She looked up at Will, who was struggling not to say something to her. She had to chuckle. “How hard is it not to ask if I’m okay?” she whispered to him.
“Incredibly,” he bit out.
“Lily,” Elizabeth said calmly.
“Yes?” the petite woman asked, meeting Elizabeth’s eyes but then glancing away.
“This is lovely,” she told her stepmother, indicating the restored walls and fireplace surround. “It really needed some attention, and you’ve done a nice job.”
“Oh,” Lily replied, blushing a little deeper. “Thank you, Elizabeth.” She held out her arm to lead them to the study, but Elizabeth shook her head.
“It’s okay, Lily,” she said, “I know the way.”
“Oh, of course,” Lily replied, her cheeks turning pink again. “I’ll just get some coffee from the kitchen.”
Elizabeth could only muster an abbreviated nod. She grabbed Will’s hand and pulled him out of the room. They walked down an airy hallway, also painted white. All along the hall hung framed black and white prints of Lily and Tom, the boys, and Longbourn. She didn’t stop to examine them, instead marching to the last door on the left, dropping Will’s hand, and entering without knocking. She left the door open, and Will followed her inside.
A man with a full head of silver hair sat behind an immense antique wooden desk. The room was ringed with bookshelves, and yet there was not enough space for the books the room contained. They were piled atop the shelved tomes, stacked in corners, placed in open boxes behind the desk. Despite the clutter, there was plenty of open space, and as Will stepped to the arm chairs that faced the desk, he noted the rough-hewn wooden floors. Original, he thought. Longbourn was charming. He understood why Elizabeth missed it.
“Lizzy,” the man said drily from his position, his legs crossed, a book in his hand. An open laptop sat nearby. “I thought you were coming later.”
Elizabeth shrugged. “You thought wrong, Tom,” she told him. “As Lily just told you.”
Her father nodded and stood languidly. He held out a hand to Will. “Tom Bennet,” he said gruffly.
Will looked at the man’s hand, then up at Tom Bennet’s weathered face. His eyes were a watery green, not the intense shade of his daughter’s. “Will Darcy,” he said, without offering his own.
Elizabeth sat in one of the armchairs, and once she was seated, Will took the other.
“You her lawyer as well as her lover?” drawled Tom Bennet with a smirk.
Will’s eyes narrowed. “I’m whatever she needs me to be, Tom,” he responded, his voice steely.
“Ah, a chameleon,” the older man crowed. “You’re very fortunate, Lizzy.”
Elizabeth removed a book from her bag and tossed it at her father. “Since I see you haven’t got it in you to be civil, let’s get down to it.”
He glanced at the book as it spun to a stop on the desktop. “You want my signature? Touching,” he said. “But since you plan to sue me, I think I’ll pass.”
“You know,” Elizabeth began, “suing you is not my plan. But I’m only too happy to leave negotiations in Mr. Liu’s capable hands.” She stared at her father. “You must realize you’re better off dealing with me.”
“He’s a California lawyer,” Tom snarled. “He can’t take me to court here.”
Will showed no emotion. Tom Bennet clearly did not understand he could be taken to court anywhere the book had been sold.
“Tom,” she said, making a clucking sound with her tongue, “I know you haven’t seen me since I was sixteen, but even you should recall that I don’t speak out of turn.”
Will smiled inwardly.
“Liu only moved to California recently,” Elizabeth informed her father. “He still maintains his licenses in New York and New Jersey.” She leaned back into the cushions and crossed her own legs. “And he says he’d be happy to fly out here for me.” She removed a sheaf of papers from her bag. “Not that it matters. Your publisher is in California, and he’d probably file there. I told him not to, for now. Here.” She placed the packet on his desk.
“What’s this, then?” he asked without touching the papers. “I won’t accept it if you’re serving me.”
Elizabeth’s face pinched. “Are you hard of hearing, Tom?” she asked, shaking her head. “I don’t want to take you to court.”
Tom Bennet raised his eyebrows. “Because you haven’t got a case,” he said, smiling. He picked at a piece of lint on his pants. “It was the publisher’s idea, and it’s nothing but the truth, Lizzy.”
Will’s hands were clenching into fists, but he held back. He had an inkling that Elizabeth had just sprung a trap, and he wanted to see it. He watched her face, saddened to see the disappointment in her eyes.
“It is the truth,” Elizabeth agreed smoothly. “But it’s not the whole truth, is it?”
Tom waved a hand. “Nobody cares about broken families anymore.”
“Did you publisher tell you that, too?” Elizabeth asked. “Mr. Liu knows several national talk-show hosts who might disagree and who were very interested in my story.” She smiled grimly.
Tom was silent.
“I suspect,” she sighed, “that your readers would not be happy to hear that not only was your hatred the military one of the reasons I joined up, but that you abandoned four of your daughters to the care of a mentally unstable mother.”
There was a gasp from the doorway. Lily Bennet stood there, holding a tray with four coffee cups, cream, and sugar. Will stood to take it from her, setting it down on a table between the two easy chairs, and waved her into the chair he’d just vacated.
“Lily,” Tom warned, “we’ll talk about this later. Elizabeth is here to claim money from us.”
Lily turned to Elizabeth. “Is that true?”
“It is,” Elizabeth replied, facing her. “But it’s my money I want. Tom won’t listen to me, so perhaps I can explain my proposal to you.”
Lily nodded. “Lily,” Tom said sharply.
His wife sent him a withering glare. “Did you do that, Tom?”
Tom sat as still as a statue before nodding. “It was what sent me to . . .”
The room waited, but he didn’t finish the sentence. Lily’s eyes softened, but she shook her head at her husband and returned her attention to Elizabeth. Will leaned against the bookshelf closest to the door, watching the entire scene and keeping a close eye on Tom Bennet. Elizabeth hadn’t told him what she had planned, and he didn’t much care, so long as the man remained seated.
“Lily,” Elizabeth began, “Tom has used my name without permission to sell his books. He hasn’t said anything that isn’t true, but what is also true is that I haven’t laid eyes on him since I was sixteen. I haven’t seen him since the day he packed his clothes and left me here to take care of my three younger sisters and manage my bipolar mother.”
“How was I to know you wouldn’t call the Gardiners?” her father asked acridly. “I thought you’d run to Jane at the first opportunity.” He harrumphed. “I thought you had more sense than to stay.”
“My mother threatened to charge my aunt and uncle with abuse and place my sisters in foster care if I told anyone Tom was gone,” Elizabeth continued, without breaking eye contact with Lily. “So I spent nearly a year caring for them and fighting with her. Until she killed herself.”
Lily’s face was impassive, but her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Go on,” she told Elizabeth. “What is your deal?”
“Well, I’m here for two reasons, really,” Elizabeth told her. “First, I want 10% of the gross on this and every book Tom writes from now on to be put aside for the Semper Fi Fund. My lawyer has an accountant on staff who will keep tabs on the money.” She put a hand on Lily’s. “Then you have my permission to take the tax deduction for charity and publicize that the sale of every book generates funds for a great cause.” She patted Lily’s hand. “I bet you’ll sell even more books as a result.”
Will’s heart gave a great leap as h
e witnessed the earnestness in Elizabeth’s posture. She was leaning slightly forward, smiling softly, making positive physical contact with her stepmother.
Lily nodded, her eyes still wide. “And the second?”
Elizabeth reached into her bag and handed Lily a folded page. “This,” she said, “is the money I deposited in my 529 plan that year. Only when I went to remove it so I could pay for college, Tom’s name was still listed as the owner of the account, so I couldn’t ever withdraw it. I kept my own balance sheet, and this is what the total would be with interest. I want Tom to write me a check for those funds.”
Lily took the paper that listed the balance and all of Elizabeth’s deposits. “Elizabeth,” she said, her voice so low that Will had trouble hearing it, “you said Tom left when you were sixteen. Did he send money then?”
Tom Bennet, who’d been listening to the entire conversation and growing angrier with his wife than with his daughter, shouted, “Lily!” He put his hands on the arms of his chair and made to stand. Will pushed himself away from the bookcase.
Lily Bennet turned to face her husband, eyes flashing. “Shut up, Tom,” she said icily. “You and I will discuss this after our guests have left.”
Elizabeth focused on Lily. “No, he didn’t send money, but my mother had the money from the tenants. I worked, so when she wasn’t . . . sometimes, I paid the bills with my money. When she died, he sent a certified letter. He set up trust funds for the three younger girls, but Jane and I were told that we were adults, he’d done all he could for us, and we were on our own.” She met her father’s gaze. “I was used to him being gone by that point, but it hit Jane especially hard.”
Will hadn’t heard this part of her story before.
“And how old were you then?” Lily asked quietly.
“Seventeen.” Elizabeth appeared puzzled, but Will thought he knew where the line of questioning was headed. He gave a little internal cheer for Lily Bennet, who he thought deserved better than the man she’d married.
“You were eighteen,” Tom protested.
She shook her head, a pained expression flashing across her face. “I think I know how old I was, Tom.”
Lily continued as though Tom had not interrupted. “And how many months was that before you turned eighteen?”
“Well,” Elizabeth said uncertainly, “she died at the end of April, and my birthday is at the end of November.”
“Seven months?” Lily asked gently.
Elizabeth nodded curtly. “I was already in the Marines by then.”
“Tom,” Lily said, without turning to face her husband.
“Oh, I’m allowed to speak now, am I?” Tom grumbled.
“I think you need to tell Elizabeth everything. She’s earned it.” Lily stood. “In the meantime, I will go to the bank.” She put a small hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder. “I should say, in Tom’s defense, that I believe he had forgotten this account even existed. He’s never mentioned it to me, and we started new accounts when the boys were born.” She strode to the door before turning. “Sign the papers, Tom. You won’t get a more generous offer.”
Tom glanced away, and Elizabeth stood.
Will stepped up to her. “I’ll stay if you want me,” he whispered. She held his gaze for a long moment before standing on her toes and kissing him. She shook her head.
He planted a kiss on her forehead and followed Lily Bennet out of the room.
Chapter Eleven
Elizabeth ran a finger along the spines of a series of books, sighed, and turned her face towards where her father still sat, long fingers steepled, hands resting on crossed knees. She waited a long time for him to speak. Finally, she began.
“I’m not sure I want to hear this,” she said to the window. “There’s really not much you can say.”
“Well, kid,” Tom Bennet responded, in the same sardonic tone he’d used from the beginning of their meeting, “I’m not sure I want to tell this story again. It’s a crappy story and I don’t come out well in it. So we’re even.”
Elizabeth had a brief vision of removing a book from the shelf and flinging it at his head. Waste of a good book, she told herself. “I’m hardly a kid anymore, Tom,” she replied, still facing away from him. “I’ve seen and done things even you can’t dream up.”
He didn’t respond to that. “I loved your mother, you know,” he said, the tone of his voice still rough, but less condescending. “She was beautiful and spirited and she loved me, too. Jane was her very image.”
“You’ve said,” Elizabeth replied flatly. He had told this story many times in the last few years before he’d left them.
“She was twenty-three when we married,” he continued. “We had a few wonderful years, we had Jane, then you, and then Fanny got sick and it took an eternity for the doctors to figure out what was wrong. For the longest time, I thought there was something that would bring her back to me.” He closed his eyes. “Instead, I watched her drifting further and further away.”
Elizabeth pursed her lips, impatient. “Why did you leave?” she asked bluntly. “That’s something I’d like to know.”
“She told me to,” Tom said, and his voice cracked slightly before he regained control. “She told me to get out, that she’d never loved me, that the younger three girls weren’t mine at all.” He opened his eyes. “After all those years of taking care of everything, killing my career so I could be home, hardly sleeping, carrying everything on my shoulders.” Softly, he said, “I broke. I grabbed my clothes and left.”
“And never looked back,” Elizabeth finished for him.
“Not for a long time,” he admitted, his expression weary. “And I do, Elizabeth, I do apologize for that. I didn’t realize I was just transferring the load to you. That wasn’t right.”
“You apologize for that,” Elizabeth repeated dully, then snapped, “bully for you.”
“I always knew Mary wasn’t mine,” he said without acknowledging the jibe, staring at the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but at her. “She looked too much like the visiting scholar in Russian politics who was at the university the year before she was born.”
Elizabeth took that in. She had to admit, she’d wondered herself. She was fairly sure Mary had as well. “Kit and Lydia?”
“They look so much like the Gardiner side of the family, it was hard to say, but we were both using birth control by then.” He frowned and shrugged. “At least I was. And if my calculations are accurate . . . ” He tapped the tips of his fingers together and let the sentence drop. “They aren’t mine, Elizabeth. Fanny told me she’d turn them over to foster care before she’d let me have them.”
The silence sat thick and heavy between them for some minutes.
“Well,” said Elizabeth with a brusque nod, “I have to offer apologies to Aunt Maddy before I say this. The story you are telling me is complete and total bullshit.”
“You were so young, Lizzy,” Tom began, but Elizabeth cut him off.
“You thought I was eighteen, apparently,” she said in a cold, hard voice. “And you don’t get to call me Lizzy.” She slowly turned to face him dead-on. “I didn’t blame you for leaving, Tom. I’ll give you that much. You stuck it out for a long time.” She paced the length of the room before turning on her heel to say, quietly, “But I will always blame you for leaving us behind.”
“I didn’t have a legal leg to stand on, Elizabeth,” he replied. “Longbourn was mine, it stays in the family, you know the pre-nup. I could have forced your mother to leave, but then she’d take you all, and where would she go? If I took you, what would happen to the other girls? Fanny never liked your Aunt Maddy. She wouldn’t have gone there.” He shook his head, and said, directly, “I was depressed, I was drinking, I was worn down. I wasn’t thinking straight. And I broke.”
Elizabeth remembered that too, vaguely. Getting home from practice and seeing an empty shot glass by the sink and empty bottles in the trash. She felt a flash of regret. She’d always blamed her mother, but whatever he
r sins, she had been ill. Elizabeth was far more irritated with Tom and his calm narrative, as though he’d told the story so many times that the rough edges had been buffed out.
“Nope. I’m still calling bullshit, Tom,” she repeated, shaking her head. “You were on the birth certificates. For their entire lives, you were their dad. You’d have had custody.” She rubbed her forehead. “It was just too much work for you, to fight for us.”
Tom Bennet sat very still. His eyebrows pinched together. “Probably,” he said honestly. “I’m a weak man, Elizabeth, I have always been, but I’m trying to be better. I have a life again, when for so long I had nothing.”
Elizabeth felt the heat flushing her face, radiating out of her body, the anger she’d thought she’d put aside blinding her. She grasped the sides of the bookshelf with both hands and bowed her head to rest on the wooden surface. “You had us,” she said finally. “But you threw us away.”
Back at his desk, Tom Bennet was still talking. “I drove for three days and then checked myself into a hospital with what the doctor called a major depressive episode. Rehab got me started with AA. That’s where I met Lily. She was recovering, too.”
The words bounced around inside Elizabeth’s head. “Didn’t get too far on those twelve steps, did you, Tom?” she asked, still speaking to the wall. “Aren’t you supposed to apologize for the things you’ve done?” She frowned. “You know, before eight years pass and your wife tells you to?” She turned to face him.
Tom frowned. “I thought it might hurt the younger girls if I told them why I left. I set up the trust funds for your uncle and aunt to use.”
“But nothing for Jane or me?” Both Tom and Elizabeth knew it wasn’t really a question.
“I’ve said I wasn’t thinking very clearly at the time, Elizabeth,” Tom responded. “I thought a clean cut would be kinder for everyone.” He paused. “I didn’t realize you wouldn’t have your college money. Is that why you joined the Marines?”
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