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Chapter 13
Posted on 2014-05-19
The primaries gave us something to talk about for months, but I can't help feeling a little sorry for the Gardiner campaign. They're not really going to get a chance to breathe. If the Connolly crew has any idea what they're doing, they spent the last three months gearing up for both Gardiner and Zwillick. If they haven't, well, they probably deserve to lose.David Kerr, the New York Times, May 21, 2014
The morning after Oregon, the Governor's Secret Service protection began, and Will got a phone call he never would have expected. He hadn't even known his great-uncle had his cell phone number, but Frederick Darcy called him to offer congratulations and a promise to vote for Connolly. "Crotchety old geezer," Will muttered at his phone once they'd hung up.
"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, Will," Richard said as he passed.
Will caught up and walked with him. "That was my great-uncle."
"Justice Darcy? Letting you know what a disappointment you are to the Darcy legacy?"
"Basically."
"Well, there's a reason your dad's family didn't approve of Aunt Anne."
"Thanks, Richard, for the lesson in my family's history."
"I'm just saying, the Fitzwilliams welcomed Uncle George even though I'm pretty sure his father voted for Wallace at least once."
"Once? Probably every time he was on the ballot. Strom Thurmond, too."
"Your family tree is one big brush pile of contradictions, isn't it?"
"There's a reason I was seriously thinking of becoming a teacher."
They arrived at the staff meeting as Richard laughed. "Anyone here want to imagine what it'd be like to take a class from Will?"
"You mean I'm not?" Chuck said, to the laughter of all but Lizzy.
She had narrowed her eyes in concern, but Will shook his head slightly. They'd talk about it later.
This was Jane's meeting, rolling out the schedule for the next two weeks as they transitioned into the general election. The afternoon would take them back to Madison, where their greatly expanded headquarters would be. They'd already annoyed the DNC by not setting up shop in Washington, but half the appeal of Gardiner over Zwillick was that she wasn't Washington establishment. Will privately thought the annoyance was mostly because the party people didn't want to be in Wisconsin come November. He wasn't entirely sure he blamed them.
"Charlotte, have you got those polls we were looking at?" Richard asked. Charlotte handed over a huge stack of papers, which he began distributing. "These are the latest state-by-state polls for Connolly v. Gardiner. If the election were held today, we would probably lose."
It took Will a minute to figure out the organizational system of Charlotte's packet--toss-ups followed by likely wins and losses, and sure wins and losses last. "How big a loss are we talking about?" Chuck asked.
Lizzy was on the last page already. "Anywhere from a tie, which we would lose on account of the Republican Congress, to forty-seven electoral votes." She swiveled in her chair to look at Charlotte. "Did you lift this from Hal Preston?"
Charlotte looked about shiftily. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
There were smirks all around as Richard continued. "This is the only time we're printing this out for everyone, as apparently you can get all of this from twoseventy-dot-com. This is going to be the basis of our playbook for a while. Obviously we're going to spend a good amount of time raising money in Democratic areas, but a lot of our time is also going to be spent in eight or ten states where our money and effort will do the most good."
"Everyone here is going to Madison today," Charlotte added. "You all need to hire people. No more skeleton crew. We have to do this quickly, but let's try not to hire just anybody who walks in."
In the afternoon, Lizzy interviewed at least thirty people. She was luckier than most. She just had the candidates read a release and answer a few questions about experience and how they would respond in various situations. Most of them she weeded out in the reading. She was rather alarmed by the number of people with degrees in communication who couldn't communicate, but then, there was Will.
She interviewed a good portion of Zwillick's press staff, but only one surprised her. George Wickham sailed into her office dripping with charm, like he was going to seduce his way into a job. Lizzy plastered on a polite smile as he planted himself in the chair opposite her. "Well, well, Lizzy Bennet. We meet again."
Struck by some mischievous impulse, Lizzy frowned. "I'm sorry, have we met before?"
He looked crestfallen. "We met in Miami, I think. I was offering you a job with Senator Zwillick."
"Oh, of course. What can I do for you, Mr. Wickham?"
They went through the interview, and Lizzy wondered if she would have fallen for this suave act if she hadn't known about Will's history with him. Thinking of Will gave her another idea, though.
At the end of the interview, Wickham stood, buttoned his jacket, and shook her hand across the desk. "I hope to hear from you soon," he said, with a practiced and dazzling smile.
"It'll be late this week," she replied. "I'll have to consult with Will Darcy before we hire anyone."
Wickham swallowed visibly, adjusted his tie, and couldn't get out of there fast enough.
As they flew to California that night, she recounted the story to Will, but he only smiled politely. Lizzy felt unaccountably like she ought to apologize; instead she only frowned. "Will, are you okay?"
He rubbed his neck. "I'm fine, Lizzy."
"You're a terrible liar, you know."
"I do, actually," he replied, making her smile.
She turned and kissed his shoulder. "You were upset before Jane's meeting."
He sighed and glanced around. It was the closest they were going to get to privacy, with most of the cabin asleep. "I got a call from my uncle."
"The Senator?" she asked, confused as to how Jim Fitzwilliam could upset Will.
"No, no," he replied. "My great-uncle, Frederick Darcy."
"Your uncle is a Supreme Court Justice."
It was his turn to frown. "You didn't know?"
"I... hadn't made the connection. Probably because Justice Darcy could make Joe McCarthy look like a communist."
He raised his eyebrows at the comparison. "Yeah. When my parents got engaged, Uncle Frederick told my dad that my mom was either a hippie or a whore, and if he went through with it, they were never going to speak again. Unfortunately he's never been good at following through."
"Why was he calling?"
"To congratulate me and tell me he's voting for Connolly."
"Well, maybe he won't follow through."
Will looked at her, startled, before he laughed quietly. He pulled her closer and kissed her. "Even if he does, he's in the district. No way the district is even close."
Lizzy smiled, glad to have cheered him up, but her smile fell as she had a realization. "Frederick Darcy. F. William Darcy."
All his discomfort was back in a moment. "Yes. William was for my mom's family, and they were always going to call me that. But naming me Frederick was an attempt to mollify the old man."
"Did it work?"
"Probably wasn't necessary. My immediate family was all the family he had left by then." He shifted for a moment. "Anyway, I've spent my adult life trying to keep that connection quiet. If we ever get married--"
He stopped himself short, blushing as much as Lizzy had ever seen a man blush. "If we ever get married?" she repeated, highly amused.
"Sorry," he said, looking down at the tablet in his lap. "I'm an old-fashioned guy. You know that."
"I do," she replied, and they both laughed a little at her choice of words. "So what happens if we ever get married?"
"If Uncle Frederick is still kicking around, you should expect another breach in the family. He won't take another liberal well."
"So you're supposed to marry a conservative and what, become one?"
"Something like that."
Lizzy didn't say anything more, and turned the conversation in another direction, but her mind was still on the subject when the plane landed. Will's family really was startling, a President on one side and a Justice on the other. Lizzy knew her grandfather, and to some extent her father, had a fair amount of notoriety in scientific circles, but it was nothing to this.
It should have worried her, but it didn't. So Will had a messy family with absurd connections. What did that have to do with how she felt about him? He had much deeper flaws than this, and she loved him anyway. Surely she could get over this too.
A brand new bus, wrapped with the Gardiner for America logo, awaited them at the airport in San Francisco. Will wasn't crazy about the color scheme but Charlotte told him he didn't get a say in aesthetic matters.
The senior staff headed to Matlock, more than an hour outside the city, where his aunt and uncle were waiting with a number of prominent Democrats. The fundraiser in the city would happen the next night, but this meeting was all business. Jim Fitzwilliam had been their first high-profile endorsement, and as a result the Senator was hosting one of the most important meetings of the campaign to date.
The Governor was several minutes late to the meeting; Will suspected his uncle was the cause of delay. She shook hands with most of the bigwigs before settling next to Richard at the head of the table. "I want to thank you all for coming here," she said. "We have a lot of ground to cover, but I know the best minds of the party are represented in this room. Many of you were supporting other candidates--some of you were other candidates, come to think of it." There was some quiet chuckling, and Will smiled too. "Either way, thank you for your support today. I look forward to defying our party's stereotype by uniting the party now. And of course, we've got two opportunities coming up for that, the convention and our VP selection."
In meetings over the last week it had been decided that Richard's father would head the VP committee. Richard opposed the idea on the grounds of some sort of reverse nepotism, but Will talked him around. Jim Fitzwilliam knew everyone in the party, knew where all the bodies were buried and what to do about them. There was no one better to manage the process. Even if he picked himself, they'd be well off.
That night, the family gathered after a long, raucous supper with the staff. "Will Andrew or Rachel be around this week?" Will asked after hugging his aunt properly.
"Rachel and the kids, yes, Andrew's a maybe," Alice replied.
Richard laughed. "He was really asking about Jeff."
"Jeff?" she repeated, bemused.
"If Jeff's here, Will's going to want to hide Lizzy for the duration."
On the other side of the room, Jim chuckled. "Oh, that's right. I had to fire him from the campaign for not doing anything but bother Lizzy."
Will looked at his uncle in surprise. "I didn't realize that."
"Lizzy's never told you about it?" Richard said as they all sat down.
"She mentioned something about it when we met," he admitted. "She thought there was a good chance I was like him and was going to spend the entire meeting trying to look up her skirt or down her dress."
Richard and Jim erupted in laughter again. "And now that you've actually done both--"
"Richard James Fitzwilliam!" Alice scolded.
Will laughed, though. "Far from the worst he's said, Aunt Alice."
She was still frowning at her son as she addressed Will. "So why isn't Lizzy here now?"
"She didn't want to intrude on the family."
"Well, that's nonsense," Jim said. "Call her, get her down here."
"No, no," Will protested, holding up a hand. "She genuinely has a lot of work to do tonight. She had to come up with a reason to stay away so she'd actually work."
"And you don't have a pile of work?" Richard asked.
"I'm delegating to Chuck for the night."
Eventually the group split; Richard went into deep conference with his father, likely talking over every decision he had made for the last year and every decision to come. Will stayed with his aunt, wandering out to the portico overlooking the Presidential library across the way. "Jim keeps coming out here when we're at Matlock," Alice said. "Being President has never been his ambition, but he's living through Richard now."
Will nodded. "Richard never ceases to amaze me. Sometimes I think about when we were kids and Grandpa was running for reelection, and it seems ridiculous to have someone trusting us to run a campaign."
"Your parents would be proud, you know. Both of them." Will opened his mouth, but his aunt stopped him with a look. "They would be, Will. George wouldn't like where the Republican Party has gone in the last ten years. He wasn't too happy about it for ten years before that. And Anne..." Alice's eyes grew bright, and Will bowed his head, remembering how close his aunt and his mother were. "Anne was always proud of you. This would be no exception."
Uncomfortable with the line of conversation, Will tried to deflect it. "I think they'd rather have had grandchildren."
His aunt laughed lightly. "Probably, yes!" Then she narrowed her eyes. "Speaking of, when are you going to make an honest woman out of Lizzy?"
"An honest--" Will straightened up reflexively. "I haven't knocked her up!"
"Say that a little louder, Will, so the secret microphones will pick it up."
"Aunt Alice..."
"Don't worry, we had those removed in the seventies." Her eyes were sparkling. "But seriously, Will. Is this relationship with Lizzy going anywhere? She's such an amazing young woman."
"And I'm run-of-the-mill?" he asked, finding some humor. "I love her, Aunt Alice. I'm not sure where she wants the relationship to go but... I mentioned marriage last night. Slip of the tongue, but she didn't try to run away from me."
"Well, that's a good sign, Will. Now tell me what your plan is."
Will sighed, resigned to telling his aunt more than he really wanted to.
When Lizzy came down to the grand foyer of the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco the next night, she stopped on the last step and sighed quietly. On the other side of the lobby were Will and the Fitzwilliam men, the Senator and his three sons, all in a row. Whatever else one said about that family, they could certainly dress for an occasion.
Will was standing next to his uncle. Lizzy had never seen the two together and so had never quite realized how much Will resembled his mother's family. Gigi evidently favored the Darcys, both handsome in different ways.
Then across the foyer, Will looked up and saw her. Though his uncle was speaking to him, he couldn't seem to look away from her. Blushing, Lizzy descended the last step and approached. By the time she reached them, Will's uncle and cousins were laughing at the rather besotted look on his face. "Lizzy!" the Senator said as she took Will's outstretched hand. "Good to see you again. You're looking well."
"Thank you, sir. It's good to see you too," she replied. "How is Alice?"
"Busy as ever. She'll be down soon, I imagine. You remember Andrew and Jeff, yes?"
Richard coughed strangely, like he was choking back laughter. Andrew, in feigned concern, slapped his twin on the back. "Yes, sir," Lizzy said, with a look at Richard. "It's nice to see you both again."
Alice Fitzwilliam arrived, eyeing her sons suspiciously as she greeted Lizzy. The women talked clothing for a minute, as both were wearing Armani, before they all headed to the ballroom, joining the staff that had already assembled there. Guests started arriving shortly thereafter, and Will kept Lizzy at his side. "Relax, Will," she said when they were between groups. "You're going to have me to yourself for three whole days soon, remember?"
"No, I'm going with you to visit family who haven't seen you in years," he grumbled. "Are you sure we can't skip out to Nice or something?"
She shook her head, short curled hair bouncing a bit. "Maybe after the election," she said with her sweetest smile.
Will leaned down and quietly drawled, "If I have to wait that long to be alone with you, we're finding a nude beach, sweetheart."
Lizzy was blushing again, but she knew how to respond. "You know the men are naked too, right?"
His ears turned red, but they were waylaid by more attendees before either could say anything more.
Twenty minutes went by before the party settled around them and they were alone, after a fashion. "Oh," Will said, seeing a welcome face on the far side of the ballroom. "Come on, I want to introduce you to someone."
They crossed the room, Lizzy holding Will's hand as she skipped after his longer stride. "Will!" she cried, laughing even when she saw the campaign's photographer taking a picture of them. "Will, where are you taking me?"
"Right here," he said, pulling her forward to his side. "Grandpa, I want you to meet Elizabeth Bennet. Lizzy, my grandfather."
"Oh!" Lizzy said rather inelegantly. "Sir. Mr. President. Um, I mean..."
Standing before her, former President Edward Fitzwilliam was smiling, and not unkindly. He was a handsome older man, and while Will had a darker complexion and a more muscular build, it was easy to see where the younger man had looked for a role model. Will carried himself like a dignified statesman, which must have been learned in his grandfather's wake. "Ms. Bennet, it's an honor to meet you. I've heard a great deal about you from my son and at least three of my grandsons."
Lizzy suddenly felt she was doomed to spend all night blushing, but President Fitzwilliam was right. Jeff had harassed her, Richard had kissed her, and Will had... Well, "swept her off her feet" was probably the most concise way of putting it. Clearly something drew her to this family, and with Will at her side, she was beginning to understand.
President Fitzwilliam could turn on the charm like any of his progeny. After a litany of compliments on her work for Governor Gardiner, he asked, "So where are you from, Lizzy? I understand you worked on my son's last campaign."
"Depends on who you ask. I was looking into grad schools in California when I fell in with the Fitzwilliam clan," she said, making both men laugh. "I grew up in Chicago, but I was born in Switzerland."
"Beautiful country," the President replied, sipping his glass of champagne. "Do you have family there?"
Lizzy nodded. "There and in France. Will's coming with me to visit them when the Governor goes to Europe next month."
"Oh, really?" President Fitzwilliam said, turning an amused look to his grandson. "This is starting to sound serious, young man."
"Between you and Aunt Alice I feel like I'm going to get more than enough heckling about this," Will muttered.
"Speak up, kid. You know I hate it when you mumble."
Lizzy giggled even as she leaned into Will. He sighed, but also wrapped his arm around her bare shoulders and kissed the top of her head.
"Come with me, Lizzy," the President said, pulling her away and tucking her hand over his arm. "Let's leave Will wondering what embarrassing stories I'm telling about him."
The former President told her enough stories to make her stomach hurt from laughing, but it was something far more serious that stayed on her mind into the night. "He was always a shy boy," the man said. "He grew out of it to an extent, but he was always more likely to put his head down and get the job done. Then his parents died and his engagement fell apart, and I think if it hadn't been for Georgiana, he would have just shut down. He's not one to take the easy road, but it was too much for mere mortals."
Lizzy nodded. "My mother died this year. Just a couple months ago, really. Will..." She paused for a moment, wondering how much to say. "Will came to see me there at the end. To help me. It was so hard, even though we knew it was coming." She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly tight. "I've thought occasionally since, how he had to bury both his parents all of the sudden and then hold his life together for his sister. He's a remarkable man, more than I ever realized."
"Do you love him?"
It was far too personal a question from a man she'd just met, but she answered it regardless. "Yes. Very much."
President Fitzwilliam smiled and patted her hand where it rested on his arm. "You'll do, my dear."
She gave him an arch look, trying to cover over some emotions still too raw. "I'm tolerable, then?"
He laughed heartily. "Oh, oh, so much more than tolerable, Lizzy. But don't ever expect more than that from Justice Darcy."
"So I've heard, but I can handle curmudgeons." She smiled up at him and withdrew her hand from his arm. "I have to go introduce you and the Senator and the Governor. It was wonderful meeting you, Mr. President."
"Do me proud, young lady."
"Yes, sir."
She went to the podium and made the introductions; both Senator and President Fitzwilliam kissed her cheek when shaking her hand. It didn't entirely surprise her when Will found her as soon as he could. The Governor was speaking, so he drew her to the staff table at the back. "Which stories did he tell?" he murmured in her ear.
"Oh, I think that's between the President and me, Fortinbras."
His eyes lit up for a second, and she realized she probably hadn't called him that since they'd discussed his real name. "I'll get Richard to draft a Freedom of Information request."
"Can't do it yourself?"
"He's a lawyer. He should do lawyer things now and then."
"I heard my name," Richard said from across the table.
"They're flirting," Chuck said. "Just leave them alone, you'll never keep up."
"We're not flirting," Will protested.
"We are, Will," Lizzy said, patting his hand.
"We're arguing."
"That's how we flirt."
Richard tossed his napkin onto the table. "I don't want to know what foreplay involves."
"The Oxford English Dictionary," Will replied without missing a beat.
While the rest of the table laughed, Lizzy blushed. With Will's verbal proclivities, that wasn't far from the truth.
She almost expected him to invite her into his room that night, especially after she untied his bow tie in the elevator and tried to keep it. She wasn't sure what she would have said if he'd asked, but the point was moot. He left her at her door with nothing more than a long, lingering kiss.
For a little while she lay on her bed still in her ball gown, remembering when she met Will and wondered what was wrong with him. Sometimes, she still wondered.
But France lay before them, and there they would have time away from the campaign and all its pressure. Even with the stress of family for her and the language for him, it would be a bit of an adventure. She had more confidence in the trip's success than was probably advisable, but as she got ready for bed that night, she didn't care. They'd gotten through much greater difficulties than this. Surely her family wasn't that bad.
Chapter 14
Posted on 2014-05-26
Let's face it, these trips are glorified photo-ops. They exist solely for candidates to prove they can go outside the country and not, you know, break our foreign policy.Erica Jimenez, aka La Voz, June 10, 2014
In London, Governor Gardiner was greeted by huge crowds, frankly much bigger than any of the staff anticipated. "This is crazy," Lizzy said to Richard after the Governor began speaking.
"I know, I thought it always rained in London," Richard replied.
Lizzy smacked his arm with her tablet. "You know what I meant."
"Yeah. This is a lot of people just to see the Governor of Wisconsin." He adjusted his sunglasses. "And it's really sunny." While she rolled her eyes, he looked down at his watch. "When do you and Will head out?"
"About an hour, if I can pry him away from the Governor's Berlin speech. I'm hoping his sense of punctuality wins out over the compulsive editing."
"Remind him he can edit on the train."
"I did. He says once we're on the train, he doesn't want anything to distract either of us. This trip is about meeting my family, and he doesn't want anything to split his focus."
Richard smiled. "I didn't realize he was such a sap."
"It's sweet. You'd know that if you could hold on to a girl for more than two weeks."
He made a face. "I'm beginning to think women are overrated."
"Underrated, Richard. Criminally underrated."
"Yeah, yeah. Make sure he relaxes in the Alps, okay? He needs it."
Lizzy raised a brow. "What exactly are you expecting me to do?"
Richard shook his head. "Get your mind out of the gutter, will you?"
She merely smiled.
Punctuality did win out in the end, and Lizzy and Will boarded the train within an hour. Despite what he'd said about focus, they spent most of that train ride and the trip under the English Channel talking about the campaign. It was force of habit; they talked about everything, and this was a huge part of their lives.
When they reached French soil, Lizzy felt an exhilaration she hadn't felt in a while. She hadn't been to France in three years, and being there with Will was even better than she imagined. Those summer trips to the French and Swiss Alps were some of the best times of her childhood and adolescence, but something told her this one would far surpass all of them in her memory.
Will had, in college, once traveled to Paris with his family at Christmas, but there was no time for sightseeing or even leaving the station before boarding the next train. On a high-speed train it only took a couple hours to get to their stop, and they walked out of the station there long enough to take in the view of the mountains. "Are there any castles near Saint-Étienne?" Will asked suddenly.
Lizzy laughed. "I wouldn't have taken you for an enthusiast."
He shrugged, seeming self-conscious. "It's something you don't see every day at home."
"I think there's a couple ruins in the area. Old churches too."
"Even better."
"You realize if I say we're going to a castle, all my cousins' kids are going to want to come too."
He chuckled. "You're the one who speaks the language. You're going to wind up keeping them in line."
"Oh, I'm sure you can figure out how to yell 'no, no, don't jump off that.'"
"I'm sure falling builds character. Besides, not my kids."
"Do you want kids?" Lizzy asked, so suddenly it startled her as much as Will.
"Says the woman who teased me about a hypothetical marriage scenario?" he said, with the grin that always made her breath catch.
She took his hand and led him back into the station. "It's not an unreasonable question."
"Then you answer it first."
Lizzy bit her lip for a moment. "I don't know," she admitted. "I'm not going to say my childhood was full of hardship, but when my parents' marriage was disintegrating, I spent a lot of time in my room trying to ignore them. I don't think my parents really thought about getting married or having kids. I think they just did it because they thought they were supposed to. I can't be that careless. Having kids isn't just about me. What I choose to do has real consequences for a whole other person."
Will was quiet, and Lizzy wondered if she'd said too much. Then they were back in the terminal, getting on the train to Saint-Étienne, and his continued silence began to unnerve her. "Will?" she finally said. "Am I--did you..."
"Elizabeth," he said. Her given name had never sounded so intimate as it did in his voice. He clasped her hand and brought it to his lips. "I don't have anything like your experience, sweetheart. My family was happy. But I think you're right. I do want to have children, but only if I can give them the kind of childhood my parents gave me."
She nodded, but frowned. "You know there aren't guarantees."
"Yeah, but if I know I'm not in a position to be the kind of father I want to be, it's not the right time."
Lizzy leaned her head on his shoulder, thinking but not daring to say that he'd be a good father.
"So what brought this on?" he asked after a minute's silence.
"I don't know. I met your family, you're meeting mine." She focused on his class ring, which she was twisting around and around his finger. "You brought up marrying me, and it's not the least appealing idea I've ever heard." He nudged her with his shoulder and she smiled, at least for a little while. "You're about to meet my father, and I think you're going to understand the colossal mistake my mother made. If I'm going to get married, if I'm going to have kids, it's going to be with the right person. I'm not repeating my parents' mistakes. I'm not making those promises to someone I can't respect, or who can't respect me."
With some trepidation, she lifted her head to look at him. They'd avoided the eight-hundred-pound gorilla thus far and she half-expected him to make a joke to deflect it, but his eyes, his beautiful blue eyes were very serious as he met her gaze. He kissed her gently and nuzzled her cheek. "I know we're talking around the subject, sweetheart, but there's no one I can see in my life but you."
Lizzy felt her whole body tremble, and for a fleeting moment she was sure he was going to propose right there, on the train. The craziest part of it was that she didn't think she would mind, and she was almost certain she would say yes.
Will quickly learned how little French he remembered. He and Lizzy had reviewed his vocabulary, but inside the beautiful Alpine chalet was a whirl of people speaking a language he only understood in snatches. The Benoit family surprised him from the moment he disembarked from the train in Saint-Étienne. Lizzy's cousin Thierry met them in a tiny, beat-up Citroën. Will had expected someone around their age, but Thierry Pasquier was at least twenty years older than Lizzy, a balding man with no sense of fashion and a distinctly avuncular air. The cousins chatted in French for a minute before Lizzy switched back to English. "Thierry, this is Will Darcy," she said. "Be kind. He only speaks a little French."
"It's good to meet you, Will," Thierry said, with a firm handshake. "In three days I hope you speak more than a little French."
Will nodded, belatedly remembering he ought to smile as well. "I do too. You're the one who alerted us to that ridiculous story about the Governor's daughter, right? Thanks for that."
Thierry waved him off. "You lot did the work. And did it well, I should say."
"It hasn't completely gone away," Lizzy grumbled. "Whack jobs."
"We have those in France too," Thierry said. "Come along, we can chat on the way."
They got the luggage into the hatchback's impossibly small trunk, and then Will started to get into the back seat. "No, no!" Lizzy cried. "You have legs a mile long! You are not getting back there!"
She shoved him aside and climbed into the back before he could do more than stare. Then he looked across the car to Thierry, who was opening the driver's side. "Let her do what she wants, Will. She'll only do it anyway."
"That's actually true," he conceded, to Thierry's amusement.
At the chalet Will couldn't keep up with the introductions to more than forty cousins of various degrees and aunts and uncles. Only one seemed entirely critical to Lizzy. Her grandfather was a very old man by anyone's standards. He didn't stand when Lizzy approached, but said in a musical voice, "Élisée!"
Will smiled, liking that name for her more and more. Lizzy swooped down to kiss her grandfather. "Bon anniversaire, Pépère!"
She kissed her grandmother's cheeks too, then turned and reached for Will. He took her hand and stepped forward. "Pépère, Mémère, this is Will Darcy," she said, holding his hand tightly.
The old man pushed himself up and stood straight and tall. "Darcy?" he repeated, clapping his shoulder. "You must be French too, young man."
Even though Lizzy told him about her grandfather's gift for languages, Will was surprised by the man's fluency. "A couple centuries ago, in the Pyrenees," Will said. "It's an honor to meet you, sir."
Lizzy helped her grandmother stand up too. "Will, Henri and Sabine Benoit."
Sabine, even tinier than her granddaughter, had a much thicker accent than her husband. She motioned for Will to lean down and she kissed his cheek. "Élisée says she is very happy. You must have something to do with that."
"Did she?" he said, glancing at a now blushing Lizzy. He tugged her close for a kiss. "She's made me pretty happy too."
The three spoke in English for Will's sake, but he found himself on the outside of the conversation nonetheless. He didn't mind. Lizzy was so animated, bright like he'd never seen her. She was adored here, and it made him wonder just how bad life with her father had been to wipe away the good memories of this family.
He still wanted badly to know where the conversation about children had come from, but he was glad they'd had it. The campaign wouldn't last forever. Even if they won and life was just as crazy in the White House, they would at least be in one place day to day. They could put together a life with each other. Maybe marriage and family were in their future, maybe not, but he was glad to know she wasn't completely against the idea, and might be open to persuasion.
Eventually Will got separated from Lizzy, and he wandered into the huge kitchen, where half a dozen adults and a couple older children were cooking. A tall woman in her fifties looked at him skeptically when he offered to help, but soon Lizzy's Aunt Aurélie learned that whatever he lacked in the language, he made up for in cooking skill. She directed him in English as basic as his French to deal with a pile of herbs. Feeling his pride was on the line, he rolled up six or eight mint leaves and proceeded to chop them into a very fast, very fine chiffonade.
Aurélie looked at what he was doing and sighed, arms akimbo as she shook her head. "Vous êtes démonstrateur?" she said, and though he didn't have the faintest idea what she said, he grinned and moved on to the rosemary.
He and Aurélie soon established a rapport even though neither was fluent in the other's language. When Lizzy found him more than an hour later, she laughed and laughed. "Food is chapter five or something in French I," he pointed out. "And about half the culinary vocabulary is French. Your aunt and I are good."
"Guillaume!" Aurélie said. "The garlic!"
"Back to work, Guillaume," Lizzy said, eyes sparkling.
"Élisée," said a young man coming into the kitchen. Will didn't follow what he said, but he did catch the word père, and he frowned slightly in concern.
"Worry about your garlic, Will," Lizzy said. "Meeting him can wait."
He hadn't even thought about Lizzy's father yet, and he wondered how they had come from another continent and gotten there first. He did as Lizzy asked and Aurélie commanded, and tended to the garlic.
Aurélie ran him out of the kitchen before long to supervise the children setting the table in the dining room. She was setting up another huge table in the kitchen, and Will thought she'd given herself the easier job. He could name all the tableware and give directions, but the children were giggling and running more than he could really control. The oldest of the girls, an eight-year-old named Audrey, scolded the rest and, when the table was finished, took Will's hand and tugged him out of the room.
Lizzy smiled when she saw them. "Should I be worried?" she asked, even as Audrey ran off.
"I think she was protecting me or something," Will replied.
"She's very motherly."
"I noticed."
She took a deep breath. "You should meet my father."
He nodded and followed her through the crowd attracted by the smell of supper. The man was reading something off his phone and didn't look up right away when Lizzy started the introduction. "Will, this is Thomas Bennet, my father. Papa, this is Will Darcy."
The entire thing was delivered lifelessly. Will had to wait for him to put his phone away before shaking his hand. "Good to meet you, Mr. Bennet," Will said.
Thomas merely nodded.
Lizzy looked desperate to forward some sort of conversation, but before she could, someone needed her attention. Will felt fairly certain this would be the only time he'd be even remotely alone with her father. Thomas looked uncomfortable with the situation, but he looked at Will with something like interest. "How long have you and my daughter been together?" he asked.
Will knew Thomas was asking how long he and Lizzy had been dating, and the real answer was a little complicated. The answer he gave was rather different in its intent. "I was with her when her mother died," he said. "I was also with her two weeks later when you finally called."
Thomas went stiff, his face stern. Will was too sure in his convictions to be flustered by Mr. Bennet, whatever he had to say. With a curt nod Will walked away, wanting to find Lizzy again.
They found each other a couple minutes later, and Will was puzzled to find her looking embarrassed. "Darlin', what's wrong?"
She shook her head. "Nothing, it's just... Louis, Aunt Aurélie's son, was telling me where they put our stuff, because he wasn't sure we actually knew."
"And?"
"They put us in a room to ourselves."
"Oh." Her embarrassment made more sense. "We can figure that out, Lizzy."
"Oh, I know. My cousins were just having a good time at my expense."
"What do you mean?"
"They thought I was being very American about it."
He rolled his eyes, putting his arm around her shoulders. "Let them laugh. They're family. They'd find something else to laugh about anyway."
Lizzy looked up at him with a smile. "When did you get so smart about families?"
Will laughed. "You've met mine, remember?"
"He is protective of you," Thierry said quietly to Lizzy after dinner. "I heard him speaking to Uncle Thomas before. Your father really didn't call when your mother passed away?"
Lizzy shook her head, biting her lip. "Took him two weeks to get his head out of the lab or whatever he was doing. He's never really been a father, so I don't know what I was expecting from him."
Thierry smiled sadly. "I'm sorry, Élisée."
"Nothing to be done. He's never going to change. Somehow Will understands that, even though he had wonderful parents who were involved in his life."
"Had?"
"They died in a car accident about ten years ago. He practically raised his sister."
"Then he knows at least a little about such things."
"More than you do, certainly."
Thierry laughed.
Will approached them, looking pleased. "Aurélie is teaching me how to make croissants tomorrow."
Lizzy and Thierry both gasped. "Has she ever taught someone her croissant recipe?" he asked.
"Not that I know of."
"Well," Will said, "I do need something from you."
"As long as it doesn't involve rolling pastry."
He laughed. "No, no, far more complicated. Explain who goes with whom."
Thierry patted Lizzy on the head. "Good luck."
Lizzy watched him go and smoothed her hair down in irritation. "All right," she said. "Pépère and Mémère fled France when the war started. They were living under the name Bennet in Switzerland. All of the kids were born with that name. The oldest boys changed their names to Benoit when Pépère decided to go back to it."
"But your father didn't?"
"No, he had published his dissertation as Thomas Bennet. Anyway, in order, Eve, Bruno, Gilles, Thomas, Nathalie, and Aurélie." As she spoke, she pointed out the various people. "Eve married Julien. Their kids are Thierry and Claire. Bruno is married to Camille. Their kids are Adam, Philippe, and Alexandre. Gilles is currently married to Marie, but Agathe and Margot are from his first marriage. Then there's Nathalie and Lionel, with Sophie and Charles. Aurélie is married to Pierre, and their kids are Louis, Eduard, and Giselle." She decided to hold off on her cousins' children.
"Giselle?" Will asked.
"Uncle Pierre took Aunt Aurélie to the ballet for their first date."
"Betrayal of true love. That's a cheerful first date."
"Yes, well, you've never taken me on any date, so you have no room to talk."
He looked surprised. "I suppose that's technically true."
"Not technically, actually."
"Well," he said, sitting on a bar stool and placing his hands on her hips to pull her in, "I guess I'm going to have to rectify this situation somehow."
Lizzy raised a brow. "How do you propose to do that?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
She would have kissed him, but Audrey suddenly ran up and grabbed one of Lizzy's hands. "Lizzy, someone must play when we sing!"
"We can sing for Pépère without the piano, Audrey," Lizzy pointed out, thinking that was what the child meant. "And I haven't touched a piano since I was your age."
"Mama wants someone to play when we sing."
"Doesn't your mama play?"
Audrey shook her head.
"I can play," Will said, to Lizzy's complete surprise. "Just the normal song, right?"
Lizzy looked to Audrey, who looked at the grown-ups like they were idiots. Audrey started singing, and Will cut her off quickly. "Yeah, I can play for you, Audrey." Audrey dragged Will off, and Lizzy watched as he raised the soundboard. Then Aurélie came in with the enormous cake full of candles and Will played a cue for the song.
After the singing, Lizzy helped her aunt pass out the cake, and Will remained at the piano. "Keeping your seat while you still have it?" Lizzy asked, kissing the top of his head while handing him a plate with cake.
"Something like that."
A few minutes later, Lizzy's grandmother asked Will if he could play something more. He asked for requests, and Aunt Nathalie suggested something French. Will immediately launched into a can-can, ignoring the boos until someone threw a wad of paper at his face. Everyone laughed, Will included, until he started to play.
It was "Clair de lune," a piece Lizzy had heard so often in movies and commercials and everything else that she would have said it had lost all value, but not anymore. Will's playing was light, precise, and full of passion. Lizzy thought she was surely hearing it the way Debussy intended. He was a phenomenal performer, lost in the music he was playing, and she was reminded of watching him write. He enthralled the room as much with the instrument as he could with the pen.
A few minutes later he let the last chord linger and fade into silence, and it took a few seconds before his audience applauded enthusiastically. He was asked to play again, and a pile of sheet music appeared from somewhere. Eventually he wound up with three teenage girls standing around him, singing when he played folk songs and watching when he played Bach. Lizzy stood out of the way, watching and hoping she would never cease to be surprised by him.
"Did you know he could play?" her cousin Agathe asked.
Lizzy shook her head. "He mentioned piano lessons once, but I never knew he could play like this."
They stood observing him quietly for a minute. Then Agathe leaned closer. "If you decide you don't want him, can I have him?"
Lizzy laughed sharply and elbowed her cousin.
It was growing late, and before long most everyone turned in for the night. Even Will's little audience of admiring teenagers was scooted off to bed. The room wasn't empty when Lizzy approached him, still at the piano, but it was the closest they'd come to being alone since they arrived at the chalet.
Ever since they stepped out of the station in Saint-Étienne, she had watched him fold himself into her family. He didn't speak the language well but found ways to communicate. She knew he wasn't comfortable around strangers, but he was making such an effort on her behalf. He wanted to be a part of this, and it made her feel loved, cherished, adored.
She reached his side and touched his hair first and then his shoulder. The two-part invention he was playing slowed and stopped as he looked up at her. Feeling brave, she leaned down and kissed him slowly and sweetly.
"Elizabeth," he breathed when she pulled away, leaning his cheek into her hand.
"William," she replied, "come to bed."
His eyes widened slightly, and his hands almost shook as he closed the piano. Lizzy went up the stairs ahead of him, but it wasn't long before he'd caught her hands and pulled into his arms. "Lizzy, Lizzy," he murmured, "Elizabeth, darlin'..."
She laughed softly and dragged him into their room. "William," she repeated, liking the sound of his given name.
"Are you sure?" he suddenly asked. "We're three doors down from your grandfather!"
"He's deaf as a post without his hearing aid," she told him, giggling as he shut the door firmly.
"Good."
She got to work on the tie, which he had never bothered to take off. "Inquiète-toi plutôt au sujet de ma grand-mère."
He cupped her face and kissed her, deep and wild and urgent. Lizzy had his shirt untucked and unbuttoned by the time he pulled back, looking confused. "Wait, what did you say?"
She could only laugh helplessly until Will had her down on the bed, kissing her so thoroughly she couldn't laugh for a long, long time.
In the morning, Will woke slowly, aware of unfamiliar but fine bedding, warm sunlight through sheer curtains, and muted noise outside the bedroom. He was also acutely conscious of Lizzy in his arms, her short hair half-covering her face and her body warm against his. He could not fathom how this was so much better than he remembered from before.
In fairness, they had really only done this a few times. Before their fight on Super Tuesday they really hadn't been together long, and the desire for secrecy had kept them apart too much. He hoped those days were well and truly over, because he never wanted to spend another night without her.
In the back of his mind, Will thought of a cold, soulless hotel room in Nashua. It seemed far more than an ocean away now. Then he had only been infatuated with her, entranced by a beautiful woman with the intellect to match his. Now he knew her, really knew her, had seen her in triumph and in anguish, flushed with anger and flushed with love. And he loved her now, loved her so much that whatever he called love in the past was like a boy in his father's suit, nothing more than a weakly understood aspiration.
She stirred, and he smiled, holding her closer. "Good morning," he said, lips already pressed against the back of her neck.
"I thought I must have dreamed this," she whispered. She turned over and touched his face. "I'm glad I didn't."
"You didn't dream about me?" he asked, unable to resist the opportunity to tease her.
She gave him a wicked grin. "What if I dreamed about Richard?"
"Well, I'll have to fix that."
Will pushed her to her back and was just hovering over her when there was a sharp rap on the door and it flew open. Lizzy gasped and grabbed the sheets while Will tried to shield her from view. "Guillaume--oh!" said a woman, and he twisted around to see Aurélie in the doorway.
It was hard to say which of the three was most embarrassed. Aurélie said something very quickly and backed out of the room, almost slamming the door behind her. "She should know better than to barge in!" Lizzy said, suddenly overcome with laughter.
Will agreed, but he was too embarrassed yet to laugh.
Ten or fifteen minutes later, he'd taken a quick shower, dressed, and made his appearance in the kitchen. At first Aurélie was all business, but then she directed him to a sticky mass of bread dough on the counter.
"Knead," she told him. "I saw you have strong shoulders."
He was still kneading and still blushing when Lizzy came in for breakfast.
Chapter 15
Posted on 2014-05-26
MARGARET GARDINER AND THE SILICON SWING
Editor's note: The reporting for this story was concluded in June 2014. By agreement with the Gardiner campaign, publication was held until after the general election.
MARGARET GARDINER, the Democratic Governor of Wisconsin, has run a campaign free of serious scandals. This is not unusual for a candidate who secures the nomination. But her organization is unusually steeped in a single scandal that should have permanently tainted nearly all of her senior staff. That these men and women survived it and then came together to work a campaign as successful as Governor Gardiner's is going to be the subject of dissertations for decades to come.
In 2010, James Fitzwilliam was running for a fourth term as California's senior Senator. The only son of former President Edward Fitzwilliam, his election seemed to be in the bag. His opponent was a state Senator whose legislative colleagues had been widely blamed for California's budget crisis. Among the thirty-four senate races nationwide, Jim Fitzwilliam's reelection was a rare sure thing.
The ground began to shift when Charlotte Lucas, a young accountant at Cencal Technologies, came to the US Attorney for Northern California, Sara Martinez. "She was nervous about it, but she had compiled the research to make any law school student jealous," Martinez says. "The evidence was pretty compelling. Bill Collins had been embezzling millions, and not very subtly. The big mystery was how he hadn't been caught years earlier."
Lucas worked for Cencal for five years before blowing the whistle on Collins. She had recently been promoted when she discovered significant discrepancies in accounting that became the foundation of the FBI investigation dubbed Silicon Swing. The investigation would eventually take down the husband-and-wife team that was the chairman and CEO of Cencal, Louis and Catherine de Bourgh. Cencal's stock plummeted. Bill Collins, the de Bourghs, and half a dozen executives eventually went to jail. But none of this would have had much in the way of political impact if it weren't for the fact that Catherine de Bourgh is the older sister of Senator Jim Fitzwilliam.
Any political reporter, from the most recent J-school graduate to a Watergate veteran, would predict the Fitzwilliam campaign would spend at least a day scrambling for footing, if not going into a tailspin. To make matters worse, the Senator's longtime spokesman, Juan Casillas, was on family leave after his wife gave birth to their first child. This left the campaign's first line of defense in the hands of a twenty-four-year-old deputy named Elizabeth Bennet.
THE GARDINER campaign has jokingly been referred to as the Gardiner-Bennet campaign. The first was Jane Bennett, a University of Wisconsin graduate who quit her job, drove to New Hampshire, and began volunteering in the nascent campaign's phone bank. Eventually she would be placed in charge of scheduling and advance. In that capacity she keeps the campaign running day-to-day, a job that has crushed experienced politicos, let alone a relative neophyte. Jane Bennett is not a policy heavyweight, but she is one of the most important members of the Governor's staff.
Mary Benet, the founder of Verity Innovations, was the youngest woman to make a billion dollars in the tech industry. This would be groundbreaking under any circumstances, but Benet has an added degree of difficulty: she was born deaf. Before being hired by the Gardiner campaign, she had done nothing more political than activism for and within the deaf community. After divesting herself of Verity, she found herself with time on her hands for a "small project"--revolutionizing the way campaigns use technology.
Last of these three remarkable women--by strange coincidence, all members of the same sorority pledge class--is Elizabeth Bennet. As a high school senior she was captain of her school's speech team and won the national tournament in impromptu speaking. That early training shows. In front of a crowd of reporters, she is witty and charismatic and completely in command of the conversation. The press can be an unruly mob on a good day, but Lizzy (as she is commonly known) wrangles them with grace and good humor. If they notice her little jabs at them, they're far too charmed to care.
Jim Fitzwilliam's reelection campaign was her first job in politics. "My stepfather apparently worried about taking me places in public when I was a teenager," she says. "Too worried I'd offend someone with my politics. I'm really not sure where the interest came from, because he and Mom weren't political at all."
Senator Fitzwilliam hired her in large part because of the depth and breadth of her political knowledge. "She's obviously very telegenic, very easy to watch," the Senator says of her. "But that's really only part of the job. You have to have an enormous amount of information at your fingertips, even if you've got a research team backing you up. And the day the story about Cencal broke, nobody knew anything."
Six weeks before Election Day, the embezzlement investigation was leaked to the Sacramento Bee. The timing couldn't have been worse for Senator Fitzwilliam.
"I KNEW who Catherine de Bourgh was, but that was about as much as I knew," Lizzy explains. "I knew basically that Cencal was a Silicon Valley firm. They made microchips. I'd never met Mrs. de Bourgh, but part of me was impressed by her. There were a lot of women working in Silicon Valley back in the sixties--they hired women because women were supposed to be better at the delicate work of assembling chips--but there weren't many women who rose to management, let alone CEO."
Lizzy Bennet's feeling about Catherine de Bourgh is not uncommon. Not seeing a defined place for herself either in her family's political operation or in Matlock Vineyard, a young Catherine Fitzwilliam struck out on her own. After college, she went to work for Cencal Technologies as one of hundreds of young women assembling integrated circuits. She rose through the lower ranks quickly, attracting the attention of Louis de Bourgh, son of the company's founder.
The couple was married not long after, and was soon a force to be reckoned with in the tech world. Catherine returned to her Fitzwilliam roots in the 1990s, growing more active in the Democratic party, eventually becoming one of the most prominent fundraisers in California. She did some fundraising for her brother until the embezzlement charges became public during the 2010 campaign.
Sources close to the family, however, have suggested that private contact between Catherine de Bourgh and Jim Fitzwilliam came to an end in 2001, after the deaths of their younger sister Anne and her husband, George Darcy. Catherine contested her sister and brother-in-law's will, wanting custody of twelve-year-old Georgiana Darcy. Senator Fitzwilliam supported the provisions of the will, namely that custody be granted to the girl's twenty-four-year-old brother, William Darcy. The matter was settled three months later when the judge dismissed the suit, but the rift in the family was already formed.
It is unclear if Lizzy Bennet knew about the Fitzwilliam family drama when the scandal broke. When asked if she had any comment about the noise coming out of the US Attorney's office, she gave a rather confused look and asked Blake Riedy to repeat the question.
"I've got a source in the US Attorney's office saying that Catherine de Bourgh is under investigation for embezzling some fifty million dollars from Cencal Technologies," Riedy said.
"Really," Lizzy replied. "That would be quite a thing. I'd say either you're going to win an award or someone from the US Attorney's office is getting fired."
Amid the reporters' laughter, she continued, "Look, this is the first I've heard of it, but I can assure you that Senator Fitzwilliam has never been anywhere near the daily, monthly, yearly, or epochal business of his brother-in-law's company. The Senator has gone out of his way to avoid being anywhere close to regulating or overseeing the tech industry precisely to avoid the appearance of impropriety, let alone actual impropriety."
Lizzy Bennet had just committed the cardinal sin of professional politics: the categorical denial.
THE FITZWILLIAM campaign was committing another sin within a few days. Instead of distancing himself from his sister, Jim Fitzwilliam was trying to pull off a seven-ten split. While cooperating with the US Attorney and returning all the money his sister had raised for him in that election cycle, he was also making statements of support for his sister and brother-in-law.
Lizzy Bennet, meanwhile, was finding her gift for filibustering the press. As she did earlier this year when rumors arose about the Gardiners' adopted daughter, she came to the problem with stacks and stacks of documentation. In a court of law, it likely would not have held up, being almost entirely composed of publicly available information. But Lizzy commanded the story, keeping the press busy reporting the daily deluge she was delivering. "And that," says Richard Fitzwilliam, the Senator's son, "is what makes her a phenomenal spokeswoman. It's honestly not about concealing the truth. It's about communicating the truth in the most productive way possible. Those couple weeks, Lizzy absolutely had the right instinct. Proving a negative is nearly impossible, so the best course of action was to show how inconsistent the accusations were with Dad's character."
The case soon took a strange turn for Richard Fitzwilliam as well. While delivering documents to the US Attorney, he met Charlotte Lucas, who had blown the whistle on his aunt's company. "To be honest, I thought she worked there," he explains. "I'd been in Martinez's office a few times and seen her around. I just introduced myself as Richard and she introduced herself as Charlotte. It took a couple weeks to get that sorted out. We actually laughed over it. I think we both needed a laugh."
But was there a romantic relationship, as the California press suggested at the time? Charlotte denies it. "He was a friend when I really needed one, just in an unlikely place," she says. "My biggest reluctance in coming with him on this crazy campaign was the fear working so closely would destroy our friendship. But it turns out we work well together."
When asked how she wound up in politics, Charlotte laughs. "I went back home to Wisconsin and got a job with the Governor. Best decision I ever made. Richard only paid attention to Governor Gardiner because I told him to."
RICHARD FITZWILLIAM is perhaps one of the best political operatives the Democratic party has seen in decades, due in no small part to the family he grew up in. "My brother Andrew and I were five when Grandpa ran for President the first time," he says. "Andrew couldn't have cared less but I was fascinated. Lucky, too, because in our family there's little reluctance to answer a kid's questions. I'm not sure how much I understood the first time, but four years later I really understood a lot more."
It was an interesting education for Richard and his cousin, Will Darcy, whose first public appearance was as a three-week-old baby at the end of the convention that nominated his grandfather. Edward Fitzwilliam's presidency was hailed as turning a new leaf in Washington, heralding a new era of governmental openness after the secrecy and corruption of Watergate. President Fitzwilliam's commitment to honesty explains why so many were aghast when his daughter Catherine was accused of embezzlement, and why his son Jim, with a similar reputation for integrity, survived the Cencal scandal so cleanly. In the younger generation, both Richard and Will have walked away from candidates who could not live up to their exacting standards.
This is the first time they have worked together, which came as a surprise to some. Perhaps they avoided it for the reasons Charlotte Lucas was reluctant to work with a friend. Perhaps it took a special kind of candidate to bring them together, or perhaps it was just coincidence. "My cousin Gigi [Georgiana Darcy] was graduating from Columbia College in Chicago," Richard explains. "I happened to email Charlotte, thinking we might manage to see each other that weekend. Turned out, she was going to be there because Governor Gardiner went to grad school at Columbia and had been invited to give the commencement speech."
"So Richard and I were expecting to tune out until Gigi walked," Will expounds. "Most commencement speeches are... dry, let's say. But the Governor was remarkable. It wasn't your standard 'first day of the rest of your life' speech or carpe diem nonsense. She was authentic and funny and engaging, and she had vision. And I'd been planning to read a book."
At the end of the speech, the cousins turned to each other. During the applause, Richard reportedly said, "Will, I've got a crazy idea."
"Good," Will replied. "Now I don't have to admit to coming up with it first."
RICHARD CERTAINLY hails from rarefied circles, but Will Darcy may be the closest thing this country has to political royalty. Not only is he the grandson of a President, he is also the great-nephew of Frederick Darcy, one of the most conservative jurists on the Supreme Court. With such conflicting opinions within his family, it's hardly surprising to learn that he thought about eschewing civil service. "I've never been entirely comfortable with the more public aspects of my mother's family," Will admits. "I actually contemplated teaching for a while. That was short-lived, though. I've never been convinced there's such a thing as destiny, but sometimes it feels like this was inescapable."
His current position, communications director and chief speechwriter for Gardiner for America, seems serendipitous to many. The pairing of speaker and writer is sometimes perilous, after all. The relationship between them usually requires time to develop into a working partnership; even then, it's not always easy to accomplish. Normally a candidate would bring a trusted writer into a campaign like this, but Governor Gardiner took a huge risk, relying on her new campaign manager to fill this important position for her.
"I told her, there's just not that many writers out there of the caliber you need if you're going to win," Richard says. "I think it's easy to lose sight of that. Everybody learns how to write in school. Everybody who goes to college has to take some kind of writing course. But writing a speech is something we don't teach people, really. It's a different skill, writing something to be heard rather than read. And there are different levels of skill required too. Writing a speech about a policy initiative is a world away from writing a speech that convinces people to elect your boss President of the United States. Then beyond that, you've got to have someone who can write a convention speech, election night speeches, and hopefully an inaugural. There's just not that many writers out there who can do that."
When asked about it, Charlotte Lucas concedes that Richard's assessment was unsettling. "I remember asking him if we were looking for a needle in a haystack," she said. "I mean, he was right, but he'd just convinced the Governor to run and then told us we didn't have the resources to win. He laughed at me and told us if we didn't mind a little benign nepotism, he had someone in mind."
Richard had already approached his cousin Will, who was hard at work watching and reading Margaret Gardiner's speeches and other public appearances. "The key was the Columbia speech," Will says. "The Governor wrote it herself. It was the best representation of how she thinks, how she argues, how she presents herself. The point wasn't to emulate her, but to develop her voice into a Presidential voice."
Richard's hunch proved correct. The Wisconsin Governor was already widely praised as an excellent public speaker, but with Will Darcy writing for her, she has become a rhetorical force.
But it's not a job to be tackled alone. Just ten days into the job, Will was looking to hire a deputy, someone to share the writing load as he and Charlotte managed the campaign's message. He found his guy at an unlikely time and place, while avoiding an ex-girlfriend who's now a member of Congress.
"I REALLY don't want to talk about it" is all you'll get out of Will on the subject. Chuck Bingley is, as always, more forthcoming. As a grad student at Berkeley, Will was romantically involved with Caroline Bingley, now better known as Representative Bingley-Anderson of New York's first Congressional district. The congresswoman is also the sister of Chuck Bingley, Will's deputy.
"I met Will once, I think, when he was dating my sister," Chuck explains. "The Gardiner campaign was in the Hamptons for a fundraiser last spring. You couldn't have a fundraiser in that district without my sister being there, and I was invited. I was startled to see Will, to be honest. It may have been a long time ago, but things ended very badly between him and Caroline. But I figured I had nothing to lose."
Chuck approached Will and started a conversation. Chuck had worked for a couple Congressional candidates and the Governor of Connecticut. He knew Will was looking for a deputy and figured he would be great for the job, if his would-be boss could overlook the small matter of his surname.
"We'd been talking, making jokes about some race in Vermont, I think, when he finally introduced himself and said I looked familiar," Chuck says. "He was pretty irritated by the subterfuge, but I managed to explain that I wanted to apply for the deputy job but thought he'd reject me out of hand. He stormed off, but a few minutes later he came back and told me to get to Nashua the next morning with five hundred words on the promise of education and we'd talk."
Chuck's five hundred words evidently got the job done. He and Will became unlikely friends. A stranger friendship you'd be hard-pressed to find. Will is famously blunt and acerbic; Chuck is easygoing and friendly. Chuck's writing style is an effective curb on Will, who, when left to his own devices, tends to write rather long speeches full of four-syllable words. Like so many of the partnerships inside Gardiner for America, it's curious but effective.
AT THE end of a two-month trial in 2011, Catherine de Bourgh, having refused any plea bargain, was sentenced to fifteen years in federal prison. Everyone else indicted in the matter pled to lesser charges, with the exception of Bill Collins, who refused to testify against his boss. Catherine divorced her husband, Louis, from prison. Cencal Technologies, one of the oldest firms in Silicon Valley, spiraled into bankruptcy and eventual liquidation, its assets bought up by other companies.
Under the RICO Act, the de Bourghs' sprawling mansion in Rosings, California was seized as proceeds of illegal activity. The historic mansion had been extensively and expensively renovated in baroque style. Antiques and custom pieces made for a house that looked like something out of a magazine. Everything was seized. Louis' collection of American impressionist paintings was sold off. Catherine's garage of Bentleys, Rolls Royces, and Mercedes was impounded. Left untouched was a trust fund for the de Bourghs' daughter Anne, who requires near-constant medical attention.
Jim Fitzwilliam won his race by only five percent, as a boring California reelect turned into one of the most watched races in the country. By the time voting began, Juan Casillas had come back to work, moving Lizzy Bennet back to her deputy position. Even so, by the end of the election she had other things to be concerned about: her mother had been diagnosed with cancer. She left public service to work for a public relations firm in Los Angeles in order to help pay for her mother's treatment.
This campaign was a terrible repeat of history for Lizzy. On Super Tuesday, she abruptly disappeared from the Gardiner campaign. Two months later, an obituary for her mother appeared in the Chicago Tribune. The cancer had returned, and this time there was nothing to be done.
Upon her return, it became clear that an unlikely romance had developed between Lizzy Bennet and Will Darcy. The details are unknown, though there were always jokes about getting Lizzy to act as proxy whenever something was needed from Will. The staff seems to split evenly on whether or not the relationship came as a surprise.
IN LATE June, the Gardiner campaign returned from a very successful trip to Europe. The Governor was welcomed with huge crowds in every stop, a strong contrast to Senator Connolly's problem-plagued trip to the Middle East. If nothing else, the trip should have erased any doubts Americans might have about how well a woman--specifically this woman--can handle foreign relations.
Her staff warranted attention during the trip too. In the fifteen months since Governor Gardiner announced she was running for President, her staff has grown into an efficient and effective force, the kind of dedicated, expert group that's easy to imagine serving the President of the United States.
Chapter 16
Posted on 2014-05-29
HOWE: They loved her in Europe--KING: You know not everyone thinks that's a good thing, Nick.
Fox News, July 2, 2014
"It could be worse," Charlotte remarked to Lizzy as they stood in the kitchen of the Gardiners' house in Madison, taking a moment away from the argument in the front room. "Two years ago on the Fourth of July it was over a hundred degrees outside."
"So you're saying tempers could be running even higher?" Lizzy said, taking a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
Charlotte smiled. "Grab me one of those, would you?"
"Me too," said a third woman, and Lizzy was surprised to see the Governor entering the kitchen.
From the front room, the women in the kitchen could hear the current of discontent among the staff. Jim Fitzwilliam had practically met them at the airport with a list of a dozen Vice Presidential candidates when the campaign returned to the States. In the ten days since, they crisscrossed the country campaigning and quietly meeting with the prospects. The Governor had cut about half the list now, and the fight in the other room was over one of the remaining names, Regina Keller.
Lizzy handed water bottles to Charlotte and the Governor. "Probably best to let them punch themselves out, ma'am."
Governor Gardiner twisted off the cap of her bottle and sipped before she spoke. "Jack's first Christmas, we somehow got out of the house on the way to Ed's parents in Eau Claire without a single pacifier. So of course an hour down the road Jack wakes up screaming like the world is ending." Lizzy and Charlotte exchanged amused glances. "Ed pulled over at the first drug store we found. I got Jack-Jack out of his car seat and went inside, and as soon as I had a pacifier in hand, I got it out of the packaging and into his mouth. So I go up to pay for it, and by that point Jack isn't just quiet again, he's asleep again. I gave the empty packaging to the teenager at the register and for a minute, he just held it and kept looking back and forth between it and me. 'Trust me,' I said. 'It was an emergency.'"
Charlotte and Lizzy both laughed. "Do we need to get some pacifiers for the guys?" Lizzy asked.
"I need you two to go back and turn the fire down," the Governor replied.
Even though part of her wanted to stay back and chat and split the plate of brownies on the counter with the Governor and Charlotte, Lizzy knew the Governor was right. She and Charlotte did as Governor Gardiner asked, heading back into the front room where the men were still at it. Chuck was speaking as they entered. "All I'm saying is, if she's the best person for the job, this argument is ridiculous. Why wouldn't we tap her for VP?"
"That's what I'm saying, Chuck," Richard replied. "Regina Keller is a great choice. She's been in the Senate forever, she helps us out in Colorado, and she helps us paint a picture of an administration that knows what it's doing."
"We're already up by nine in Colorado, genius," Will shot back. "Look, Regina Keller is great. She was my mother's hero. If I could make her queen of the known universe, I would, but if we do this, we turn into the tampon campaign."
Unable to help herself, Lizzy let out a sort of choking noise. Will twisted around on the sofa looking a bit panicked. "I'm not saying I actually think that."
"Oh, I know you're fond of outrageous metaphors," she teased, laying her hand on the back of his neck and rubbing gently. He was really tense.
"I'm pretty sure he's not, Lizzy," Richard said skeptically.
"I'm pretty sure your sarcasm meter is broken, Richard."
Richard rolled his eyes. "So what do you think?" he asked her pointedly.
"I'd love to pick Senator Keller," she said, and Richard sat up a little straighter. "I'd also like a pony."
Richard let out a frustrated noise as he turned to Charlotte. "Please, please tell me you're being reasonable."
Charlotte was always to-the-point. "We can't pick a woman, Richard."
"What happened to female solidarity?" Richard asked.
Lizzy and Charlotte exchanged a glance. "We agree with each other," they said together.
Across the room, Chuck snickered, but Richard wasn't amused. "Seriously."
"Richard, I'm not making light of this," Charlotte said, sitting next to Will and across from Richard. "I think Lizzy and I agree. We'd love to see Regina Keller as Vice President. She's a creative thinker, she's respected on both sides of the aisle, and if we take back the Senate this year she'll be a fantastic majority whip. But we're already asking people to do something they've never done before in this country. We can't look like a novelty ticket."
Richard looked up at Lizzy and sighed. "Do you remember what you said to the media the first time you were asked if the country was ready to elect a woman?"
Lizzy nodded. "The UK, India, Argentina, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Norway, Chile, Israel, Pakistan, all have elected female heads of state, some as much as half a century ago. The US cannot be so different that a woman would bring about the end of civilization." She perched on the arm of the couch and fiddled with the cap of her water bottle. "You two are the same about this, you know. You just assume the culture has caught up to the law."
Will opened his mouth like he was going to object, but then relaxed. "Yeah, I do."
Richard was still more serious. "Don't we have a responsibility to challenge that?"
"We have a responsibility to show restraint too," Charlotte quietly pointed out.
Richard looked around the room. From the sofa the three of them stared at him patiently; from the bay window, Chuck just shrugged. That seemed to be the last straw. "Fine," Richard said. "But we'll strongly consider Keller for a Cabinet post."
They all agreed to that. When the Governor came back into the room, everyone was much calmer, though the heat was starting to get to them. "You all look like you're wilting," she said. "But I assume calmer heads have prevailed?"
Lizzy was happy to let Richard speak. "The consensus is we can't nominate Regina Keller, qualified as she is, ma'am."
Governor Gardiner nodded. "I know. She'll still be a great surrogate for us, and she'll continue to do great things no matter what happens with us."
"Well, should the rest of the list say no..."
The Governor let out an exasperated sigh. Walking past him, she patted his shoulder and said, "Bite your tongue, Rick."
Before long the group decamped to the backyard, where Ed was grilling, but Will lingered where he was, grabbing Lizzy's hand as she walked by. She smiled and leaned down. "If you're wanting pie, you're going to have to make a run to the store."
"No, I've got what I want." With a quick tug he pulled her down to his lap. "Hi."
"Hi," she replied, kissing his nose. "What's got you in this mood?"
He didn't look as lighthearted as she would have thought. "It occurred to me this morning," he said. "We broke up in this house."
Lizzy took a deep breath. "We did, in fact."
Will rubbed her back and leaned in to kiss the sensitive spot just above her collarbone. "I thought I loved you then," he said, low in her ear. "Maybe I did, but I didn't respect you like I should have."
"Will," she said, suddenly breathless, "William."
"It was something I needed to learn, darlin'. I was too focused on what I wanted from you and not on what you needed from me," he continued.
"We're never going to settle who's more to blame, Will," Lizzy countered. "I was more concerned about what other people would think than what you thought. I wasn't willing to accept how important you'd already become to me."
Will smiled, a shy half-smile hardly anyone but her ever saw. "And what am I to you now?"
Remembering what he'd said in France, Lizzy cupped his cheek. "The only one I can imagine my life with."
He drew her in for a kiss, curiously playful given what he'd just said. She'd grown used to all his contradictions over the last year, but she hoped beyond hope she would never grow tired of them. He was a complicated man, and she wanted to spend the rest of her life figuring him out.
Will pulled away abruptly, breathing hard. For a minute they just sat there together in silence, foreheads touching and hands stilled. Then he took a deeper breath, moved back enough to meet her gaze, and said, "Marry me."
"Oh," she gasped, wondering how she could be surprised by something so expected.
When she didn't give him an answer right away, he started to babble. "I didn't intend to do this here. I meant to wait till the North Carolina swing. There's a ring at the house in Pemberley that I--"
Lizzy cut him off with a brief kiss. "I don't care."
"Lizzy," he murmured, fingers caressing the back of her neck. "Will you marry me?"
She was smiling, biting her lip for a moment for fear she would cry. A strange feeling had washed over her--strange, but exhilarating--and she wanted this moment to last forever. "Yes," she told him, to his utter delight. "Yes, William, of course I will."
Ed had lunch ready, but Will took Lizzy out the front door, going for a long walk with her through the neighborhood, ending at the swings in the park down the block from the Gardiner house. He hadn't talked so much about the future in years, but with Lizzy it was easy to make plans.
"I want to hold off on telling everyone till I've actually given you the ring," he said, and he was a little amused when she objected.
"Will, I don't need..."
"Do you want endless mockery from Richard?" Will asked with a pointed look. "Because that's what happens if you don't have a ring when he finds out."
"Do I want to marry into a family where endless mockery is an option?"
He narrowed his eyes at her and grabbed the chain of her swing, yanking her toward him. Lizzy shrieked with laughter, begging him to stop swinging her back and forth, eyes bright. "Uncle! Uncle!" she cried, stopping only when he turned their swings toward each other and stared at her. Her laughter subsided, replaced by a tender look that seemed new.
"I love you," he said, because there was nothing else to say.
"You do know how to sweet-talk me, don't you?" she replied.
"Always did."
She smirked. "Really?"
He pulled her closer by the swing chains. "You calling me a liar, sweetheart?" he asked, just before kissing her.
By the time she could speak again, they'd both forgotten what the argument was about.
"Are you going to want a huge wedding?" he asked, while praying she wouldn't.
"I think you're asking if I want a wedding that takes a year to plan."
He paused before answering. "Yes."
"If Mom were here," she said, and swallowed hard. Silently Will stood and helped her up from the swing so he could pull her into his arms. "Mom would want a big wedding."
"You were her only daughter," Will pointed out. "My mom would have wanted a big wedding too."
Lizzy looked up at him. "Are we going to have a big wedding because our mothers would have wanted it?"
"That does sound a bit crazy when you put it that way." Will took her hand and they headed back toward the house. "What if we get married now and have a big reception after six months or so?"
"Now?" Lizzy exclaimed.
"Not now, soon," he quickly corrected. "I just... We're practically living together now. Why should we put things off for a big wedding neither of us wants?"
She relaxed visibly. "Okay, I may not want a production, but we need rings, I want a dress, so on and so forth."
"All right, all right," he said with a laugh of his own.
That night, before going to the fireworks, they did tell the Gardiners their news. The Governor hugged them both and grabbed Lizzy's hand, wanting to see the ring she didn't have yet. While Will laughed, Lizzy leaned back against him and sighed. "It was a half-planned proposal," she told the Governor. "The ring's in North Carolina."
"Well, you were a good sport to play along, Lizzy," the Governor said. "I'll ask Jane if we can shuffle things around and get a trip there before the convention."
Ed hugged Lizzy and shook Will's hand. "I hope we're invited to the wedding."
"Wouldn't have it any other way," Will assured him. "We'd never have met if it weren't for this campaign."
Governor Gardiner elbowed her husband. "See, honey, if running for President doesn't work out, we can start a matchmaking business!"
Ed groaned theatrically.
The Gardiners agreed to keep the matter private until Lizzy and Will had a chance to tell their families and for the ring to be retrieved. They only told a few family members outside the campaign, although Jane figured it out when she found a bridal magazine Will bought as a joke inside Lizzy's enormous bag. "What were the odds?" Lizzy asked him later. "I can't ever find what I need in that bag."
"At least Jane can keep a secret," Will said, kissing her temple. "Just imagine if it had been Richard."
"How did he ever get work in politics when he can't keep his mouth shut?"
"Nepotism."
"At least Jane knows now," Lizzy said a minute later. "She can help plan the wedding."
Will chuckled. "I knew you'd find your way out of that."
North Carolina wasn't in the cards in the near future, much to his disappointment. Even when Jane knew what was at hand, she couldn't make it happen until the week before the convention. It was just as well. Will and Chuck were spending almost every waking moment working on the convention speech. Lizzy was just as occupied liaising with the party on the rest of the convention. Then there was the matter of the Vice President.
In the six weeks since the Fourth of July, the Governor whittled their list down to two potential nominees, both Senators. The first was John Gidding, the senior Senator from Ohio. He had run for President twenty years ago and was rumored to have considered running again this time. Will was glad he hadn't, unsure if the Governor could have won against him. Gidding knew how to get things done in Congress, but to Will's mind he was a polarizing figure, not well liked across the aisle. Gidding carved out an existence as the guy throwing grenades so the leadership could appear calm and reasonable in comparison. That could be useful in a Vice President, but Will didn't think it was what the Governor really wanted. The other complication was that Ohio was trending Republican, and they couldn't be sure of keeping Gidding's seat.
The second option was Eric Lin, the junior Senator from Virginia. The son of Taiwanese immigrants, Senator Lin was about the same age as the Governor. He was a graduate of Princeton and the Maxwell School, bright, charismatic, and effective. The Governor liked him very well when she met him. They didn't agree on everything, but they had a great time talking shop. The only question was whether he was ready.
Richard was getting frustrated with the Governor's indecision. "We have to introduce the guy at the convention, so we have to know who he is in time to get everything ready," he complained to Will.
"Lizzy says the convention people are asking three times a day," Will replied. "Better her than us, I suspect."
"Speak of the devil," Richard said, nodding to the other side of the conference room, where Lizzy was rapidly approaching.
Will looked and frowned at the serious look she was giving them. In the last year he'd come to think of it as her crisis face. "Is Thierry emailing again?" he asked when she was near.
She shook her head. "Howard Littleton."
"Howard Littleton is emailing you?" Richard asked.
"Let me finish, please."
She handed over the tablet, and Will hit the play button on the video. Howard Littleton, the billionaire who had propped up Connolly's early campaign, was on one of the conservative talk shows, giving his opinion on, apparently, anything that came to mind.
Richard frowned. "He's a blowhard, Lizzy, but I don't--"
"Hang on, here it is," Lizzy interrupted.
Through the tinny speakers, Will listened as the interviewer asked Littleton for his predictions if Governor Gardiner won. "We're always going to see a radical agenda when a Democrat is elected, but we're talking about a radical feminist agenda now. We're going to see affirmative action forced on us for women, so companies can't hire the most qualified person if there's a woman applying. Title IX beefed up until it kills off men's sports. More frivolous waste of taxpayer dollars with nonsense like the Violence Against Women Act that's up for renewal in Congress right now."
Will's jaw dropped and he stared at Lizzy, no longer listening to anything else. She took the tablet back, and Will looked at his cousin, who was equally gobsmacked. "Who says that now?" Richard asked. "'Nonsense like the Violence Against Women Act'?"
"I'll get started on language," Will said, regaining his ability to speak. "You'll tell the Governor, Lizzy?"
She made a face. "Gee, thanks."
Richard went with Lizzy while Will grabbed Chuck and they got to work. Ten minutes later, the Governor came storming out of her meeting, Lizzy and Richard in her wake. "This is crazy. Literally crazy," Governor Gardiner ranted. "Who in their right mind says that? Who actually thinks the Violence Against Women Act is frivolous nonsense?"
"Ma'am, you can't say that in front of cameras," Lizzy said. "We'll get a statement out soon, but we should wait for Connolly to say something before you speak publicly."
"Oh, I know," the Governor said, waving Lizzy off. "But this is the most ridiculous thing I've heard in a campaign where someone suggested that I'm raising Ed's love child."
They didn't have to wait long for people to respond. Nearly the entire political establishment across the country had a statement to make. Lizzy had her staff working to keep track of them and dragooned half a dozen volunteers to help. She read the statement Will and Chuck wrote and cleared it for release, but it didn't make much of a ripple in the press storm.
They were up late that night in Missouri, watching the onslaught of reaction. So far everyone condemned the statement, right or left, except for Connolly. Will imagined he was tied up with lawyers and advisors but surely it wouldn't take this long.
"I don't get it," Will said to Lizzy that night. "How long does it take to distance yourself?"
"From a statement? Not long," she replied. "From the millions Littleton spent..."
There was no word from Connolly's camp that night, nor was there anything the next morning. That didn't explain why Lizzy was smiling when Will made his way into the St. Louis headquarters. She was watching one of the televisions in the room, holding the remote loosely and nodding along with the speaker.
"First of all," Eric Lin was saying, "Mr. Littleton would do well to know that affirmative action already applies to women."
A cheer went up from Lizzy's crew, and she shushed them. "One in four women is a victim of domestic abuse," the Senator continued. "A third of all female homicide victims are killed by a current or former partner. Girls who witness their mothers being beaten are more likely to become victims in their own relationships. Boys who witness their mothers' abuse are more likely to become perpetrators of it as adults.
"I'm proud to be a co-sponsor of the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act. This law is not just about providing resources to women who need help and protection. It's also about trying to end an epidemic. We're never going to succeed until men and women alike stand up and say this is real, this is wrong, and this has to stop now."
The Governor was watching from across the room. Will recognized the serious but satisfied look on her face. "It's always more entertaining when someone brings facts to the table," she remarked, approaching them. "Lizzy, when am I next on camera?"
Lizzy had a couple dozen memos in her hand. "Whenever you like, really."
The Governor laughed. "Let's prep for an interview, then."
Lizzy got to work selecting one of the press inquiries, and Will followed the Governor back to the small room she was using as an office. "We've got an event in Raleigh tomorrow," he said, shutting the door.
"You reminding me of your little side trip?"
"No, I was wondering if I should call Senator Lin's office to see if he can arrange to come down to campaign with us."
The Governor quirked a brow. "You were on the fence, as I recall. What convinced you?"
He couldn't quite help a small smile. "He had me at affirmative action, ma'am."
She laughed lightly, and Will grinned. "Do you still have reservations?" he asked after a minute.
"Charlotte thinks a woman for President and an Asian-American as running mate starts to look like we're trying too hard."
"Don't tell her I said this, but Charlotte's not always right. Just usually." The Governor smiled a little in response. "I think the most important part is that you like him and you think you can work with him. The rest is just window dressing."
After regarding him carefully for a minute, she nodded. "Would you arrange a phone call with Senator Lin, please?"
Will did so, and stayed on the call at her request. At the end of it, he came back to Lizzy and asked, "Have you decided on an interview?"
She nodded. "She'll do CNN this afternoon."
"Okay. We've got an addition to the roster for tomorrow."
"Who?"
In response, Will handed her a slip of paper. Lizzy opened it, and her eyes widened. "Does this mean what I think it means?"
"Time to order some new signs."
Lizzy grinned and got to work.
At midnight they had a huge rally in St. Louis, and from there they got right on the plane and flew to North Carolina. Lizzy only got a couple hours of sleep, knowing Will wanted to get to Pemberley before the Raleigh event. His excitement was contagious, and she drank up the sight of the small town just waking up as the sun rose.
They talked along the way, sometimes about the town but more often about the election. "Now I'm starting to think there's another shoe about to drop," Lizzy finally said. "Why in the world hasn't he said anything?"
"I don't know," Will replied, "but let's table that for a minute."
"Why?"
He didn't answer, but turned off the main road. A white plantation house stood at the end of the lane, and Lizzy gasped. "Welcome to Pemberley House, Lizzy," Will said quietly.
Old, beautiful trees lined the drive, and Lizzy couldn't help looking around in wonder. Will talked about how the town grew up around the old plantation after the Civil War, but she only half listened. The house was perfectly situated on a rise, old and stately and grand. Lizzy spotted a rose bush peeking from behind the house, and she was eager to explore the gardens and groves.
She said nothing as Will stopped the car and came around to open the door for her. She was too busy looking, even as they went into the house and he explained how it was used now for meetings, weddings, even occasionally proms for the local high school. She was introduced to Elaine Reynolds, the manager of the house, and Will led Lizzy to the east wing of the house, where the family lived when he was still at home.
The grandeur of the house faded into something more homelike there, and Lizzy regained the power of speech eventually. "It's beautiful, Will," she said. "I'm sure everyone who comes here tells you that, but really..."
He smiled softly. "No, it means a lot coming from you."
He led her into one last room, which he declared his favorite. Lizzy laughed in delight when she saw it. The brilliant sunrise was pouring into the library through large windows. Comfortable-looking chairs sat in various places around the room, and a round antique table stood in the middle. Lizzy was too busy inspecting every other inch of the room to notice the tiny velvet box on the table until Will picked it up.
Taking her hand, he led her to the windows and gave her the box. Her fingers were trembling a little even though she knew there was nothing to be nervous about. Inside was a ring, a ruby with half a dozen small diamonds set in delicate white gold filagree. "It was my grandmother's," he explained. "Her engagement ring went to Gigi, but this was her favorite. This was the ring my grandfather gave her when he came home from World War II."
"Europe?" she asked in some distraction as he took the ring from the box.
"The Pacific," he replied. "I'm sorry, I should have asked if you minded a family piece, if you wanted something new--"
Lizzy cut him off with a kiss. "I love it, William. It's beautiful, and I love that it has history."
"I'm glad," he said with a tender smile.
They said nothing else as he slipped the ring onto her finger, no renewed proposal, no repeated declarations of love. All they needed to communicate now was quiet smiles and soft, eager kisses.
Lizzy would have been happy to linger in the library forever, but the world outside would interrupt. Will's phone chirped. He reluctantly pulled away from her to look at the text. "Senator Lin and his family just got on the plane," he said. "We should head back to Raleigh."
"Yes," she agreed, taking his hand and tugging him toward the door.
Along the way, he lifted their joined hands, kissing her new ring. She smiled, looking around the house again as they walked. "You said the house is used for weddings, right?" she asked.
"Funny you should mention that."
"Oh?"
"I asked Mrs. Reynolds. The weekend after Christmas is free."
"Christmas in Pemberley," she mused. "I think I like that idea."
Continued In Next Section