Love means never having to say you're sorry

I never thought this would happen to me. I know. You see beautiful, young, willowy girls who have become the next top model saying that, and you just want to throw soft fruit at them. Or a pineapple. Because of course they thought it would happen to them. They only had to look in the mirror. The same for stunning actresses with a bank account the size of Fort Knox. 'I never dreamed it would happen to me,' they say. 'I'm just an ordinary girl and who would have ever thought...?' Then, you arm yourself with a handful of popcorn/coconut/metal book end, and hurl it at your tv. You really never thought it was possible did you? Through your engagement to George Clooney, your fling with Orlando Bloom, your "friendship" with Eric Bana, you never once visualised yourself possibly married? Or happy? Of course, the other people who say that are they ones who have discovered that condoms don't work one hundred percent of the time. Or the people whose relations die hideously in some way. So really, 'never thinking this would happen to me,' appears to not work either way. Don't get me wrong. I'm no exaggerator. And if I am, it's not to the level of thinking that this is a great tragedy. But really? Will Darcy telling me he loves me? How could I possibly have even imagined that was round the corner?

"Uh, what?" is just about the first thing I croak out once his lips leave mine.

He leans his forehead against mine, hot breath on my face, a hand in my hair, the other at my waist. "I think I love you," he says slowly, and pulls back. His face is flushed, his eyes are greener than usual, less stormy.

It's like all the little cogs are clicking into place. "You what?" I say, and step back. "You love me?"

He lowers his hands, and stands a little awkward. "Look, I know it's sudden, and I know that it's not like we've been dating or anything..."

I laugh. Really, what else is there to do?

"...but it's just how I feel."

"And what do you expect me to do about it?"

He blinks heavily. "I...don't know," he says, carefully. "I just wanted to be honest."

"Honest?" I ask. "Honest?"

He nods, stride and swagger dropping by the pound, every second that he looks at me. He frowns a little. "There's no need to be angry about it," he says. "It's not like it's a bad thing."

"Oh no, it's just about the best news I heard all day," I say and can almost feel the sarcasm whip round and slap him in the face. He winces.

"It's not like this was easy for me," he says, frowning more. "It took a lot for me to do this."

"I'm sure."

He gives me a look that dances between anger and fear. "Would you give me something here?" he snaps.

"What, an undying profession of my love? Sorry, but I need to be honest," I reply.

He winces again. "I am being honest. I couldn't let this go on and have you not know about it."

"Yes, because you never do that Will. You never do something and then hide it from everyone."

He looks at me dangerously. The storm has returned to his eyes. It is now some kind of typhoon. "Are you talking about George Wickham?"

I had totally forgotten about that. In comparison, I couldn't care less about George right now, but now, I nod. "Partly," I say. "But mainly Jane."

He raises his eyebrows. "What I did, I did for your sister as much as for Charles."

"As much as for you?" I ask. "Hell, Will, you'd just about trample anyone to get what you want, right? I mean, just as long as you're honest, who cares?"

"I have been honest about that. I've never lied to you."

I groan, exasperated. "Yeah, it's not hard to not lie if you never talk." I sigh, and run my hands through my hair. "I mean, how can you possibly even think that you…you love me, if you never, ever talk to me? You don't know a single thing about me other than what you've decided."

"What I've decided?" he repeats.

I'm on a roll. "Well I certainly know nothing about you."

He snarls. Actually snarls. "I'm sure you already know enough to make judgements on my character. What did you say to Richard once I was out of earshot?"

"Seriously?" I say. I can't believe him. I can't believe this whole freaking conversation. "You hide behind your own self righteous honesty, and yet don't trust anyone? How screwed up are you?"

"Not so screwed up that I don't realise what a stupid idea this was."

"Oh, so at least you've got that."

There is a lull. We step back, and breathe. Whether we are done, or potentially preparing for the second of fifty-two rounds, is undecided.

He breathes heavily, and runs a hand over his hair. "Richard made it sound so easy," he mutters. I'm not sure if it is for me, but right now, propriety and actual manners are taking something of a back seat.

"Did he?" I say, turning away.

"Yeah." Will almost laughs. He shakes his head slowly. "You know, I said it wouldn't work. I said we were cut from different cloth…"

"What, you're silk and I'm a potato sack?" I spit at him.

"What? No!" He straightens up from where he has been leaning, head in hands, against the back of the chair.

"Sure," I say, and sit down again. I'm done with this.

"I didn't say that," he says. "I certainly didn't mean it."

I look up at him. "But you thought it."

He looks back at me, blankly, breathing heavily.

"You thought how could you possibly be with a woman so far beneath you. That you're from a prestigious family, that you have travelled all over, and that I'm some home-spun redneck who had barely ever left Tennessee until the nice men rescued me. You thought what a backward life I lead. You thought that my family was so different from yours that…"

"I HAVE NO FAMILY," he bellows. He closes his eyes, and breathes, holding onto the back of the chair with white knuckles. "I'm sorry if I have made you think that," he begins shakily, "and I think anyone would admit, we are totally different." He swallows. "And I'll be honest," he says with a gracious lack of emphasis, "your family is no picnic, your background is not what I know, and certain members of my family would not approve."

"Wow," I say, grim. "Do carry on. You're making me feel so special."

He stares at me for a second. "That's your problem," he says slowly. "That I didn't flatter you. That I wasn't thrilled about hiring someone with very little experience. That I didn't sweet talk you."

"You think I wanted flattery?"

He ignores the question. "I don't think that you're angry that I said I loved you," he says. "You're angry because I didn't say it in the right way."

"Damn straight that's why I'm angry," I say. "You somehow have professed your love in a way to make me think that were you the last man on earth, I still wouldn't want to spent a single minute more with you."

He takes a step back, and pauses. "Well," he says. "Then I shan't waste any more of your time. I think we've both said quite enough."

I don't say anything.

"I…" He begins to say something as he now stands in the door, before he shakes his head, and continues walking out.

"I'll email the Senator my resignation tonight," I say.

He stops in the doorway, his back to me, and says, "fine," hollowly, before continuing out the door. It slowly closes behind him, and I turn and stare blindly at the fire for a few minutes, before picking up my laptop and finishing my resignation. As calmly as I know, I email it, close the laptop again, and then, leaving my cold cup of tea and crumbs where they were, I return to my room, climb into my bed, and finally let myself cry.

"Janey? Hey, it's Lizzie. Well, I'm coming home. It's a long story, and right now, I really don't feel like talking about it. Anyway, I got a lift from Lady Catherine's house down to Albany with a really nice couple, but because it's Christmas the flights were all crazy busy, and really expensive, but I knew that before. Anyway, I'm catching the next bus out of here. It's leaving in half an hour, and so I'll be home in Nashville at about eight tomorrow evening. If you could come and pick me up, I'd be super grateful. I guess it'll be good to have that time to calm down and regroup, or something. So, I can't wait to see you. I love you. Uh…bye."

Jane snaps her cell closed having listened to the message five times. "She sounds miserable."

Mary looks up. "Yeah. You know what happened?"

"No." Jane shakes her head. "I doubt she'll say much."

"Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?"

Jane bites her lip. "Not till tomorrow," she says. "Mom'll just want to know everything that happened."

"What did happen?"

"I told you, I don't know."

Mary puts her head on one side. "I meant with you."

"Oh." Jane sits still for a second. "It's all a bit…I don't know. I don't really want to…" She sighs.

"OK," says Mary, and gets up from where she was sitting in front of the fire.

Kit, sitting in the corner, glances up. "It'll be nice having you both home for Christmas," she says, and smiles slightly.

"Yeah," says Jane quietly. "It will." And then she gets up to go and help with dinner.

Lizzie turns her face away from the window where she was watching the sun rise over Pittsburgh, glittering frostily. She opens her laptop again. She really should reply to a few of the emails. There's one from Charles Bingley, bewildered, appealing for her to come back. There's no way to reply, not without dragging Will down into it, and as much as right now she would like to push him into the Grand Canyon, she just doesn't want to get into it. She'll have to with Jane. One person is enough. There's also still George's email, looming. He wants to meet up. He broke up with freaking Mary King, just for her. But no pressure Lizzie, no pressure. She sits, glowering at her inbox. Playing chicken with her, two emails appear, advertising enhancing drugs. She considers emailing them back, just to see what will happen. Then she thinks better of it. She turns back to her laptop just as her cell buzzes with a new message:

Liz. I'll be there. On my own. No questions asked. Love you. J xxx

Sudden, unexpected tears spring into her eyes. "This is ridiculous," she mutters, and brushes them away. Three times, in less than three days? "How hormonal can one girl be?" she mutters again, and pushes messy hair out of her face. She sighs, and turns back to her old favourite college past time of reading about celebrity babies. There is something comforting about people who were once held up as bad examples to young children finally settling down, and doing it with such apparent ease and happiness. There is something even more, she muses, in the way that they then turn around ten years later, and say how hard it is, and how they find battling animated monsters, saving the world and carrying off a PVC catsuit all in one day much easier than caring for their own child. There is also a little something about stick thin, stunning women, giving birth to chunky kids with monobrows. Some kind of poetic justice. She scrolls through the pages, and then moves on to celebrities and their bad fashion choices. It calms her, this unimportant blanket of words and pictures, pressing out everything else which is fighting for her attention. However, after an hour of gleaning what she can from the internet's most vacuous of sources, her hotmail inbox dinks in the corner, and she reluctantly finds a new email.

Fr: williamdarcy at charlesbingley

To: ebethbnet

Subject: Please don't delete this without reading it first.

Well, if you've got this far it'll be a complete miracle. I'm not sure whether I would if the situation were reversed, so thank you. It isn't my intention to repeat what I said last night. While it certainly didn't come out the way I intended, I think it still would have been distasteful to you even if I had got it out the way I had planned. It maybe had not occurred to me that we not only had a shaky relationship: perhaps it was non existent. Anyway, that is not the reason I am writing.

You said that I don't trust anyone. You said that I'm only honest because I don't tell anyone anything. Maybe this is why everything has gone wrong. I don't know. All I can do is maybe try to put that right, and the only way I know how is to tell you what happened, both with your sister, and George Wickham.

As far as Jane is concerned, I watched her growing closer to Charles, and I was initially pleased for him. She seemed nice, a perfect political partner, and she was certainly an asset in the campaign. However, as it went on, it became clear that Charles hadn't seen any distinction between Jane as a campaign staffer, and as his potential wife. I was immensely concerned that Jane's political inexperience was going to lead him into making a bad decision. No doubt you'll see this as my being controlling, not wanting anyone else to weigh in with ideas. It isn't true at all. But he was treating her opinions with too much weight. He was heading for a massive mistake, and if that had happened, had he eventually lost because of a decision he made based on Jane's opinions, it would be very hard for them to recover from that. So, I told her this. I told her that I was concerned that Charles relied too heavily on her, that maybe she could step back for a while. She was incredibly good about it. She understood. She said that she had feelings for Charles, but she saw my point entirely, and she would go back to working with her original department. It was not a demotion. It was not that I did not value her political opinion. But I did want to give them both a chance to breathe. I did not stand in their way as a couple however. I just took Jane as a staffer out of the equation of staffer vs wife. They were free to still see each other. What I had not predicted was that Charles had seen the most of Jane while working. Once separated, they barely saw each other. I don't know exactly what happened, but I suspect that your sister felt that Charles clearly was not interested in her. While I, and I know you also, do not believe that, it is certainly true that beyond an initial question of what happened to Jane, and having read her resignation, Charles has not mentioned her since. Whether this is indifference or something else, I don't know. I was surprised at how fast she gave up on him. Maybe she was more indifferent than I had first thought. But that is all I had to do with them. I interfered, but not to split them up. I cannot apologise for it, as I believe it was the right thing to do.

As for George, I do not know what he has told you. No doubt it is some sob story about how unnaturally cruel I was to him. Let me put you straight.

I first met George when my family moved to New Hampshire. I was about seven at the time. His father had left a few years before, and my father felt immensely sorry for him. His mother worked hard to be able to afford what little she could for her son, and I think my father admired that. Therefore, as he was in a position where he could offer, he paid for George's education, and for his mother to go to night school and work less. He hoped that she could be in a better situation to provide for her son. Jean Wickham was certainly grateful, and George was given a big break. At least while we were young, George rewarded my father's generosity with hard work and good grades. My father was so pleased that he offered to pay for any college tuition that George wanted. Our lives were all looking up. My parents after years of disappointments finally managed to have another child, my sister, Georgiana. George always used to joke that they had named her after him.

When Georgiana was three our mother died suddenly. My father was devastated. He was completely lost without her. Soon afterwards, he moved us all down to Washington DC. I was to attend Johns Hopkins that fall, and he couldn't bear for us to be split up. It was the beginning of a long and slow decline for my father. Many things began to slip his notice, and I looked after a lot of his paper work and finances at weekends when I was home. It was due to this that I was able to see what George was really doing. He had gone to Dartmouth to study English and said he wanted to go on and study law. I hoped he meant it. I'm afraid the more I saw of his expenditures, the less I believed it. He was spending money like water and on things which my father certainly would not have approved. I tried to bring it to my father's attention a few times, but he didn't really care. George scraped his degree and was only admitted into law school by some swift talking and the promise of my father's money. A year in, my father died suddenly. When the will was read, it became clear that my father had put together a trust fund which was funding George's education. Realising this, George came to me and asked that since he was not 'enjoying' law, he could have the money to start out as a journalist. He had become someone that I barely recognised, and I am sorry to say that once George had his money, I believed, and I hoped, that I would never see him again. This however was not the case.

Two years ago, my sister moved to New York for the summer. Apart from Rich and Jules, and Catherine and Harriet, she's the only family I have, and we rely entirely on each other. Since my father moved with her back to Wales when she was about five, she has lived there ever since. The only time I knew that she had met George after her fifth birthday was when George came to get his money, when she was about ten. However, she spent her summer in New York, and remembering George vaguely, looked him up. She told me about this. She thought it would be fun to catch up. I was a little wary, knowing how George had been, but I was not about to judge him unfairly. She told me all about it afterwards, about how great he had been, all the stories they had shared. I thought that maybe he had changed. A few weeks later, her conversation was devoid of George. I believed that their one meeting together was their only one. I dropped in on her when I could, but I was incredibly busy in DC. She was rarely in, and when she was, she was eager to talk about what I was doing. I look back now, and wish that I hadn't been such an idiot.

About a month later, I got home from work late, to find her sitting on my front steps, waiting for me. She looked worried, and asked to come in. She said that she had wanted to tell me, but George had said to keep it a secret, and while she had for a while, she knew how highly I rated honesty, how she was essentially the only person in the world that I can trust, and she couldn't bear for that to be broken. It turns out, all that time, she had been with George. They had been a couple, all but living together, and now he thought they should run away to Vegas and get married. Part of her wanted to. I think she truly loved him. But she knew she had to tell me. I didn't know what to do or what to say. I didn't want to lose her, but I didn't want her to marry George that way, and I said that. We stayed up all night talking, and eventually I agreed to see George again, and maybe attend their wedding. She phoned George and told him. He was furious that she had told me, and said that she clearly didn't trust him. Then and there, he told her that she had to chose between me and him, and she couldn't have us both. Seeing her torn like that almost made me want to tell her to chose George, but we both knew that anyone who made her make that choice was not worth it. She told him as much, and he hung up on her. It seems now that George was hoping to fund himself with Georgiana's trust fund, having already used up his own money. I think this discovery hurt her more than anything else. She went back to London where she promptly failed her first semester. She's getting over it now, but I cannot forgive George for what he did. He wrung my family for all he could get, he used my sister and he tried to turn her against me. I don't know what I would have done without Georgiana.

I haven't seen George since, and only heard of him again when he surfaced writing your article. I'm sorry I was so angry about it, but you might now understand my fears at Wickham's reliability. The truth of this story can be backed up by others. I had to take a few days off work at the time, and so both my colleagues, and of course Richard and Juliet know what happened.

This is the full story of both incidents. Maybe I should have told you more before, but I'm not sure that I could have anyway.

Charles' campaign will be the lesser for you and your sister. I am sorry if you feel that I drove you both away.

Sincerely,

Will Darcy

Thank you for all the lovely reviews.

This was two chapters originally, but knowing how you like to wolf down stories, I stuck them together. The second, incidentally, was called 'Rain-check on the diamond sunbursts'. I think it gave Will something of the Gilbert Blythe air. Just so you know.