Gilded Lily

by Hart, Staci

  The perfect life was the one I had.

  Georgie barked again, and I met Kash’s gaze. He’d asked me if I was ready. And I gave him the answer I’d always give.

  “Yes.”

  His big hand closed over the doorknob to our apartment and turned, Georgie dashing in the second there was enough space to wiggle through. Three days ago, we’d headed to the Plaza with Georgie as the finishing touches were put on our home. It’d been Kash’s idea to splurge in celebration of our renovation completion and our successes, citing the anticipation would make the reveal that much sweeter.

  And as usual, he wasn’t wrong.

  The apartment was lit by candles, golden and flickering in the dark. Someone—Tess, I was certain—had staged everything. The last of our furniture had been delivered, the art finally hung, every detail, every corner pristine and perfect.

  But I barely saw any of it. Because in the bay window stood an archway of flowers.

  White and cream, layers on layers of soft petals. Feathery grasses, roses, orchids and lilies and a wealth of perfumed florals, all in a spotless shade of snow, lit from below by candles all over the floor.

  A brief concern regarding fire hazards blitzed through my thoughts, but when I looked at Kash, my worry fell away. Nothing bad could happen when he smiled like that.

  He took my hand and guided me toward the arch.

  “What is all this?” I asked, eyes above me as we stepped beneath the curve.

  “This,” he started, drawing my gaze, “is forever.”

  Kash glanced above us, his smile fond as he looked over the flowers he’d likely grown, knowing each by name.

  “Arches and doorways have their own magic, their own mystery. Moving through them, standing beneath them, we are in the in-between, the twilight, the passage. There’s an unspoken danger, the threat of being lost or forgotten. It’s why a husband carries his bride over the threshold—so he can protect her from any harm, any pain. It’s all I want—to shelter you from harm, to give you the happiness you’ve given me. I want to step into that life with you. Because together, we can survive anything. I promise to carry you through life, to comfort and protect you. To keep you safe. You asked me once what my passion was, and I’ve finally found it. It’s you.” He lowered to one knee, stopping my heart. “Will you marry me, Lila?”

  He opened a small velvet box, his face alight with hope and a tremor of fear. Candlelight caught the diamond, and it winked and twinkled, beckoning me.

  But that ring wasn’t the offering. The offering was his heart.

  Breathlessly, I nodded. “Yes,” I whispered, that word that belonged to him.

  With shaking hands, he slid that ring on the finger tied to my heart, and when he stood, it was to pull me into his arms and kiss me like I was his, truly and forever.

  But I already had been. I’d been waiting for him my whole life, it seemed, as if every step and every choice had brought me closer to him. To this moment. To all the moments ahead of us.

  Because of all the dreams and wishes I had, he was the greatest of all.

  Mum’s The Word

  Coming Spring 2020

  MARCUS

  A peal of thunder split the sky open.

  Rain fell in a sheet of fat drops, the deluge too sudden for a single person on Fifth Avenue to even reach for their umbrella, never mind open one. With a swear, I held my attache over my head in a useless attempt to protect my suit from the torrent as the foot traffic scattered like ants after the mound had been kicked in a scrambling, tumbling blitzkrieg for cover.

  But I trucked on, winding my way through the erratic crowd, which required all of my attention to navigate. My gaze scanned the sidewalk ahead of me, calculating the fastest path to the subway station with the trajectory of the flow of people laid out before me like a map. The lady with the stroller running obliquely for a coffee shop up ahead. A businessman still on his phone, squinting through the rain as he beelined for a newspaper stand. A pack of kids playing hooky, trotting and laughing and horsing around.

  I was so busy looking in front of me, I didn’t have a chance to dodge the small body before we collided.

  We spun from the impact, a whirl of arms and hands. My briefcase hit the ground—abandoned so I could grab her—and her newspaper, which she’d been using for an umbrella, flew into the air and opened like a soggy bird with a broken wing before spiraling to the sidewalk.

  They say it’s adrenaline that speeds up your brain in moments like these, a rapid firing of neurons to catalog every detail looking for danger. But I was too stupid to be afraid.

  She was soft and small, the sound of her surprise striking some chord of recognition in me. I felt every flex and release of her arms beneath my palms, felt the curves of her body against mine, felt the shift of her legs in perfect time with mine, like we were caught in the tango and not in a matter of physics and force. But it was the scent of her that slipped over me like that incessant rain—delicate, velvety gardenia so perfectly feminine, I found myself momentarily lost in the luxury of it.

  I stopped us with a well-placed bracing of my foot that once again mimicked the tango, her body flush with mine and my hands—now somehow around her waist—pressing her against me, holding her still.

  But when she looked up, a thunderbolt split my ribs open.

  It wasn’t just the bottomless brown of her eyes or the button of her nose, dashed with almost imperceptible freckles. It wasn’t the soft bow of her lips, full and pink and parted in surprise. It wasn’t the shape of her small face, the line of her chin, the curve of her cheek that I instantly knew would fit exactly in my palm. It wasn’t her fair hair, made dark by the rain, curling and clinging to the gentle curve of her jaw.

  It was all of her. Every cell, every molecule, the whole of her so utterly right. Had we been in a room full of people or packed in a subway car, I had no doubt I would have seen her just as I did now.

  With all of me.

  I don’t know how many breaths past that we stood motionless in the rain before she smiled, and lightning struck again.

  Figuratively and literally.

  She jolted in my arms, face turning up to the sky in surprise. Instinctively, I held her closer.

  “Are you all right?” I asked over the rumbling rain, leaning back to inspect her for injury.

  “Yes, I-I think so. Just very wet and embarrassed. Did I hurt you? Oh! Your briefcase!”

  I glanced in the direction of her gaze to see my attache—which was Italian and leather and more expensive than I’d ever admit—as someone tripped over it, leaving a filthy boot print on its pristine, if not wet, surface.

  With an infinite sense of loss as we separated, I righted us and let her go. “It’s not important. Come on, let me get you out of the rain.”

  She stood there uncertainly as I swept up my briefcase and wiped it off as best I could with my palm. But I didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, I snagged her hand and towed her toward the coffee shop up ahead.

  We trotted our way there, me doing my best to arch over her with my briefcase, which wasn’t hard. The Bennets were a large breed where it’s men were concerned, and I towered over her by a foot at least, a useful trait in many instances, this one being mercifully convenient.

  I wanted to be as close to her as I could get and for as long as I could.

  It was strange and foreign, an unlikely meeting with an improbable outcome. The rarity of such things happening to me was undefinable. My brothers, maybe. But I found most people tedious, and with my mother parading me around her garden club, its members salivating at the thought of yoking their single daughters to me, I generally mistrusted women’s intentions.

  A chance meeting in Manhattan was its own marvel. Never mind with someone who affected me so elementally.

  And there was only one path I could take, only one way to proceed.

  We ducked into the crowded coffee shop, panting and shaking off the rain.

  She laughed, running a hand over
her hair self-consciously. “I must look like a cat crawled out of the East River.”

  “Not at all,” I answered a little too quietly, covering it with a smile. “I’ve never met a human cannon before. I think you might have dislocated one of my ribs.” I patted said ribs, which felt nothing more than the ghost of her body against me.

  Her face softened. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine, just wet.”

  A shiver wracked her, and my smile slid into a frown.

  “Let’s get coffee. Warm you up.”

  Her brow furrowed, and she checked her watch. “I’m going to be late for a meeting.”

  “You and me both. But running in soaked and freezing won’t help anyone. So come on, what do you say? Let me get you a cup of coffee as an apology.”

  “For what?”

  “For not seeing you coming.”

  Again she laughed, and again I felt that elemental familiarity. “No one ever does.”

  “No, I don’t suspect they do.”

  Her cheeks flushed, lips still smiling as we stepped into line. “It’s just that I’m so short,” she clarified without changing my mind. “I really am so sorry. Your poor briefcase. Please let me know if I can pay for any damages.”

  “This old thing?” I held it out to inspect it. “I was due for a new one anyway.”

  “It’s just that I was so silly to run without looking. I’m afraid the years I’ve been gone erased what I thought was concrete knowledge of Manhattan and how to navigate it, especially in the rain during rush hour.”

  “Where were you?” I asked as we shuffled forward a step.

  “England. Yorkshire, with my aunt. My mother sent me with the intent to teach me some sort of lesson, but luckily for me, my aunt doesn’t like to listen to her any more than I do. Mostly, I spent years in countryside picking flowers,” she said on a laugh that died too quickly. “But I knew I’d have to come back.”

  “I for one am glad you came back. Otherwise, who would I play human pinball with in the rain?”

  “I’m sure you have no trouble finding girls to bang balls with.”

  A laugh shot out of me, and her cheeks flushed.

  “I didn’t mean…” she sighed. “Actually I did, but I don’t know why I said it out loud. God, why am I so nervous? I think I’ve talked to more sheep than people in the last couple of years.”

  “I’ve heard terrible things about sheep. Deplorable table manners.”

  “And filthy minds.” She paused, watching me for a moment. “I feel as if I know you. Is that strange?”

  My heart lurched. “Not at all.”

  An impatient voice from in front of us snapped, “Next, please.”

  We stepped up to the counter and ordered our coffees, receiving them too quickly to speak again. But when we were out of the way and face to face once more, the exit and our parting looming, we watched each other, searching for some reason, some logic.

  “What’s your name?” I asked softly.

  “Maisie,” she answered. “Are you sure we’ve never met before?”

  “There’s no way I’d forget meeting you.” I paused, struck with sudden boldness. “Tell me we’ll see each other again, Maisie.”

  She drew a shallow breath, and a blush smudged her cheeks. “Oh, I…”

  My hope sank. “You have a boyfriend. Of course you do.”

  “No. No, it’s not that. I want to say yes, but—”

  “Then say yes.”

  I waited, watched her, holding my breath through a handful of heartbeats as indecision flickered across her face. But like dawn on the horizon, she smiled.

  “All right. Do you have a pen in that soggy briefcase?”

  “Better yet, I have one right here.” I slipped a hand into my suit coat to retrieve the pen and slips of paper I always kept there.

  Our fingers brushed when she took it, her cheeks flushing feverishly as she jotted down her name and phone number, the letters and numbers half connected, soft and slanting.

  I took the paper, sliding it into my pocket with the reverence I’d have given a treasure map. “Can I call you a cab?”

  She glanced outside to the drizzling rain. “I think you’ve done enough. You stopped me from skinning my knee or spraining my ankle, and you bought me a coffee. Maybe I should call you one instead.”

  “I’ll take the subway, thanks. Next time you need a coffee, let me know.”

  “I think I just might,” she said over her shoulder as she walked to the door. But before we reached it, she stopped so suddenly, I almost tripped over her again. “Wait—you haven’t told me your name.”

  My smile tilted as I reached around her to open the door. “Marcus.”

  Her brows quirked, face cocked like a bird for the briefest of moments before she seemed to shake whatever thought she’d had away. “Well, I hope you don’t wait too long to call, considering I get hungry every night around seven.”

  “Are you asking me out, Maisie?” I said with an arch smile, one she answered with the prettiest flush of her cheeks.

  “Maybe I am, Marcus.”

  We stepped out, facing each other under the awning. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want her to go. Because I had the feeling that the second we parted ways, whatever this was would disappear with nothing left to show for but fairy dust.

  “Is tonight too soon?” I asked, eager to dispel the thought, to prove the notion was crazy, and as soon as possible.

  “Not at all. Knowing a kind face is at the end of this day might just get me through it.”

  “I’ll text you when I’m free and we can firm it up,” I said with a smile, stepping to the curb to hail a cab. When the door was open and she’d slid inside, I held her there for a brief moment, trying to shake the feeling that I shouldn’t let her go.

  “It was nice running into you, Marcus.”

  “Let’s do it again.”

  “Tonight.”

  “Tonight,” I said, that immovable smile son my lips. I didn’t think I’d smiled so much in years.

  And I shut the cab door and waited in the rain until she was gone.

  I didn’t feel the rain, didn’t notice my soggy jacket or my socks slipping in my oxfords. I didn’t feel the spring chill or mind my pruny hands in my pocket. Didn’t think twice about my briefcase or the meeting I was about to walk into, which would be brutal and crucial and something I should have been preparing for.

  But the only thing on my mind was Maisie.

  * * *

  A half hour later, I was mostly dry and trotting out of the station. Every train stop had brought me closer to today’s problems in increments, leaving Maisie and our encounter sadly behind me.

  Tonight. You’ll see her tonight.

  I’d have already texted her if I’d had service. Now that I was off the train, I had to get to the Logan building as quickly as possible. There wasn’t even time to answer but one of our attorney’s texts to let him know I was close. Ben was an old friend, and though I was grateful for his help, I wished I hadn’t had to call on it.

  I pushed into the building, the sweeping foyer bustling and echoing with noise and movement as people came in and out. Ben shot off the bench like it’d caught fire when he saw me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as our paths merged on our track to the elevators. “I was held up by the rain.”

  “Well, Bower Bouquets is already upstairs, and they’re not happy to have been kept waiting.”

  “Like I give a goddamn what Evelyn Bower wants,” I snarled.

  The story was a long and winding one, and it began and ended with my mother. Mrs. Bennet was known for many things, but being a savvy businesswoman wasn’t one of them. When our family’s flower shop fell into decline, she’d taken on a contract with Bower Bouquets selling wholesale flowers from our greenhouse.

  When I’d learned just how bad things were, I’d bought the flower shop and taken on the contracts. All of my siblings had come home to
help turn things around, me at the financial helm.

  Except my mother kept the contract with Bower from me. And when we breeched it, I had no idea.

  When we were served with a lawsuit, we were all unprepared.

  We’d been engaged in silent warfare with Bower for generations, but where Longbourne’s business waned, Bower flourished. Evelyn loved to make a fool of my mother, and this contract was just a new and cruel way for her to do it.

  That, and potentially put us out of business for good.

  Ben and I didn’t speak as we rode the packed elevator to the eighty-fourth floor, and by the time the doors opened, I was prepared for battle. Bower might have pulled on over on my mother, but those days were done.

  I’d be damned if she made a fool of me.

  We marched into the lawyer’s office, past the receptionist and into the board room where we’d been directed. Hellfire was on my heels and thunder at my back, though I knew I looked calm and unaffected. Let her think I was unmoved. Let her think me passionless. Because my control and restraint would be her undoing.

  The handle was cool in my hand, the battle before me plain and clear, my focus singular.

  Until I opened that door.

  Because sitting next to a snidely smiling Evelyn Bower was Maisie.

  My thoughts snapped and clicked like pins in a lock as Maisie and I stared dumbfounded across the room. I heard the words from Evelyn’s mouth as if from some great distance, one sticking, then repeating on a loop as it dawned on me who exactly she was.

  Maisie the human pinball. Maisie the sheep whisperer. Maisie the thunderbolt.

  My Maisie was Margaret Bower.

  The daughter of my enemy.

  * * *

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  Thank you

  Dear Village,

  Through nineteen books, you have cheered me through the finish line, held back my hair when I was sick from it all, and held me when everything felt like too much. Each and every one of you is vital to me, and I hope you know that I could never do this without you. That’s right, you. I love you. Thank you will never, ever be enough.