Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star (44 page)

With an ugly scowl, he dressed himself. He had a rehearsal to make, and he was going to teach Elizabeth a lesson.

***

It was one of those days that Caroline Bingley was sure she was not paid enough. She was stuck at Radio City Music Hall with three of the crankiest men on the planet and a bitch producer from MTV, and to top it off, she hadn’t seen her lover, or gotten laid, in over a week!

“TJ? How much longer?” she asked the friendly production assistant who had been assigned to Slurry. The rehearsal had been delayed, as she expected, but they were now well over an hour late and things were getting out of hand. A hip-hop medley of five different artists was the holdup, and it was with a sense of relief that Caroline saw they were finally finished.

“Ten minutes,” TJ answered with a sympathetic smile.

Caroline nodded her thanks, grabbed the bottle of Advil that Charles was about to hurl away in frustration, and opened it for him.

“Thanks, Caro,” he moaned as he popped four of them. Caroline asked TJ for another round of bottled water for the band as she stood and stretched her legs in the aisle. The band that had been troubled last week was a ragged mess today. Charles was clearly hung over, Richard was snarling from lack of sleep, and Darcy—she paused, Darcy looked worse than she had ever seen him. His expression was dark and bordering on flat-out mean. Caroline found herself in the unusual position of having no idea what had happened. He was fine when he had left the party the night before, but now, she wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley.

The call came and Slurry finally moved onstage. The plan had been that they would play an acoustic version of “Bound,” but the look in Darcy’s eye told Caroline that was not going to happen.

***

Darcy looked at the bitch producer from MTV who had insulted them all day to Anne de Bourgh, who looked at him with open disdain. He was fed up with women right now, convinced they were the source of all the misery in his life, but it was only when he saw Elizabeth and her band mates enter the theater and take a seat in the back that he knew what he was going to do.

He walked to Charles and put an arm over his shoulder. “Let’s have some fun,” he said, his voice darkly persuasive.

“What do you want to do?” Charles said foggily.

“Change the song,” Darcy grinned wickedly. Charles matched his grin.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he agreed, delighted with the prospect of some harmless mischief. “Let’s do it.”

Darcy began a simple melody line to which Charles joined eight bars later.

It’s like the stories, you always see,

In the movies or on the TV.

Girl meets boy, true love is found,

Till that Bitch turns it around.

It’s all a joke!

It’s all a joke.

Love, sex, all of the rest,

It’s all a fucking joke.

I thought this was it.

I thought she was the one.

Turns out, she just wanted some fun.

Now I’m alone, it’s easy to see,

All this time, the fucking joke was on me.

From her seat, Elizabeth felt her jaw drop as she recognized the introduction Darcy was playing. Shock overwhelmed her as she watched Darcy staring coldly at her, snarling and mouthing the chorus to her. The message was unmistakable, even for someone as blind as she had been.

Instinct for self-preservation alone drove Elizabeth out of her seat and into the lobby. Charles’s voice followed her, but at least she was away from Darcy’s eyes. His eyes were so angry and hurtful. As she listened to the hurtful, mocking words, Elizabeth felt sick to her stomach.

A moment later Jane joined Elizabeth, looking at her in shocked confusion. “Why?” she stammered.

Elizabeth could only shake her head and hold up her hand, not ready to speak yet.

Charlotte and Alex burst through the doors. Charlotte took a look at the Bennets’ expressions and said, “Okay, we’re out of here. Let’s go and get a drink.”

***

Darcy was pleased when he saw Elizabeth leave the theater. His temper was broken by her expression of surprise and hurt. But as his rage and vindictiveness were appeased, he found that he was left with little more than a cold emptiness inside. Intuitively he knew that he would regret his action at some point, but now he just felt numb.

“What the fuck!” the bitch producer screeched as she stormed the stage.

Caroline intercepted her and listened to her ranting for a minute as Charles and Darcy laughed together at her.

“What the fuck was that? They are not going to fucking sing that on my show! I can’t broadcast that! Everyone told me they were professionals!”

Caroline stopped her there. “They are professionals, but they are also artists,” she told her calmly. “You don’t keep professionals cooling their heels for over two hours! Now, they are not going to sing that song tonight; they were merely blowing off steam.”

“They better not!”

Anne de Bourgh appeared out of nowhere and spoke up imperially, “I promise you, Vicki, they won’t.”

Vicki glared at both the women and muttered, “They better not! Friggin’ bastards!” before marching off in an angry huff.

Anne looked at Caroline, her eyebrows lifted.

“They won’t,” Caroline said in a much less certain tone.

“Perhaps you should have a word with them.”

Caroline gave her a stiff nod while making a mental note to give herself an extremely large raise and went to speak to the band.

***

Richard walked slowly from around his drum kit to Darcy and Charles. “Well, that was fun,” he observed, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Do you feel better now?”

Darcy gave him a black look but otherwise ignored him.

Charles took a moment to study the audience while Caroline and Anne talked. “Do you guys see Jane?”

Richard fixed Darcy with a look and shook his head slowly. “Oh no, don’t tell me he didn’t know.”

Darcy glared at Richard, then answered, “I saw her before, but I think she left. We’ll see them later, I’m sure.”

Charles frowned. “I really need to see her.”

“Charles, we’ve all got rooms at the same hotel. We’ll see them there, I’m sure.”

Richard exhaled loudly. He could already feel the headache starting.

***

At the King Cole Bar in the St. Regis hotel, the two Bennets and the two Lucases found a table for an emergency meeting.

Jane was pale, her hand shaking as she sipped her drink. “Why? Why would Charles do that?” she asked no one in particular. “I mean, we sort of had a fight Sunday night, but nothing to warrant this.”

Elizabeth sighed. She didn’t want to talk about what happened, but she had no choice. “Jane, it wasn’t you.”

“What?” Jane asked, completely dumbfounded.

“Want to share, Lizzy?” Charlotte asked knowingly. Charlotte hadn’t missed Darcy’s vicious expression. When compared to Charles’s “little boy acting out” expression, it told her everything she needed to know.

Elizabeth blew out a long breath. She fixed her eyes on the Maxfield Parrish mural dominating the room and told her story. “The song was directed at me. I went to Darcy’s loft last night, and one thing led to another and I spent the night.” As she spoke, she kept her voice as dry and emotionless as possible.

Elizabeth heard Charlotte snort, but she couldn’t look at her. “This morning he told me that he loved me. I wasn’t ready for that. I asked him to slow down, and he kept pushing, and in the end, he pushed me right out the door.” She stared at her drink as she stirred it, and then took a long sip.

“Bastard!” Alex seethed.

Elizabeth realized that just the night before, George used the same word for Darcy and she felt the wrongness of it. Regret colored her voice as she said, “No, no, he’s not. I hurt his feelings.” She pushed her hair back from her face. “Well, maybe he is. That song was pretty shitty. I think he thinks I didn’t believe that he was sincere. I didn’t know,” she shrugged at her own confusion.

Charlotte sat back, an expression of disgust on her face. “So let me see if I have this straight. He had amazing sex with you, then screwed you over, right?” She snorted. “Well, that’s three for three for Slurry!” She raised her glass in a mocking salute.

“But the point is Charles isn’t breaking up with you, Jane,” Elizabeth finished.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Alex said, taking the newspaper that sat abandoned on the next table. It was a city daily open to a picture of Charles, smiling, his arm around the shoulder of a scantily clad actress. The caption informed them that the picture was from the De Bourgh party the night before.

Elizabeth looked from the picture to Jane. “I’m sure this doesn’t mean anything, Jane.”

“It doesn’t really matter either way, Lizzy.” Her voice was quiet and her gaze inward. “I knew Charles was breaking up with me. This picture doesn’t make any difference.”

“Jane, he’s not,” Elizabeth said quickly. “I’m sorry. I should have told you before. Darcy told me what’s going on. Charles, um, it’s not what you think.” She frowned, frustrated. “Look, it’s something bad about his father, and while I know what it is, I really think he should tell you, because it’s personal. But I can say it’s nothing about you and him.”

Jane looked at her a long time. “He still should have told me. I’m tired of being told he loves me and to trust him, when all I’m getting shown is that he doesn’t trust me. And frankly, I
don’t
trust him anymore.” She sighed and took a long sip of her drink. “Well, at least we know why Dead Man Walking left the tour,” Jane said thoughtfully.

“Jane, I don’t think they left because of romantic problems with the band,” Elizabeth objected gently, while Charlotte’s mouth twisted into a smile at the idea.

“No, but they probably left because they found out what we have: that Slurry is destructive, to themselves and to anyone around them.”

“Jane?”

“Think about it. I know you were making a joke, Charlotte, but you were right. They have hurt all of us, badly. We aren’t the same as we were before the tour. We used to be so strong. And now look at us. Richard has dragged you through the mud, Charlotte. Lizzy just got her heart handed to her on a plate, and even Charles,” her voice broke here, and she stopped to pull herself together. “I can’t sing ‘Everything You Are’ tonight,” she announced finally. “It means too much to me.”

Elizabeth felt Jane’s words like a blow. “What?”

Alex snapped, “Jane!”

“No, I can’t. These men, all of them, they have done nothing but hurt us. They are destroying us.”

“What do you want to sing, Jane?” Charlotte asked quietly.

“‘The Longest Good-bye.’”

Elizabeth took Jane’s hand and squeezed it.

“You know if you do that, De Bourgh will have just cause for terminating your contract,” Alex informed them. “Anne’s been looking for a reason to get rid of you since the mess with Collins. You’ll be giving her one on a silver platter.”

The three women all shared a look of determination. “We know, Alex,” Jane told him softly.

***

It was seven when their call came. Elizabeth, Jane, and Charlotte were dressed, warmed up, and ready. Nervously, they held their instrument cases in their hands as they descended in the hotel elevator.

The tension was palpable as they walked through the lobby, regal as queens, to the doors and their waiting limo. Once safely ensconced in the car, they shared a sigh of relief. They had all feared an encounter with Slurry, but the men were nowhere to be seen.

Fate was playing a bizarre game of chance, keeping the paths of the two groups from crossing until it was too late. LBS went to the theater and settled into the pre-show green room. Then Slurry left the hotel to enter the Music Hall in a flash of cameras.

Charles was on tenterhooks. He had not been able to reach or even see Jane all day. She would not answer her phone at the hotel, and he was beginning to wonder if something was wrong. He had even cast off his chronic lateness trying to reach his beloved Jane.

Slurry sat in their prestige seats, close to the stage in the large auditorium of the Music Hall. A large screen was lowered over the stage to allow the audience to watch the pre-show.

The men had given up talking to each other; Charles was too nervous over Jane, Darcy was sulking, and Richard was too annoyed with Darcy. Caroline and Anne, both looking elegant in evening gowns, sat with them, shepherding the men.