The women around me give excited squeals.
“She has been chosen based on last night’s soirée. Phoebe, would you care to accompany me to your date with Sebastian?”
“Me?” she says, her face flushing as her hand flies to her chest.
“You,” Johnathan confirms with a grin.
She glances at Kennedy and me as she stands up and straightens out her skirt. I shoot her an encouraging smile and she returns one tinged with nerves.
Maybe Phoebe will be the eventual winner? On the other hand, she’s so kind and sweet; she’s too good for someone like Sebastian.
“Have fun, Phoebe,” Kennedy and some of the others call out as she leaves on Johnathan’s arm.
“Take five, girls,” Toni, one of the crew says. I notice the cameras are still rolling.
“Why her?” Hayley complains with a pout of her oversized lips.
“Maybe he goes for the passive, easily manipulated type,” Camille replies snidely.
Hayley harrumphs, making her fish lips protrude even further. “She’s so nice.” She shudders as though being nice is the worst thing in the world to be. I guess for a girl like her, it is.
“Oh, I hear you. All that unicorns and rainbows crap. It’s enough to make me puke,” Camille replies.
Rushing to Phoebe’s defense without thinking the potential consequences through, I say, “I bet that’s exactly why he chose her, because she’s so nice.”
“I agree,” Kennedy adds. “Good luck to her. Who knows? She might win his heart today over cucumber sandwiches.”
I giggle. “Ah, cucumber sandwiches: the ultimate sexy food.”
“Why would you say something like that?” Camille throws her hands on her hips and glares at us. “Are you trying to upset us all?”
“Because cucumber sandwiches are deeply unsexy?” I offer. I know I’m being facetious, but seriously, what’s she getting so riled up about? It’s just a date.
“Not that, you idiot,” Camille dismisses with a scowl. (Really, she’s quite lovely, and I challenge anyone to think otherwise.) “Why would you say they’ll end up together? Don’t you want to be with him?”
All eyes in the room turn to Kennedy and me, like the Eye of Mordor itself, locking onto The Ring.
We share a look between us before I attempt an appeasing reply.
“I guess the most important thing to us is that Sebastian is happy, and if that happiness comes in the form of Phoebe, then I’ve got to be glad for them both.”
Eat your heart out, Miss America.
Although I could give two hoots about Sebastian’s happiness, it’s greeted in the room with a deafening silence.
Shelby is the one to break it. “You are such a kind person, Emma. To think that when your own happiness is at stake.”
Puh-lease. As if Sebastian is responsible for my happiness.
“Oh, I just try to think the best of everyone,” I reply, which is sadly not the truth. “Kennedy does too. Don’t you, Kennedy?”
Kennedy smiles impassively. “Oh, I try to.”
Camille arches a perfect eyebrow at us as Hayley scoffs. Those two are the Laurel and Hardy double act of the Mean Girls set.
“We’ll all get a chance to get to know him,” Shelby says. “My attitude is to be open to the possibilities as I wait patiently for my time.”
Hayley gives a condescending shake of her head. “Yeah, you do that, Shelby.”
Camille giggles.
The scene is broken up when Mrs. Watson arrives, dressed as she was last night, right down to that shower cap balanced on top of her ‘do.
“Ladies. You look magnificent,” she says with a dramatic sweep of her arm. “What you’re dressed in now will be what you’ll wear during the day. For the soirées, you will wear a pelisse, a long garment worn in place of the spencer.”
“The what?” someone questions under her breath beside me.
“The jacket thing,” someone else replies.
“Well, why didn’t she say that?” she whispers back.
“You have each been allocated a pelisse, which you can collect later. Now. This afternoon we are going to learn how to act like a lady in 1813. If we all focus, this will only take a few hours.”
A few hours?
“First on our list is how to sit.”
“Oh, good Lord.” I roll my eyes.
“This is insane,” Kennedy mutters beside me.
“In terms of insanity, it’s right up there with the bloomers,” I reply and she stifles a giggle.
As we’re all made to stand up and copy as Mrs. Watson demonstrates how to sit with an unnaturally straight back on the world’s least comfortable chairs, my resolve hardens to stone.
Tonight, this ends. The girl drama, the Regency dresses, the whole Mr. Darcy mess.
Tonight, I go home.
Chapter 9
After losing time I will never get back learning such useful things as how to curtsy, sit, walk, and talk like a Regency lady, we’re given a measly hour to do some much-needed lounging around before we’re due back downstairs for the next soirée.
Now, we’ve been told to get changed into our “pelisses,” which are basically long versions of our cropped jackets but without the long sleeves, which we wear over the ivory petticoats we wore during the day.
I’m beginning to wonder how often the Regency ladies washed their clothes, because getting in and out of them isn’t exactly easy. Let’s just say my roommates and I don’t need to go to the gym today after all the straining and pulling and wrestling with spencers and garters and all things I never expected to wear in my life, let alone on national television.
And women dressed like this back then every freaking day! No wonder they spent half their time breathless or fainting.
Once we’re downstairs on the terrace, I thank a server as I take a glass of wine from his tray and look around. It’s a balmy Texas evening, and there are fairy lights hanging from the palm trees around the pool, stretching across to the oversized pergola. I take a moment. It’s breathtaking in its beauty, and filled with the contestants in Regency dresses as it is right now, it’s quite surreal.
Hayley shoots me a withering look. With her distinctly orange fake tan and her cream petticoats and lilac pelisse, she looks like an Oompa Loompa in period drag.
And that does it. Now, I’ve got the Oompa Loompa song stuck in my head.
I scan the room for someone I actually like. I spot Phoebe by one of the palm trees and head over to her.
“Emma, you look amazing,” Phoebe breathes as she pulls me in for a hug.
“Not as amazing as you, babe. You are beautiful. Mr. Darcy would be insane not to choose you.”
Color rises in her cheeks, making her even more gorgeous. Damn her. When I blush, I look like I’ve been dipped head first in glowing red Easter egg dye. So not pretty.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she replies. “There are so many gorgeous women here, and anyway, I’ve only been on one date with him. I don’t really know much about him yet.”
“How was the date?”
“It was great. We sat on these comfortable chairs on a beautiful lawn and talked.”
“And?” I lead.
“And he’s a really nice person.”
I try not to scoff. Sebastian is a really nice person? Maybe she knows more about him than I do, but I suspect she’s had the wool pulled well and truly over her willing eyes.
“Anything juicy to share?” I ask.
“There was no kissing, if that’s what you mean.”
“Shame.”
“Why?” she asks with a light laugh.
“It would really annoy a couple of people if you did.”
She looks down. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to do anything like that.”
Could this girl get any sweeter?
“Of course you wouldn’t. Maybe next date.” I nudge her with my elbow and her blush deepens.
“Are you talking about the date?” Shelby asks as she and Regg
ie join our little group.
“You’ve gotta tell us, darlin’. We’re starved of male attention here,” Reggie says.
“Reggie, we’ve only been here for twenty-four hours,” I point out.
“A woman has needs you know, and twenty-four hours is a long time in my books,” she replies with a wink.
“There’s not much to say,” Phoebe says. “We talked and ate. It was nice.”
I clutch her arm dramatically. “Tell me you got to eat cucumber sandwiches.”
Phoebe laughs. “No cucumber sandwiches. It was cheese and crackers with grapes and a glass of wine.”
“Bliss.” Reggie sighs. “I wonder who’ll be next?”
“Oh, it’ll be me, for sure,” Shelby says with confidence.
I cock my head. “How do you know?”
“On account of the fact they’re destined to be together,” Reggie says. “Remember?”
Kennedy arrives, drink in hand. “How’s it going, girls?” she asks.
“We’re talking about who Sebastian is going to take on a date next,” I say. “Shelby is sure it’ll be her.”
“You are?” Kennedy asks her. “How do you know?”
“Because I do,” she states simply.
“Okaaay.” Kennedy widens her eyes at me.
‘You know, I can tell by looking in his eyes he’s got a wise soul,” Shelby says randomly. “You can tell a lot by looking in someone’s eyes, you know.”
“Like what color they are?” I offer.
Kennedy’s face shines and Reggie lets out a giggle as she drapes her arm around Shelby’s shoulder. “What Shelby means is he’s totally hot and she’d go there in a flash. Right, Shel?”
“It’s so much deeper than that, I can’t even,” Shelby protests.
“How long do you think Sebastian will be here tonight?” Phoebe asks, changing the subject.
“Well, if it’s anything like last night, it’ll be as long as it takes to talk to all of us before we get to be picked off in the line-up,” I reply.
“You make it sound like a shooting range, Emma,” Kennedy says.
Phoebe pulls a face. “It kind of is. It’s brutal for the one who gets sent home.”
Not if they want to go, it’s not.
“I’ve heard somethin’,” Reggie says as she leans in closer to us and we automatically follow suit. Funny how that happens. “Apparently, one of the girls is gonna fake faint in front of him tonight.”
“Why?” I guffaw.
“So he’ll get all chivalrous and the like and catch her as she falls, I suppose,” Reggie replies. “Oldest trick in the book, darlin’.” She rolls her eyes as though it’s something every woman has considered at least once in her dating life.
“Isn’t a damsel in distress play taking this whole ‘1813’ thing a little far?” Kennedy asks.
“Not to mention that it’s insulting to womankind,” I add. Plus, his pompous demeanor aside, doesn’t Sebastian deserve someone better than a contestant who thinks it’s perfectly fine to fake faint to get his attention? Not that I care, of course. It’s the principle of the point, you understand.
“She might hurt herself, too,” Phoebe adds. “And that would be horrible.”
“Oh, I’m sure she’ll faint at just the right time, and in front of the cameras, too. The nation will feel sympathy for her, and watch as sparks fly between their hero and potential heroine,” Reggie replies.
I give a sardonic smile. “If there’s no one to record it, did it really happen?”
Reggie replies, “Stop! You’re makin’ me miss my phone. My pretty, pretty phone.”
“Sebastian would be a total gentleman if some poor girl actually did faint,” Shelby states with confidence based on nothing but thin air. None of us know this guy.
“Either that or the girl will land on her tush,” Reggie says with a laugh.
I try not to think of my own recent experience with that.
“I want to know how she would be confident that he’d catch her,” Kennedy muses.
“Because he’s a gentleman,” Shelby repeats with total assurance.
I eye her suspiciously for a moment. And then the penny drops. “It’s you, isn’t it, Shelby? You’re the one planning to faint on him.”
Shelby’s eyes widen. “He’ll catch me. You’ll see.”
We all gape at her. Is she serious?
“What if he doesn’t catch you?” I ask.
“Oh, he will,” Reggie replies for Shelby. “He’s her destiny.”
“Right. I forgot about that.” I chew the inside of my lip.
Kennedy cocks her head to the side. “But if he’s your destiny, why have you got to pull out a trick like that to get his attention?”
It’s a good point. We wait with interest for her reply.
“Because even destiny needs a helping hand every now and then,” she replies with a wistful glint in her eyes.
This girl is on another planet.
I feel Phoebe’s hand on my arm as she says, “Oh, look. Here he is.”
“Be still my beatin’ heart,” Reggie says, her voice breathless. “Would you look at that.”
I turn around to see Sebastian, framed by the double doorway leading out to the terrace. He’s dressed in a pair of tan pants, tucked into knee-high boots that show off his long, muscular legs, a white shirt and one of those short black jackets with tails, buttoned up to show off his slim waist. On his head is a top hat, which he removes, a broad smile on his face.
He looks ... well, he looks like Mr. Darcy.
Every female pair of eyes in the room are trained on him, and I’m sure many a pulse is racing. Mine? Well, if it is—and that’s a big “if”—it’s only because he’s dressed as one of the most famous heroes of all time. The Mr. Darcy Effect, hello? Don’t judge me. I’m only human.
“Good evening, ladies,” he says with that English accent of his.
“Good evening,” most of the women reply, all with the same level of breathlessness Reggie had moments ago. It’s like every woman has lost the ability to take anything but extremely shallow breaths, and their already pushed up cleavages are bobbing up and down like some sort of weird, orchestrated street performance.
“I must say, you are all looking quite enchanting this evening in your new clothes,” he says. “I look forward to speaking with you all as the night progresses.”
God, he’s so formal. I wonder if that’s him or the role he’s playing?
I watch as he strides across the room, his hat tucked under one arm, and strikes up a conversation with a couple of more than eager contestants.
“Well, that was quite an entrance,” Phoebe exclaims with a smile.
“He nailed the whole Mr. Darcy vibe, that’s for sure.”
“Did he ever.” Reggie fans herself with her hands again.
“I’m going to go talk to him,” Shelby says and turns to walk away.
I grab her arm and say quietly, “Please don’t do it, Shelby. You could hurt yourself.”
“Oh, Emma. He’ll catch me. You’ll see.”
I force out a breath as I watch her make her way through the throng of contestants, making a beeline for Sebastian.
“She’s going in?” Kennedy asks as she takes a sip of her drink.
“She’s got game, that’s for sure.”
We watch as she approaches Sebastian and he turns and acknowledges her. They begin to chat, and I can tell she’s flirting by the way she toys with one of her curly tendrils.
“This is better than Netflix,” Kennedy says.
“We need popcorn.”
My least favorite humans right now, Hayley and Camille move closer to us.
“What are you all looking at?” Hayley asks.
“Sebastian,” we reply in unison.
“Is she doin’ it?” Reggie asks, a fresh glass of wine in her hands.
“We think she’s gearing up for it,” Kennedy replies.
“Who’s gearing up for it? And what is ‘it
?’” Hayley asks.
“Shelby is going in for the kill, darlin’,” Reggie explains.
All our eyes are riveted on Shelby and Sebastian. It’s like watching car crash television as it unfolds, which I guess is exactly what this is.
“She’s making a play for him, isn’t she?” Hayley snarls through gritted teeth.
“Heck, yeah,” Kennedy replies.
As the words leave her mouth, we watch Shelby raise her hand to her chest and her legs crumple, as she slow-falls perfectly, right into Sebastian’s arms. He instantly wraps them around her and holds her up as she lolls her head back in total diva fashion.
“She’s fake fainting?” Camille squeaks in disbelief. I bet she’s angry she didn’t think of it.
“Oh, she’s good,” I murmur.
“And don’t forget completely insane,” Kennedy adds.
Camille is fuming. “I cannot believe she just did that.”
“She’s smarter than I thought,” Hayley says.
“I’m not sure I’d call it smart,” I say to her.
Next thing we know, Sebastian has cleared a space for Shelby on a nearby sofa, much to the disdain of the contestants who had been sitting there before, and is gently placing her limp body down. After a beat—not too quickly as to create suspicion, and not too slowly so the moment passes—she opens her eyes and looks up at him. She says something we can’t make out and he crouches down next to her, playing right into the palm of her dainty hands.
I feel as though we should be applauding the performance.
In one fluid movement, she pushes herself up on an elbow, hooks her other hand around his neck, and plants a kiss on his lips.
I’m not going to deny it, seeing her kiss him makes me feel ... weird. I can’t explain it. All I know is, I don’t think I like it all that much.
Which is insane, I know. This is a dating show, and he’s the only guy in a sea of women. We’re all meant to be vying for his love, and so far, Shelby’s the only one to take a bold step.
Why should I care when all I want to do is get the heck out of this place?
“Would you look at that,” Kennedy says as we continue to watch. “The first to kiss Mr. Darcy, and it’s the girl who thinks she’s destined to be with him.”
Dating Mr. Darcy: A romantic comedy (Love Manor Romantic Comedy Book 1) Page 7