Undressing Mr. Darcy

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Undressing Mr. Darcy Page 13

by Karen Doornebos


  Julian picked up the phone, handed it to Vanessa, and hooked his arm in hers to steady her. “Are you quite all right?”

  She couldn’t speak.

  “That answers my question.”

  “I’ll get her a glass of water.” Sherry turned and spun off.

  Chloe, Henry, and Abigail took hands and skipped to the sidelines. Paul turned to Aunt Ella.

  “For so many years,” Paul said, “I have ardently admired and loved you, Ella. Will you, could you, marry me and make me the happiest man in all the—shire?”

  The crowd cheered and clapped.

  Vanessa put Sherry’s phone in Julian’s hands. He knew what to do, and that was to take the pictures Vanessa couldn’t. Much to her amazement, Mr. Darcy knew his way around a cell phone camera, and he clicked away. Vanessa steadied herself against him.

  “Yes!” Aunt Ella smiled. “I thought you’d never ask! I haven’t gotten any younger waiting for you!”

  Everyone except Vanessa laughed.

  “I was waiting for just the right moment, and this is it.” As Paul slid the ring on Aunt Ella’s finger, Vanessa felt as if she were swirling in a sink and then getting sucked down the drain.

  She couldn’t lose her aunt! What would Aunt Ella do? Move in with Paul in his mansion on the north shore? What about Vanessa? Why hadn’t anyone consulted her? What the hell was she supposed to do? She hated herself for thinking it, she didn’t want to think it, but: her seventy-nine-year-old aunt would be walking down the aisle before her, too? Her mind flashed to her frozen eggs in that vault—

  Suddenly the room tilted and the ballroom floor came up right under her face.

  Sherry held a glass of water to Vanessa’s lips and, once she’d sipped and looked up, she found herself surrounded by Julian, Chase, the newly engaged Henry and Chloe, and the newly engaged Aunt Ella and Paul.

  Chase spoke first, and she realized he was cradling her head. “Are you all right?”

  Chloe smiled down on her. “You fainted. Do you faint easily?”

  “I do,” Vanessa said. She’d had the odd stress-related fainting fit ever since her parents’ divorce.

  Julian waved a little open tin of something under her nose. It reeked of rotten eggs and vinegar. “What the hell, Julian!” Her eyes started watering.

  “They’re smelling salts. Feeling less faint now?”

  “Yes, and more nauseous, too!” She tried to scramble to her feet.

  “Works every time,” Julian said.

  “But—thank you,” she said. She picked up Sherry’s phone.

  “Of course.”

  Chase and Henry helped her up to her feet. Henry had to be the nicest guy she’d ever met. He hardly knew her, after all! Whoever this Chloe was, she certainly deserved a Henry more than Vanessa did. No doubt Chloe was a golden girl herself. Vanessa could tell the real deal when she saw it.

  Aunt Ella had worry all over her face, and her wrinkles and worry lines looked more visible than ever. She knew stress could only exacerbate her aunt’s dementia. She was supposed to be keeping her from stress and not causing it!

  She went to hug her. “Aunt Ella, I’m so happy for you and Paul! Congrats! This is such great news. I can’t believe I fainted from happiness! So that’s what you wanted to talk to me about, right, Paul? Sorry I didn’t take the time—”

  She didn’t take the time for a lot of things, she realized. She was throttling through life full speed ahead, with all systems go and all channels on, listening to nobody and stopping for nothing. If she’d just taken a moment to listen to Paul she would’ve been warned and she wouldn’t have fainted and destroyed his proposal and worried her aunt into another probable episode. Aunt Ella, more than anyone, after a lifetime of sacrifice taking care of Vanessa and righting her own baby sister’s wrongs, deserved to be happy. How could Vanessa dash all of that?

  “I have to get a picture of this! Smile . . .”

  Aunt Ella and Paul smiled, then they both hugged Vanessa, and just as they were all finally able to say something, the dance caller shrieked.

  “Security! Security!”

  A posse of women in black, with Heathcliff printed in white on their black T-shirts and bright red lipstick on their lips, took over the dance floor, and with their long hair loose and flowing, they turned on a boom box, blasted “Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush, and began some wild dancing, all in sync. The Janeites stood back and watched, confused and aghast.

  Vanessa spun around, making sure the TV cams were on this, and they were. Kai, too, scuttled around the room, filming the crowd from various angles. She couldn’t believe it. Something was going her way! She had to find a reporter and tell them Julian would be available for interviews afterward! She had to post that this was going down!

  Just then the ballroom doors burst open and a tall, tanned, and muscular man with wavy, shoulder-length, dark brown hair and dressed in a nineteenth-century caped coat and riding boots stormed straight up to Julian. He stripped off his coat, revealing his billowing shirt, unbuttoned to the chest and not secured with any cravat. His chest looked too broad and strong to be contained by the shirt, much less a cravat. He brandished a sword. It was a stage sword, but a sword nonetheless. “This is a challenge, Mr. Darcy!” he said in a fake, but pretty accurate English accent. “One that’s long overdue. A duel! A duel to the death!”

  This was better than if she’d scripted it herself. A duel? “Brilliant!” as the Brits would say!

  Julian stepped back. He didn’t have a sword.

  “Security!” the dance caller yelled into the microphone.

  But Vanessa had already alerted security, before the ball, to say that all this was anticipated and staged. She’d had the authority and she’d used it.

  Julian stripped off his frock coat, untied and removed his cravat, and rolled up his sleeves, and while he did that, Chase handed him his stage sword even as he borrowed another one from a nearby redcoat.

  Vanessa couldn’t believe her luck.

  By now the Brontë mob was chanting, “Heath-cliff, Heath-cliff,” and the Janeites followed suit, clapping and chanting, “Dar-cy, Dar-cy!” The Janeites outnumbered the Brontë fans, and they seemed to take it in stride that this was part of tonight’s show.

  Chase positioned the men in front of the quartet and readied them for the duel. The musicians backed off.

  Heathcliff made the first move, and Vanessa could tell, now that she’d taken her swording class, that he was taking the offense, and all Julian could do at this point was defend himself.

  Her blood pumped. Never in her professional life had anything so spontaneous played out so well; nor had she ever, on a personal level, seen anything so sexy as these two gorgeous men in their shirtsleeves, their swords flashing, their hair tumbling, and their bodies so taut, so skilled and strong as they lunged and struck.

  She took as many photos as she could and posted:

  Literary heroes face-off in a duel—R u on Team Darcy or Team Heathcliff? #JASNAagm #UndressingMrDarcy

  To the clink of swords and the sight of Julian’s strained muscles as he proceeded to defend . . . and win the duel in Mr. Darcy’s honor, Vanessa allowed herself to think that the nineteenth century in general might’ve been a great era and Julian in particular was a man worth getting to know better.

  While the Janeites, including Aunt Ella, clapped and smiled, and Heathcliff slunk away, and the flash mob disappeared as quickly as they’d arrived, and Paul took Julian’s arm and held it up in victory, Vanessa got that familiar feeling deep in her abdomen. It was a feeling she’d only had about three times in her life, a gripping, all-encompassing yearning, an ache, really, for proximity.

  Julian was hot, there was no doubt about that, but it had taken this duel to bring it to Vanessa’s attention that he was more than just another sexy client. He happened to be a stand-up man, the kind of man who fought (or at least fake fought) for his principles and who valued and honored older women like her aunt, and it made her wa
nt to get to know him better.

  She watched, as if it were a movie she’d written herself, as the TV cameras panned over Julian and the reporters vied for his attention, but all he could do was look across the ballroom, past the fawning women in their glittering gowns, low-cut bodices, and baubles in their updo hairstyles, and gaze at Vanessa, who smiled.

  She posted:

  To Mr. Darcy go the spoils. #JASNAagm #UndressingMrDarcy

  The quartet struck up a lively English country dance, as if on cue to Vanessa’s heart.

  “There’s no denying it.” Lexi jabbed Vanessa with her elbow. “He’s Mr. Hot-for-You. Please tell me you’re going to take advantage of this—of him.”

  She didn’t say a word to Lexi because she couldn’t take her eyes off him as he nodded and answered the reporters’ questions while cameras flashed around him.

  “It’s just what the doctor ordered,” Lexi said. “A minifling. He’s the perfect candidate.”

  “No, he’s not. He’s a client and my aunt’s friend.”

  “How about after the job’s over? He’s irresistible, and with this kind of tight deadline, with him leaving the country so soon, you need to act fast. If you don’t make a move, he might start going after me. Because if you can’t get the girl you want, you might as well sleep with her best friend.”

  Vanessa laughed. Lexi was the crazy one—with or without cats. Why hadn’t she seen this in her twenties? “You’re hardly my best friend, Lexi.”

  “Oh, but I am,” Lexi said. She pretended to look around. “You’ve invested too much time with your virtual friends. I don’t see anyone else filling the position.”

  “Vanessa!” Sherry bounded up to them, her boobs jostling in her low-cut gown. “Julian’s asking for you. He says you’ve got the first dance on his dance card.”

  But she had told Chase she couldn’t dance, she wouldn’t dance, and hadn’t she agreed to a drink with him after the minuet? “Sherry, you need to take that first dance. Just tell him I’m not up to it after fainting.”

  Sherry smiled. “If you say so.”

  “And, Sherry, I’d love it if you could join all of us for a jaunt to Louisville tomorrow night for their Jane Austen Festival. We’ll be back by Tuesday.”

  “Louisville? I’ve always wanted to go to that festival! I’ll have to see if I can get off of work.” With that she headed back to the dance floor.

  A crowd had been gathering around Vanessa, a costumed, friendly, female crowd that had only good things to say.

  “Are you Ella Morgan’s niece? You did a wonderful job opening the ball. Can I buy you a glass of wine?”

  And then the head of the Chicago society approached and said, “We’d like to bestow an honorary Chicago membership to you, for all of your work on the conference. It’s been a resounding success.”

  “Thank you,” Vanessa said. Her aunt and Paul nodded and smiled at her from across the room. A sense of belonging came over her unlike anything she had known in a long time.

  Lexi, in her gown, sashayed away.

  “Come on, everyone,” Chase said. “Let’s raise a glass to Ella and Paul.”

  After the group made a toast, Vanessa spoke to Chase. “Did you know Paul was going to propose tonight?”

  “I knew he had bought the ring, but I had no idea he’d do it tonight. I guess now I know why he bought me the ticket to the ball tonight.”

  “Yes, all along he’s been hounding me to come, too.”

  “I’m a little surprised he didn’t tell me he was going to propose tonight.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I’m the best man.” He clinked his glass with hers.

  She laughed. “If Paul says so, then you are—the best man.”

  “I’m glad you agree. You’ve finally come to your senses. I wonder if you’ll be maid of honor.”

  “Always a bridesmaid! I have a closet full of hideous dresses to prove it.”

  She took a sip of champagne and glanced out on the dance floor at Julian and Sherry, laughing together as they made their way down the line of English country dancers.

  As Julian joined the end of the line, he shot a glance at Vanessa, who raised her glass to him. He nodded with a smile.

  Vanessa drank her champagne, watching Julian, knowing she had won all across the board tonight. But there was one thing she was losing: the battle against her attraction to Julian.

  Chapter 8

  The next day Vanessa felt something like regret, or maybe it was the chicken salad she’d had for lunch with her aunt. But she hadn’t protested when Lexi offered to take Julian to Hero Con, and maybe she should have. He had actually wanted to go—or was he simply being polite?

  Either way it gave her an opportunity to catch up on work and be sure her aunt was all squared away before tonight’s road trip. A text from Julian couldn’t mean anything good had gone down, though.

  A text . . . from Julian? She didn’t even know he could text. It read:

  V pls help me! 4th floor mens toilet in the Hyatt! Hurry!

  She texted back:

  4 real, Julian?

  Please, I’m begging you. Hurry! I’m rather tied up in the mens toilet in head 2 toe leathers and I can’t get out!

  Tied up? In head-to-toe “leathers”? Leather? They had been gone for all of three hours!

  Within twenty minutes Vanessa burst through the men’s room door. “All right, Mr. Darcy. Where the hell are you?” He wasn’t at the urinals and neither was anyone else, thank goodness. The last thing she needed to see would be Jabba the Hutt’s or Mr. Spock’s genitalia.

  A guy dressed as a zombie was washing his hands and he didn’t seem at all surprised to see a woman come in.

  “Trying to get the blood off your hands?” Vanessa joked to him.

  The zombie smiled. “Too long of a line in the women’s bathroom?”

  “Actually, I’m looking for my Mr. Darcy,” Vanessa said as she looked under the doors of the stalls.

  “In here? Does Mr. Darcy actually take a shit?” the zombie asked.

  Vanessa laughed. Who knew zombies would have a sense of humor? “If he does, it would no doubt smell of roses.”

  The zombie laughed. “Let me know if you’re ever in the market for a zombie.”

  A zombie, yes, that would be the perfect match for her. Right.

  He checked his matted, fake-blood-spattered hair in the mirror and left.

  “I’m over here.” A British accent floated out of the last stall door.

  Vanessa slowly edged the stall door open, and there, standing on top of the toilet with the lid down, was Julian, in the tightest brown leather pants and leather shirt she’d ever seen on anyone.

  She couldn’t help but laugh. Tears came to her eyes. “I never say this, Julian, but LOL.”

  “Go ahead, laugh,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.” She giggled. “This is entirely different from seeing you at a formal ball, on your best Mr. Darcy behavior.”

  “I agree. I cannot account for what I may do in a leather outfit.”

  She took a picture with her phone. “Actually, it’s a good look for you. Very hot. I’m trying to think of how I can spin this one.”

  “I am most glad you are excessively diverted.”

  “But—you’re not tied up.”

  “Not literally, no.”

  “You said you were tied up.”

  “Is Lexi out there?” He was changing the subject.

  “I didn’t see her.”

  “She came in here looking for me.”

  “Of course she did. You’re not the first man to hide from her in a men’s room.”

  He looked at her knowingly.

  “And at least one that I know of tried to ditch her by hiding in a women’s restroom.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t say ‘restroom.’ Might you perhaps call it a ‘toilet’?”

  “Here I am rescuing your leather-clad ass”—she laughed—“and you’re playing Britspeak with me? Ju
lian. How did you ever get yourself into this mess? And speaking of toilet, why not just get down from there?”

  He frowned. “I can’t. The trousers are too tight. And then not only would I be in leather trousers, but worse, I’d be wearing torn leather trousers.”

  “You really are out of your comfort zone, aren’t you?” He looked good in those tight leather pants, though, and Vanessa couldn’t help but appreciate that fact. “Need I ask how Lexi got you into them, anyway? And why?”

  He frowned. “She wanted me to be Gary Mitchell for her.”

  “Gary Mitchell?”

  “A nemesis of Captain Kirk, evidently. She’s in a Star Trek outfit with three breasts today.”

  “Three? As if two of hers aren’t enough? Now, that I’d like to see. How did she pull that off?”

  “Prosthetics.”

  “How do you know?” Vanessa smirked.

  “Well, after doing a treble take, I asked. She wanted me to join her in some role-playing and photo ops at the Star Trek Pavilion.”

  “So she helped undress Mr. Darcy? And get him into the leather pants, then?”

  “If you please, the word ‘pants’ means ‘underpants’ in England. Might you consider saying ‘trousers’?”

  “You’re changing the subject again. Did Lexi get you into those leather—trousers?”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  Vanessa spun on her heel and waved a hand in the air. “Then she and her three breasts can help you out of them.” She headed toward the door.

  “Vanessa! Nothing happened! She just helped me zip up. Who knew you would care, regardless?”

  “Of course I care—you’re my client. You’re my aunt’s friend.”

  “And yet you are more than that to me.”

  Vanessa couldn’t say a word. But she could think it: OMG.

  “I’m merely a polite Englishman trying to appease various American women who are nothing like the English girls, I can assure you.”

  This brought a smile to her face, so she stopped just before the door and said nothing. She and Lexi were hardly the typical American girl next door. Julian had really been tossed into the fire with the two of them. And she was sure they were a far cry from the nice English girls.

 

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