“Hey, thanks,” I said quietly once he’d settled in.
“For what?” He pulled his seatbelt across his lap.
“For defending me back there. I really appreciate it.” Why did my voice sound so small and weak?
“You’re cute in that dress,” he said with a wink.
I couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, well, that’s up for debate apparently, but regardless, what you said...it was really nice of you.”
Jeremy rested his right hand atop the steering wheel and stared into the bushes in front of the parking lot. “I still remember the time Tim Baxter was giving me hell my junior year, and you told him to shut up and mind his own business.”
I frowned. “When was that?”
“In gym class. I was trying to make some baskets and I didn’t exactly have the same height I do now. Baseball’s always been more my sport anyway.” He laughed.
“We had gym class together?” I scratched my head. Why wasn’t this coming back to me?
Jeremy turned on the ignition and put the truck in drive. “You’ve got the worst memory ever.”
“I really do,” I admitted with a sigh.
“Anyway, I owed you one.” He slowly pushed on the gas pedal and the truck eased through the parking lot. He’d remembered again. Car sick. No sudden moves.
I spent the rest of the ride back to my car at Jeremy’s house wondering what else had happened between me and a teenaged Jeremy Remington that I did not recall.
Chapter 16
Monday
I was grading papers in my tiny, fifth-floor office that had no heat in the winter and no AC in the summer. It was the type of office that non-tenured professors had to suffer. But the space was cozy and clean, and I’d made it mine by putting a nice big puffy reading chair in the corner where I usually stored an extra pair of glasses and a coffee mug. I’d splurged on a second Keurig machine for the place. I’d been trying to concentrate on reading the papers my students had just turned in about early-nineteenth-century English etiquette, but my mind kept drifting back to my dinner with Jeremy on Saturday night.
It had so totally felt like a date. We’d talked, we’d laughed, he’d paid. Though I had to admit the part where he’d encouraged me to write a romance novel had been my favorite. He hadn’t laughed or made fun of it, or been derisive like Harrison had been. I mean, Ellie had to support it. She was my best friend and also a romance reader. Jeremy, on the other hand, was supportive because he believed in things like people following their wildest dreams and being happy instead of traditionally successful. He’d acted as if it was perfectly normal to want to write a historical romance novel. As if people did it every day. I wanted to. I really did, and I had to admit I’d spent most of Sunday contemplating the plot idea I had for my first book. Could it really be that easy? To just start typing and see where it led me? Could I do it and worry about the repercussions later? Could I be the next Lisa Kleypas? Wellesley hadn’t kicked her out of the alumnae association, had they?
The romance novel discussion part had been fun. The other part of the evening, however, seeing Harrison and Lacey, had been as much fun as a root canal. Even if I didn’t have the right to be mad about seeing them there together, I could bloody well be pissed about Harrison’s refusal to defend me when Lacey had insulted me. “A working dinner,” Harrison had called it, but I could tell he wasn’t happy to see me there with Jeremy. Well, I’d been on a working dinner, too.
I stood and turned around to open my office window. It was far too hot in the room, but the office window was about as easy to deal with as a recalcitrant mule. I’d just finished prying the thing open when a sharp rap on the door made me jump. I spun around to discover that the knock had heralded the arrival of Dr. Edwin Holmes, the English Department head and my boss. Damn. Damn. Damn. If he was coming up here to find me, it wasn’t good. He usually summoned his staff to his spacious, first-floor, air-conditioned/heated office when he wanted to speak with us.
Dr. Holmes wore a Deerstalker hat at times, just like his namesake, Sherlock, and Harrison and I spent hours laughing about it and discussing it. We were convinced he did it so that people would think he was related to Sherlock—who, of course, was a fictional character—but that clearly didn’t stop our boss from pursuing Sherlock’s panache. Dr. Holmes also always wore dark pants and a dark t-shirt under a tweed blazer with brown, suede elbow patches. Even in the ninety-degree heat, which up on the fifth floor today was particularly ridiculous. He rarely doffed his hat. I wondered if he’d actually remove his coat. I was always hoping he’d add a pipe to the look.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Knightley,” he intoned in his Madonna-esque pseudo/semi-fake English accent that Harrison and I also loved to mimic.
I cleared my throat and made a show of stacking the papers in a perfectly straight pile on my desk. “Afternoon, Dr. Holmes. What can I help you with?”
There wasn’t much space for dramatic pacing in my tiny attic office, but the man worked with what he had. Only pacing back and forth across four feet looks a lot like walking in a circle, and he was beginning to make me dizzy before he finally said, “I hear you’re going to the Austen Festival...” He gave me a stern stare. “To compete.”
The sharp sting of betrayal hit me like a slap in the face. “Who told you that?”
Dr. Holmes ran his hands down the front of his blazer. “Miss Lewis mentioned it. She said Dr. Macomb told her.”
Okay, so Harrison hadn’t betrayed me, but telling Lacey hadn’t been the best idea. Of course she would spill to Dr. Holmes. Why couldn’t Harrison see how sneaky Lacey obviously was? It drove me nuts.
Though now that the cat was out of the proverbial bag and running around the tiny, hot room, I supposed it helped me in that I didn’t have to find an awkward way to tell Dr. Holmes myself. “It’s true,” I said simply. “I was planning to tell you this week.”
“Forgot where my office was?” Sarcasm always sounded a little more sarcastic from an English accent, but also less mean and more appealing.
“My apologies. I’ve been...busy.” I refused to back down, however. I was prepared with my argument. I straightened my shoulders and looked Dr. Holmes in the eye. “The fact is that I’ve spent months preparing and I don’t want to see my hard work go to waste.” There, that was true. How could he argue with that?
“I see,” Dr. Holmes intoned. “Who is your new partner?” It was so like him to get right to the point.
“A friend. I’m teaching him.” I hoped my voice sounded casual but confident.
Dr. Holmes’ white eyebrows hitched up. “Not another professor or one of the members of the Austen Society?”
“No.” I swallowed and stared down at the papers on my desk. I knew the question coming next. Dr. H wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to pose any serious competition for Harrison and Lacey.
“What does this...friend...do for a living?”
There it was again, the judgey snobbery I’d begun to despise in myself and others. I lifted my chin. It took everything in my power not to tell Dr. Holmes that Jeremy was an engineer with a master’s degree from Stanford. It didn’t matter, and I shouldn’t care. “He’s a woodworker. A custom woodworker.”
“I see. Does he know anything about Austen?” The word Austen always sounded so much better with an English accent too, whether fake or real.
“Not much more than the average educated person off the street,” I admitted. There. How was that for honesty and the absence of snobbery? Though even I had to admit to myself that a part of me was hoping to make them think Jeremy and I didn’t stand a chance so they would have their guards down and then we could swoop in and beat their asses.
“Hmm.” Dr. Holmes crossed his arms over his chest. He continued to do his best to pace. It continued to be awkward. I wondered briefly if he was getting nauseated. I would be. “I see.”
We both knew that used in that particular context, “I see” meant, “You don’t have an ice cube’s chance in Hades.�
�
“Dr. Knightley, I know you’ve been angling for tenure for some time now.”
I froze, my hand arrested on my coffee mug. Ice water poured through my veins. “Yes.” I nodded. And swallowed.
Dr. Holmes stopped pacing and folded his arms behind his back. He faced my desk and rocked back and forth on the heels of his badly worn loafers. His weird hat cast a shadow over his face. “I’d hate to see anything compromise that.”
I took a deep breath and set my jaw. I’d also prepared myself for this moment over the past week. “Are you implying that if I go to this competition, my tenure will be in danger?”
“I’m not implying anything,” Dr. Holmes said in a smooth, cold voice. “You’re more than welcome to participate in the competition. Winning, however, is another matter entirely. I’m certain you realize that the best thing for this department and Everton as a whole is for Dr. Macomb and Miss Lewis to win. We both know they have a strong chance. I’d hate to see anything jeopardize that. Especially one of our own.”
Chapter 17
Tuesday night
Jeremy was in the dressing room in Mitchell’s store, trying on his Regency clothing, when Mitchell leaned over the glass countertop toward me and said in a singsong Southern accent, “Guess who was in here this morning?”
I leaned down to pat Ms. Julia on the head and replied in the same singsong, “I can’t imagine.”
“Your ex, Professor Plum.” Mitchell scooped up the dog and held her under one arm.
I shook my head and tried not to smile. “That’s not his name. And he’s not my ex.” I hadn’t even had a chance to speak with Harrison since our encounter at the restaurant. I’d been busy preparing for the competition with Jeremy, and presumably Harrison had been busy doing the same thing with Lacey. We’d texted a couple of times. Halfhearted, boring things like:
Him: How was your day?
Me: Busy.
Him: Mine too.
Nothing of importance, and I hardly thought a text message was the place to ask Harrison why he hadn’t defended my black maxi dress. In fact, when I thought of it like that, the whole thing seemed petty and unimportant.
“I don’t care what his name is,” Mitchell continued. “It’s fun to say Professor Plum, and he should be your ex. I’d toss him over in a hot minute for Hunky back there.” He leaned farther over the counter and stared toward the back as if trying to see into Jeremy’s dressing room.
I hadn’t even told Mitchell what had happened at the restaurant. “Stop it.” I slapped at his sleeve. “Hunky and I have nothing in common.”
“You grew up together, didn’t you? Both went to the same high school? That’s something in common.”
I put a fist on my hip. “Do you have a point?”
“Yes. Professor Plum was with that actress of his and they were not getting along.”
“Reeeeeally?” I leaned in closer, propped an elbow on the counter top, and planted my chin atop my fist. “What happened?”
A catlike grin spread across Mitchell’s face. “I thought y’all might be interested.”
I waved my free hand in the air. “There’s only one of me. Now spill.”
“Well...” He came around the counter and took a seat on one of the tufted stools next to me, Ms. Julia still under his arm. “Lacey Lewis was telling him she didn’t like half of his outfits, and he was telling her that you’d picked them out, and she was saying that you’d probably picked them out just to sabotage their chances, and he pointed out that you’d picked out everything before you knew you wouldn’t be his teammate, and she said he always sticks up for you, and he said that it had been really hard on you to have to let go of the chance at winning, and she said it couldn’t have been too hard or you wouldn’t have decided to get another partner.”
Hmm. I digested all of that for a few seconds. At least Harrison had apparently defended me a little. That was something. “Did they ask if you’d met my partner?”
“Of course, sister.” Mitchell looked at Ms. Julia and shook his head as if commiserating with the dog about the fact that I’d asked that question.
“What did you tell them?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“That he’s a total f.o.x. Then I told Professor Plum he’d better watch that you don’t take off with such a fine man.”
“You didn’t?” I smothered my laugh with my fingers.
“He said they’d seen you the other night at Orsay.”
I nodded. “That’s true.”
Mitchell nodded sagely. “So he knows I’m not lying about the fox thing. And I could totally tell girlfriend agreed. She might be a stuck-up Hollywood type, but she knows from good-looking.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, semi-annoyed by Lacey’s assumed interest in Jeremy. She’d already stolen my future fiancé, she’d better keep her mitts off my new Darcy if she knew what was good for her. “Did she paw at Harrison’s sleeve?”
“What?” Mitchell’s forehead crumpled into a frown.
“Lacey was doing that the other night,” I explained. “And calling him “Harry”? Bleck.”
“Egads, no. At least I didn’t hear that. I would have thrown up a little in my mouth,” Mitchell drawled. He set Ms. Julia on the counter and adjusted her tiny cap. After that was done, the little dog trotted over to her fancy, hot-pink velvet bed that rested on the corner of the countertop, hopped inside, turned around a couple of times and snuggled down.
“Are you making Lacey’s clothes?” I asked Mitchell.
“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t work for that crazy even if she asked me.” He stuck his nose in the air. “She has some Hollywood costume designer working on it. She’s been flying the woman in for fittings. Must be nice.”
I put my hand over Mitchell’s and squeezed. I could tell he was a little jellie. “You’re better than any Hollywood costume designer, Mitchy.”
He batted his eyelashes at me. “Oh, thank you, sweetie. I just couldn’t live out there in all that tinsel. And don’t get me started on the Scientologists. I so wish I could save that cutie John Travolta from them.”
I opened my mouth to reply when Jeremy pushed back the curtain of the dressing room and stepped out. My gaze swung to him and I swallowed. Hard. Standing about twenty feet in front of us was the hottest Mr. Darcy I’d ever seen. Tight, buff-colored breeches that hugged every curve and left nothing to the imagination, a white shirtfront, a sapphire blue overcoat, a perfectly starched white cravat and the black boots he’d brought with him to finish the look. My mouth was dry. Dryer than dry. There might have been a tiny trail of smoke coming out of the side of it as if an itty-bitty wildfire had started inside due to conditions being right.
Without taking his eyes from Jeremy, Mitchell squeezed my hand again. “Dear Lord, Miss Meggie, have you ever seen anything like it?”
“No,” I breathed. “No. I have not.”
We both tried to compose ourselves while Jeremy came strolling toward us. “What do you think?” he asked with a wide grin.
“I think I just had a little orgasm,” Mitchell whispered to me. He bit his fist.
“What was that?” Jeremy asked.
“Nothing,” Mitchell said more loudly. “You look great. Don’t you think so, Meg?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.” Those were the only words that I could force out of my still ridiculously dry throat.
“It feels better than I thought. I thought it might be awkward, but I’m kinda digging it,” Jeremy said, stopping in front of us.
“I’m digging it, too,” Mitchell breathed. “Turn around,” he ordered. “Let’s see the cut of the coat in the back.”
Jeremy dutifully spun around, and Mitchell and I both knew neither of us was looking at the cut of the coat. “Now lift it,” Mitchell ordered. Jeremy dutifully complied with that order too. Of course we were looking at his butt. His perfect, round, fully-outlined-in-the-tightest-of-tight-breeches butt. We both sighed simultaneously.
“Is it good?” Jeremy asked.
“Perfect,” I breathed.
Jeremy turned to face us. “The pants feel a little tight, but—”
“Breeches,” I said. “They’re called breeches. And they look perfect. They would have been worn that tight during the Regency, trust me.”
“Thank God,” Mitchell breathed, fanning himself with his ubiquitous handkerchief.
“Right, breeches,” Jeremy said. “I’ll remember that. This is what I’ll wear during the costume competition, right?”
“Yes,” I answered. “It’s perfect. Next you should try on the clothing you’ll wear during the acting part.”
“The green waistcoat, right?” Jeremy asked, studying my heated face with slight puzzlement.
“Emerald,” Mitchell corrected. “I don’t have your formal wear for the grand ball done yet, but it’ll be ready before you leave, I promise.”
Jeremy nodded and stalked back toward the dressing room to try on his next look. Mitchell and I watched him go, our heads tilted to the sides in matching angles. I swear Ms. Julia was watching too.
“Are the breeches for this one as tight?” I asked Mitchell as soon as Jeremy was out of earshot.
“Girl, you know it.” He waved his handkerchief at me and giggled.
I rubbed my hands together with glee. “I feel kinda bad objectifying this poor guy, but Holy Mary, Mother of God, he looks good in breeches.”
“Agree,” Mitchell said. “And anyone who looks that good should be appreciated for the fine specimen he is. Let’s take pictures this time.” Mitchell grabbed his cell phone from underneath the counter.
“Ooh, good idea,” I replied. “Though I’m pretty sure I’m going to hell for this.”
Hiring Mr. Darcy Page 14