Chapter 10 #3
Elizabeth returned his smile. He’d been quiet during dinner. She assumed he was dazed by the high-volume antics of her family. Her own nervous jokes, her tongue loosened by two glasses of wine, probably didn’t help. She sat quietly as the music faded and knew she should say something. Soon.
She was saved when Maddie emerged from the house shaking her head and laughing. The strains of “Here Comes the Sun” followed her through the doorway. Joe rose from the table, bowed, and extended his hand, pulling his wife into a dance.
“Ew!” Alex cried. “Love-dovey junk.” He and his sister began doing slow-motion ballet moves.
Elizabeth smiled at the dancers and looked past them, up to the stars. She could hear the waves, just a little, under the music. She sighed and drew up her knees, hugging them to her chest.
“It’s beautiful here, Fitzwilliam.”
“I’m glad you like it,” he replied softly. “It’s my favorite place.”
A few minutes after the Gardiners herded their tired children upstairs to bed, Charles stood and lowered the volume on the outdoor speakers.
“I really should’ve been a deejay. I make the best mixes,” he boasted, swaying along with the music for a few seconds.
He took a bow and chucked another log onto the fire pit.
“Careful, Charles. Sparks are flying,” Darcy said.
Charles sat on the double chaise and pulled Jane close. “Ooh-la-la, you think I haven’t noticed?” He waggled his eyebrows at his fiancée.
“Ugh, you guys are gross,” Elizabeth grumbled. “At least try to behave in polite company. I’d hate to stumble over discarded clothing.”
“You’ve got no sense of romance. You know what, honey?” Charles asked.
“What, sweetie?”
“We have too many boring, single friends in New York. Did the mayor ban dating and romance along with Slurpees?”
“Certainly did. Romance, trans fats, and public smoking are all illegal in New York,” Darcy commented, a wry smile on his face.
“Thank God we still have karaoke bars.” Charles guffawed.
Elizabeth laughed and wondered whether Charles was always “on” for a group. Ava and Alex adored him, and he’d even won over Lydia and Mary. She shuddered, wondering how Sylvia would react to his good-natured, puppy dog personality.
Coco. She needed to say something to Darcy.
The very proper English voice of the man she’d just been thinking about interrupted Elizabeth’s thoughts.
“Are you cold? May I get you a sweater?”
“What? No. No, thank you.” Elizabeth looked up from the flames to see him leaning close to her.
“All right,” he said, sitting back in his chair and feeling completely ridiculous. “You shivered.”
“Did I?”
A bit of scuffling and giggling caught their attention. Charles announced it was officially hot tub hour. “You two are welcome to join us, but, um, we might not be wearing anything.”
“Charles!” Jane swatted his arm.
“No more alcohol for that one,” Elizabeth scolded before noticing her sister appeared just as blurrily happy as Charles did.
“Jane, please make sure the poor boy puts on a floatie or some water wings,” Darcy said dryly. “He doesn’t appear terribly sentient to me.”
The blissful couple stumbled off, leaving behind the uncomfortable pair watching their retreating backs.
“They’re disgustingly happy,” Elizabeth groused, smiling. She picked up her wine glass and sighed.
“They’re perfect for each other. It was clear from the very first minute they met.”
Love and romance were not the best topics for the two of them to explore, Elizabeth thought. She closed her eyes, screwed up her courage, and turned toward Darcy.
“I’m so sorry about Coco. I hadn’t realized…I mean, I don’t know the whole story, but you were so sweet with her, and I know she was important to you.”
Darcy looked up from the fire and met her gaze. “She was. Thank you. Your note, the one you sent, was very thoughtful. And much appreciated.” His voice drifted off and he glanced off toward the beach.
Elizabeth took a last sip of wine and stared at him.
The note I sent in reply to your letter.
I wonder if there’s any humble pie in that kitchen.
How do I tell him how little I remember about that night?
She grimaced. “It was the very least I could do. The thing is,” Elizabeth acknowledged quietly, “I don’t really remember what—”
She made the mistake of glancing at him. His attention was fixed on her. The flickering firelight softened his expression, deepening the planes of his cheekbones and brightening his eyes. Elizabeth lost her train of thought. His mother could have been a model. I wonder if he looks like her.
“What?” he said, wondering why she seemed so lost, so distracted. “You don’t remember what?”
Elizabeth blushed, embarrassed. “Um, calculus?” she said offhandedly. “My sister’s birthday, what I need at the grocery store…” What we talked about that night at Netherfield. That night. “I’ve had too much wine, I guess.”
Darcy watched as various emotions swept over her face. She doesn’t remember Netherfield. Or she remembers it wrongly. I think. “Memory is a tricky thing,” he said carefully. “We repress some memories, change others.”
Silently he pleaded for her to look at him.
She looked up and smiled a bit. “Yes. The painful ones.”
Netherfield is painful for her? He swallowed and looked away as the first notes of “Still Crazy After All These Years” floated in.
“Oh, I love this song,” she said. “Sylvia—my mother—used to sing it all the time.”
“Mine too.”
“Really? Oh, Charles made this mix from her music, right?”
He looked past her and smiled wistfully.
“Yes. She loved folksingers. All the singer-songwriters in the sixties and seventies. She loved the vulnerability of their voices, the imperfection of their singing. No studio fakery, no disguise of any sort. You know the stanza, in the middle, how Paul Simon’s voice strains? ”
“Oh my God,” Elizabeth said, grinning with delight. “The sweet spot.”
“Yes,” he said eagerly, nodding. “I’ll listen to the whole song just for that moment.”
They sat quietly for a minute, listening. Waiting. He held up a finger and they both unconsciously leaned forward a little as the song neared that note.
Suddenly a car door slammed and a shrill voice cried, “Helloooo!”
The Bingley sisters had arrived twelve hours ahead of schedule.