Twenty Months

by Alicia Rogers

  She settled her face against his stomach and Darcy let out a small sigh of relief before tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear. "You're a pathetic piece of shit, Fitzwilliam," he muttered to himself.

  Georgiana sprang to life when the car at last came to a stop, loudly exclaiming "Thank god we're home!" and pulled herself upright.

  Lizzie followed suit, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. Darcy met her quizzical expression with a slightly pained smile, and Lizzie silently turned away to retrieve her shoes from the floorboard.

  "I ache in places I didn't know could ache," Georgie whined as she inched her way out of the backseat. "Make no future plans for the hot tub; I'm moving into it as soon as we get inside."

  "Ow, ow, ow!" Lizzie groaned and let her shoes drop to the pavement. "Oh yeah, wearing strappy heels for around nine hours was a great fucking idea…"

  "Georgie, you mind?" Darcy gestured toward the offending heels and while his baby sister scooped up the shoes, he scooped up Lizzie.

  "What the hell are you doing?! Put me down!" she shrieked in surprise and utter embarrassment.

  Smug smile firmly set on his lips, Darcy put his mouth close to her ear. "We've got a threshold to cross, honey."

  Despite the pouting, the occasional fidgeting, and the ever present glare of death, Darcy trudged up the stairs down to the end of the long, winding corridor where the master bedroom was located, and all with a bundle of Lizzie in his arms. Expertly, he maneuvered a hand to the doorknob and once inside, used his foot to kick it shut.

  Immediately, he dropped Lizzie on her feet. "I accept tips," he said rather cheesily.

  She frowned. "That's great, because I can think of several I'd love to give you."

  "Monetary only," Darcy gripped her shoulders and spun her around so that her back now faced him, "so, I'm afraid your many variations on 'fuck off and die' are unacceptable."

  Lizzie ignored him. "Starting with when we're alone the pretending stops which means that all of the nonconsensual touching also stops." She paused and added almost as an afterthought, "Oh and fuck off and die."

  Darcy's fingertips gently brushed the bare skin of her back as he swept her hair over her shoulder. "Sorry," he snickered.

  "Tip number two: If I needed your help, I would've asked for it," she informed him, voice clipped, "and fuck off and die."

  Absently, he began undoing the series of buttons on her dress. "All a part of the service." When he got to the last button just below the small of her back, Darcy lazily traced the outline of the tattoo he found there with his forefinger. "What kind of flower is that?" he asked innocently and let a self-satisfying grin break out on his face at the sound of Lizzie's breath hitching in her chest.

  "Stargazer lily."

  "Did it hurt?"

  Lizzie stepped away from his touch not bothering to look back in Darcy's direction as she headed towards the bathroom. "Needle in skin always hurts. Thanks, I think I can wiggle my way out of this dress from here."

  "Why are you so determined to think the worst of me?"

  For a moment, she lingered in the bathroom doorway. "I'm not determined you make it quite easy, actually."

  "And, what if I told you that unlike some people, I lack the ability to always say the right thing…" He pulled uncomfortably at the collar of his tuxedo shirt.

  "Tip number three," Lizzie began slowly shutting the door, "maybe you should practice, but don't forget to fuck off and die while you're at it."

  Chapter 21

  I Lied My Face Off (months one and two)

  If Sarah Harding had to describe herself in one word, that word would be: "giver". This particular character trait naturally enabled her to relinquish her bus seat to little, old ladies, donate her ten percent to the church without complaint, and bring extra dishes to potluck gatherings, but unfortunately left her severely handicapped in other aspects of her life.

  You see, when applied to relationships, be it romantic or not, the term "giver" became a thinly veiled shorthand for "emotional doormat". It left her stuck baking five batches of cookies for her sister's kindergarten spring carnival, it meant giving approval to her ex-boyfriend's porno obsession (because who was she to stifle certain aspects of his personality?), and it was responsible for the 'okay' on every, hideous, taffeta tower of ugliness she donned on each of her outings as a bridesmaid.

  She couldn't help it; she loved to please people and genuinely feared the thought of disappointing others. So when Sarah met her current squeeze at Mr. Darcy's wedding reception, she gave into her nature and chatted up the lonely looking man who hung back in the corner of the ballroom. At one or two appletini's she discovered he was a former coworker of Lizzie's and the number of people he knew at the event were few and far in between. By five or six drinks, she was perfecting the art of drunken flattery, desperately attempting to be equal parts cute and interested, while remaining aloof. At number nine, he pried her head off the bar and spent the next part of the night working on the buttons to her shirt and pants.

  Breakfast the following morning parlayed itself into lunch and then dinner plans for the next day, and before she knew it, they were spending every waking moment together. He wanted to know every last detail of her life, especially what it was like to work for Darcy Media as the secretary of the golden heir, and Sarah was all too happy to oblige,

  "Oh, Mr. Darcy? He's a good guy – a little misguided, though. Poor dude's had such a hard time since his dad died and then having that heinous bitch cheat on him right after that…I seriously feared I'd walk into the office and find him hanging from the rafters one day."

  the more he seemed to want to pry into her boss's intimate affairs, the more she talked:

  "It got so bad, he was fucking anything with a pulse; I had to rescue him from a party at Lindsay Lohan's, once – drove him straight to the doctor's for a penicillin shot, I wasn't taking any chances. Anyway, he was doing a pretty good job of keeping his partying under the radar, but of course he got papped a couple of times and the investors had a fit."

  until her babbles about her employer's personal life reached epic proportions.

  "Lizzie was a one-night stand, you know? She showed up to the office and Mr. Darcy didn't even remember her! Turned out she's pregnant and they agreed to marry to keep the company scandal free; I've never had to sign so many confidentiality forms in my life! My hand nearly fell off!"

  And it was when three whole weeks of pure bliss had passed, and plans began to be unexplainably cancelled, and her phone calls outright ignored, that Sarah wondered if perhaps she had gave too much. If she had said too much.

  Another love and devastating loss was added to her tally, and it was a damn shame, too.

  'Sarah Harding-Wickham' had had such a nice ring to it.

  * * *

  "This isn't going to work."

  "You've only been married for three weeks; winners never quit and all that…"

  "Yeah, three whole weeks in which Lizzie has virtually refused to leave her room! She's hardly eating, and thank god Georgie's gone back to Exeter because I was quickly running out of lame excuses. Charlie, it's like The Yellow Wallpaper up there, and if Lizzie's too unhappy to function, I don't want to keep her here with me and make it any worse on her and the baby!"

  Switching the phone to the opposite ear, Charlie stifled a groan and rolled over on his side so that he was now facing Jane. They were practically mirror images of one another: half-lidded, sleep crusted eyes, unruly bed hair, and cell phones propped to their ears. Jane's eyes rolled heavenward and he instantly knew his poor girl was dealing with Lizzie's end in this ridiculous bit of fuckery.

  "But, Lizard…you haven't even tried…"

  "There is no trying, Jane! I can't even stand to look at him and I can't stay here anymore; please come and get me!"

  Jane screwed her eyes shut and took more than a moment to steady herself; Charlie watched, utterly fascinated. He never believed it was possible for Janie – his Janie, who seemed to be
fueled by nothing but happy things, to be on the verge of losing every ounce of patience she possessed, but it was happening right before him; serenity and good intentions were literally ebbing away from her body.

  "No, Lizzie," she began with a heavy sigh, "I'm not coming to get you."

  Charlie silently shook with laughter.

  "Goddammit, Bingley are you listening to me?" Darcy snapped in his friend's ear.

  "Unfortunately," was Charlie's sarcastic reply. "You haven't told her the truth about Danny, have you?"

  There was a long pause followed by a hastily muttered "Err….no" on Darcy's end and it took all the strength he had for Charlie not to throw his phone against the wall. "Darce, you know what I feel like right now?"

  "Not exactly…"

  "I feel like a parrot. A mangy, seed eating bird that is doomed to a life of shitting on sawdust and repeating the same, cutesy phrases to please my douchebag owner; and do you know why I feel like a parrot?"

  "No."

  "Because every time I talk to you, I say 'Darcy, if you'd just tell Lizzie the truth about Danny, I'm sure she'd change her mind about you'. I've probably uttered around fifty thousand variations of the same damn phrase for over a month now and you still haven't listened to me!"

  "I've told you, I can't talk to her about this," Darcy said, exasperated.

  "If you two don't fix your issues, you're going to be responsible for Jane, and I running out into traffic!"

  Covering the receiver with the palm of her hand, Jane grinned and whispered to Charlie, "The parrot analogy was kinda genius."

  "Thank you ma'lady," a beat, "no, Darcy, I wasn't talking to you."

  "Yes, Lizzie, I'm listening." Jane pinched the bridge of her nose, presumably to keep herself from screaming. "Honey, of course I'm on your side – I am your side, but I just want you to be reasonable here. Promise me that you'll stop making yourself miserable, okay? Okay?!"

  "Okay," Lizzie mumbled like a put-out five-year-old.

  "Now, I want you to get out of bed and walk around – explore Napa or something! I can't believe you've been in that huge house all this time and you haven't seen anything beyond your own bedroom."

  "The bathroom's reasonably nice," Lizzie quipped.

  "Get your ass out of bed, I mean it," Jane told her sternly.

  "Promise me you'll tell Lizzie the truth," Charlie said as he restlessly flopped onto his back.

  Darcy grunted. "Fine, fine I'll tell her."

  "Oh, and Darce…"

  "Lizzie…"

  "One more thing…"

  "Unless you've decided to break this vow to loathe Darcy for all eternity, or you've got something new to talk about…"

  "Until you fix things with Lizzie…"

  "Whatever you do…"

  "For the love of all that is holy…"

  "STOP CALLING!" The exhausted couple simultaneously shouted and slammed their cell phones closed, wasting no time in turning them off and chucking them onto the nightstand.

  Jane collapsed against Charlie's side, throwing an arm around his stomach she mumbled into the cotton of his T-shirt, "I almost wish they'd kill each other."

  Hugging her tightly, he planted a reassuring kiss on the top of her head. "Don't worry; I'm having every phone line we own disconnected tomorrow."

  "I knew I loved you."

  * * *

  Usually, when she pushed her elder sister to the breaking point – when Jane's hands alternated between the bridge of her nose and her hips and she'd uttered a good swear or two – Elizabeth was quick to amend whatever childish bit of shit she was on at the moment and return to the land of semi-adulthood. This time, however, Jane could not reasonably take credit for steering Lizzie back in the direction of maturity; nor could Charlotte (poor, unfortunate Charlotte) who had become the new victim of several piss and moan fests after the great Jane and Charlie ban on all contact.

  The bedroom door creaked open enough to allow the slightly graying dark, curly head of Emily Reyes to poke itself inside. "Good morning, Starshine."

  When it came to ridiculously wealthy families and their hired help, Emily Reyes was quite the anomaly. Back when the previous Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were just starting out their lives together, she was hired on as the young couple's maid by the groom's parents – a bizarre housewarming gift if there ever was one. Just two short years after she'd left Cuba, Emily had worked for many of California's finest families; scrubbing many of their fine floors and running after many of their 'fine' rat-faced offspring, and took the crap wages and under appreciation in stride. Working for Emma and Marcus Darcy, however, was a wholly different experience.

  She wasn't treated like hired help, but something more along the lines of a friend who happened to clean their house three days a week. When Fitzwilliam and Georgiana came into the picture, Emily's role shifted completely and she very much became a second mother to the children when business and societal duties called away their biological one. The passing of Emma and then Marc signaled yet another new era in her employment; with Fitzwilliam off in LA handling all of Darcy Media's dealings, and Georgie in boarding school on the other side of the country, someone had to remain in Napa to watch over Pemberly. Seamlessly, Emily slipped into the role of managing the estate and was responsible for all of its side business ventures that included a wine label, horse stables, and a line of salad dressings (if Paul Newman could slap his face on a bottle of vinaigrette, so could Marcus Darcy).

  Mrs. Reyes was as much a part of the Darcy family as those who had its blood coursing through their veins, and was the closest thing Lizzie would get to a mother-in-law. So, when she learned of their arrangement, and the subsequent unhappiness of the newest missus, Emily immediately befriended Lizzie, making sure to spend enough time with her to keep the poor girl from going completely crazy.

  At the sound of the overly cheery voice, Lizzie carefully lifted the covers off of her head. "The earth says hello," she replied and her crooked smile quickly faded. "Wait, is he here?"

  Chuckling, Mrs. Reyes took a seat on the end of the bed. "Now, what kind of newlywed can't stand the sight of her husband?"

  "The contracted kind."

  Shaking her head, the older woman said, "The sun is shining, birds are singing, and Fitzwilliam will be away all morning on business."

  "Sweet!" Lizzie bolted upright at the news and tossed the blankets aside. "How about some Gears of War, today; Halo 3's getting kinda tired and those little kids can be really mean."

  "I've got a better idea," she grinned.

  That got her a wary look. "I don't think I trust you."

  A hand flew to her chest and Mrs. Reyes gasped with mock dramatics. "How could you say such a thing, Lizzie?"

  Brow arching, she said, "And how could the only forty-five year old woman I've ever known to use the phrase 'pwning noobs' pass on playing video games for an entire morning?"

  Climbing to her feet, Mrs. Reyes grabbed Lizzie by the hands and attempted to yank her out of bed. "Humor me, yeah? Just this once?" At the sound of Lizzie's resolute sigh, she rolled her eyes and headed for the door. "I expect you downstairs in five minutes fully clothed, those ratty pajama bottoms do not count as pants and a bra is not optional." Her face broke out in a grin, "Comfortable shoes would also be in your best interest."

  What began was a daily ritual; every morning Darcy would be mysteriously missing and Mrs. Reyes would appear in her room without the slightest intention of wasting time on Xbox Live. Instead, she would find some new area of Pemberly to drag Lizzie to, expounding on its history or purpose, and by the end of the second week of this tour, it was safe to say Lizzie had seen every inch of space the estate had to offer and met every last person it employed (effectively squashing those crazy hermit rumors the staff had been passing around). She found, that despite the smell, she loved the stables the most. Her affinity for it while possibly having to do with a deep, residual eight year-old desire to be a part of The Saddle Club, mostly it came from the beauty and serenity
of the area. It was quiet for the most part, but she was okay with watching the busloads of inner city students come in for riding lessons, or listening in on the buyers and their high-priced haggling. So when she no longer needed Mrs. Reyes to show her around, Lizzie began venturing out on her own – iPod and a book in hand, nine times out of ten ending up propped against the outside of the stable's entrance.

  And then, slowly and rather oddly, Darcy – he who had been so conveniently absent for so long, began to turn up more and more around Lizzie's favorite stomping ground. He spent time chatting up the stable hand, aiding in lessons, and seeming genuinely pleasant to everyone who wasn't her. He never acknowledged her presence or gave the slightest indication that he was aware they were existing in the same space until one particular day when the sky decided to open up and dump buckets on Napa Valley.

  "Aw, crap," Lizzie muttered when the first rain drop hit her square on the head. Thunder and lightening rolled in seconds later and by the time she made it to her feet the rain was already coming down in droves. Sighing heavily she began the long walk back to the main house, with only a paperback to keep her 'dry'.

  "Here!" Darcy had seemingly appeared out of nowhere at her side, his button up shirt in his outstretched hand.

  Lizzie blinked. "Are you stalking me?!" she shouted over the rain.

  Rolling his eyes, Darcy snatched the book out of her grasp and replaced it with his Polo. "You're welcome."

  Not another word was spoken between the two until they reached the kitchen's back door; once inside, Lizzie quickly pulled the shirt from over her head. "Thanks, or whatever…" the garbled, half-hearted 'thank you' that spilled out of her mouth totally paled in comparison to the insult she'd originally planned on flinging his way, but the affront swiftly died a fiery death upon the sight of Darcy in a soaking wet T-shirt.

  His dark hair curled slightly from the water while that plain, white shirt criminally clung to every muscle he possessed. In the back of her mind, Lizzie hoped Darcy would have acquired some sort of glaring physical flaw since their night together – a slightly doughy middle, maybe man boobs if God were smiling down on her, but no, he was cut long and lean, practically fucking perfect in every way and she was drooling in spite of herself.