Page 72 of Stuck

ELIZABETH

There was something inherently grounding about urinating with your sisters watching. Mary and Jane had both chased me into the tiny bathroom right after I’d (only just) made it onto the loo and demanded to know whether I was all right. You’d have thought they’d leave again once I assured them I was, but no, they’d settled in, Mary on the edge of the bath and Jane on the floor.

Darcy, Bingley, Tam, possibly George, definitely a whole maintenance team, and, I think, Darcy’s driver, Trent, were out in the living room, so once I’d finished, I decided to flush, lower the lid, and sit back down.

“We were so freaked out when we saw George grab you in the video feed,” Jane said.

I didn’t reply, still not sure what I was feeling towards my old friend after everything he’d told me.

“You’re not going to leap to his defence?” Mary asked. Then she narrowed her eyes. “Please tell me he didn’t hurt you. I assumed Darcy was being dramatic, but if that weasel has resorted to violence, I will second Darcy’s vote to make his life miserable.”

I did love Mary’s steeliness. She was the most impassive person I knew most of the time, but when she was roused to defend one of her own, she could flip from vaguely aggrieved to ferocious without moving a muscle.

“He didn’t hurt me—he was asleep for most of the time we were stuck. And he didn’t grab me so much as try to steer me out of the building. He wanted to go to the pub to commiserate.”

“Darcy feels terrible,” Jane said.

I snorted. “About me being stuck in a lift? Of all the things that have happened today, that’s the only one he can’t be blamed for.” Pointing at her, I added, “Your boyfriend can take a good dollop of responsibility for the rest. And don’t even start me on George.”

Mary uncoiled from her perch. “I’m taking that as my cue to send them all home. I refuse to have the rest of this conversation in a cubicle.”

I didn’t object, because I absolutely did not feel like talking to any of them, and she left to play doorman.

Jane stayed, reaching to squeeze my knee. “I know I should be on that list as well. It was my silly idea that started this whole nonsense. I’m probably the most guilty.”

I gave her a small smile. “Consider yourself on dinner and dishwasher duty for a month as punishment.”

“I’ll do it for two.”

“The coast is clear,” Mary said, poking her head around the door. “Tam is rustling us up something to eat. Who’s up for a glass of vino while we wait?”

Nobody refused, and it wasn’t long before I was curled up on the sofa, changed into my pyjamas and more grateful for soft surfaces than I’d ever been.

“Darcy did not want to leave without speaking to you,” Mary said as she handed me my glass. “The man is single-minded, I’ll give him that.”

“Careful, babe,” Tam called from the kitchen. “You almost sound as though you’re softening towards him.”

“Are you?” I asked her. After the things she’d said about him when I told her what had gone down at work, I was frankly surprised she’d even tolerated him in the flat.

Mary sank into an armchair, cradling her own glass. “I don’t like how much he upset you, but I respect his resolve to put it right.”

“He wanted to put it right?”

The fact that Darcy had been outside the lift had, of course, struck me as odd, but I hadn’t had time to consider what had brought him here. It began to sink in how worried he’d seemed, the way he’d dived for George, his expression when he asked whether I was all right. It was a far cry from how he’d looked, standing in his office, calling me “Miss Bennet” and threatening to destroy the life I’d worked so hard to build for myself and my dad.

“Bingley came clean,” Jane said. “Darcy knows everything. He was beside himself to have misunderstood the situation so badly.”

Misunderstood? I scoffed, even angrier at hearing such a banal word used to describe what had happened today. “There’s misunderstanding, and then there’s jumping to the worst possible conclusion without bothering to ask a person first. What happened to the benefit of the doubt?”

Jane pulled a face that I knew meant she was going to disagree—even low-key conflict had her looking like she had toothache. “He thought you admitted it. When he asked you into his office, it was to give you the opportunity to explain your connection to George. But apparently you said something that sounded like a confession, and he assumed you were admitting to conspiring with him. It wasn’t an unreasonable misunderstanding.”

Wasn’t it? Because I distinctly recalled telling him that I wasn’t admitting to that and him refusing to listen. Although now that I’d heard George’s tale, I supposed it wasn’t out of the realms of possibility that Darcy had simply been too wound up to hear what I was saying. Given what he’d almost lost at George’s hands, hearing me “confess” to doing the same must have hurt. I almost felt sorry for him—until my indignation rose up again. If he liked me well enough to be hurt by my apparent betrayal, then he ought to know me well enough to trust that I wouldn’t do that to him. He should have asked more questions, looked harder for the explanation, not happily accepted the worst.

“What was his excuse for accusing me of cheating?”

“You mean other than the fact that you’ve been trying for weeks to convince him you’re dating a man who’s sleeping with your sister?” Mary asked, her voice dripping with judgment. “Did it truly never occur to you that you might not pull off that deception convincingly?”

I looked at her with indignation. “Whose side are you on?”