Page 66 of A Searing Acquaintance
Elizabeth Bennet couldn’t read lips. She didn’t know more than a few basic gestures in American Sign Language. But she knew what it meant when a blushing young woman fingered an expensive scarf, a gift bag at her elbow. She knew what it meant when a man lifted his glass to a woman. Not that she’d ever been on the receiving end of such gallant and romantic gestures. Not that she’d encouraged them, either. She was a terrible girlfriend with bad taste in men. And really, really bad judgment.
Her heart sank. She’d hadn’t seen Darcy in weeks. She’d stared at his card, and she hadn’t called him. But he hadn’t called her either. Andheknew where she lived; he knew where she worked. And nowsheknew where he ate lunch.
Elizabeth backed away from the window. Of all the restaurants in New York City, she had to walk by this one and see that? See him? Living up to the lies or the truth or whatever it was she’d once believed about him?Now?What a bitter twist of fate, to be here and see him with a cute, perky blonde and feel these feelings of jealousy and regret—and she knew, now, of love. She moved away quickly, pulled out her phone, and texted Jane. “Change of plans. Meet me at Shake Shack.”
She walked toward Madison Square Park, a million thoughts muddling through her mind.Of course, he’s moved on. He did that long ago. He finally figured it out. If my family’s behavior at Pemberley didn’t do it, my connection to George Wickham did. And whatever connection Darcy wanted with me is gone too.
She’d never had him, and now she’d lost him. How she wanted to wish away that night with him at Netherfield. It shaped and distorted everything that had happened since. It still came back to her in snatches of memory.
Sometimes, at the oddest moments, she would remember the feel of the scars on his back. One ran up to his shoulder, and he tensed as she caressed it. They were hard to the touch and hard to forget, and he never really explained how he got them. She told him about her scar, explained the injury and the change it made in her life. But when she asked him for his story, he closed his eyes and covered her mouth with his. And she lay back and decided it didn’t matter because, after thatnight, he wouldn’t matter, and their actions could be forgotten. Welcomed and savored in the moment and then forgotten.
But now, in one of those rare flashes of total self-awareness, Elizabeth acknowledged she’d never forgotten him, had never truly wanted to. The feel of his hands gently touching her face and his dark eyes gazing into hers—those were memories she’d held onto. She pulled out those images on lonely days when it was raining and her leg ached. She remembered those feelings when she saw a happy couple kissing on the street. And she felt a pang of regret for the words not spoken.
She regretted the words said and not heard as well. Over the past weeks, during the late, quiet hours when sleep eluded her, she remembered in bits and pieces that Fitzwilliam Darcyhadslowly opened up to her that long-ago night. He’d told her in few words and in the quietest voice possible that he’d lost his mother and his six-year-old sister in a car accident. That he’d been injured as well and that his sixteen-year-old body had healed, but the scars remained to remind him of his losses.As if nothing else would do that.She sighed shakily.
And I nodded and held his hand, and I listened. But I was so stupid. I didn’t hear, didn’t hold onto a word he said. In one woozy ear and out the other. How that must have hurt him. How he should hate me. But he loves me. Loved. Smart man.Elizabeth sniffed, wiping her cheek with her sleeve.He did go to Harvard Business School, after all.
She was twenty-four, barely older than Darcy had been when he’d buried his father, the last of his immediate family. Elizabeth might not be proud of her own family, but at least she had one to go home to, to be annoyed with, to bake cookies for. She had plastic stars to stare at on her childhood ceiling, her Roald Dahl and C.S. Lewis books on the shelves, and her Mia Hamm poster on the wall. As appalling as the Kowalski-Bennet family might be to Darcy’s sensibilities, at least shehadthem: whiny stepsisters, a distant but nice stepmother, a head-in-the-clouds father, and a mother who’d cut the apron strings but would reel herself in on a whim while assuming the Bennet girls were waiting and thrilled to welcome her into the lives they’d built without her.
Sometimes it seemed to Elizabeth that she’d built very little. She had her degrees, nearly no loans left to pay off, a good job, a book project that hadn’t failed, a pet project she thought was quite good, deep friendships, a little apartment in New Jersey, and her family. It all felt sufficient. Add in yoga, a nicely dull date every weekend, andmaybe a dog, and she’d be set. Set for the kind of life her mother had fled.
Sufficient.It made her toes curl. She’d once thought Darcy so high and mighty, so invulnerable to—and prejudiced against—the ordinary flotsam and jetsam of middle-class life. She’d been wrong. If her visit to Pemberley had shown her anything, it was that he likely craved the normal ebb and flow, the messiness and the joys of a regular, flawed, ordinary family.Well, maybe notmyfamily, Elizabeth thought with a small, rueful smile. She’d spent more time than she wished to acknowledge over these past six weeks looking at the pictures Lydia had taken on her cell phone. She’d uploaded them to her cloud so she couldn’t lose them. One photo was especially fascinating and frightening. Elizabeth thought it was terrifying to see the expression on her face as she gazed at Darcy.Did he notice? Did my family notice? Did I do that a lot?It told the story and confirmed the truth she could barely acknowledge:I love him.What should have been thrilling was now painful, her emotions raw with regret rather than joy.I love him. He once loved me.It was her turn to feel the ache of unrequited love.
She was leaning against a tree, seeking shade from the hot July sun and surveying the mid-afternoon crowd at Shake Shack, when Jane arrived, smiling as always. They ordered their delicious million-calorie meals and settled in at an out-of-the way table.
For once, Jane reined herself in and didn’t go over the usual details of the wedding, the showers, the parties, or the guest list. She didn’t even second-guess the flatware and dishes she’d put on her gift registry. Elizabeth and the other members of the wedding party received all their updates and debated those decisions on “The Jane & Charles Wedding Page.” It was all too twenty-first century for some of the family. Lydia rolled her eyes and endlessly questioned why they couldn’t just go to Cabo for a destination wedding. Mary grumbled about the waste of time and resources. Barbara clucked and pretended not to worry about the expense, ninety-five percent of which was being shouldered by Jane and Charles. Ted ignored it all. And Sylvia liked to throw out song ideas for the newlyweds’ first dance. She was determined to serenade them into wedded life.
The simplicity of being married under the stars and strings of fairy lights never occurred to Jane. But she did worry for her little sister.
“You’re coming early on Saturday, right?”
Elizabeth, her mouth wrapped around a Flat-Top chicken dog, nodded. The official engagement party was at the Empire StateBuilding on Saturday night. Only Charles would know that such a location could be rented for a private party. Darcy, whose plans to hold a small celebratory dinner at his apartment had been overtaken by the ever-growing guest list, was the official host, and Elizabeth, as the maid of honor, was supposed to co-host. But they’d both been traveling—one in the city while the other was out of the country—and had yet to talk. Or meet. Or e-mail. Or anything. Not that she’d tried.
Jane took a fry from their shared order and gave her a worried look. “I don’t want to be the annoying, wedding-obsessed sister. I promise to shut up after I vent for one minute about Caroline and Louisa and their impossible standards. I heard them fussing over the ‘not quite right’ shade of ivory in the flower girls’ dresses.”
Elizabeth laughed. “They are Reason No. 2 for not falling in love without getting a thorough background check on the guy’s family.”
“Oh, you know they don’t really matter. There’s family and there’sfamily. Besides, Sylvia is not exactly endearing herself to Charles, and he’s so easy to please that he actually likes Lydia and Mary!”
Elizabeth, amused at Jane’s unintended and uncharacteristic insult to their stepsisters, forced her attention back to Sylvia. “FaceTiming, is she? Or Skyping?”
Jane nodded. “She wants to sing Patsy Cline for our first song! ‘Crazy.’ It’s a great song, but it’s not us. I don’t know what to do. I mean, I’ve never heard Charles really sound angry, but he was so close to losing it with her.”
A runaway dog raced past their table, its screaming owner in panicked pursuit. “Drop the wiener, Buster!” Elizabeth watched the man catch up to his pet and wrestle a stolen hot dog from the dog’s mouth. She thought of Darcy’s warning about feeding table food to Coco and wondered whether it had been illness or old age or a dropped bit of chocolate that had led to her death.How he must miss her.
Jane stole two more fries and slowly nibbled on them. “Um, have you and Fitzwilliam talked?”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. She took a long sip of lemonade.
“No, not really. You guys are so organized, and we’ve both been traveling.” She looked up and saw Jane’s skeptical expression. “Seriously, you know him. No doubt, his speech is written and memorized, and the bar is stocked. And I will entertain the festive masses with the world’s cutest videos of the happiest couple in the world.”
“So you’ll be there early, right?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“And you’re fine?”
“Very fine.”
