calls it ‘twenty-first century Warholian commentary.’”
Does he now?Perverse interest aside, Darcy was the main reason Elizabeth agreed to join Jane at Annabella De Bourgh’s exhibition of “Mute Anger.” When Charles’s meetings ran late, he asked Jane to meet him at the show rather than picking her up, and she pleaded for Elizabeth’s company. While reluctant to give up her date with cozyflannel pajamas and Netflix for this strange evening of performance art,Elizabeth quickly set it aside when she learned the artist was Darcy’s cousin. Not that she wanted to seehim. But he was such an unknowable, elusive, strange creature, and this cousin sounded even odder. God only knew what other eccentric Eurotrash might show up—maybe even the sister he’d mentioned, the one who named their dog Princess Coconut.
The sisters gathered with the rest of the crowd behind a knee-high barbed wire enclosure and watched a waif-like woman stretch, grimace, and yawn then stand stock-still before performing and holding a back bend. She then climbed into an impossibly small crate and pulled a black shroud over it. Some kind of viscous liquid seeped out from underneath and puddled onto the small stage.
Elizabeth looked up from the mess on the floor and met the steady, mortified gaze of Fitzwilliam Darcy. She felt herself blushing. Furious at her reaction, she pulled her eyes away from his, crossed her arms, and concentrated on the disaster unfolding in front of her. Jane kept making little murmuring sounds. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” Those three words seemed to be a mantra, gasped under the collective breath of the assembled crowd. Elizabeth looked across at Darcy, his head tilted as a goateed man said something in his ear. He grimaced and his nostrils flared.
Typical.Can’t even find the humor in his own cousin’s exhibition.
Darcy was, in fact, embarrassed. He wasn’t expecting to see Elizabeth. When he’d met Charles for lunch earlier in the week, he’d only mentioned Annabella’s “performance” in passing, but leave it to Charles—a great believer in all things family—to show up and help fill up the space. The entire thing was an ordeal. Darcy was appalled by his cousin’s avocation. It was amazing what a trust fund and a prominent name could buy for an aimless young woman who’d spent far too many years navel-gazing and being indulged. Of course, Annabella wasn’t the only young person to pursue an artistic path without talent, guidance, or discernment. She just happened to be the only one to whom he was related. He crossed his arms and tried to block out the performance as well as the acerbic narration Rich was whispering in his ear.
At the end of Annabella’s fifteen-minute performance, she held upa sign instructing everyone to mill about and abuse her paintings as instructed. Scissors, knives, duct tape, and pens hung from strings attached to the tops of distorted reproductions of eighteenth-century portraits. Darcy took a deep breath, trying not to overtly show his disgusted bewilderment as the crowd began defacing the artwork.
He stood still, noting that only Elizabeth accompanied Jane and Bingley. No chiseled-cheekbone musclemen were in sight. He moved toward the trio, trailed by Rich, whose on-again, off-again girlfriend, Michelle, had smartly chosen a massage appointment over performance art. He watched as Jane pulled out her phone and moved away from the group.
“My God, Darcy. What the hell was that?” Charles burst out. “I mean,” he added in a lower voice, “I know Annabella is trying to make a splash on the art scene, but I don’t get it.”
Rich laughed and clapped Charles on the back. “I don’t think you’re supposed to, my man. Anna has an audience of one, and she certainly captured her attention.” He nodded toward a short, elegant woman whose vibrant purple power suit stood out in the sea of black-garbed fashionistas. “In case you haven’t had the pleasure, that is my Aunt Catherine, Annabella’s mother.”
He looked at Elizabeth and smiled. “Richard Fitzwilliam. Long-suffering cousin to the artist. I don’t believe we’ve met?”
Before he’d had a chance to greet her himself, Darcy found himself introducing Elizabeth to his cousin.
“Aha, the famous sock police! Your reputation precedes you!” Rich laughed. “I can’t believe my cousin passed your inspection. Better yet, I can’t believe he sat still for it. He’s notoriously prickly, you know.”
