Definitely Not Mr. Darcy
Page 2
“Mind your step.” Fiona nodded toward the floor and took Chloe’s bags. “Many of these old doorways have wooden thresholds.”
“I never was very good at thresholds—being carried over them or otherwise.”
That made Fiona laugh, and Chloe felt like she was making progress with her melancholy maid and had successful y dodged the man question.
She found herself in a fairy-tale cottage of a room with a canopy bed, a scrol -armed chaise lounge, and a fire dwindling in a fireplace with a wooden-beam mantel. The dressing screen with the white gown hanging from it dominated the room, and Chloe had to wonder: Could a mom like her pul off a gown like that?
Chapter 2
O ther than your earrings, do you have any jewelry to remove?
Any bel y rings or the like?” Fiona asked as she closed the door behind Chloe.
“What do you think?” Chloe smiled.
“I would venture to say no.”
Being a not-so-modern type, Chloe didn’t need to transform too much. She washed off al vestiges of makeup, which in her case was a bit of blush, undereye concealer, and lipstick. Fiona packed Chloe’s simple earrings, necklace, and understated watch into velvet drawstring bags. Time, surely, wouldn’t matter for a lady of leisure in 1812.
Chloe hopped on one foot to yank off her lace-up boots until Fiona hovered, hands on her hips.
“You must get used to me doing such things for you.”
“Real y, it’s not a problem.” Chloe did everything for herself, and Abigail. It would take some retraining to have someone else to rely on.
“It’s a rule once we’re on set. If you’l step behind the dressing screen, I’l gather your chemise and stockings.”
The room had an aroma of lavender. Behind the screen, and deep in the Derbyshire countryside, hours from London’s Heathrow, and centuries away from her real life, Chloe felt more at home than ever.
She unbuttoned her blouse, because she couldn’t imagine having Fiona do that for her, while her fingers skipped a few in the excitement. Maybe yesterday she’d been a stressed-out single working mom from the Midwest, almost middle-aged, and with a slightly expanding middle of her own, struggling just to get a decent dinner on the table after a long day of trying to drum up business, but today, on this June morning in England, her fantasy life unfolded before her.
The fantasy would have been even better if she’d been a few pounds lighter, but months of cheap pasta dinners had added seven pounds to her tiny frame.
“Curvy women were al the rage in the Regency era, right, Fiona?”
Fiona was smiling a lot more now and warming up to her, Chloe could tel .
One thing Chloe knew for sure: if the meals here were authentic, there wouldn’t be any pasta, thank goodness. She’d had her fil .
She wriggled her black skirt past her hips. Sure, she was doing this for the business, for Abigail, but the white confection of a gown hanging in front of her enchanted her. It wasn’t a froufrou Victorian with hoops, but a classic Regency with an Empire waist and—that neckline, promising escape from her modern woes or perhaps even a romp in the shrubbery.
Wait a minute, where did that come from? A lady would have to be engaged, if not married, to al ow for a romp in the shrubbery, and that meant there had to be a gentleman involved. She didn’t let her mind wander down that garden path, the path that led to proposals both decent and indecent, because after al , by 1812 standards, a woman her age would have one foot in the grave. No doubt her role on this show would be that of a widow in mourning. Although they didn’t have her wearing a black gown, there wasn’t a mourning veil in sight, and no sign of a chemisette insert or fichu to cover her cleavage either.
Regardless, any Mr. Darcy on the set would be twenty-eight years old, as he was in Pride and Prejudice, or twenty-three like Mr. Bingley, and both would fil their dance cards with the twenty-year-old Miss Bennets. Men just weren’t on her agenda. She wanted nothing more than to enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, answer questions about the novels, win the prize money, and get back home to Abigail.
Her new cel phone with international coverage rang, cutting into her reverie, and she sprang toward the sound of French horns echoing to the beamed ceiling. Abigail had downloaded a Regency ringtone for her. Chloe lunged for the phone, because she had told her daughter to cal only in case of an emergency, and she almost knocked the pitcher and bowl off the washstand.
Chloe dug for her phone in the vintage doctor bag she used as a purse. “Cel phones. You know, Fiona, two hundred years ago, we wrote letters with quil pens and sealed them with wax. Life was so much more—romantic.” She picked up without checking the cal er ID. “Hel o?”
Across the room, there was a knock on the door, it burst open, and three guys with spotlights on booms popped in. Chloe’s blouse was completely unbuttoned and her skirt lay in a crumple at her ankles. She shimmied behind the dressing screen, clenched her blouse closed at her cleavage, and swooped down to yank her skirt back up, covering her decidedly nonthong green cotton panties.
As she looked out from behind the dressing screen, a guy with a video cam bounded in, fol owed by another cameraman. Lights? Cameras!
What was going on here?
“Mommy? Are you there?”
Chloe forgot she was holding the phone to her ear.
“Uh—Abby? Sweetheart? Is everything okay?” Her chest thudded as she squinted into the spotlights.
“Yeah, I just have some real y good news.”
Chloe exhaled. “Oh, good. I want to hear al about it, but now’s not a good time, okay? I’l cal you right back.” Grabbing the white gown to shield herself, she clicked off the phone and tossed it on the washstand. She held her hand up toward the video cameras. “Stop the cameras! What the—”
Another guy materialized with a headset over one ear, an iPhone in one hand, and an iPad in the other. Al plugged in, just like her ex-husband.
“Great line,” the guy said in a juicy English accent. “What you said about letters. Romance. Could you say that again, please? On camera?”
Chloe stepped back, from the sheer panic of the moment, the intense spotlights, or possibly his manner of speaking. It couldn’t have been his cropped auburn hair topped with a pair of sunglasses or his snug-fitting jeans. She was, after al , a raging Anglophile who could crush on any guy with an English accent, and this was the first male one she’d heard since she arrived. Al this started with Disney’s Christopher Robin when she was what—six?
The accent threw her, but only for a minute. “Excuse me?! What’s going on?!” She clutched the white gown in front of her. It felt like a fine cheesecloth or voile, and she realized, despite her confusion and rage, that it must be muslin, that delicate Regency fabric she had up until now only read about. She softened her grip, but raised her voice. “Cut the cameras! Can’t you see I’m half naked here?”
“I can see you’re exactly what we’re looking for. Spot-on.” He extended his hand. “George Maxton. Producer. Pleased to meet you, Miss Parker.
You can cal me George, but once you get on location, everyone’s a ‘mister’ and a ‘miss.’”
Behind the gown, Chloe buttoned her blouse single-handedly, a skil she’d mastered while breast-feeding nine years ago. She glared at George Maxton and the crew.
He gave up on the handshake. “Bril iant. You’re gorgeous.”
Gorgeous? Cute, maybe. Nobody had cal ed her gorgeous since—wait a minute. The nerve! “George, cut the cameras NOW.”
He eyed her from the top of her disheveled hair to the tips of her unpolished toes. “You do realize, Miss Parker, that this is a reality show?”
Something plummeted inside her; she struggled to speak. “You mean ‘immersion documentary.’”
“Documentary?” He laughed. “Now, that’s the stuff I’d love to shoot. No money there.” He pointed to the two cameras as he said, “This, my dear, is a reality dating program, and you’re going to be a bril iant contestant.”
“No mistake. It’s set in the year 1812. Cameras are on twenty-four /seven. Everything’s historical y accurate, Miss Parker, and I do mean everything. You wil be pleased with that.”
The lights blinded her. Her bosom heaved, and not in a good way. Dating show? She didn’t want to date anybody—she hadn’t had a date in four years! No, it was more than four years, because Winthrop, her ex-husband, was out of town so much they never could manage a date night. How could she be on a dating program? Not to mention the fact that she hated those reality dating things. How could this be happening?
She paced the floor, her gown dragging on the floorboards. She caught her breath and began speaking a mile a minute. “I demand some answers here! What changed between the moment I signed the contract and now?”
“Not much, real y; we tweaked the concept a bit to make it more marketable, but relationships and courtship were always part of the equation.
You did read the paperwork and contract we sent, correct, Miss Parker?”
“I auditioned for a public-television documentary—I’d never sign up for a dating show—I expected Jane Austen trivia contests—I certainly won’t participate in any antics with hot tubs and bikini-clad massages and . . . and . . . dates!”
“For a person who’s so above reality TV, you seem to know a lot about it,” George quipped.
And he was right. “Unfortunately you can’t have a pulse on this planet without knowing about reality television, especial y if you don’t have cable like me. Why can’t you just film something tasteful?”
“Do you real y think people want to watch you sit around in your gown sipping tea and taking Jane Austen quizzes for three weeks?”
Chloe felt the sting of her naïveté, and once again she lived up to her name, Chloe, which meant “young green sprout” in old Greek, and she felt grass green, despite her age.
A log fel in the dwindling fire across the room, sending sparks flying and a wisp of smoke curling into the air.
Then it hit her. “I must be cast as a doting aunt or chaperone, right? A thirty-nine-year-old in 1812 would be strictly on the shelf, not making her bal room debut. And couples didn’t date in the nineteenth century anyway.”
“You’re absolutely correct, Miss Parker, on two counts. Regency couples didn’t ‘date.’ Men courted women, and that sounds so much more refined, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to educate the public on the intricacies of Regency courtship? There weren’t any hot tubs in 1812, so you needn’t worry about that. To accommodate you we’ve bent the age rules, making you a bona fide contestant, Miss Parker. You’re much too young by today’s standards, and feisty enough by any standards—to be on the shelf!”
Chloe stomped her bare foot. “This can’t be legal.” She tried to be rational. “You misrepresented the show. Is there real y any prize money? I need to cal my lawyer.”
“You’re free to cal your lawyer, but nothing was misrepresented. You wil be partaking of historical y appropriate tasks, in an 1812 setting. There is a one-hundred-thousand-dol ar prize, and I wil explain al that.”
He kept checking his iPhone, and looking up when he could. “But even you, on your audition video, referred to the woes of the single American woman. During our extensive interviews with you, you said you’re open to finding love and happily-ever-after. Is it true, Miss Parker, or did you misrepresent yourself?”
He had her there. The spotlights shone bright and hot, and she hesitated to say it on camera.
“It’s true. What you said.”
George smiled and looked her straight in the eye. “Say it, Miss Parker.”
“I’m stil hoping to find true love.”
George clasped his hands.
“But not now—someday. And it’l never happen on a reality dating show.”
“Don’t think of it as ‘dating’; think of it as ‘courting.’”
“If I took this on, the only thing I’d be courting is disaster.” Chloe steadied herself with a palm on the whitewashed wal . She squeezed her eyes shut. “What is the name of this atrocity?”
“The working title is How to Date Mr. Darcy.”
Chloe’s stomach churned. “You have got to be kidding me. If Jane Austen only knew! ‘Dating’ is right there in the title, it’s an anachronism.
Where’s the courtship? Where’s the class?”
“Even if the title is a little on the commercial side, the production is top-notch. Trust me.”
Trust him?!
A text message beeped on her phone, and, stil holding the gown in front of her, she scissor-stepped over to it. Abigail’s text said “<3 u” and Chloe would never have even known that meant “heart you” had Abigail not taught her. “Hugs 4ever,” Chloe texted back. She needed to cal her.
Chloe sighed, phone in one hand, gown in the other, wondering what to do. If she quit this thing, would she regret it? She’d be out the money for the plane ticket, which she’d paid for with the last of her savings. She’d have to face a short sale on the brownstone, her bankrupt business, and worse, she’d have to explain to Abigail why she quit. One of the perks of doing this thing was to set an example for her daughter that a woman, even a single mom, could go to another country, hel , another era—and kick butt. But what kind of PR for her business would come out of something cal ed How to Date Mr. Darcy?
Speaking of how, how could she leave England now, when she’d been dreaming of coming here her entire life? And why did the image of her on a dark-haired Mr. Darcy’s arm just pop into her head?
She stared at her phone, as if it would have the answers.
“Bit of a mobile addict, Miss Parker?” George asked.
That snapped her back to—dare she think it—reality. George obviously hadn’t read the bio she sent. “Oh yes, I can’t get enough of modern time-sucks like Facebook, Twitter, or reality TV. Bring it on. Who would want to step back in time a couple hundred years and actual y live a quality life?”
“That’s the attitude, Miss Parker! So glad you’re on board.”
“I never said—”
His phone blared a British police-siren ringtone. “So sorry, best take this one. Whatever did we do without these things?”
“We read books and talked face-to-face. We didn’t watch reality, we lived it.”
George winked at Chloe. “Hal o,” he answered his phone. He whispered to her, “You’re perfect. Just relax. Forget the cameras. You’l make a fabulous governess.”
Chloe almost dropped the gown. “Get out! I can’t be a governess! I—I forgot al my col ege French.” Being cast as a governess would be her worst nightmare. Homeschooling spoiled children in an attic somewhere? Wearing gray up to her chin? Dealing with a moody master? This sounded more Jane Eyre than Jane Austen.
“I’m kidding. Kidding. Of course you’re not a governess. Not in that gown. Though it wil tear if you step on it, I’m afraid. It’s sprigged muslin.”
Chloe lifted the gown and narrowed her eyes at him.
“You’ve just proven to me that you real y do want to be a contestant and not just a—governess.”
She had passed a test, and didn’t even know she was being quizzed.
This time she had the questions, so many questions, and it was her turn to get some answers, but George didn’t give her a chance. He left, the cameras stayed.
He slammed the door so hard behind him that something shook above her. It was swags of drying lavender. Ah, lavender. England. Regency England, where leather-bound books were treasures, where women who had a talent for drawing were cal ed “accomplished,” and where men were gentlemen—not sleazy producers.
Fiona brought over a stack of garments, placed them on the chaise, and hung the gown back up.
“Fiona, please tel George I insist on finishing our discussion.”
“You’re to see him after you’re dress
ed, Miss Parker, and you can sort it al out then, can’t you?”
Chloe eyed the gown. If she left, she’d be leaving this picture-perfect inn, and she hadn’t even seen Bridesbridge Place yet. She slunk down on the chaise and ran her fingers over the red velvet. “I don’t want to go. You can real y feel the history here.”
“Forgive me, miss, but it’s just an inn.”
“Fiona, did you know this was a dating show? What should I do?”
Fiona shrugged her shoulders. “I’m only the hired help.”
“Oh, Fiona, you’re much more than that, come on. What are you in the real world? A law student? Working in the financial sector?”
Fiona shook her head.
Chloe realized that Fiona wasn’t going to reveal anything about her twenty-first-century self. “I guess there’s no harm in trying the gown on—I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You’re quite lucky,” Fiona said. “I know a score of charwomen and scul ery maids ready to trade their lot with yours this instant.”
Chloe rubbed her temples. There it was again, that flash of her and a tal , dark, and white-cravat-throated someone, this time in a bal room under a candlelit chandelier.
The door swung open again. It was George.
“George!” Chloe cal ed out. “We need to talk.”
“We wil talk. We wil , Miss Parker. And not to worry. We’l edit out any naughty bits, for the American market at least. And soon as you’re ready I’l explain al the rules. Cheers!” He slammed the door again behind him.
Chloe shot up. “Naughty bits? What naughty bits?!”
“I dunno, Miss Parker. Dunno.”
M uslin turned out to be a very thin fabric, nearly sheer, and Chloe knew better than to hope for petticoats, because those had gone out of fashion by 1812.
Just as Fiona held up an equal y threadbare chemise to go under the gown, Chloe’s phone rang.
“See, Fiona, how modern technology interrupts our lives?”
It was Abigail. “Hi, Mom! Grandma told me not to tel you yet, but Dad took me out to lunch today.”
Chloe rol ed her eyes. After the plethora of times he’d been on the road, missing Abigail’s school plays and hip-hop dance recitals, Chloe was out of town for the first time since the divorce, and he’d swooped in on day one.