Fortnight. She loved that word.
She was happy to leave everything but her cel phone. Her pantalets, she noticed, were sticking to her thighs. “Of course.”
“Did you real y read al the fine print in the contract you signed? Because this shouldn’t be such a surprise to you.”
The lemon deodorant failed as a bead of sweat dribbled down her side. She was so thril ed to have won the audition that she real y didn’t take the time to read every single word in that giant stack of paperwork they’d sent, and couldn’t afford to pay a lawyer to go through it with her. Had she once again donned her rose-colored glasses and seen only what she wanted to see in the contract? Legalese, math, science—these were not her forte; she was much more of a big-picture person.
“You are aware, for example, that you agreed we could film you twenty-four/seven upon arrival, and that anything you do is fair game not only for the final program but for any social networking site, Twitter, or blog entry, or any streaming video on the website and any YouTube video we produce?”
Chloe sucked on her lower lip to keep herself from saying anything a lady might regret, but her stomach churned. She’d signed up for a rock-bottom reality show in period costume and she would’ve been better off in Vegas sunbathing topless, guzzling pink martinis, and gambling her last dol ar in hopes of winning it big.
“Your antics, such as storming my trailer, wil be posted on YouTube,” George said. “We’re going for heaving bosoms and bulging breeches here, not ladies lunching.”
Chloe buried her head in her hands.
“Throw in an eligible, handsome, and rich bachelor for good measure.”
“What do you mean ‘an’ eligible bachelor? There’s only one? I thought this was a dating show.”
“It is! There are two bachelors, real y, one infinitely wealthier than the other, so he is more desirable, natural y—”
“And how many women are there?”
“Several.”
Chloe couldn’t take it anymore. “Jane Austen would be horrified. This is a mockery of everything women have accomplished in the past two centuries!”
“Some people find true love on these kinds of shows, and I think Jane Austen would approve of that. Besides, during the Regency, women outnumbered men because so many men had died in the Napoleonic Wars or were on active duty. Many others were out in the East Indies, trying to make their fortune.”
He folded his arms. “Do you realize how many women were competing for the same country squire? It would be historical y inaccurate to arrange a party of, let’s say, ten men and ten women. Surely a stickler for historical detail such as yourself can’t argue that point.”
He handed her a piece of paper. “Here’s Mr. Wrightman’s bio. I’m sure they e-mailed this to you in Chicago. Did you read it? He’s our most eligible bachelor.”
She’d read it more than once. Now it made sense that they only sent one man’s biography instead of the entire cast or an array of bios of other possible suitors. It would be her and a gaggle of other women pitted against one another to snare the wealthy Mr. Wrightman.
At least he looked good on paper. If Chloe could believe the bio, the Oxford-educated Jane Austen fan valued honesty, was ready to start a family, but also loved to travel. She and he seemed compatible in every way, but her hopes had been crushed before.
“Yes, I read it.” She turned her back on the TVs, handed George the bio without even looking at it, and paced the floor. The camera fol owed.
A gangly girl dressed in black sauntered out of a room in the back of the trailer to the Miele espresso maker.
George checked his iPhone again. “Chin up, Miss Parker. You’re an American heiress come to summer here in the English countryside. I ful y expect you to take on that role.”
Did he say “heiress”?
“Heiresses don’t need to win a man.” She walked back over to him.
He handed her a thick black hand-bound book with Miss Parker’s Rulebook embossed in gold script on the cover. “Tel Janey what kind of coffee you take.”
“Double espresso skinny latte, please. If you can’t, then just a regular—”
George interrupted. “An heiress would not concern herself with whether the hired help can or can’t do her bidding. It’s not her problem.” He final y set his iPhone aside, picked up a remote, and aimed it at the three TV screens. “You’re going to love doing this show. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Check it out. Here’s what’s going on throughout the estate.”
A young woman in a bonnet fed chickens on one screen, on another a cook chopped herbs. And, on screen three, a dark-haired guy paused near a copper bathtub, untying his cravat while light from a window behind the tub gave him a silhouette quality. A butler removed his waistcoat and pul ed the loose linen shirt over his head. The guy’s shoulder blades popped. Was that him? The Mr. Wrightman she was supposed to win over?
She pretended to fan herself. “Be stil , my beating heart. Oh, George, is that my future husband?”
George eyed the young woman feeding the chickens while he talked. The swooshing of the milk frother on the espresso machine almost drowned out his voice. “Rule number one. Sarcasm wil not be tolerated. Rule number two. You don’t have a daughter on this program. Not a word of it, and Fiona’s been instructed not to speak of her with you, nor to say anything about it to the rest of the cast.”
Janey gave George his coffee in a black mug and handed Chloe her latte in a white paper cup, complete with plastic lid and cardboard sleeve.
“Thank you,” Chloe said, noting the significance of the fact that hers was a to-go cup.
Without a word, Janey slunk back to wherever she came from.
Even through the cardboard sleeve, the coffee burned Chloe’s hand and she set it down on the table littered with gossip magazines.
George finished off his coffee. “It’s al very celeb of you, being a single mum in the twenty-first century, but you don’t have a daughter here. That would be very uncool unless you’re a widow, and that just wasn’t sexy enough for us, quite frankly. Here you’re an American heiress eager to secure a place in society—and fast. This may be your last chance, considering your age.”
Chloe said nothing.
“You need to marry a man of society and save your American family from ruin. They can only afford to keep you here for three weeks.”
Chloe turned her back to the camera. “Why would an heiress need to marry up?” She whispered, “It sounds a little desperate.”
“We do our best to base everyone’s stories on their current circumstances.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He looked at the camera then turned away from it, lowering his voice. “You come from a blue-blood English family on your mother’s side, but you’ve fal en on hard times. Your business is about to go bel y-up and you can’t ral y the cash to afford your home or your daughter’s private school.
You depleted your savings just to fly over here. Am I right?”
The air conditioner blew cold air on her bare back. The camera panned around her. The trailer closed in and felt too smal for four people. He sure did his homework. She was a girl without a fortune, a damsel in financial distress. She gravitated to the wine refrigerator. She needed a drink.
Or two. “Miss Parker may need financial security by marrying a certain gentleman, but I don’t. I’ve got lots of irons in the fire.”
“I’m sure you do.” George smirked. “Think of this as another iron. Get him to propose and you’ve won our little Regency love match. A hundred thousand dol ars. How can you resist?”
“Ugh. I have to get him to propose to win the money? Please.”
“Certainly you, of al contestants, would know that the only way a Regency woman of your stature could acquire such a sum would be to marry into it. Women couldn’t work to amass their fortune, you know that.”
Chloe sighed. “This might be more realistic than I’d bargained for.”
“Who knows? Perhaps you’l fal in love with Mr. Wrightman.”
On TV number three, the man, who she was convinced must be Mr. Wrightman, was now in the tub, and bowed his dark-haired head while his servant poured pitchers of steaming water over him. Chloe gaped at his broad shoulders, which glistened in the sunlight. What if he was The One?
As soon as the question shimmered through her, she thought of how her employee, Emma, might react if she quit and came home.
“Let me get this straight,” Emma would say. “The guy was good-looking and rich. And you came home because—?”
Chloe had nothing to lose—except her dignity.
“If I can do this, you certainly can,” George said. “Come here so I can wire you for sound.”
She folded her bare arms over her shelflike bosom, and that wasn’t easy.
“You belong here, Miss Parker. You drive your col ege intern batty with your four o’clock teatimes, you take carriage rides in the city instead of taxis, although I doubt you can afford that indulgence now, and you don’t have cable TV. Do you think the average American eight-year-old even knows who Jane Austen is? Your daughter does. Think of how disappointed she’l be if you go home now.”
She’d thought of that already. “You’re a rake, George. Isn’t that what they’d cal you in 1812? An absolute rake.”
He smiled. “I’ve been cal ed worse. This is my business, Miss Parker. Reality.”
“Hook me up, then—with the mike, that is.”
He laughed and clipped the wireless translucent microphone pack to the back of her gown, then draped a silky shawl over her shoulders. “Mr.
Wrightman handpicked you. You! Out of eight thousand applicants—”
Chloe interrupted. “Eight thousand?”
She felt flattered, and already enamored of the kind of man who would participate in such an elaborate Jane Austenesque scheme in the hopes of finding his true love—if she were to believe al this.
“You’re the only American contestant.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. It had a competitive, Olympic-type feel to it, as if she alone were representing the entire United States, and she hardly qualified to represent the typical American woman.
“Rule number three,” George said. “Stay in character. No talking about the Internet and jobs and iPods.”
“I think we’re up to rule number five now. But not to worry about me babbling on about modern life. I’m ecstatic to be away from it.”
“Every day there wil be a task, some tasks wil take only a few hours, others wil be ongoing, but each smal task wil be worth five points. Larger tasks and competitions wil be worth fifteen. You’l acquire these ‘Accomplishment Points’ by completing chal enges such as trimming a bonnet and seeing a few Regency craft projects through to completion.
“For every twenty-five Accomplishment Points you accumulate, you win time with Mr. Wrightman. There wil be various competitions, including archery and a foxhunt. Winning wil be to your advantage. And, in order to be invited to the bal , you’l need to survive the Invitation Ceremonies. At every Invitation Ceremony, somebody, sometimes several women, get sent home. Oh, and the audience, via phone and Internet, rates you during your stay as a service to Mr. Wrightman. You have three weeks to win How to Date Mr. Darcy.”
Chloe was rendered speechless at such a delicious array of Regency experiences soured by the odious reality-show points system, popularity contests, and jockeying for a marriage proposal. She didn’t real y understand how the scoring worked and she hated the thought of it. She squinted at George, but her eyes widened when, on the screen behind him, she got a flash of what must’ve been Mr. Wrightman’s taut butt as he stood up in the tub, just before the servant wrapped a linen sheet around his dripping body.
“He’s got a great ass, don’t you think?” George asked, looking at the screen side by side with her.
Chloe propel ed herself toward the trailer door.
“I’m glad to see you exhibit the proper modesty of a Regency heroine. You must behave at al times as if you are a lady of quality in 1812. As a
Jane Austen fan, you should know what you can and can’t do, but just in case, your rule book details everything. Any modern behavior and you risk expulsion.”
She bit her lip.
“Now for the fun part. Accessories.” George guided her toward an open wooden trunk.
“Your purse, or ‘reticule.’ Inside you’l find your tiara from home to wear to the bal .” He hung a slip of a crimson silk bag from her arm and the golden tassels dangled as she moved.
It looked like one of Abigail’s toy purses. “Women real y did have a lot less baggage back then,” she said.
“Vinaigrette.” He opened a silver perforated case, smal er than a matchbox, and waved it under her nose. Vinegar and—lemon? He tucked it into her reticule. “A lady would open her vinaigrette to avoid rank smel s, say in the streets of London. Or to keep herself from fainting.”
“I never faint. And what could possibly smel rank out there?” Chloe looked out the trailer-door window at the lush English countryside.
“Fan.” With a crinkle, George opened the fan to reveal a painted scene of a woman in a flowing gown playing a lute.
“It’s gorgeous.”
George slipped it into the reticule. “Cal ing cards.” He opened a silver case the size of a cigarette tin and revealed a cream-colored stack of cards. Miss Chloe Parker had been printed in black script and hand-set on a letterpress printer. She ran her fingertip along the script and felt the debossed letters sinking into the paper. “They’re letterpressed.”
F eel this,” she’d said to Winthrop when she finished printing up menus for one of their fund-raising dinner parties.
“Okay. So I can feel the letters.”
“That’s why the slogan for the business wil be ‘Make a great impression.’”
“Cute.” He tossed the menu on the table. “But if you’re going to open your own business, don’t you think it should have something to do with the Web? I mean. That’s where the money is.”
“You don’t get it. My future’s in the past and I’m going to do handmade. Hand-set type. Cotton-rag paper. Hand-stitched books. It’s what the world needs right now.”
He got that fuzzy look in his eye that told her everything she needed to know. Then he pul ed his BlackBerry out of his jeans pocket to check his e-mails.
G eorge tipped the cal ing-card case into her reticule. “I can see you approve of the cal ing cards. I told you everything is historical y accurate here.
Just look at these gloves, for example. A lady never leaves home without them.” He gave her a pair of light gray gloves that she glided onto her arms with a strange familiarity, as if she had been wearing them al her life. They reached just past her elbows, almost touching her cap sleeves, but they became a little loose and bunchy just at her biceps. So sexy! She thril ed at the feel of the leather.
“Whenever you’re outside, shade yourself with a parasol. Tanned skin was only for farm girls. Any infractions of these rules and Accomplishment Points wil be deducted. Serious digressions mean you’l be sent home.” He handed her a fringed white parasol. “Congratulations. For the next three weeks, Miss Parker, you’re no longer a working girl.”
“But you stil want me to work it, right?”
He set the rule book in the crook of her arm. “Rules, Miss Parker. Please read them.”
“What about a little pin money, Mr. Maxton? In case an heiress sees a new chapeau she must have at the haberdashery?”
“There are no haberdasheries where you’re going, Miss Parker. This isn’t a costume flick. We could hardly afford to set up an entire town. You’l be confined to your lodgings and the gardens at Bridesbridge Place—”
“What about London? Won’t we be going to London?”
George laughed. “And just how would we pul that off? London in 1812 on our budget?”
“Bath? Brighton?!”
“You’l visit Dartw
orth Hal , and you’re invited to explore the reflecting pond, hedge maze, and grotto. Just remember, you’re surrounded by a five-thousand-acre deer park, and a lady wouldn’t find herself trudging through the thicket in search of a fancy coffee or hackney coach to Brighton, now, would she?”
Chloe was beginning to like George. He placed a bonnet with a straw rim and slate silk top on her head. He tied the ribbons under her chin, just like she used to tie Abigail’s winter hats on when she was little and never left her mother’s side. The bonnet, like the pantalets, felt a little ridiculous.
“You’l find a turban and some bandeaux in your wardrobe, but Regency ladies would never be seen outside without a bonnet. Never.”
The brim narrowed her view, the straw scratched the back of her neck, and Chloe wanted nothing more than to yank it off. Even when she went to her Jane Austen Society galas in costume, she didn’t wear a bonnet, but chose a tiara or a turban. She tugged at the ribbon under her neck.
George stepped back to look at her. “I find it very interesting to see who has the strength of character to throw themselves into the time period and who doesn’t.”
“I’m al about rules,” Chloe said. “That’s half the fun of it. Regency manners and etiquette.”
He smirked and opened the trailer door. “And no cel phones.”
Sunlight fel upon them. George put his aviator sunglasses on. “Shal we? The carriage awaits.” He offered his arm.
She looked back over her shoulder at her untouched latte sitting on the coffee table. The copper tub on TV number three had been emptied, upended, and propped against the wainscoted wal . Chloe put her arm in George’s. He’d won this round, after al .
The vista from the top of the trailer steps softened her. The grass in England seemed greener, the trees more gnarled, and the sheep more picturesque, with horns and long wool. Of course, there were no such things in Chicago. The sheep bleated as Chloe and George ambled past the inn, which must’ve dated from the Tudor era. They passed a cabbage-rose garden, a crumbling stone wal , and a stream along the lane, and Chloe took it al in. They approached the carriage from behind, and Chloe noticed a stack of weathered wooden trunks strapped to the back of it.
Definitely Not Mr. Darcy Page 4