Chapter 6
Lydia chatted to us all the way to Cupid’s Confections.
Apparently we were to partake in some skit.
Acting wasn’t my forte, unless I counted how hard I was trying to act like I wasn’t in love with Lizzy.
But I’d already agreed to go along with it, and fae were bound to their word, so there was no backing out now.
As we approached the bakery, I first noticed the oversized bay windows filled with hovering heart-shaped sugar clouds that drifted in gentle loops, releasing the faintest sparkle as people passed by.
Each cloud occasionally formed whimsical shapes—interlocking hearts, cupid arrows, even the silhouette of two figures dancing—before dissolving into shimmering mist.
We walked into the shop, which was just as decked out for Valentine’s Day. Enchanted pastries floated above their trays, rotating slowly so customers could admire every side. Some treats sparkled. A few blew tiny, harmless kisses of glitter.
A sign above one display said: “No love spells added without permission. — Management”
What had I gotten myself into?
“I insisted we add that,” Lizzy declared when she saw me staring at the sign.
“Oh, come away from the tree.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me from the small tree sitting by the door, whose pink petals were beginning to glow.
One drifted down and dissolved into a sweet-scented sparkle that flared up and chimed before it hit the ground.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s a mini cherry-blossom tree that blooms nonstop throughout the month of February.”
“I charmed it into sensing romantic tension.” Lydia gave a mischievous grin. “So if two people standing next to it secretly like each other, the blossoms glow a soft pink. Mom pretends she doesn’t watch it constantly.”
I considered requesting that Lizzy move toward the tree again. I’d sworn I’d seen something, but she pulled me farther into the shop. The tables had been rearranged so that a small space to the right was left open with a mic. It most likely would be where we were to perform.
Mr. Bennet sat at a table. He looked pale and haggard and wore a large woven blanket about his shoulders. Lizzy walked up and offered him a hug and a kiss on the forehead.
“Lizzy, my dear, I can’t wait to see this lovely performance you’re going to put on. It might help you both recognize your true heart’s desire. At least according to your very meddlesome sisters.” He gave her a wink.
“I don’t understand why you’re making all this fuss,” Mrs. Bennet said. “Lizzy has no fondness for the man. And besides, he’s much too silent and stuck up for us, insulting my Lizzy.”
“Mom, that was a long time ago,” Lizzy countered.
“Not that long ago, I’m sure.” Mrs. Bennet pulled a light shawl tighter around her shoulders and harumphed. “I guess I have a better memory than most, which is good; otherwise, I’d let certain people step all over me.”
Lydia met up with Wickham, who handed her a stack of papers. She came back and gave each of us one. “Here’s your script.”
“Script?” Lizzy said incredulously.
“Yes, of course. Wickham and I wrote it.”
I read the title. Love at Last: The Romance We Always Knew Was Coming. “What are we acting out?” Anxiety twisted inside me, but I looked at Lizzy’s father sitting in his seat, excitement in his otherwise tired expression.
“Yours and Lizzy’s love story, of course.” Lydia turned as the door to Cupid’s Confections opened. “Oh good, Jane and Charles have arrived.”
Lizzy glanced at me with concern. “This is silly, and you guys know it,” she said to Lydia and her family. “Darcy doesn’t want to be part of this—”
“I don’t mind.” My heart beat a little faster.
That wasn’t exactly true. This was far too close to telling Lizzy the truth about how I felt, and I doubted she was ready to hear it.
Although this was a low-risk way to see how she reacted to me and our history.
If she viewed it as positive, maybe there was hope.
She swiveled to face me. “Are you sure?”
“At least someone gets a happily ever after.” I motioned to Jane and Charles, who were accepting their scripts amid smiles and laughter.
Lizzy sighed and looked at her script, which had a large heart drawn across the front page and a miniature cherub magically animated to shoot an arrow through it. “I have no idea how this is supposed to bring us together.”
She didn’t want to do it. Not that it wouldn’t be awkward for me, too. I gripped the script and studied her carefully. “We’ve had a few good times.”
Lizzy glanced at her father sitting at the table, a twinkle of excitement in his eyes.
“This is the first time in days that my father has been able to sit up and come out of his room.” She gave a little sigh.
“When we were kids, Lydia liked to put on little plays for our parents. I think this reminds him of that.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but Lydia took Lizzy by the arm. “Come on. We can practice in the living room.”
Taking the open moment, I flipped through the script to find out what Lydia had included.
“Come on, Darcy.” Charles slapped me on the shoulder before I could get very far. “Are you going to come practice?”
“You know Lizzy and I have had… struggles between us in the past. I don’t think this play is going to do anything but make that worse.”
“Yeah, Jane was worried about that. But Lydia insisted the struggles would only highlight the depth of your relationship when you finally got together at the end of the play, or something like that.”
I pressed my hand into my hair. “Or it could ruin our tentative friendship.”
“You want to be with her, don’t you?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“Well, come and try.” Charles smiled at me with his ever-optimistic attitude. “Who knows what might happen? It could turn out better than you anticipated.”
Reluctantly, I followed everyone through the kitchen and into the Bennets’ main sitting room.
The chairs had decorated pillows with different quotes about love from famous people stitched on them.
Candles dotted the space, and a wreath full of hearts, berries, and a witch’s wand hung above a sign that read “You’re a wand-erful match. ”
“All right, let’s get started.” Lydia threw herself into a nearby chair.
“Darcy, you and Charles are at Club Meryton, and five super hot sisters and their mom have just arrived. Darcy and Charles, go stand over to the right and hold this prop.” She handed me a small disco ball on a string.
“That will be club Meryton. Lizzy and Jane will enter from the left.”
We moved into our positions.
“Okay, Lizzy and Jane, read your lines,” Lydia directed.
Jane looked at Lizzy before glancing down at her script. “I’m so glad you came with me to Club Meryton tonight, Lizzy. I hope to find a nice, sensible man who is kind and treats me well.”
Lizzy squinted down at her lines. “You will do better than that, Jane. I’d be surprised if half the room isn’t madly in love with you by the end of the night.
As for me, nothing but the deepest love will ever induce me to get married.
” She cast Lydia a skeptical look and said, “I do not talk like that.”
Lydia shrugged. “Are all retellings entirely accurate? We need to set the emotional mood, and it’s not like I know what you said that night.”
The door from the kitchen opened, and Kitty poked her head in. “Hey guys! Can we grab Lizzy and Darcy for a moment?”
Lydia rolled her eyes. “We’re practicing the skit, Kitty. Can’t it wait?”
“It’s their story, isn’t it? Aren’t they already aware of it? You don’t need much preparation. Just be yourselves. We’ll only be a moment. Oh and Jane, can you come and take the pictures?”
Lizzy and I exchanged a surprised glance, but we followed Kitty into the kitchen, where her boyfriend Riley was using his fire magic to light some floating candles.
He worked with Lizzy at the local newspaper, and for a moment when we first met, I’d thought that he possessed feelings for Lizzy, but I’d been wrong.
They were just work friends. Riley and Kitty were together now.
In the middle of the kitchen was a Valentine’s backdrop of layers of sheer blush and deep red fabric draped from the top, interspersed with strands of soft, suspended paper petals that fluttered. The effect was like stepping into a slow-motion rain of roses.
“Here, put these on.” Kitty wrapped a scarf around Lizzy’s neck and handed me a beanie.
“What is this, Kitty?” Lizzy asked, her voice exasperated.
“We have to take a picture to remember the occasion.”
“Don’t you think this is going a tad far?”
Kitty only laughed. “Yes, but that’s pretty much everything our family does. Now sit on the bench and look adorable.”
We sat on the bench, and Jane came up and began telling us how to adjust for the picture.
“Sit a little closer,” Jane insisted, “and Darcy, put an arm around her.”
“Et tu, Brute?” Lizzy said to her older sister. Jane flushed and only shrugged.
I cleared my throat. “If I may?”
“Go ahead,” Lizzy said, rolling her eyes. “The sooner we give my family what they want, the sooner we’ll be able to get out of here.”
I slid my arm around her waist. Lizzy went still at first—so still I wondered if I’d done something wrong.
But then I felt the slight, involuntary lift of her breath, the way her ribs expanded beneath my hand.
She tried to mask it by sitting up straighter, chin tilting in that defiant way she always had when she sensed she might be betraying something.
“Comfortable?” I murmured, trying for lightness, though my pulse had jumped more than I cared to admit.
“Oh, immensely,” she said dryly, but the edge in her voice was softer than before. She tucked a stray curl behind her ear—an unnecessary gesture, but one that told me more than words.
Her hand, resting on her knee, flexed twice as if she were weighing whether to move it—or perhaps whether to move me.
“Darcy, can you look a little… happier?” Jane raised her camera.
I tried to smooth the tension from my face. I enjoyed having my arm around Lizzy, but I was certain she wasn’t enjoying it, so I decided to release her as soon as possible.
Riley, who had stood in the background, came up and brushed a kiss on Kitty’s cheek, then pulled out a paper and pencil as Jane started snapping pictures.
“Tell me how you guys first met,” Riley said.
“What for?” Lizzy’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Riley gave a wink. “For posterity, of course.”
“Can’t you read the script?” Lizzy challenged.
Riley shook his head. “You should know that firsthand knowledge is always better.”
“Better for what?”
“We met at Club Meryton,” I said as Jane kept snapping pictures.
A small smile grew on Lizzy’s lips. “I fell into his lap.”
“She believed I was a killer.”
“He said I wasn’t worth dancing with.”
I grimaced. “I was in a bad mood that night. I was stupid. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry for accusing you of killing someone.”
My arms instinctively tightened around her. “A perfectly reasonable assumption of someone you barely met.”
She turned, her eyebrow raised. “That’s two, you know.”
“Two what?”
“The second joke I’ve heard you make.”
I remembered that time months ago when we were solving another murder case. She’d said, “I didn’t know you could joke around.” And I’d responded, “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
A grin spread across my face, and I heard Jane take one more picture and exclaim, “Perfect!”
Lydia burst into the kitchen. “All right, time is up! Time to put on our play.”
“I wasn’t aware we were on a schedule,” Lizzy said.
“Of course we are. Do you reckon Dad is going to sit at that table forever? You’ll just have to wing it.” Lydia motioned to the script in her hands.
“I’ll get more answers out of you two another time,” Riley said. “I’m excited to watch this play.”
It didn’t seem important that we had zero prep time.
I gripped my script and hoped to get through this quickly—but maybe not too quickly.
Lizzy certainly reacted to being around me.
But I couldn’t always tell if it was positive or negative.
I merely wished we finished the play tonight without revisiting too many regretful memories.