Chapter 6
SIX
"SO," LYDIA SAID. "How is it living in the same house as your multimillionaire ex?"
Elizabeth did not look up from her mug. "He is not my ex."
"A month counts, Lizzie."
"A few dates."
"A month." She said it again, simply, because it was true and she was not moving off it. "You saw that man for a whole month. You were absolutely gone for him and then you —"
"Lydia." Jane's voice was mild but final.
Lydia subsided. Briefly.
She was the last of the five Bennet sisters, twenty-five years old, and she had arrived at the house on Hicks Street at eleven that morning with a tote bag full of snacks and no particular intention of keeping her questions to herself.
Mia had left for school at seven-thirty.
Darcy was not in. Lydia had understood what that meant the moment she walked through the door, kissed Elizabeth on the cheek, and made straight for the kitchen.
Jane had arrived ten minutes later with flowers she put in the vase without being asked.
The three were the only Bennet sisters living in New York, and they had decided to spend the morning together to lift Elizabeth’s spirits.
They had been talking for over an hour, the conversation moving easily from one thing to another.
Their mother’s hip replacement and the recovery, which was, according to Mrs. Bennet, considerably more dramatic than the surgeon had suggested.
Their father’s new podcast obsession. Mary’s announcement that she was moving to Portland, which no one had seen coming and everyone had immediately understood.
Lydia had refilled her coffee twice and was clearly done with every other topic before turning to Elizabeth’s love life.
"So," she said. "The ex. In your house. Talk."
"He is not —"
"Lizzie."
Elizabeth set down her mug.
"He is annoying," she said. "He fixes things without asking. He has opinions about where everything should be. He came back from a work trip some days ago and I came downstairs at two in the morning because I heard a noise and I thought someone had broken in."
"And?"
"It was Darcy. Making toast. Without a shirt on."
Lydia put down her coffee very carefully, with the focused attention of someone who needed both hands free for what came next.
"Without a shirt," she said.
"He had just got back. Said he was hungry."
"Did you take a photo?"
"Lydia," Jane said.
"What? I am asking a reasonable question."
"It is not a reasonable question."
"Jane. It is the hot Darcy. You have seen the man.
Fine as anything, all that money, those cheekbones.
" She turned back to Elizabeth. "There are probably two thousand women on Google right now trying to find a shirtless photo of Fitzwilliam Darcy and you had the actual thing standing in your kitchen and you did not take a photo. "
"I had a baseball bat in my hand."
"Multitasking exists, Lizzie."
"There was nothing to photograph. It was two in the morning. I was half asleep and I nearly took his head off with the bat because I thought he was an intruder. There is nothing remotely interesting about any of it."
Lydia looked at her. Long and steady.
"Last time he was shirtless with you," she said, "you talked about it for four days on the group chat."
Jane almost spilled her coffee as the kitchen went silent.
"That was eight years ago," Elizabeth said.
"The group chat still exists. I have screenshots."
"Lydia Bennet, if you pull out your phone right now —"
"You will what? Hit me with the baseball bat?"
Jane pressed her lips together. Elizabeth looked at her. Jane looked at the ceiling.
“There is nothing going on,” Elizabeth said. “It’s been over three weeks, and Darcy is exactly as annoying as I remember. Bland too.”
Lydia ate a crisp. Slowly.
"So, you are not," she said, "hitting it with Mr. Darcy."
"I am going to ask you to leave my house."
“Your house?” Lydia made a mocking face. “Technically, it’s Mia’s house… and Mr. Darcy’s. I think I’ll be fine.”
"Lydia."
"I am just clarifying." She reached for another crisp. "So, if you are not hitting it with Mr. Darcy and everything is fine and not interesting, what is going on with your actual love life? Because the last person you mentioned was that journalist from the Times and that was twenty-one months ago."
"I have been busy."
"Before the busy," Lydia said. "Before Charlotte and James. You were already not dating anyone, Lizzie. You have not properly dated anyone in years."
Elizabeth looked at her hands.
"I have a life."
"You have grief, a teenager and a man in your kitchen at two in the morning. That is a situation." She softened slightly. "I am not trying to be harsh. I am trying to be useful. Which is why I want to tell you about Ember."
Elizabeth looked up. "What is Ember?"
"A dating app. But not like a normal one.
" Lydia held up a hand. "I know what you are going to say.
But listen. It is exclusive. Properly exclusive.
You cannot just download it. You have to be referred or apply directly and they vet everyone properly.
And when you register, they send you a physical letter in the post with your access code in it. "
"A letter," Elizabeth said.
"A letter. In an envelope. Like a civilised person. It is very old school about the whole thing. My friend Harriet met someone on it and they have been together fourteen months."
"I am not joining a dating app."
"You are not joining a dating app, you are joining Ember, which is different. I will help you fill the application form."
"You will not."
"Jane, back me up."
Jane considered this carefully. "I think Lizzie should do whatever feels right for her —"
"Jane is married," Lydia said, pointing at her with a crisp. "Jane is married and is steadily and regularly —"
"Lydia." Elizabeth protested.
"I am making a point. Jane has Charles. Jane is sorted.
She should not be in the business of blocking the rest of us from finding what she has found.
I am twenty-five, I am actively trying, and Lizzie is thirty-four and living with her ex and pretending it is fine.
" She turned to Elizabeth. "Give me twenty minutes of your time.
If you hate it we delete it and never speak of it again. "
Elizabeth looked at Jane.
Jane looked back and said nothing, which was its own kind of answer.
"Twenty minutes," Elizabeth said.
Lydia was already reaching for her phone.
Elizabeth thought about it for a moment. What harm could possibly come from it? Perhaps going out would be good for her too. After all, she needed something—some way to step outside her grief, even briefly.
She shrugged.
“Full name,” Lydia said.
“You already know—”
Lydia raised a hand to stop her. “It’s 2026. You need to hear people’s details from them. They could have changed it since the last time you saw them.”
Jane shook her head. Elizabeth grimaced.
"Elizabeth Anne Bennet."
"Age."
"Thirty-four."
"Occupation."
"Freelance Writer."
"Interests."
"Music. Writing. Arguing with people who are wrong about things."
"I am putting music, writing, and culture."
"That is not what I said."
"It is a better answer." Lydia kept typing. "Now. This part asks what you are looking for. Answer honestly. Do not say something like someone who does not fix my things without asking."
Jane made a sound.
"I was not going to say that," Elizabeth said.
"What were you going to say?"
"Something real," Elizabeth said. "Something that does not require me to be smaller than I am. Someone who pays attention."
Lydia looked up from her phone.
For once she did not say anything. She just looked at her sister for a moment. Then she looked back down and typed.
"Someone who pays attention," she said. "Got it."
Jane put her hand over Elizabeth's briefly. She said nothing.
The kitchen smelled of coffee. Outside, the morning continued without asking anyone's permission.
***
The pasta water was taking too long, and Mia had been quiet for eleven minutes, which was, in Elizabeth’s most recent experience, never a good sign.
They were making dinner together, the two of them, the kitchen warm and smelling of garlic and the olive oil Elizabeth had put in too early and was now trying to compensate for.
Mia was at the counter, tearing basil with the focused attention of someone who was thinking about something else entirely.
Darcy was not in.
Elizabeth, knowing Mia was just seconds away from starting something, stirred the sauce and waited.
“So,” Mia said, tearing a basil leaf in half and breaking the long-fought silence. “About last night.”
Elizabeth kept her eyes on the sauce. “What about it?”
“You and Mr. Darcy. Eating toast at two in the morning.”
“He made toast. I came downstairs because I thought someone had broken in. There is a difference.”
"You stayed and ate toast with him."
"He offered. I was being nice."
Mia put down the basil. She turned and leaned back against the counter with her arms folded, which was a posture Elizabeth recognised because Charlotte had used it in exactly the same way when she was about to say something she had already decided on.
"You said you were not his biggest fan," Mia said. "But you two were up at two in the morning eating toast and talking and —"
"We were not talking," Elizabeth said. "We stood at the counter and ate toast and then you came downstairs and then we all went back to bed. That is the full extent of what happened and I would strongly encourage you not to read anything into it."
"I am not reading anything into it."
"Good."
"I am just noting what I saw."
"Mia."
"Fine." She picked up a basil leaf. Put it down again. "Do you not like him? Like, genuinely?"
Elizabeth was quiet for a moment. She turned down the heat on the sauce.
"I do not hate him. But then, I do not like him in that way," she said. "Not anymore."
The kitchen held the words for a second. Elizabeth heard them arrive back to her and felt, with a clarity that was not entirely welcome, that she had said the last part out loud without deciding to.
Mia heard it too. She did not say so immediately, which was worse.
"Not anymore," she said eventually. Carefully. "So, there was a time when —"
"That is not what I meant."
“It is what you said.” Mia’s eyes stayed on her. “I know you told me a few weeks back that you dated him for about a month… but you didn’t make it sound like you were in love with him.”
Elizabeth moved the sauce off the heat. She picked up the wooden spoon and put it down again. Across the kitchen, Mia waited.
"We were close," Elizabeth said finally.
"A long time ago. For a short time. And then we were not.
" She looked at the stove. "He is stubborn.
He walks around presenting this very composed, very controlled version of himself and you are supposed to just accept that as the whole picture.
He never explains himself. He never —" She stopped.
"He is not who I thought he was. Or maybe he is exactly who I thought he was and that is the problem. I have not decided."
Mia was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "funny you should call him stubborn."
Elizabeth turned. "I beg your pardon?"
"He picked me up from school today." Mia returned to tearing the basil again, not quite looking at her. "We were in the car and I asked him about you. Just general stuff. He said something similar, actually."
Elizabeth's eyes narrowed. "He called me stubborn."
"Before you go for his head —"
"Who is the stubborn one here? Seriously, who —"
"He also said you were the boldest person he knows.
" Mia looked up. "Those were his exact words.
The boldest person he knows. And that you were smart.
He said —" She paused, as if deciding how much to give.
"When I told him I liked reading novels, he said he hoped I could end up writing like you one day.
That if I worked at it, I could be as good. "
Elizabeth opened her mouth to argue, but closed it when no words came. None made sense.
She turned back to the stove and picked up the wooden spoon and stirred something that did not need stirring.
"He said that," she said. Flatly.
"Word for word."
"He also called me stubborn."
"He said stubborn and bold and smart in the same breath. I think that was the point he was making." Mia dropped the basil into the bowl and dusted her hands together. "Just seems like you always say the worst of him and he is out here saying the best of you. I noticed. That is all."
Elizabeth said nothing. Anything she could say would sound like a defence, and none of it would be true.
The pasta water finally began to boil, which gave her something to do with her hands.
She picked up the box of spaghetti and broke it in half over the pot and watched it slide into the water.
She did not say anything for long enough that Mia moved on, went to the fridge, pulled out the parmesan, and began grating it without being asked.
"How do you like your sauce?" Elizabeth asked eventually, breaking the silence "More garlic or less?"
"More," Mia said. "Always more."
"Charlotte was the same."
Mia smiled. A small but real smile.
"I know," she said. "She used to say garlic was the only seasoning that had never let her down."
Elizabeth laughed. Short and genuine.
"That sounds exactly like her."
"It really does."