Undressing Mr. Darcy

by Karen Doornebos

  Sherry stood next to her, and with two red, white, and blue glow-in-the-dark light sticks, she repeatedly made signals with them as if she were landing a plane. “Come in for the landing,” she joked.

  Sherry cracked Vanessa up.

  Lexi, however, was something else. “Vanessa! What the hell? Is it middle school date night or what? Get yourself and that boy-in-breeches down here! I need a drink!”

  Chapter 10

  Vanessa only wanted to get through this Louisville Jane Austen Festival without getting any closer to Julian. Could she just deliver him safely back to the airport without her ever having removed a stitch of his clothing? Then her job would be done and she could move on with her life.

  Or would it serve her better to sleep with him and get him out of her system? The crazy thought crossed her mind as they pulled into the Louisville hotel parking lot just around midnight. She had never really tried sleeping with a man to get over him, but she was willing to consider it. She certainly didn’t want to risk breaking her heart over some man who lived almost five thousand miles away.

  Once they checked in, she noticed clusters of people who must have been part of the festival dotting the bar, the common areas, and the elevators. Their bonnets, Jane Austen Festival tote bags, and T-shirts gave them away.

  The Jane Austen crowd really did know how to party, and late into the night, too.

  They turned and looked at Julian. A few of them recognized him and stepped over to chat. Soon Vanessa, Sherry, and Lexi had been introduced to a smattering of the festival-goers, and many of them, it turned out, knew Aunt Ella.

  Up on their floor, another group of festival attendees played whist, a Regency card game, in a seating area close to Vanessa’s room. Sherry and Lexi settled into their shared room, and Vanessa stripped herself down to a tank top and her leopard-print thong. She all but collapsed into bed.

  Just as she drifted off to sleep with images of Julian and her on the Ferris wheel dancing in her head, there was a knock on her door.

  “What the—” She padded over to the door and looked out the peephole. It was Julian, in a nineteenth-century-style white nightshirt.

  “Good God.” She grabbed her little silk robe and wrapped it around her.

  “Vanessa? Are you awake?”

  She cracked open the door. “Shh, be quiet, Julian!” He reeked of whiskey. Had Mr. Darcy discovered the minibar? Or had Lexi bought him one too many drinks?

  “I must talk to you,” he said.

  She looked up and down the hall. Nobody had seen them. And nobody could see them like this, in a hotel together, past midnight, him in his flippin’ nightshirt. She wanted fame and book sales for him, not notoriety. “We’ll talk tomorrow morning, Julian.” She tried to close the door, but he stopped her.

  “No, it cannot wait. I shall stand here until you let me in.”

  Vanessa sighed and opened the door. “Quick, then. Get in here!” She shut the door right behind him and flipped on the lights, only to be blinded by the glare. Once she had rubbed her eyes and adjusted to the light she realized he stood there smiling and gaping at her.

  “You look lovely,” he said. “You are lovely.”

  “And you, my friend, are drunk. And in a nightshirt! I know you have modern clothes—I’ve seen them. Why the nightshirt?”

  “It happens to be very comfortable.”

  Vanessa put her hands on her hips, but her robe fell open, and she yanked it shut and tied it with resolve. “If you would just use a phone like everyone else on the planet you could text me or call or IM or e-mail—”

  “And miss this?” He eyed her up and down as he sunk into the armchair near her bed, staring at her. He crossed his bare legs and she didn’t want to imagine what he did, or didn’t, have on under there.

  “Why don’t you use a phone, Julian? Why?”

  “Must you know?”

  “Yes. I must!”

  “Have a seat.”

  “No, thank you. I’m going to stand.”

  “It all started about five years ago, when I was on my way to becoming a professor, and I was like you, Vanessa. All plugged in. Do you know how useful electronic media is to a history professor up to his neck in research?”

  “Yes, I can imagine.”

  “I had a vast array of social media accounts. Colleagues from all over the world whom I shared information with. And my followings helped build my platform, making me a more appealing candidate for publishers.”

  “Go on.”

  “Someone else wanted my position, and he got it.”

  “How?”

  “He hacked all of my accounts, created a false persona, and put together an electronic trail of ‘evidence’ indicating that I’d had indiscretions with several of my female students.”

  “What?”

  “You’re very vulnerable online. Anybody can bring you to ruination with just a few clicks. You know, I cringe when you post on those locational social media sites exactly where you are and when. At the very least, your apartment could get burgled. After all, you’re announcing to the world you aren’t home.”

  Vanessa tried to process all this. “Back to the indiscretion. Was there one?”

  “No. But no one gives any regard to the facts. It’s the perception. My reputation was blackened within a fortnight. The university’s choice was clear. Him or me? They chose him.”

  “Which university?”

  “Oxford.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Why didn’t you fight it?”

  “Money, for one thing. Futility, for another. I did the only thing I could. I took down all of my accounts, and with what money I had I hired an online reputation firm to clean up the mess. There is no erasing it—they can only bury the information. There. Now you know.”

  “I’m sorry, Julian. I had no idea.”

  “I don’t like computers and mobile phones anymore.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I’ve taken some issue with you splashing me all over cyberspace, but the accounts are all in your name, not mine.”

  Vanessa sat down in the desk chair.

  “Now I know why I couldn’t find anything on you dating further back than three years.”

  “As I said, it’s there. It will never go away. You just have to know how to find it.”

  “Do you . . . want me to modify my promotional approach?”

  “Oh, no. No. I thought that all through long ago. I really didn’t want to discuss this. That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Why are you here, then?”

  “I’m here because I want to be here. With you.”

  “That’s the whiskey talking.”

  “No, it’s me talking. Julian. Not the whiskey, and not Mr. Darcy. I want—you.”

  She stepped back. “Kentucky whiskey hits you hard if you’ve never had it before.”

  “This has taken me by surprise as much as it may be a surprise for you to hear it.”

  Vanessa leaned up against the closet. “Julian, it’s late.”

  “There’s more. I need to tell you something else.”

  Vanessa put her hand up. “I think you’ve revealed enough for one night. You’re drunk, and you may regret what you’ve said already.”

  “No regrets. I try to live my life with no regrets. What about you?” He approached, and never in her life had she thought a nightshirt could be hot on a guy. It took all of her willpower to step back, yank open the closet door, and pull out a large gown she planned on using as a prop for his book signing. “You need to get into this gown and bonnet, Julian.”

  The look on his face: priceless.

  They both burst out laughing.

  She held out the gown to him. “Under no circumstances will I let the festival women in the hall see you coming out of my room. You, of all people, don’t want a scandal. It wouldn’t look professional, and it might ruin your book sales tomorrow night.”

  “You may be right about that,”
he agreed.

  “They will see a woman, in a gown and a bonnet, reeking of whiskey. And they won’t see the very hairy legs underneath her gown, either.”

  Julian frowned as she marched him into her bathroom to change. When he came out in it, she laughed. He looked absolutely adorable, although the gown didn’t quite button up the back nor reach his ankles. “Light blue is your color.” She tossed a shawl around his shoulders.

  “Enjoy. Because you’ll never see me in this again.” With that he took her face in his hands and kissed her, his tongue tasting of whiskey, his body masculine even in the gown.

  “Have you ever kissed someone in a gown before?” he asked.

  “No.” She smiled. “This is a first.”

  “Remember what I said to you, because it’s true.”

  “Sleep off the whiskey, Julian.”

  She put the bonnet on him and tied it tight, so that nobody could see his razor-stubbled face. She made him step into her fuzzy pink slippers. “There. Now off you go.”

  She shut the door and through the peephole watched him go to his hotel room with his nightshirt in his hand.

  How could a man in a gown possibly have swagger?

  She locked every conceivable lock on her door and then propped the desk chair under the doorknob. Would it be enough to keep her from revealing her feelings to him? Could it keep this attraction contained? Her eyes fell on the DO NOT DISTURB door hanger she’d forgotten to hang. He’d better not disturb her. She found him charming, but she had to resist or he just might break her heart when he went back to England.

  After slipping off her robe she pulled out her tablet, sprawled out on her bed, and did a quick search on how much it would cost to fly to London for the Jane Austen Festival during the week of September fourteenth—if for no other reason than that she would never look at a gown the same way again.

  She wasn’t going to buy a ticket. Was she?

  * * *

  No, she didn’t buy a plane ticket.

  The next morning, Julian slept off his hangover while she woke to her priorities: Aunt Ella and work, in that order. When she called her aunt to check in, everything was fine. She then posted a few plugs about Julian’s upcoming appearance, prepped for the show that would be capping off the festival that night, and fielded a few things for her other clients from her laptop. In the afternoon she joined Sherry and Lexi at the bare-knuckle boxing event on the green near the festival manor house.

  The boxers faced each other, shirtless, in white breeches, one with a red sash tied around his waist, the other with a black sash, both without boxing gloves, bare-knuckled in the Louisville sun.

  And she had thought the Regency was all ballroom and no brawl!

  Yet, even this spectacle had a genteel air to it on this warm afternoon in the country, on the grounds of a lavish estate. Would her aunt love it here? Yes.

  The ringmaster called out various facts while the two fighters prepared to slug it out. “During the Regency,” he said, “a boxing match, called a ‘fancy,’ was much more violent than it is today. Men would often wear spiked shoes. Throwing and kicking were allowed. Just imagine the injuries resulting from such fights. But if a man won, he could acquire a vast sum of money.”

  Lexi wore a hunter green archer’s gown complete with quiver and bow while Sherry wore shorts and a pink T-shirt that simply said Darcylicious in sumptuous cursive. They were among a large crowd of mostly costumed women (and men, quite a lot of impeccably dressed gentlemen!) gathered at the ring.

  Vanessa wore the gown she’d worn to the ball, but Lexi didn’t approve. “That’s a ball gown, Vanessa, not a day gown. And who wears the same gown twice? Only the Jane Fairfaxes of the crowd.”

  Vanessa didn’t get it.

  “You haven’t read Emma, have you?” Sherry asked in a whisper.

  “No.”

  “Jane Fairfax is the poor girl. The good girl.”

  “I see.”

  “Nobody cares if you wear a gown twice, though.”

  “Thanks, Sherry.”

  The dark-haired boxer delivered a resounding punch to the stomach of his lighter-haired rival, and even though it was just a demonstration, Vanessa cringed at the blow while some of the crowd cheered and others booed. She couldn’t help but watch the two men punch and wrestle each other, both sweating and grunting while members of the crowd fanned themselves. It seemed rather brutal, though, without boxing gloves and headgear, and she had to remind herself that, surely, this had to be choreographed. Right?

  “Where is our Mr. Darcy?” Lexi asked, unfazed by the fight.

  Vanessa took off her gloves and checked the time on her phone. “He should be showering and dressing now. He had to sleep off the hangover you gave him last night by having him pound Kentucky whiskey.”

  “He’s a big boy. He could have said no. Do you want my advice about him?” Lexi asked. “As in, him and you?”

  “No, thanks,” Vanessa said. She had done quite well until now at not allowing herself to think about it. “He’s a client, he’s my aunt’s friend, and he’ll be back in England in a few days.”

  “Excuses. I know you better. You actually want a guy who is a friend to your aunt, and I can tell that’s partially what you like about him.”

  Vanessa checked her e-mails.

  “He should be here with you right now. A man who has feelings for you, with only a few days left, would chase a girl as amazing as you even with a hangover, a gaping chest wound, and two wooden legs.”

  She took the compliment with a large grain of salt. “Thanks, Lexi. It’s cool, okay?”

  “Do you know his middle name? If he has any pets?”

  “No.” Although now that Lexi mentioned it, what was his middle name? She could find out easily online.

  “Good. You don’t want to know too much about him. You don’t want to know his favorite food or his favorite color. And trust me, you don’t want to picture him with a puppy, a tabby cat, or—God forbid—a baby.”

  Vanessa smiled. “Okay, Lexi. You can get off your soapbox now.” She knew her well enough to know that this was her way of apologizing, of making up. It was Lexi, offering advice, showing she cared. But was Vanessa ready to forgive her? She wasn’t sure.

  “I’m not finished yet. You don’t want to think of him as a boyfriend or husband or the father of your child—in fact, don’t think of him as a person at all.”

  Vanessa laughed. “Let me make sure I heard you right: he is not a person. I can see all of this advice has worked out well for you.”

  “It has! Listen, it takes less than one-fifth of a second to fall in love.”

  “You mean to fall in—lust.”

  “Never underestimate lust! Without lust there isn’t love. The medial prefrontal cortex makes a snap judgment whether a person is attractive to you, while the rostromedial prefrontal cortex decides whether the person is compatible with you.”

  “Chemistry,” Vanessa said. Had she just said that out loud? She and Julian had chemistry, all right—PhD-level chemistry.

  “Once the decision’s made,” Lexi said, “the floodgates open and the sudden rush of stimulation to twelve centers of the brain works like cocaine.”

  “It’s a turn-on. I get it.”

  “Exactly. And you want more.”

  Vanessa didn’t say a word.

  “You can become an addict.”

  “I’m not addicted to anything,” Vanessa said as she updated her personal statuses. “I don’t have an addictive personality.”

  “Right!” Lexi pulled the phone out of Vanessa’s hands. “Here’s my theory—”

  “Here we go,” said Vanessa as she took her phone back.

  “Men look for sex and accidently find love. Women look for love and find sex. You want to objectify him. Picture him naked. Think the way a man would.”

  “Uh-huh.” Vanessa refreshed her e-mail in-box.

  “Okay, if you can’t picture him naked—”

  “I didn’t say I c
an’t picture him naked.”

  “Well, if you won’t picture him naked, then picture him in very sexy underwear. I have just the thing.” She slid off her archery gloves, pulled out her phone, and, after a couple of clicks, showed her phone to Vanessa. “Picture him in these.”

  Vanessa had to laugh. There on Lexi’s phone was a photo of two male acrobats, shirtless, in English bowler hats and tight, tiny, Speedo-style pants with the British flag printed on them.

  Sherry leaned in to look and cracked her bubble gum very loudly once she got a peek. “Wow. I need to get me some of that!”

  Vanessa looked away from the phone and toward the boxing ring. She found herself rooting for the boxer pinned to the ground, struggling to flip his competitor.

  “These two British guys at the burlesque show did the most amazing acrobatic act to ‘God Save the Queen’ in nothing but their patriotic skivvies.” Lexi sighed. “It was enough to make a girl relinquish her United States passport, I’m telling you. Anyway, Vanessa, can you picture him in these? Because I sure can. I can see him—in and out of them. Your turn.”

  Vanessa could picture him in the British flag barely-there pants, yes, she could.

  “See?” Lexi asked. “See how good it feels to let go of all those complicated, emotional snares and just live in the world of the physical? It’s liberating.”

  Sherry now had her back turned to the boxing green. “Next time you go to a show like that, call me, okay?”

  “Will do. Just remember, my friends, there are three stages of love: lust, romantic love, and attachment. You want to stay in the lust stage. You don’t want romantic love and you certainly don’t want attachment.”

  Vanessa laughed. “Who would want attachment, right?”

  “Attachment is a very dangerous thing when you’re attached to the wrong man.”

  The dark-haired boxer, the one Vanessa had been rooting for, stood, took a serious hit, and fell to the ground while the referee started the count. Evidently, in Regency boxing matches, a man had thirty seconds to get up. “Thirty. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. Twenty-seven. Twenty-six . . .”

  Lexi clapped and cheered. “Hurrah! My man’s going to win!”