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.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Perhaps she’d watched too many Looney Tunes cartoons as a child, and the comic images were too deeply implanted in her brain. Elizabeth could almost see the iron anvil fall on Darcy’s head when he grimaced in pained shock upon hearing Caroline’s voice.
“Yoo-hoo! We’re here!”
“Bloody hell.”
The dismayed look on Darcy’s face likely matched her own. From behind her, Elizabeth heard frenzied splashing and cursing.
“For God’s sake! How about letting us know that you’re showing up early?”
“Shut up,” Caroline snapped. “Put some clothes on. You’re fouling Darcy’s hot tub!” After a long pause and more splashing, her voice was heard again. “Oh, Jane, hello! I didn’t see you there,” she cooed, her voice suddenly dripping with sweetness.
A minute later, Jane emerged from around the corner, a towel and a blush enveloping her. Darcy rose and pulled a blanket from the teakwood box near the doorway. Jane took it gratefully and sank into a chair next to her sister.
“Caroline and the Hursts are here.”
“So we heard. They didn’t even call to say they were coming early?” Elizabeth questioned. “You had no warning?”
Charles wheeled around the corner. Elizabeth, still in cartoon mindset, thought she saw steam shooting out of his reddened ears.
“She knows you’re here, Darcy.” Charles scowled. “She talked to Marc this afternoon and found out you weren’t going back to the city for the party.”
