by Staci Hart
She’d just disappeared from the threshold when she swore under her breath, reappearing to snatch her purse off the island, tear open the fridge for a bottle of wine, and grab a wineglass before flying off again.
“I’m taking a bath and drinking this,” she called from the stairwell. “Do not disturb.”
Again, I said nothing, but a smile tugged at my lips. She hated when I said nothing, though I didn’t do it to upset her. I just found that I didn’t have the chance to say the wrong thing if I said nothing at all.
With a shift, I looked out over the dark patch of Central Park inside a frame of shadowed buildings. This was the house we’d grown up in, the house I’d inherited when our parents died. I remembered Georgie riding her tricycle around the terrace. Thanksgiving meals at the dining table. Georgie and I lounging in the library on rainy days—me sneaking into Dad’s comics and Georgie raiding Mom’s romance shelves.
I remembered the night of the call about the accident, but other than that flash of memory, everything else was a blur. By the time we got to the hospital, they were gone. The drunk driver had injured three other pedestrians when he blew through the crosswalk. He’d been apprehended and ended up in jail without much effort. I remembered getting Georgie home, the two of us sitting silently in the living room until the sun came up. And then it was a different kind of blur.
Lawyers and funeral plans, informing distant relatives and friends. And I’d done it all without blinking, without thinking, without feeling. Georgie felt enough for both of us.
Neither of us wanted to be alone, so we took to sleeping in the living room without ever agreeing to it. It was a month before we slept in our beds and well over a year before we touched their room. It was Georgie who suggested it was time, and though it was unbearable, I helped her go through their clothes and things. We packed things away, stripped it of linens and furniture, spreading pieces throughout the house and putting the decor in places where we could admire them and remember. And then Georgie redecorated it for me, moved me in, and claimed my old room.
Their empty room had been a void in the house to reflect the void in our lives until then. And when we filled it, we were finally able to move on. Or start to.
So I finished college and started at De Bourgh. Georgie finished high school and started at NYU, joining me when she’d gotten her bachelor’s. And that, as they said, was that.
I knocked back the end of my drink and poured another, taking it upstairs with me as I pulled at my tie. Laney Bennet appeared in my mind without preamble or warning, as she was in the habit of doing. Georgie had given me the final directive before what I was sure would be an ultimatum, and she was right. I had to figure myself out before it was too late.
But when I stopped and looked for the why of it all, I knew.
Laney was one of very few people who called me out with such ferocious truth. She was unafraid of me, unaffected by me, unlike most people, who sputtered and stammered in my presence. Georgie said I had two expressions—frowning and scowling—and the result didn’t endear me to many people. I’d told her not to take me to that mixer at Wasted Words. Because if there was one thing I couldn’t do, it was fake it. I couldn’t pretend to be amused by their party or even to understand it. I couldn’t feign a good time and drink and laugh with a bunch of strangers in a hot, crammed bar. I couldn’t take a bartender seriously who wore a loincloth any more than I could give my blessing to a shirtless bookstore manager who had his eye—and hands—on my sister.
But there was something else about Laney. I saw something in her that I’d never seen before, some spark of rarity beneath her hard exterior. And I supposed Georgie was right again. Laney and I were much more alike than I wanted to admit. But rather than contain herself like I did, she bared it, exposed herself in a way that although was defensive, was vulnerable too.
It was foreign to me. And a quality I found not only merit in, but envy. I only wished I could be so free. But I was incapable. Ask anyone who knew me, and they’d agree without hesitating.
I left the lights off in my room, crossing the space to stand in front of the tall windows overlooking the park as a thought dawned on me with such heat, it burned through the fog of unfamiliar feelings she evoked.
I admired her. Inexplicably, she roused something in me, like a beast asleep for a thousand years, shaking off the dust of time. She saw me, and though she didn’t like what she’d found, she challenged me to answer. To rise to the occasion and meet her as an equal. Because despite our many differences, when it came to the fabric of our characters, I had a suspicion we were much the same.
And though I didn’t know what exactly that meant, I gathered a plan to find out.
8
Party Like It's 1813
LANEY
Regency nights were my favorite.
Two or three nights a year, we partied like it was 1813. And our regulars went all out.
Five-dollar wells for everyone in costume inspired people to participate, and it expanded our regulars to reenactment groups, of which there were far more than I imagined there would ever be in Manhattan. Ruby sewed as a hobby, and we added her services in our announcement newsletters for costumes. She’d made a killing on dresses and velvet overcoats, even taking to reselling top hats and bonnets and gloves—a one-stop shop for all your regency needs. And since we threw these parties regularly, people invested.
Honestly, people loved an excuse to dress up. They were just as eager to put on spandex for our superhero or villain parties as they were to don a corset and cravat.
They would also do anything for cheap drinks.
I sighed, smiling at the fantasy of the evening. Rather than use our dim bar lights, battery-operated candelabras and a massive chandelier lit the dance floor and bar. Although not authentic, our regular DJ knew how to keep people happy, playing songs that kept bonnet feathers bobbing and everyone singing along, throwing the occasional slow song in to encourage people to get into each other’s personal space for the good of love.
I’d spent the last few days avoiding the Darcys and thinking about Wyatt, looking forward to tonight like a teenage girl anticipated prom. It’d been a long time since I’d met a guy I liked. New York wasn’t really a place to meet somebody outside of Bumble or Tinder or whatever the app of the minute was. I had access to men at the bar, and though I’d talked to more than a few, none of them went beyond a date, if they even went that far. But Wyatt had charmed me. And I scanned the crowd again for him, trying not to be disappointed when I didn’t find what I was looking for.
The bartenders were decked out in breeches and beautiful coats with tails, cravats, and vests, and once again, groups of tittering women in empire-waisted dresses fawned over them.
Cam slid up next to me with Annie, Greg the bartender’s fiancée, on her arm. It was impossible to dislike Annie—she was sunshine in a bottle, her skin peaches and cream and her hair the color of wheat. She had those eyes that drank up the world, big and wide and sparkling green. You couldn’t not to look at the long purple scar down the center of her chest that disappeared into her neckline—one of many battle scars, courtesy of her heart condition. She wore the scar with such pride, it was more a badge of honor than a reminder of pain.
On approaching, we greeted each other, complimenting the other’s dresses and accessories. It was true what they said about party dresses—the more you wore them, the less special they were—so most of us had a couple in rotation, not only for this, but for other themed nights, like Austen night or Come As Your Favorite Literary Heroine night. Annie’s was an emerald affair with incredible golden detailing embroidered on the hem and up the front, mine was a deep royal blue, and Cam’s was red as blood.
A female chorus of delighted noises came from the bar where the three gentlemen bartenders were performing some kind of toast with shot glasses in their hands. We were too far away to hear what they were saying, but I knew no less than three of their little performances, plus two old-timey drinki
ng songs they sang to rev up the crowd. The girls pressed up against the bar were thirsty—and not for booze. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a pair of knickers fly in their direction.
I shook my head, laughing. “They’re shameless. How do you stand all those girls coveting Greg?”
But she shrugged. “I don’t know. I should be jealous, shouldn’t I? Maybe it’s because he sneaks off to come kiss me when the guys think he’s going to restock beer. Or that I know his real smile, and that is not it.” She pointed in his direction, where he did in fact wear a smile that only seemed genuine if you didn’t know him.
“Oh my God. How have I never noticed it before?” I asked.
“He’s really good at his job,” she teased. “I don’t know what he’s going to do when the new stores open and he’s supervising all of their bars too.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll manage,” Cam said as her husband, Tyler, approached.
He was a giant at six foot six, and when side by side with his wife—a whopping five foot two with shoes on—they bordered on comical. Tyler also wore a coat, his vest the same red as Cam’s dress and his neck swathed in his cravat. He slid his hand into her waist and kissed the top of her head. She leaned into him and sighed.
“Look at you two,” I said. “Hot night on the town with a babysitter and everything.”
“Kids are hard,” Cam said. “Fortunately, part of my job involves parties where I get to dress him up like my own personal duke.”
“And fortunately, your duke doesn’t mind so much.”
“It’s true.” She smoothed the chest of his coat. “I can’t imagine many of your football buddies would be caught dead in a top hat.”
“Depends on whether or not there was a promise of women. And here, there’s always a promise of women—and the good stock too.” It could have sounded sleazy if he hadn’t said it with such affection, his eyes on hers and hers on his like a couple of schmoops.
Feeling like I was intruding, I glanced at the door again before scanning the room for Wyatt.
“Looking for someone?” Annie asked.
My cheeks warmed. “Actually, yes. A reporter I met here.”
“Thanks to me,” Cam interjected.
“Thanks to Cam,” I echoed. “He said he’d be here, so we didn’t exchange numbers. And now I’m wondering just how big of a mistake that was.”
“I’m a big believer in fate,” Annie said with conviction. “If he doesn’t come, I bet there’s something better in store for you.”
“I wish I had your faith,” I snarked, just before the fine hairs on the back of my bare neck lifted. The sensation was electric, the most intense point in the center of my neck, at my spine.
Absently, my fingertips sought that spot, brushing it as if I expected to find something foreign there. I’d had this feeling before, the latest at that abominable meeting with—
I whirled around, somehow both staggered and unsurprised to find Darcy standing several yards away.
He was as dark as a gathering storm, his eyes charged and jaw hard.
Does he always look furious? I wondered. Was his brow ever smooth? Did his lips ever soften? Was there ever a moment when his body wasn’t immovable stone, stubbornly planted in the current of a river?
Although he really did look furious, I didn’t know that he actually was. There was a spark in his eyes like lightning, a rumbling power in him like thunder. But I couldn’t be entirely sure that it was fury or rage, not when the draft of his storm curled around me, drawing me toward him.
I’d taken two steps before I realized what I was doing, and at that point, it’d have been worse to stop and admit my mistake. So I strode toward him, my chin in the air to cover my incredulity on marking his apparel. Because instead of a suit, he wore tails and breeches and Hessian boots. His vest was a deep gold, his shirtfront and collar white. And around his neck coiled a cravat, the knot just where his Adam’s apple would be if I unwrapped him. The tails billowed, tucked artfully in the top of his buttoned vest.
He’d dressed up. A curious smile brushed my lips.
I stopped a few feet away, and for a moment, we just kept on watching each other as a Leon Bridges song came on.
“Would you care to dance, Miss Bennet?”
Stupified, I answered with a word I wondered if I’d regret, “Yes.”
He offered his hand, and I slipped mine into his palm, astonished to find it warm and smooth when I’d imagined it cold and coarse. He led me to the dance floor and turned me, pulling me into him by the waist and taking my hand again, holding it casually to the side.
I hadn’t had a choice. He’d taken command, relieving me of any responsibility of decision—my body moved with his simply because he willed it. Our bodies were flush, and this close, caged in the steel of his embrace, I felt like a porcelain doll, small and delicate and priceless. He smelled of amber and oak, of earth somehow, which couldn’t be right, not given where he’d come from. I looked up, my heart rate doubling when I found him looking down at me. I could have counted the creases in his lips or the clusters of black lashes framing his dark eyes.
When I found my voice, I broke the silence with levity. “I have to admit, I’m shocked to see you in costume.”
“It’s a suit. I always wear suits. Fabio wigs, however, are a hard limit.”
I laughed despite myself. “I’m also surprised you’re here. After the last party, I didn’t think you’d ever step foot in here without Georgie dragging you.”
“I don’t know that I would have if I didn’t have an apology to make.”
He spun me around in three steps, the movement so sudden and fluid, all I could do was hang on to him.
“An apology, huh? Have you been practicing in your mirror? I know you must stare at it often enough. Might as well be productive while you admire yourself,” I teased, hoping for the first time that he didn’t accidentally take me seriously.
It was only a flicker, but I swore I saw the corner of his lips tick up. “Just a little practicing. I’ve heard I’m terrible at it.”
“It goes without saying.”
“Except you seemed happy to say so.”
I flushed. “I’m sorry. It was rude and out of line.”
One of his brows arched. “Are you stealing my apology?”
An embarrassed chuckle escaped me. “You’re full of surprises. Where did this new, amiable Mr. Darcy come from?”
“He was born of a little humility, thanks to someone who wasn’t afraid to say what they thought.”
“If there is one thing you can count on from me, it’s that.”
He made a noise that was almost a laugh. But when he looked back down at me, his eyes were warm, even though the rest of him remained eternally cold. “I’m sorry, Laney. I’ve behaved badly, not only for suggesting you were somehow beneath me, but for disregarding you in the meeting. It won’t happen again. Will you forgive me?”
The temperature in the room rose by degrees, and I did what I had to do to break whatever was crackling in the air around us.
I cracked a joke. “So you’ll never disregard me in a meeting? Even if I suggest hiring out a herd of elephants for a promotional event?”
He frowned. “We can’t hire endangered animals to—”
“Or maybe one of those party busses with stripper poles inside for a client briefing?”
He opened his mouth, then shut it, that infinitesimal smile back in place when he realized I was kidding. “Even then.”
“Ooh, what power you’ve given me. You should hope I use it for good.”
“I suppose I’ll have to trust you.”
“Yes, I suppose you will.” A pause as he turned me in a circle. “So we’ve called a truce, then?”
He nodded once.
“Does that mean we can have a real discussion about adding the mixers to our strategy?”
The small softness in him tensed. “It’s not a viable rollout strategy. Getting people to come to parties comes after we open
.”
And the heat between us blew away with an icy gust. “You still don’t get it, do you? You dressed up and everything, came here, where all you have to do is look around you to see just how viable it is. And still, you don’t get it.”
“I didn’t dress up because I approve. I didn’t come here because I suddenly decided it was a good idea.”
“Then why did you?”
We’d stopped dancing, though we were poised to. The song came to a close. We separated.
“You know, I’m not quite sure anymore,” he said coolly.
My spine stiffened, my chin lifting. “Then excuse me. I have a date tonight, and I’m sure he’s looking for me.”
His eyes narrowed. “A date? With whom?”
He would be the kind of man to use whom correctly. “Wyatt Wickham. I think you two are acquainted? He seems to have about as charitable an opinion about you as I do.”
I thought I’d seen him cold. I thought I’d understood what it was like to be frozen out. I thought I’d seen him angry.
That was nothing compared to the shift in him at the mention of Wyatt’s name.
“He always did have something to say. The trick is to know how much of it’s true.” His spine was straight as a yardstick. “I hope the rest of your night is more pleasant than this was.”
Darcy turned and walked away like a prowling beast, leaving me standing on the dance floor, alone.
LIAM
Through a curtain of red, I walked away from Laney Bennet, cursing the both of us.
I’d come here tonight for her. I put on this ridiculous costume and came to this ridiculous party as a gesture, a vehicle to make my apology. And if either of us knew when to quit, it would have been a success. But in an unsurprising turn, the whole thing burned to the ground, leaving nothing but floating embers and ash.
For a moment, that fire hadn’t been frustration or disdain—something else had burned between us, something that even upon memory had me thinking about what it’d felt like to hold her in my arms.