In Good Conscience

by Gardiner, Cat

  “As always, you sound sympathetic to her, Jane.”

  “Believe me, I’m not. I’m waaay not, and I’ve been hiding my anger very well all these years, but it is what it is and we have to face our demons sometime.”

  She looked up at her big sister with a blank expression. The sound reasoning took her quite by surprise—as it usually did whenever the ditz cleared from Jane’s brain. “I guess. Just before Fitzwilliam left for Bermuda he quoted something from a book he was reading. ‘He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.’ I guess that’s where Dad is now.”

  “Wowza, that’s an awesome quote. It implies that you’ll find happiness too.”

  “It’s just a stupid quote from a stupid book. I’ll never find happiness again.”

  “Sure you will. One night with Wentworth will put a smile on your face—and on your lady parts.”

  “What?!”

  “I’m just kidding. See … I got you smiling at just the thought of it. C’mon, let’s go hear what she has to say. We owe it to ourselves to get the whole truth from her. What we choose to do with it rests solely on us without any guilt. If we want to forgive her—great! My mojo will be intact. If we want to tell her to go to hell—great! My mojo will have acted in good conscience.”

  “Who are you today?”

  “I’m the sister who’s not getting into my Camaro and driving away.”

  Whoa. She’d never called Jane out, and Jane had never admitted her failing so forthrightly. Smiling from her heart, she stood and hugged her. “Thanks, sis.”

  15

  Mamma Mia

  As a unified force, the sisters walked down the hallway toward the dining room with clasped hands. Jane’s hand was warm and soothing—strong, like an older sister’s grasp should be when caring for her younger sibling. And make no mistake, she felt like the sixteen-year-old who’d woken to learn that her mother split in the middle of the night without a good-bye. Although she swore she forgave Frances last year, she was still in need of that rare sensible and protective Jane at this very moment. All her personal walls and the constructs of her life—as she knew it—were falling apart one by one. Pemberley, Fitzwilliam, her mother. How much more could she take?

  She heard her parents talking and set her shoulders back, innately defiant, but holding onto that not-so-stupid quote from The Count of Monte Cristo. Admittedly, this was the ultimate happiness to her father’s miserable life. He’d never stopped loving Frances or feeling guilty for her departure. Had she not herself dreamed of bailing on him many times under the strain of his needs? Had she not “abandoned” him after she moved to Pemberley last summer?

  Silently, she prayed for Fitzwilliam’s wisdom and assistance, and feeling him all around her, caressed the necklace as if channeling his strength through the love they’d shared.

  When they crossed the threshold, the long dining table separated the two opposing forces. Her parents’ hands lay piled one on top of the other at the corner of the table. They simultaneously looked up, and Liz’s fingers tapped her thigh at the sight they presented: as united a force as their daughters. Her mother cried, her father comforted, and the “rest of their family” stood outside that private world of marital affection and reconciliation after years of self-serving deprivation. In a small measure, she could understand. Fitzwilliam was her life and their love was the only all-encompassing force in their private and secluded world. Their understanding of each other was not open for dissection or critique to outsiders. It was between them. The difference between them and her parents was that his “departure” from their world—his tragic death—was in the act of self-immolation in order to keep her safe. Unlike her mother, he wouldn’t be returning, and further he assured that her future was safe. She was free from Diablo’s retaliation. It was a heavy cross to bear, knowing that he gave his life for hers.

  She tried to imagine how her father felt, having believed Frances dead (metaphorically)—and then her showing up on his doorstep. It must have shocked him for sure.

  Frances abruptly stood, her gaze holding her daughters as she swallowed hard then cautiously walked around the table to them, taking a step with each sentence she expressed. “I know this is … shocking, right? [step] “And I know how angry you must be even after all these years.” [step] “My daughters …” she stopped and more tears rolled down her ruddy face, then took another step closer. “I want you to know, I wanted you to come with me but …” She glanced over her shoulder to their father whose fingers covered and slid down his eyes then cheeks.

  “Your father decided it best if I just left.”

  “What!?” they exclaimed simultaneously.

  Now Thomas stood and in barely a whisper he said, “It’s true, girls. I knew she was going to leave beforehand.”

  Frances took her final step to them and reached out her hand but it dropped when neither of them accepted it. “I’m not asking for anything more than just the opportunity for your father and me to come clean on our selfish actions.”

  “Wait, Frances,” he objected.

  “Yes. Selfish, Tommy. We wronged them and they need to know the entire truth of what happened that week. Why I left them with you and didn’t take them to England with me as I planned.”

  “Dad?” Jane asked, her voice cracking, but he just looked away in shame.

  In an instant, Jane’s rational, sympathetic consideration of her mother had disappeared.

  “You didn’t leave me, Mom. You left Lizzy with him. Do you even know what you did? How it affected her?”

  Their mother bowed her head but said nothing.

  And it was here that another veil lifted and Lizzy found her voice—the one that was no longer afraid to call out her sister’s own selfish actions. If censure was going to go around today, everyone should take their share and frankly, she’d had as much as she can handle these past two months. “Jane, if we’re all going to be honest. You can’t really fault her for bolting and leaving me to shoulder the whole responsibility of Dad and Longbourn when you left me three days after she did.”

  She, too, dropped her chin to her chest.

  “But I forgive you because I understand you and knew how hurt you were by her leaving. You and Mom had a special bond, one that I didn’t.”

  Jane took her hand and squeezed it hard.

  “Lizzy, Janie … I’m so sorry.” Frances squeezed her eyes shut and pursed her lips. “I know those words are meaningless, but I truly am, and I didn’t come back to place any blame on anyone’s shoulders other than my own. I should have done what I meant to do but there were dire issues to consider.”

  Liz finally sat at the end of the table and the other women followed suit, leaving Thomas standing alone and isolated at the opposite end. Oh, how apropos—how ironic. Silently, all three fidgeted as if it a familial trait, each one searching for words in the uncomfortable confrontation. Sure, she’d agreed with Jane about listening to the explanation, but did she really care at this point? Was there any minute measure of daughterly love remaining in her heart? And what of her heart? How many more broken pieces would fall from it until there was nothing left?

  “I don’t care,” she finally sighed, breaking the tension. “I let it go and forgave you a year ago. Honestly, I have other hurts and pains to focus on now.”

  “I understand and I am so very sorry for your loss, darling—”

  “Well, I care!” Jane yelled, startling them all. “Why did you listen to him? Why did you leave us to care for him?”

  “Because …”

  “Franny!”

  But she ignored his objections.

  And, honestly, Liz was too shocked by her sister’s outburst to pay attention to anything he had to say, but it surprised her when he interrupted.

  “She didn’t take you girls because I was hurt, infuriated with her. I felt betrayed … and I threatened suicide if she took you both away from me.”

  “I knew he was telling the truth.”


  Where Jane’s eyes grew wide, Liz’s didn’t. She believed this to be the absolute truth—and stark confirmation of her father’s previous manipulative tendencies. She’d lived through them all, and where he used Longbourn and its familial history as his tool against her, he used his children as a tool against his separating wife, just so he could wound her as she’d wounded him. She couldn’t help that rising feeling of resentment toward him after having put it to bed over the last year. Clenching her fist, she felt anger for what he denied his daughters. Their mother hadn’t left in the night! She’d wanted to take them with her!

  “For my own part, girls, I was too ashamed to say good-bye, too ashamed to face you both and tell you that I was leaving for another man.”

  “Is that true?” Jane asked. “You left us for some guy?”

  Their mother’s eyes pleaded for forgiveness. “Yes. I knew I made a terrible mistake both in abandoning you and in leaving your father. I always loved him, despite the challenges of being married to him. When I did telephone, your father said I was dead to all of you, but I kept writing. One month later, I received in the mail all the unopened cards and letters I wrote the two of you.”

  “You wrote?” she stammered, accusingly at her father who sat stone-faced, clearly shocked that it all was coming out. So many secrets!

  “Don’t blame him, girls. He was very sick—long before I left, and my own co-dependency and personal shortcomings kept me from getting him professional help.”

  A tiny measure of pity rose in Liz’s heart for Frances. No, they could never get back those days when they were a family, but she understood pain, grief, mistakes, atonement … and through Fitzwilliam’s tragic upbringing—suicide. Was her father’s illness at its worst back then? Had her mother acted in good conscience by believing that leaving her teenage daughters in the comfort of their home and school was the wisest choice? Had she thought it the best course of action in safeguarding their father’s mental health? And had she returned or fought in the courts for custody of her minor daughter would it have made everything worse? The fighting, the misery, the gas-lighting? Could they—and we—now forge a “new” family? I don’t know … but what else do I have?

  “Do you still love Dad?” was the only question she could handle at the moment.

  “We love each other still—and we love you both with all our hearts. That had never changed.”

  “And did he tell you why he wears the ankle bracelet?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “All of it?”

  “Tommy?”

  “Yes, I told her all of it, Liz. We’ve been completely honest with each other and want to start over.”

  Oh dear. She took a deep breath and searched her soul for any sliver of absolution she could offer, considering that they had offered it to each other after what they’d been through. Finally looking to Jane seated at her left, she wondered how her sister’s mojo was feeling. Those pursed hot pink lips were not a good sign. “Sissy, would you like to stay for lunch with me, Mom, and Dad?”

  Jane looked at their mom’s hopeful expression, and then to their father. “I just wanna know was he worth the cheating?”

  “Who, darling?”

  “The guy you left Dad for … Were those two months hell or bliss before you figured out what you lost, what you did to us?”

  “Hmm … ‘Conscience is a thousand swords,’ ” she quoted Shakespeare. “It began its assault on me as soon as the plane left Dulles.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “No, but he did help me to discover who I had lost during twenty years of marriage: myself. Would I change that knowing what I know now? The cost of my decision? Change the past if I could? In a heartbeat, but hindsight and having experienced great loss is 20/20.” She looked over her shoulder back at Thomas. “He wasn’t your father and his type of love could never replace the two beautiful, strong, sensitive daughters I left back in Virginia.”

  ***

  Bolivia

  As the getaway boat tripped at a 60 mph clip down the Amazon River, the adrenaline in Darcy’s veins coursed from speed and exhilaration at the devastation he’d just wrought. His hair blew back and the chilled winter air stung his cheeks. Although at least 30 klicks from his targets, he could still smell the pungent smoke of the coca rising from the valley at his back. Two down, four to go—for you, baby. I vow to you, this will be over soon—and you will remain safe!

  Distance and time were too powerful, making the pull to hear her voice irresistible, and he reached out for the satellite phone. He tapped in the code to access her necklace comms and Liz’s stress came through loud and clear.

  Obviously, Bennet came clean on yet another of his deceptions. She was in the thick of it with her mother and damn that he couldn’t be there to comfort her. How much more could his girl take before she snapped? She’d come through the explosions just fine, right? She was the strongest woman he knew and she’d be able to compartmentalize it all—just as he had his entire life.

  But fuck! For all his perfect planning, the absolute unexpected kept happening. First Wentworth (and that disturbing conversation), and now her mother’s inopportune return to her life. Had he not considered his life experiences or the passage from The Count of Monte Cristo? “Ah, but who can ever know what may happen, my dear fellow? Man proposes, God disposes …”

  Ignoring Jane’s encouragement to sleep with Wentworth, he focused on the real content of the conversation, and for a second he rejoiced that Dumas’s quote about suffering and happiness had broken through Liz’s psyche. Would she hold onto it when her dead husband reappeared in their life once Diablo was put down? Was this the beginning of her putting pieces together? No doubt, she’d been to the Darcy family lawyer by now. But maybe the trail and the pieces weren’t enough. Surely, their conversation beside the waterfall must have broken through to her grief. He’d given her his word, and that wasn’t something he did unless he could deliver.

  “She’s staying and Dad is happy and we don’t have to like the reason why he’s happy, but he is. He didn’t like Darcy, but your husband made you happy and Dad had no choice but to deal with it.”

  “Two million dollars certainly made Fitzwilliam more likeable and Dad more accepting of our marriage. Besides, Fitzwilliam never broke my heart by leaving then returning with flowers and some phony English accent after being M.I.A for nine years.”

  “Just before Fitzwilliam left for Bermuda he quoted something from a book he was reading. ‘He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.’ I guess that’s where Dad is now.”

  “Wowza, that’s an awesome quote. It implies that you’ll find happiness too.”

  “It’s just a stupid quote from a stupid book. I’ll never find happiness again.”

  It killed him to admit that his father-in-law had been right. He disconnected and texted Bennet. You were right. Shut down comms to the necklace.

  16

  Revelations

  Washington, DC

  The sound of the ringing telephone filled Rick’s ear as he impatiently waited for his friend to answer; it was time to call in a favor from one of his and Darcy’s childhood buddies. Liz hadn’t said anything, but he could see the disappointment in her eyes that his grief and inertia had kept him from following through on the information regarding the ass-wipe that destroyed Pemberley. She wanted answers, needed to scapegoat someone other than herself and Darcy for his death in Bermuda.

  “Mason,” the familiar voice on the other end greeted.

  “Jimmy, it’s me Rick Fitzwilliam.”

  “Ho! What the hell? It’s gotta be like six years?”

  “More like thirteen, but who’s counting.”

  “You’re making me feel like an old man. Where has the time gone?”

  “Beats me. We’re a little older, probably not much wiser, and I’m definitely a lot more cynical and regimented than that kid you knew. The military did that to both me—and Darcy.”

&n
bsp; “No doubt. I’m certainly a different guy, that’s for sure. You grow up quickly on the job, not that the Leesburg Police Department is all homicide and burglaries, but it gets its share of Class A felonies mixed in with all those Rolls Royce traffic violations. So, what’s up? Are you married with children, yet?”

  “No, not yet—maybe soon. How about you?” he asked, going through the perfunctory niceties.

  “I married Emma and we have two kids. We live up at Mason Chase, you know, my grandmother’s old family estate. We’re putting in a swimming pool, and just got a couple of horses for the girls.”

  “Good for you. Sounds like you’re doing all right on the police force.” Or came into an inheritance.

  “One could say that.”

  “Listen, I know how close you were with Darcy and Wickham on the high school and UV polo teams, but … did you hear about what happened?”

  “Yeah. Wickham is out on parole. I keep an eye on him from time to time. The breeder over at Mills Horse Farm told me that Darcy put in a good word for him, getting him a job as groomer. He’s doing all right.”

  “I didn’t know that, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “Then you’re talking about Pemberley?”

  “No … You didn’t read the local paper?”

  “Nah. I get first-hand accounts here at the station house.”

  “Darcy was killed in a diving accident in Bermuda.”

  Their childhood friend went silent and Rick thought he’d disconnected from the call. “Jimmy?”

  “Jeez. I’m sorry to hear that. I only just spoke … Wow, I’m really sorry.”

  “You only just spoke what?”

  “Nothing. Just … um … man … he called me shortly after the explosions at Pemberley, inquired if I was interested in a couple of horses he had stabled. He asked about Wickham, you know … the usual stuff. So, this must have happened recently then. How’s his wife taking the news?”