“No sooner than I deserve. If you’ll excuse me, I should start grilling.” Had she in fact offended him? He headed inside the guesthouse and emerged a moment later carrying one platter of raw steaks and another of portobello mushrooms and zucchini cut into long strips. Uncle Frank joined him at the grill, and Liz could hear her uncle strike up a conversation about the history of the estate. “It’s no secret that property in Atherton is worth a pretty penny,” Uncle Frank said, and Darcy said affably, “Yes, times have changed since my great-great-grandfather bought this land for twelve dollars an acre.”
Liz rose, looking for a bathroom. On the other side of the guesthouse’s glass door, she found herself inside a great room with stainless steel kitchen appliances lining one wall. Passing a first bathroom, she walked down a hall, by three bedrooms—two held twin beds, and one contained an unmade king-sized bed, with an open suitcase on the floor beside it—and, beyond the suitcase, an interior bathroom. As she washed her hands afterward in a sink with a pattern of blue peonies painted across the basin and faucet handles, she was struck, as she occasionally was during a third glass of wine, by how cute she looked in the mirror. Sober, she tended, like most women she knew, toward self-criticism. But tipsy, she could admire her own brightly inquisitive eyes, her shiny hair and game smile, as well as the flattering cut of her jeans and the boost offered by the overpriced bra she’d purchased that afternoon. Even in the presence of her weird cousin and corny uncle, the night had taken on a certain enchanted quality that arose from the splendor of the setting, from the crisp air, the candles they relied on as twilight gathered, and above all from Darcy’s solicitousness, which she felt to be directed primarily at her; indeed, she interpreted his attention to all the guests as a personal tribute. But of course she was not certain—she was certain of nothing.
Whether by her own angling or a more mutual stratagem, Liz ended up next to Darcy for dinner; her aunt was on his other side. Complementing the meat and vegetables Darcy had grilled were a loaf of fresh bread, a salad, and more wine, all of them outstanding, though what food and drink wouldn’t have tasted delicious beneath a starry sky on a late-summer evening?
“Was your mother a native Californian like your father?” Aunt Margo asked Darcy, and he shook his head.
“She was a proud Yankee who could never quite believe she’d settled here permanently.” Darcy looked at his sister. “Wouldn’t you say, Georgie?”
The focus of the table shifting to her seemed to make Georgie self-conscious, but she sounded composed as she said, “Our mom grew up in Boston, and she’d lose her voice yelling at the TV during Red Sox games.”
“How did your parents meet?” Liz asked.
Darcy said, “Mom was an undergraduate at Radcliffe when our dad was in medical school. She was only nineteen when Dad proposed, and he assumed she’d drop out of school and move here with him. She refused. He joined a practice in San Francisco, but supposedly he kept proposing to her once a month, writing letters. She finally said yes the day after her graduation.”
“Your father was a doctor, too?” Aunt Margo said.
“A general practitioner,” Darcy said. “I think in another life our mom would have been a landscape architect. When I picture her, it’s digging in the gardens here.”
“I just realized,” Georgie said. “You should all come to our croquet tournament tomorrow.” A silence ensued, and Georgie added, “You don’t need to wear white or anything. It’s informal.”
“They probably have plans, Georgie,” Darcy said. “Liz, how long are you in town?”
“Till Sunday night.”
“I bet we can make it work,” Charlotte said. “Don’t you think, Liz? What time does the tournament start?”
“Around three,” Georgie said. “I mean, don’t feel obligated if it sounds boring.”
“Margo and I will take a rain check,” Uncle Frank said. “We’ll be enjoying some R and R on a friend’s boat.”
“And I need to be at the office,” Willie said. “We’re in crunch time, and I’m lucky to have gotten away for dinner.”
“Then definitely count Liz and me in,” Charlotte said. “Darcy, I trust you remember from Charades that Liz is a fierce competitor.”
“I remember it well,” Darcy said.
A SIXTY-SOMETHING WOMAN named Alberta materialized before dessert to ask if they needed anything, and Darcy complimented her on the excellence of the food, thereby confirming Liz’s impression that he had done little to prepare it. However, it was Darcy himself who loaded the dishwasher, as Liz, Charlotte, and Georgie carried plates into the guesthouse.
Georgie had just taken a hazelnut torte outside—Liz doubted the young woman would be eating any—and Charlotte followed with a pint of vanilla ice cream, leaving Darcy and Liz inside and truly alone together for the first time that evening. As Darcy scrubbed the salad bowl, Liz, who was no more than five feet away, said, “Thank you—” and he turned off the water. “Thank you for everything tonight—” she began again, and, talking over her, he said, “You don’t have to come tomorrow just to humor Georgie. Now that I know how you feel about Caroline Bingley, I—”
“No, it’s fine.” This time, it was her interrupting him. “I mean, I don’t want to impose if—”