by Jessica Daw
“Dad, you didn’t say hello to Yuri,” Lydia said as she plopped into the seat next to Dad—where Jane usually sat.
“Hello, Yuri,” Dad said, not troubling himself to look up.
“Sir, I have to thank you for allowing your daughter to marry me,” Yuri said, the words empty.
Dad looked up then, irritation and humor struggling for predominance in his eyes. “I’m sure you two deserve each other,” he said.
“Come sit down, Yuri,” Lydia commanded, batting the seat next to her. The seat that was usually mine, not that it mattered. Yuri obeyed without comment, and I wondered how often he let her get away with ordering him around. I guessed that if it was often now, it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Maybe that was an unfair assumption, but I sort of doubted it.
Lydia talked about herself for the entire meal, Yuri interjecting on occasion to more subtly talk about himself. Mom and Kitty and Mary talked over each other and Lydia and Yuri with their own typical nothings. Dad caught my eye every now and again and shot me an amused look, but otherwise simply ate. Jane and I were silent.
At the end of the meal, Mom finally asked a relevant question, to which Lydia gave a relevant answer. Mom asked, “How long can you say?”
“Oh, we’re leaving the day after tomorrow,” Lydia said carelessly, obviously enjoying Mom’s horrified look.
“The day after tomorrow? You can only stay two days?” Mom asked, as if Lydia had announced they were jumping off a cliff in two days.
“Yuri has a film,” Lydia informed her importantly. “We have to go back to Hollywood.”
“Hollywood,” Mom repeated dreamily. “Can’t we go to Hollywood?” she asked Dad, petulant as a child.
“No, dear,” he said without the least hint of regret.
“Why not?” she moaned. “I want to visit my baby.”
“I hate Hollywood, and we can’t afford it,” he answered bluntly.
“He talks like we’re on food stamps,” Mom complained to Yuri. Yuri nodded sympathetically, a bit of a smile lifting his mouth.
“Darling, the way you spend on vacations, we will be on food stamps,” Dad replied.
She made a very Lydia-esque frustrated noise.
“Don’t bother, Mom,” Lydia said. “We’d be way too busy to pay any attention to you.”
Mom inexplicably smiled. “Of course you would, sweetheart. Being a star! I can’t imagine,” she said with a sigh.
“Lydia isn’t a star,” Kitty pointed out. Lydia stuck her tongue out at her twin—who, I noticed, looked thinner and classier than her newly married sister. I wondered if Lydia had noticed. If Wickham had.
“Yet more proof that Hollywood doesn’t see true talent,” Yuri said, making me choke on my water. He’d said it without the faintest trace of sarcasm, but when I looked at him I saw that the corners of his mouths were twisted ever so slightly.
He caught me staring and raised his eyebrows. If I wasn’t mistaken, he was looking at me suggestively. What? Who did he think he was? Instead of looking away, like I wanted to, I gave him a dead look. He didn’t have the grace to look embarrassed, but at least he looked away.
“I’m exhausted,” Lydia announced. “I’m going to bed.” She stood up, grabbed Yuri’s arm, and hauled him off to the guest room.
“She’s a brat,” Kitty stated as soon as she was gone.
Huh. That was not something Kitty had ever said outside of an argument with Lydia herself.
“Lydia is lost without stability in her life,” Mary commented with insincere sorrow.
“I don’t know about that,” Jane said uncertainly, probably agreeing that something was missing from Lydia’s life but not wanting to gossip.
I smiled at Jane. “Poor Jane. It’s hard to find the good in all this, isn’t it?”
Dad laughed. “But Lilly, she has to try,” he said with a sort of noble air.
“We shouldn’t make fun of Lydia,” Jane said, though she didn’t exactly sound disapproving. When I laughed, Jane looked at me and I quieted. “It is her life,” she said softly.
“I’m sorry,” I said truthfully.
“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think she’s unhappy,” Dad said. “In fact, I think she’s never been happier.”
“I hope it lasts,” Mary said, so doubtfully I had to hide a laugh.
As of the next afternoon, Lydia’s happiness showed no signs of waning. Neither she nor Yuri emerged until we’d all eaten lunch. Lydia burst into the kitchen where we were just starting to tidy up.
“Ooh, grilled cheese!” she exclaimed, snatching up the last sandwich and biting into it without asking if it had been intended for anyone else.
Yuri followed, looking significantly less bright-eyed. “Morning. Or afternoon,” he said, glancing at the clock hanging on the wall. “Is there coffee?” he asked.
“Of course,” Mom cooed, eagerly starting up the hours-dormant coffeemaker. Yuri slumped into a chair next to where Lydia sat, already nearly finished with her sandwich.
“Where’s Dad? Isn’t it Saturday?” Lydia asked.
“He went to the studio,” I answered.
She pouted. “Doesn’t he care that I’m home? I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“That’s what I said,” Mom said. “I told Robert that you were only here for a day, but did he listen? No. It’s always business with him.”
“I’m sure he would have stayed if he could,” Jane said. I smothered a laugh. I was sure he would’ve gone even if there were literally nothing for him to do at the studio.
“Hmph,” Lydia said, dissatisfied with Jane’s statement but not enough to fight it. Even she occasionally drew a line at arguing with Jane.
Yuri’s phone buzzed. “Gotta take this,” he said, suddenly looking more alert. “Hello?” He stood and walked through the sliding door to stand on the back porch.
Lydia sighed. “Isn’t he the most amazingly attractive man you’ve ever seen? I wanted to send the press pictures from our wedding, but Will wouldn’t let me.”
My heart started painfully. “Will?”
“Will Darcy,” she supplied carelessly. “He’s the one who found us and—oh! I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone,” she said, laughing. “And I promised them so many times I’d keep quiet! Oh, well. You won’t tell anyone, so it doesn’t matter.”
I felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest. Will had found Lydia and Yuri? Had made them promise to keep quiet about it? “What else did he do?” I asked hoarsely.
Lydia didn’t notice the change in my voice. “Oh, everything,” she said airily. Then she looked at me suspiciously. “You’re going to get me in trouble, aren’t you? I won’t tell you anything else, no matter how much you ask.” And she turned to Jane and started rambling on about how wonderful Yuri was.
My thoughts were spinning out of control, a mental hurricane making it impossible to comprehend anything. Will, helping Lydia. Will, doing everything? What was everything? What had he had to do?
And why? Why would he help Lydia? Could it be becase of . . . me?
No. No, I couldn’t bear to have the hope that leapt up in me at that thought crushed. No, it had to be his way of repenting for letting Yuri get so close to destroying his sister. His way of making up for that.
But maybe . . .
No. I was going to go insane. When he’d gotten us the record deal, I’d been blown away and certain it was for me, but that was before Yuri had become a member of my already-repugnant-to-Will family. Before I’d left England when we’d only had half a chance to try again.
“I have to go,” I said. No one heard me, too occupied with their own conversations and activities, but I didn’t care. I hurried out of the kitchen and into my room, locking the door.
My fingers shook as I pulled out my phone. I hadn’t been this worked up since . . . since I’d gotten Will’s e-mail and my world had turned upside down. I took a deep breath and called Nel.
She picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Lilly? How are you?”
“Fine. Listen, Nel, I need to know something. It’s important.”
“What?” she asked, sounding worried.
“Will. Will Darcy. What did he do?”
She didn’t reply for a long moment. “Lydia told you?”
“Just me. Please, Nel. It’s . . . it’s really important,” I admitted. I would have said more if that’s what it took to get her to tell me. I needed to know.
She sighed. “It’s the right thing to tell you, otherwise I wouldn’t. Will asked us not to tell anyone, but it rubs Ted and me wrong to take credit for what he did.
“He did everything, Lilly. Ted and I were at a loss. We’d contacted everyone we could think of that was discreet enough, you know? But none of them had anything. We were going to call your father that evening if nothing else came up. Then Will called.
“He introduced himself, very politely, as if we’d forget who he was, then told us that he’d found Lydia and Yuri. They were holed up in a hotel in Vegas ran by a friend of Yuri’s who helped him hide when he was in sticky spots. Will didn’t tell us how he found them, only that he had. He asked if he could bring them to LA and have Lydia stay with us while he worked things out. We, of course, agreed.
“Lydia came, and right away told us that Yuri was going to marry her as soon as his divorce was finalized.”
“He still hadn’t finalized it?” I interrupted.
“You knew?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Go on.”
“Well, he hadn’t. He was married to that actress, Mary King? She’s quite a bit older than him and refused to sign the papers. Will didn’t specify why, but I met her, and she’s nasty, Lilly. I think she just did it to be vindictive. It was enough to almost make me feel sorry for Yuri.
“Of course, then I started asking Will about how he’d gotten Yuri to agree to the prenups he’d written up for Lydia, which were pretty strong in her favor, and he told me that he’d paid off millions of dollars of Yuri’s debt. Millions, Lilly! I can’t believe it . . . I mean, your uncle and I do well enough, but that sort of payout would just about do us in.
“Anyway, Will told Yuri that if he agreed to the prenups, Will would pay off Yuri’s debts, finalize Yuri’s divorce, and call his friends in the press to get a good spin on the whole thing. Pay them to leave out the bad, in other words. Yuri agreed—what choice did he have? Lydia whined about not letting the paparazzi come to the wedding—she didn’t understand what Will had done at all, that if it weren’t for him . . . well, things would’ve gone differently.”
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even breathe. Will had done all that . . . for my sister? For me? I felt sick with fear and hope and longing and there were still so many questions that I couldn’t answer, that Nel couldn’t answer. What if I never saw Will again?
And why would I see him again? I tried to imagine a possible scenario where I’d see him again, some chance or circumstance to bring us together . . . nothing. Why did that make me feel . . . hollow? It wasn’t as if I could just call him out of the blue—“Hey, Will, it’s me, Lilly? So, um . . . did you spend a whole bunch of time and money saving Lydia for my sake? Because if so, I’d like to chat about that sometime.” No. It wouldn’t work.
“Lilly? Are you there?” Nel asked, worried again.
“Yeah, Nel. Sorry. It’s . . . a lot to process, you know?”
“I know. I’m sorry, I sort of dumped, but I had to tell someone. It wasn’t right to pretend that Ted and I did everything.”
“No, I’m glad you told me,” I said dully. Will Darcy’s name beat through my mind like war drums, unignorable and impossibly significant.
I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. I had fallen in love with Will Darcy, arrogance and all.
“Oh! I almost forgot,” Nel went on, as if the hugest realization I’d ever made hadn’t just crashed through my mind with all the force of a cosmic collision. “Though . . . now I’m not sure you’ll want to know.”
I laughed without any humor. “With that sort of lead-in, you’ll have to tell me.”
She laughed too, but with some real humor. “You should know . . . I think he did it for you.”
I had to clench my teeth to fight the surge of hope at those words. “What makes you think that?” I asked with terribly feigned patience.
“He asked about you. Only you, none of your other family members. He . . . he asked me what you’d said about him.”
“What did you tell him?” I asked urgently, incapable of keeping up the fake patience.
“I told him the truth.”
“Which was?” I pressed.
“That we’d gotten mixed messages from you.”
I stifled a moan. What would he make of that? Would he want to see me again?
“Lilly?”
“Still here, Nel,” I said tiredly. I was exhausted from the rollercoaster of emotions my poor heart had been on. Had it only been ten minutes ago that Lydia had let Will’s name slip? Two minutes ago that I’d realized I was in love with him? Everything I’d thought I disliked about him, I’d been wrong about, and there was so much I liked . . .
“Don’t lose hope. He did an awful lot for Lydia. I don’t think he’s one to give up easy.”
“Thanks, Nel,” I said, then hung up. How long had it been since Will was past the giving up easy point? When I hadn’t given him an ounce of encouragement? When I rejected him in the flagrant way I had? When I hadn’t even replied to his set-things-straight email? When I’d broken into his house? When my sister had gotten herself pregnant with his worst enemy’s child? When that worst enemy had married into my family?
It was all too late. No one loves a lost cause that much.
Jane found me in my room. I hadn’t cried. My heart had throbbed like a living beast inside me, but I hadn’t cried. Neither had I touched my phone to try to call Will. I wasn’t that brave.
“Lilly? Where’d you go?”
“Just here,” I said, staring at the ceiling like I had for I didn’t know how long.
“Is something wrong?”
I didn’t answer for a long moment. Finally, I said, “Yeah. But there isn’t much I can do about it.”
“Anything I can do?” she asked, really worried now.
“Rewind time?” I asked, still not looking at her.
“Oh, Lilly. What’s wrong?” She came and sat next to me, looking down at me.
I sighed and sat up. “I made a mistake. And I didn’t fix it when I could.” I swallowed once, then twice. “It doesn’t matter now,” I said, looking at her then and managing a very creaky smile. “It’ll pass.” Sure. It’d pass. It had completely rewritten my mind and my heart, but it’d pass. It had to.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I almost did. But I wasn’t sure I could take it if Jane thought Will may still . . . it would make me hope too much. I couldn’t risk it. “No. But thanks, Jane.”
“Of course,” she half-whispered.
Then someone knocked. “Come in,” I called.
The door opened, and there stood none other than Yuri Wickham. “Oh, hello, Jane,” he said, quickly smothering his surprise at her presence.
“Hello, Yuri,” she said in the subdued way she had of talking to him.
“Hello,” he said pleasantly. “I . . . well, I was hoping to talk to Lilly.”
Jane looked questioningly at me, and I shrugged. “Sure. See you in a minute, Jane.”
She hesitated, then left.
“What’s up, Yuri?” I asked, meeting his eyes without the slightest hint of friendliness.
“We’ve always been friends, haven’t we?” he asked, though it wasn’t really a question.
“Sure,” I said, playing his game for the moment.
“I just hope that nothing has come between our friendship. I value it,” he said.
I smiled sarcastically. “As do I,” I said solemnly.
“We are, after all, siblin
gs now,” he persevered.
“I always wanted a brother,” I said with a dry smile. It made me feel marginally better to get annoyed with Yuri. Feel less like a vital piece of myself was missing.
“And I always wanted a sister,” he said, his statement just as trite as mine.
“Well, good. I guess we both got what we wanted.” And with that I stood and walked straight past him.
The next day, he hugged me before leaving. “Keep in touch,” he said.
I just smiled and said, “Bye, Yuri.” Lydia didn’t say anything to me, but swept past in a whirl of perfume and high fashion, going on about how busy she’d be and how we’d all have to read magazines to hear about what she was doing because she wouldn’t have time to call. Typical Lydia stuff.
They’d been gone maybe an hour when Mom came running downstairs yelling, “CADE’S COMING BACK! CADE’S COMING BACK!”
I sat next to Jane, sharing a pineapple, and saw her turn white and stiff. I took her hand, offering solidarity, or maybe just trying to get my own comfort. Because if Cade was coming . . . I didn’t want to finish the thought, but I had to. Will could be coming too.
Will could be here.
I berated myself for being so selfish. Cade was certainly coming, and he’d broken Jane’s heart by the instigation of his friend and sisters—not that she knew that. She hadn’t had anything to do with losing him, like I did Will. Though had I really lost him if I’d never really had him? He’d told me he loved me, true, but did that mean anything if I hadn’t even known he thought of me romantically before then?
Jane. Cade. Focus.
“You have to call him!” Mom said breathlessly to Jane.
Jane gently removed her hand from mine and folded it with her other in her lap. “No,” she said, quiet but firm.
Mom blinked. “No? What do you mean, no?”
“No. I’m not calling him.” Jane didn’t meet Mom’s eyes, but determination was written in the set of her jaw.
“Jane Bennet! You will call him!”
“Mom!” I intervened, sensing Jane’s strength was already stretched to its limit. “She said no. If he wants to talk to her, he’ll call.” I saw Jane wince at that, but it worked.
“Fine. If you two don’t want to be happy, that’s your choice. Lydia, at least, married someone rich and famous. If you want to be lonely old spinsters, that’s fine. Up to you,” she said angrily as she stomped out of the room.