by Jessica Daw
“Passingly,” Dad said soberly. Collin had spent at least five minutes singing the praises of Hunsford, Canada.
“It is incredible,” he said, completely unaware of Dad’s sarcasm. Oh, and by the way, he always talked like that—paragon and idyllic. I half expected him to pull out prithee and yea, verily. “But Catherine de Bourgh, though she knows that Rosings is my life and soul, fervently believes in my efforts, which I confess I have reluctantly pursued, to find secondary employ. She felt that, in coming here, where so many gems of exceptional talent are gathered, I would be able to increase awareness of my name and my own humble talent, which is such a vital step in the process of garnering notice in the highest circles.”
“An excellent notion,” I said gravely.
He looked at me in surprise, as if he hadn’t been sure I could string two words together. “Indeed, Catherine de Bourgh is a fountain of knowledge and wisdom.”
“A fountain,” I echoed, not quite swallowing my smile. Not that he noticed.
He turned to Jane. “I have no doubt that you, Jane, would find Catherine de Bourgh a very instructive companion, were you to meet her.”
Jane looked up in surprise at being addressed. “I . . .”
“She’s speechless at the idea of meeting so venerable a person,” Dad supplied when Jane floundered a beat too long. “She’s always been a very sensitive person,” he added, leaning forward as if he were confiding solely in Collin.
He turned back to look at Jane with a gleam I didn’t like in his dull eyes. Like a cat who’s spotted a bird with a broken wing. “Sensitive,” he repeated to himself. “Not to mention beautiful—you nearly rival Princess de Bourgh herself.”
“What an honor, Jane,” Dad murmured. I suspected he murmured because if he spoke full voice he’d start laughing.
“In fact, Catherine has long been troubled by my solitary state,” he began solemnly, and I was caught between horror and humor as I saw where this was going. “She has said, numerous times, that no man over thirty should be unmarried. I (which you may not have realized, as I have been often complimented on my ageless visage) am thirty exactly, and as such, by Catherine’s standards, truly ought to find someone to love.
“When I was preparing for my journey to Meryton, Catherine suggested I search among those I find here for someone who would do. And you, Jane, would appear to be a perfect candidate.”
She gaped at him, incapable of answering.
He, of course, thought it was because she was swept away by the very thought of being a ‘perfect candidate’. “Naturally, I would not suggest marriage immediately. There must first be a courtship period.”
What on earth was he thinking? I had to cover my mouth to hide my laughter. Who asked a girl out in front of her parents and two of her sisters? After knowing her for half an hour? Not to mention right after talking about how he wanted to get married soon because the star on his failing soap opera had suggested he do so. And courtship period?
Jane’s eyes were enormous, and her mouth helplessly opened and closed as she tried to think of something to say.
Fortunately, Mom stepped in. “Collin, I’m sorry to have to tell you, but Jane’s affections are engaged.” Affections are engaged? Collin was rubbing off on Mom.
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of interfering where hearts are already intertwined.” What? I snorted at that, which drew his eyes to me.
Mom noticed the direction of his gaze. “Lilly, however, is completely unengaged.”
I glared at her, but it was too late. “Lilly. Would you do me the honor of furthering our acquaintance this evening at a restaurant of your choosing?”
“I . . . I already . . .”
“She would love to, Collin,” Mom swooped in, shooting me a look.
At that point, I could choose to suffer through a date with Collin for an evening or suffer through an initial tantrum and an enduring cold shoulder from Mom. I waited for him to turn to me for confirmation, but apparently Mom’s words were enough, as he didn’t look back at me. Instead, he started detailing all the wonderful suggestions Catherine de Bourgh had ever given him and how they’d infinitely improved his life.
He’d only just warmed to the topic when Dad stood up. “Well, Collin, I hate to interrupt, but the girls and I have a recording session to get to. I will leave you with my wife—unless you want to come to the session, dearest?”
“I’ll come with you today, Robert. Collin, would you care to come?” Dad grimaced at the invitation. Apparently Collin had outlived his amusement. You think you have it bad? I wanted to ask. You let Mom get me asked out by that peacock. I’ll have to spend a whole evening listening to him do his best impression of an essay written by a thesaurus-addicted angst-ridden teenager.
Thankfully, Collin (taking five full minutes) demurred and left. Dad collapsed into his chair. “That is the most ridiculous human being I have had the pleasure to come across. He is exhausting.”
Mom looked oddly at him. “You say the strangest things.”
He grinned at her. “I do, don’t I?”
“Hmm. Well, when are going to record?”
“What?”
“The recording session. The one you told Collin about?”
He laughed. “I’m not going. You’re welcome to, though. Were you girls planning on recording now?” he asked me.
I shrugged, looking at Jane, who shook her head. “Lydia and Kitty disappeared this morning and haven’t come back,” she told me.
“Ah, well, then I suppose I’m a liar,” Dad said good-humoredly.
“You lied to him? Why did you lie?” Mom asked, completely incapable of fathoming a reason for trying to get rid of Collin Williamson.
“Because, my beloved wife, I’ve never been very fond of period dramas, and Collin was turning into one.”
She went on looking confused. I would’ve stayed and listened, but Jane tapped me then left the room, looking back to make sure I followed. Naturally I followed—however interesting my parents’ more humorous conversations were, between Dad’s sarcasm and Mom’s general bird-brained behavior, they also occurred on a near-daily basis.
Once we were alone in our room, Jane turned to me with a radiant smile. “You’ll never guess, Lilly,” she told me.
“Then you’ll have to tell me,” I said, smiling just to see her smile.
“I saw Cade this morning,” she confided, sitting on her bed. I sat next to her. “He was rock climbing by the path I usually run on. He asked me to climb with him, and I did, and it was so much fun, Lilly.” I didn’t need her to tell me it was fun; she was still glowing. “And after we started talking, just about this and that, and I said I’d always wanted to go to a masquerade, Lilly, and you’ll never believe it, but he told me he’d throw a masquerade ball for me!”
Thank heavens, I thought. With the way she was glowing, there was no doubt in my mind that she was in love with Cade, and Cade was certainly not the type to hold a masquerade ball for a girl he wasn’t interested in. “Jane! That’s wonderful!” I enthused.
“I know,” she said, looking down shyly. “I think he must like me.”
Suspicious, I started grinning. “Jane, did he kiss you?” I asked.
A blush spread across her cheeks.
“He did!” I exclaimed, hugging her. “Jane, I’m so happy for you!”
“Do you think he likes me?” she asked hopefully.
“Likes you? Jane, I think he’s in love with you,” I told her energetically.
Her blush spread. “I think I’m in love with him, Lilly,” she confessed. “He’s perfect,” she sighed.
“I’m so happy for you,” I said seriously, squeezing her hand.
“Thanks, Lilly.”
“Now tell me more about this masquerade,” I commanded, knowing that she hated being pressed about how she felt.
“He said he’ll hold it after the last day of filming, invite the whole cast and anyone in Meryton I think should come. He said I could even choose the theme
of the masquerade, but I told him anything was fine.”
“Of course you did,” I said, grinning crookedly.
She tried to glare at me but couldn’t stop smiling. “I’m so excited! He says we’ll dance—real dances, too, not just swaying.”
“How will he work that?”
Her smile impossibly widened. “I told him I loved dancing, and he said he’d have a class sometime before that people could come to learn a few dances.”
I shook my head, still smiling. “Jane, I think you may have found the most perfect man on the face of the planet.”
My darling sister had never glowed as much as she did then. “I think I might have too.”
chapter six
My phone buzzed. I told myself I hadn’t been waiting for it to buzz, but I practically leapt on it. I was sitting across from Collin at—where else?—Ashworth’s, and he was soliloquizing on his prowess as a teleplay writer.
Yuri: Hey Lils, want to go for a moonlit hike? Full moon…
Lilly: That would be perfect! But I’m on a date . . .
Yuri: A DATE without ME?!
Lilly: Ugh, not by choice.
Yuri: Do tell
Lilly: His name is Collin, he’s a teleplay writer, and talks like the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Yuri: Ouch. How’d you get roped into that?
Lilly: He asked me out in front of my parents and my mom has a crush on him.
Yuri: Should have told him you had other plans
Lilly: My mom knew I didn’t.
Yuri: I’ll call you with an emergency.
Lilly: Yes! Do, please!
My phone rang. Blessing Yuri Wickham, I apologized to Collin and answered.
“Lilly, I lit my cat on fire,” Yuri’s expressive voice said in my ear.
I smothered a laugh. “What’s wrong?”
“My cat. She’s on fire. Meowing up a storm. Save me, I beg of you.”
Thinking fast, I said, “The hospital? Now?”
“Pet hospital. Do those exist? If so, I’m at one, and need you now. I need you, Lilly.” The last bit was in a forced low voice, and I had to swallow another laugh.
“I’ll be there right away,” I said, and I was pretty sure I deserved an award for how grave my tone was.
“Wear perfume . . .” Yuri whispered in a ludicrously flirtatious tone, and that time I couldn’t quite swallow a snort of laughter.
“What was that?” Collin asked with unusual conciseness.
I swallowed once, nearly snorted again, swallowed twice, and managed to say, “I have to go. There’s an emergency.”
“How caring of you, Lilly, to spirit yourself away with such minimal notice for a friend. It is an admirable quality.”
That was it. No I wish you’d stay or Maybe we can do this again or, thankfully, What, exactly, is the emergency? Just a weird compliment. I stood, wondering if he’d offer to take me to the emergency, but he sat, placidly eating his food at the same painfully slow pace he’d eaten it at for the whole evening. Shaking my head in disbelief, I walked away.
Yuri met me down the street. I climbed into his car, feeling reckless.
“Thanks for the rescue,” I said after shutting my door.
“Always willing to help distressed damsels,” he said with a dazzling smile.
“Ah, a white knight type,” I said significantly.
He flashed me a wicked grin. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
A tiny warning bell went off then. I’m not a Puritan, but players aren’t my type. But I ignored it—it was distant and who always listens to their more sensible thoughts anyway?
Besides, the next thing he said was, “What have you been up to?” which, as questions go, is pretty far on the innocuous end of the spectrum.
The first thing that popped into my mind was seeing Will Darcy that morning. Why wouldn’t it? I mean, the only acquaintance Yuri and I had in common—as far as I was aware—was Will, and it had been an encounter worth mentioning. But . . . I didn’t want to tell him. I wasn’t sure why. A few vague reasons floated through my mind, like betrayal of trust and gossip-mongering, but nothing to really explain why I was so reluctant to mention Will.
“Wow, this is a long silence. Something exciting happen?”
It hadn’t been that long, but now I felt extra pressure to speak. “Cade’s holding a masquerade ball,” I blurted.
His eyebrows raised in interest. “A masquerade ball?”
I wished I’d thought of something else to talk about, but figured this would work as well as anything else. I didn’t tell him it had been at Jane’s instigation that Cade decided to hold the ball, but I told him that there would be a dance class beforehand, and he immediately made me swear to attend the class so we could dance together. We talked without a bit of seriousness about the costumes we’d wear, and from there transitioned to other nothing topics that lasted through the rest of the evening.
He dropped me off home around midnight. I let him kiss me good-night, knowing I probably shouldn’t encourage him since it had taken all my maneuvering tactics to avoid too-much-too-soon physical contact the whole evening. But he was a good kisser, and I hadn’t had a boyfriend for too long.
I didn’t realize my mistake until I went inside and found Lydia sitting by the window with a smug look. “Spill.”
“What?” I asked, feigning innocence.
“Yuri Wickham! How serious are you?”
“Not at all,” I said easily. It was mostly true. I wouldn’t mind dating Yuri for a while but I didn’t think I’d want a lasting relationship with him. At least, I was pretty sure I didn’t. He was clever, and fun, and really, really attractive, but . . . well, was that all I wanted? I didn’t really know. I mentally shrugged, refocusing my attention on Lydia.
“You know, I could totally tell Mom you ditched out on Collin. Mary told us,” she explained when I looked confused.
“Ah. Well, are you going to try to blackmail me?”
“Not if you dish on Yuri,” she said without the slightest trace of shame. Typical Lydia.
I shrugged. “He’s cute, but you already knew that. Funny. Clever. Famous,” I added with a bit of a crooked smile.
“Ugh, I know. Carter isn’t nearly as famous, or cute, or that clever, but—” she shrugged “—he’s a good kisser, and cute and famous enough. If you’re ever bored of Yuri, though, throw him my way.”
I hoped she was joking. “Sure thing, Lyd,” I said deprecatingly.
“Really though. Have you seen his eyes? So great,” she enthused.
“I’ve seen ‘em,” I said in the same deprecating tone.
She rolled her eyes. “You are so no fun, Lilly.”
“I think I can live with that.”
The next two weeks—the weeks leading up to the masquerade ball—flew. Yuri was kept pretty busy with filming, and I was kept pretty busy with work, recording, and Collin, who was quickly becoming a bur. He visited me at work, he came to family dinner, and he even invited himself to a recording session. I did everything I could to hint him away but nothing worked. Even when I outright rejected his attempt to kiss me, all he said was, “Your maidenly modesty is most becoming, Elizabeth.”
And that was the other thing. He kept calling me Elizabeth. When I told him to stop, he said, “Elizabeth is your given name, and though few use it, I privilege myself to do so as a token of my particular affection.” Yeah. Bugging me by calling me my full name is definitely a “token of particular affection”, Collin. His conversation was dreadful. If Yuri was an artist, Collin was a stampeding elephant. Not only did he talk like he’d breakfasted on $1.99 Regency romance novels, his conversation revolved solely around himself, his writing, Rosings, and Princess and Catherine de Bourgh. It was actually remarkable how he could take anything I said and relate it back to one of his four favorite topics.
Like, “My favorite flower has always been lilacs.”
“Indeed? Catherine de Bourgh has a great passion for red roses, which she grows in a qua
int garden behind her house, to which I have been invited numerous times. She is so generous.”
Or, “I went swimming this morning.”
“Water is remarkable, is it not? When I write, I strive to use water as a metaphor for the uncertainty of life. Water, like life, is always cycling, evaporating, precipitating, rising and falling, landing on the sweetest of lilies or the sharpest of thorns.”
I would’ve tried a little harder to get away from Collin, despite Mom being super overbearing about it and his admittedly impressive persistence, if he weren’t leaving right after the masquerade ball.
News of the masquerade ball had escaped with the speed of air being let out of a balloon. Everyone who was anyone was invited, and Cade couldn’t say no if someone else asked to come (Jane told me, though in much more admiring words) so I knew it would be huge. He was holding it at his house, and if I had my doubts about everyone fitting I kept them to myself. After all, it was a pretty monstrous house. Maybe it’d work.
Even if I did have doubts, that didn’t stop me from wanting to look stunning. I’ll admit it: I wanted to impress Yuri.
Since there was no official theme, I decided to go with just a traditional masquerade mask and ball gown. And I mean ball gown, not prom dress. Dawn, Charlotte, and I were all working on ours together, but there was a silent agreement that mine was priority. I didn’t press for it—well, maybe a little, but mostly Dawn and Charlotte were very sympathetic about my desire to impress Yuri Wickham.
Making the dress was the icing on the busy cake. I didn’t finish it until hours before the event, and after I stopped crowing about being done (I could crow because the store was empty, and I was in the back room anyway) I turned to my mask. It wasn’t much.
Then Dawn pulled out a box.
My dress was deep crimson with black lace accents, elaborate in the extreme, with a full skirt and corseted bodice. It was, even allowing for pride of the maker, gorgeous.
“What’s this?” I asked Dawn, though I was almost certain I knew.