Mr. Darcy Forever

by Victoria Connelly

‘He probably thinks I’m a very approachable young woman, which is just what I am, and I really don’t mind his knowing that. How else are we to meet men? We don’t get introduced to them by our families or a master of ceremonies anymore. You have to do it yourself when you can. You don’t bump into them every day of the week,’ she said, giggling at the aptness of her wording. ‘I just got lucky today.’

  ‘I’m going back to bed, and you should too.’

  Mia groaned. ‘All right then, grumpy!’ She returned to her own room, eager to snuggle back under her duvet, her bare limbs chilly.

  Honestly, she thought, Sarah really could be a spoilsport. Mia knew she was just being protective; it was a role she’d been playing as long as Mia could remember. After all, she hadn’t had a mother to guide her through the perils of love, but what possible harm could there be in a little holiday romance? she thought. It was probably just what she needed.

  Chapter 15

  Sarah and Lloyd found a tearoom away from the center of Bath. It was small and pretty with pale pink tablecloths and white china cups.

  Lloyd pulled out a chair for Sarah and placed his heavy camera bag underneath the table.

  ‘It must be cumbersome carrying that around with you everywhere,’ Sarah said.

  ‘I don’t really notice it now,’ he said. ‘It’s like a part of me, I guess. I’d feel naked without it.’

  They ordered a pot of tea and couldn’t resist a slice of cake each. Sarah opted for lemon sponge, and Lloyd ordered a slice of ginger cake.

  ‘I always worry about eating out,’ Lloyd said, picking up his cup and examining it. ‘But it looks clean enough in here, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I think so,’ Sarah said, giving a slight smile. ‘You have it too, don’t you?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘OCD.’

  Lloyd laughed loudly. ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘Only to another sufferer,’ Sarah said.

  They smiled at one another.

  ‘How long have you had it?’ he asked.

  ‘All my life, I think. There’s always been something vaguely odd about me,’ she said with a laugh and then realized that it was probably not the best thing to say to promote herself.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ he said.

  ‘You mean, you think I’m odd?’

  ‘No!’ he said with a laugh. ‘I mean, I’ve always felt odd too.’

  ‘Oh!’ Sarah said with relief.

  The tea and cake arrived, and Lloyd took a mouthful of ginger cake as Sarah poured the tea.

  ‘I used to get endlessly teased at school,’ Lloyd said. ‘Everything had to be neat and tidy. Science apparatus for experiments, the books in the library, the sports equipment in the cupboard. Everyone thought I was teacher’s pet, but it was the OCD. I had no interest in pleasing anyone other than myself. Things had to be in order.’

  Sarah nodded in recognition.

  ‘But not many people knew about OCD back then,’ he continued. ‘You were just branded as strange or effeminate.’

  ‘That must have been difficult. At least girls can disguise it some of the time. We’re meant to be neat and tidy, so it can often go unnoticed. I must say, I didn’t have much trouble at school. It was home that was the problem for me. My mother had real trouble understanding what was happening. She thought I did things just to annoy her, like the time I took down all the washing from the line and hung it up again properly.’ She took a sip of tea.

  ‘There are certainly more people around who understand now. There isn’t such a stigma attached to it, is there?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Sarah said, ‘but it still takes some understanding. I’ve never really met anyone who’s understood it properly. Well, apart from one person.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘My sister. She’s the only one in the world who doesn’t judge me for it. Except that—’

  ‘What?’ Lloyd asked.

  ‘We’re not really speaking at the moment.’ Sarah bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to divulge so much to the man. After all, he was a relative stranger.

  ‘Why aren’t you speaking?’ he asked in a gentle voice. ‘What happened?’

  What happened? Sarah closed her eyes for a moment, knowing that she couldn’t tell him. ‘We… we had an argument. Over a man.’

  ‘That will usually do it,’ Lloyd said.

  ‘Yes,’ Sarah said, finishing her tea before pouring a second cup. ‘I’m afraid it will.’

  Chapter 16

  Barton Cottage

  The weather was more like the middle of summer than the middle of May, and when Alec called for them in the late morning, they were ready to hit the beach.

  The tide was out and there were miles of perfect sandy beach to greet them.

  ‘Isn’t this the most perfect place in the world?’ Mia asked. ‘We have to come back here every year.’

  ‘I don’t think we’ll be able to afford it,’ Sarah said.

  ‘But you’re a rich accountant.’

  ‘And you’re going to be a rich actress and singer,’ Sarah said. ‘You can pay for the next trip.’

  ‘You think I can’t, don’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  Mia tutted. ‘Oh, let’s not argue.’

  ‘I’m not arguing.’

  Mia caught Alec’s gaze and giggled. ‘Sisters!’ she said. ‘Always fighting.’

  ‘We’re not always fighting,’ Sarah protested.

  ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’ Mia asked Alec.

  ‘A younger brother. I call him my younger bother because he’s always getting into trouble.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Sarah said.

  ‘What sort of trouble?’

  ‘The sort that involves money,’ Alec said. ‘He has these madcap ideas that he’s convinced will make him rich, but they usually fall apart, and I’m left picking up the pieces.’

  ‘So you’re rich?’ Mia asked.

  ‘Mia!’ Sarah scolded.

  Alec laughed. ‘I get by,’ he said.

  ‘What do you do?’ Mia crossed her legs in a yoga-type position, making her long, denim-clad legs look even longer.

  ‘I’m a business consultant specializing in small-company management.’

  ‘Oh,’ Mia said, sounding none the wiser.

  He grinned. ‘Basically, I help small companies maximize their profits.’

  ‘It sounds very rewarding,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen many businesses flourish, which is a wonderful thing.’

  Mia was trying to mask how disappointed she was by his choice of professions. It wasn’t very romantic. It was a shame that he wasn’t a musician or a poet or something. There wasn’t anything remotely romantic about being a business consultant, was there? But it was hard to find a perfect man, wasn’t it? And he was exceptionally handsome, so perhaps you couldn’t have a handsome man who also had an interesting job, she reasoned.

  ‘I haven’t had a picnic for years,’ Alec said, changing the subject. ‘This is just like when I visited my aunt. She’d make up the best hampers in the world. She used to get up at the crack of dawn, when the rest of us were still asleep, and make mountains of sandwiches and cake and flapjacks and all sorts of other goodies.’

  ‘You must miss her,’ Sarah said.

  Alec nodded. ‘Every day.’

  Mia looked across at him. ‘We never had an aunt. We barely had a mother.’

  Alec looked puzzled.

  ‘Don’t bore him, Mia.’

  ‘I’m not boring him. Am I boring you?’

  ‘Of course not. You couldn’t possibly bore me.’

  Mia smiled. ‘See, Sarah? I couldn’t possibly bore him.’

  ‘Tell me about her,’ he said. ‘I’d like to know more about you both.’

  ‘Well, there’s not much to tell, really,’ Mia said. ‘Our mother left us. I was only eleven, and I came home from school one day and she’d gone.’

  ‘Just like
that?’

  Mia nodded.

  ‘It had been coming on for some time,’ Sarah added. ‘I don’t think she was a natural mother, to be honest. We’d often go whole days without seeing her at all.’

  ‘But that’s terrible. Wasn’t there anyone else to look after you? A father? Or a grandparent?’

  ‘Not really,’ Sarah said. ‘Neither of our fathers were around much.’

  ‘I never got to know mine,’ Mia said with a dramatic wave of her hand. ‘I am a complete enigma, but I bet he was a prince.’

  ‘Or a criminal,’ Sarah said with a little smile.

  ‘Oh, you always like to burst my bubble!’

  ‘Just keeping your feet on the ground.’

  ‘But they don’t want to be on the ground. They want to be tiptoeing up in the clouds.’

  Sarah sighed. ‘What can you do with such a flibbertigibbet?’

  Alec laughed. ‘I’m not sure there is much you can do, except sit back and enjoy the show.’

  ‘You see?’ Mia said. ‘Alec knows how to appreciate me.’ Mia was suddenly on her feet, brushing the sand from her legs. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ she announced. ‘Do you want to come, Alec?’ She waited for a moment, a big smile fixed on her face, her eyes wide.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, getting up from the sand. ‘You coming, Sarah?’

  ‘Oh, she’d rather sit with a book, wouldn’t you, Sarah?’

  Sarah nodded, understanding her sister perfectly.

  Mia and Alec walked along the beach before finding a path into the wood where the dappled shade cooled their sun-warmed limbs.

  ‘Are you sure Sarah won’t be lonely?’ Alec asked.

  ‘There’s no need to worry about her. She prefers her own company,’ Mia said. ‘Come on.’ She led the way along the path as it climbed steeply among a carpet of bluebells. She inhaled deeply. ‘Smell that! Isn’t it wonderful?’

  Alec took a deep lungful of the heady perfume. ‘It’s my favorite time of year.’

  ‘Mine too,’ Mia said. ‘I mean, not only because it’s my birthday, but also because the flowers are so beautiful right now. There are bluebells, campion, primroses, and that lovely frothy elderflower—’

  Alec interrupted. ‘It’s your birthday?’

  ‘Well, it was last week, really, but neither of us could get away then, so we’re celebrating it now. I’m the ripe old age of twenty-one.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I had no idea it was your birthday, and such a special one too.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Mia said.

  ‘I would have got you something if I’d known,’ he said. They stopped under the shade of a beech tree, its new leaves the brightest green.

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said with a smile.

  Mia smiled back, noticing the way his eyes crinkled at the edges. ‘What would you have given me?’ she asked, moving a step closer toward him.

  ‘What would you have liked?’

  She was inches away from him and could feel his warm breath on her face. ‘How about a birthday kiss?’ she said, knowing that Sarah would be appalled at such forwardness, but if a girl couldn’t take liberties on her birthday, when could she? Besides, he looked as though he wanted to kiss her.

  She waited for what seemed like forever, the world suddenly concentrated on the tiny space that separated them. A warm breeze blew her hair back from her face and the scent of bluebells seemed to permeate her skin.

  ‘I think I can manage a kiss,’ Alec whispered. ‘If that’s what you really want.’

  Mia nodded and closed her eyes as his lips sought hers. It was a sweet, tender kiss that made her skin tingle with pleasure, and it took a moment to realize that he had stopped kissing her.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t expecting this today.’

  Mia opened her eyes. ‘No?’ she said. ‘Why ever not?’

  He frowned at her, half puzzled, half amused. ‘You are the most surprising girl I’ve ever met.’

  ‘But I’m not a girl anymore,’ she said. ‘I’m twenty-one now.’

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  She looked up at him, her eyes wide and bright. ‘That kiss,’ she began, ‘was very nice, but it was over much too quickly, didn’t you think?’

  ‘Well, I—’

  She leaned up toward him and pressed her mouth against his, closing her eyes and experiencing the wondrously warm sensation again.

  ‘Is that better?’ he asked her a moment later.

  ‘That was very nice too, but it was only our second kiss. What do you say we make it twenty-one?’

  Down on the beach, Sarah had long forgotten her novel, placing it back in her rucksack so that it wouldn’t discolor in the sun. Where had Mia and Alec got to? She worried. Mia might be twenty-one, but she was as impetuous and impulsive as when she was an eight-year-old. She never liked to admit it, but she needed somebody to keep an eye on her, and Sarah saw it as being her job. For a moment she wondered about going in search of her sister, but she knew that Mia wouldn’t thank her for it. She’d give her another ten minutes before she really started to worry.

  She got out her copy of Sense and Sensibility again, but when she tried to read it, it wasn’t the faces of Marianne and Willoughby she was seeing but those of Mia and Alec. She returned the book to the bag and stretched out on the tartan.

  She was always worrying about Mia, she thought as she closed her eyes against the sun. Why couldn’t they have a less stressful relationship, like Jane and Elizabeth Bennet? For a moment, Sarah thought about sisters in the novels of Jane Austen. There was Jane and Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice, who shared every confidence—well, almost every confidence. At the other end of the sisterly spectrum were the Elliot sisters from Persuasion and the poor put-upon Anne who was left to do all the unpleasant chores. Then, of course, there was Elinor and Marianne from Sense and Sensibility—the sisters who adored each other but were worlds apart. That’s who Sarah was reminded of, whenever she thought of her own relationship with Mia.

  Please don’t let her fall in love, she said to herself. He isn’t right for her. I just know it. But Mia wouldn’t stop to think about such things. She’d see a handsome face and be flattered by a few smiles and fall headlong into love. Sarah had seen it before, and it never ended well. Take that time with—what was his name? Robbie Merton. Even Sarah had to admit that he was handsome. Mia met him whilst at sixth form. He was one of those boys who drove a beaten-up old car way too fast whilst playing terrible music way too loudly. And Mia had adored him. She scribbled his name a hundred times across pieces of paper that were meant to be filled with thought-provoking essays. Of course, he’d broken her heart by being caught with another girl in his car. He hadn’t even bothered to drive off anywhere first. Mia walked right past him on the way to her drama class.

  ‘Poor Mia,’ Sarah said as she silently cursed handsome men.

  ***

  ‘Won’t Sarah be wondering where we are?’ Alec asked as they followed the footpath out of the woods.

  ‘Oh, stop worrying about her. She’ll have her head stuck so far in that book that the rest of the world will have ceased to exist a long time ago.’

  Alec laughed. ‘So where are we going?’

  Mia shrugged. ‘Questions, questions.’ She turned back and smiled at him. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  Mia’s mouth dropped open. ‘What a thing to say!’

  ‘But we’ve only just met.’

  ‘Yes, but—’ Her eyes widened, and then she sighed. ‘I feel as if I know you. Does that make sense? I know it sounds crazy, and I’ve heard that line in a thousand movies and read it in a million books, but it’s exactly how I feel about you.’

  She held his gaze for a moment, anxious about what he would say. Had she gone too far? He was right; they had only just met. Maybe she was being too forward. She knew Sarah would be having fits if she knew what was going on here, yet Mia couldn’t help saying those
words. She’d always had to express her feelings and worry about the consequences later, so here she was again, wondering if her feelings were about to get her into trouble. ‘Is that crazy?’ she asked.

  ‘No, it’s not crazy,’ he said. ‘I feel it too. I feel like I’ve known you both forever.’

  ‘You do?’

  He nodded, and Mia smiled. ‘Good,’ she said, leading the way down some steps and onto a perfect little beach. For a moment she just stood there, shielding her eyes against the sun.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ Alec asked her.

  ‘That’s the field, isn’t it?’

  ‘What field?’

  ‘The field where Marianne twists her ankle and Willoughby carries her home.’

  ‘Friends of yours?’

  Mia laughed. ‘No, they’re from a film. Sense and Sensibility. The Emma Thompson adaptation of the novel.’

  ‘So you’re saying that a pair of fictional characters had some sort of mishap in that field?’

  Mia nodded enthusiastically. ‘I think that’s definitely the one.’ She pointed to the spot where she was sure it had happened.

  ‘You are funny,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you care about things that didn’t really happen.’

  ‘But it did. It was filmed right there.’

  ‘By actors playing fictional characters,’ Alec said.

  ‘You don’t read fiction?’

  ‘Only the occasional thriller.’

  Mia sighed. ‘Men just don’t get Jane Austen, do they?’

  ‘I guess not.’

  Mia looked into his dark eyes, which were twinkling delightfully in the sunshine, and decided to forgive him. He was just too handsome not to forgive.

  Chapter 17

  The queue for the Lorna Warwick talk was lengthy.

  ‘I didn’t realize she—I mean he—was so popular,’ Mia said.

  ‘Look at all the women here!’ Shelley said. ‘I don’t think I’ll stand a chance.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Mia said. ‘You’re gorgeous. He’d be absolutely mad not to notice you. Have you got your book?’

  ‘No. I didn’t have room in my little purse. Anyway, I was going to buy a brand-new one. My others are all creased or covered in dog slobber.’