“In these trunks,” George said, “you’l find your wardrobe for the next three weeks. Everything—your gowns, wraps, shoes—has been custom-made for you, al in your favorite colors. Green, yel ow, red. What the people of the day would cal ‘pomona,’ ‘jonquil,’ and ‘cerise.’ I hope the lady approves.”
Chloe looked down at her shoes. They might’ve been flimsy, and entirely without modern arch support or heel, but they fit her size-seven-and-a-half foot perfectly. She hadn’t even thought that they had to tailor-make everything for her. “Thank you. I didn’t realize—”
“Quite al right.” He made a flourish with his arm toward the gleaming carriage. “Mr. Wrightman sent one of his carriages to col ect you. Not even an heiress could afford a carriage like this.”
The open carriage, on four wheels with spokes, shone glossy black in the sunlight, complete with brass fittings and a golden family crest featuring a W, a hawk, and an arrow. A driver in a red coat tipped his three-cornered hat and four horses stamped their hooves.
“Wow.” Chloe ran her gloved hand along the side. “I’ve never real y been into cars, but I can tel a barouche landau from a gig any day. It’s gorgeous.”
A footman who couldn’t be a day over eighteen held out his white-gloved hand to her, opened the half door, and handed her into the red velour interior. She perched on the tufted seat, crossed her underwearless legs, set her parasol and rule book in her lap, and looked down on George.
She actual y felt like an heiress.
George propped his sunglasses atop his head for a moment. “Your chaperone, Mrs. Crescent, wil be waiting at Bridesbridge Place—”
Chloe’s shoulders slumped and the shawl slid behind her. “Chaperone—?” She knew chaperones were de rigueur, but not for someone her age, surely. “Aren’t I too old for a chaperone?”
“Thirty-nine is not as old as you think, Miss Parker, you are a single woman, and it would be unseemly to have you go alone. Your chaperone is a few years your senior, and it’s your duty to treat her with respect. Read your rule book along the way. It’s nearly a four-mile drive through the deer park.”
He pushed his sunglasses back down and he looked—good. He rested his hand on the carriage. “Good luck.”
The bonnet shaded her eyes from the sun. “Thank you, George, for everything. Real y.”
“You’l see me out there with the camera crew. But they’re strictly forbidden to interact with the participants. Good day, Miss Parker.” He bowed and slapped his hand on the carriage door. He shouted to the driver: “Drive on. To Bridesbridge Place! Good luck, Miss Parker!”
Surely she would be better behaved than some American heiresses are wont to be. The carriage lumbered forward, crushing the mike on the smal of her back into the velour. She eyed the camera on the ATV beside the carriage and, with her gloved hand, gave George the royal wave and a clipped smile. He gave her the royal wave back. She’d miss him—the cad. Something about him intrigued her.
The horse hooves clomped and gunned her forward. She felt as if she were leaving something behind, something important, like her cel , for one thing. She looked away from the camera with a feigned disinterest as any heiress would. Ancient and storied trees laced into an archway overhead.
The sky seemed bluer in England, the sun brighter. Of course, she didn’t have sunglasses on because they hadn’t been invented yet.
Sunlight dappled in a clearing far from the road, and when Chloe squinted her eyes she saw two men, one dark-haired in a white shirt open to his chest, in breeches and boots, jogging with two logs atop his shoulders, and the other brawny and bald, who clapped and cheered and yel ed. The dark-haired man hurled the logs onto a cart, then ran back for two more. The bald man put his hands on his hips and shouted at the guy. Chloe looked back at the footman behind her on the coach, wanting to ask, knowing it would be improper.
The footman spared her. “Training.” That was al he said.
Chloe nodded. It was the Regency term for working out. Was it Mr. Wrightman? Only a gentleman would be able to afford a trainer. Whoever it was, she admired the fact that this guy was so into the Regency that he even stepped up his workout to a nineteenth-century routine.
He flung two more logs onto the cart and she heard the impact al the way out on the road. He turned his head toward her carriage and shielded his eyes to see her.
She wanted to wave, but didn’t, especial y when she thought she saw him smile. The trainer turned his head toward the carriage, then pointed toward the logs and shouted until the dark-haired man lifted four logs.
It was her first real glimpse of Regency life here on the estate, not to mention her first glimpse of a man in an unbuttoned shirt and snug pants in a while. He looked as if he had just burst from the cover of a Regency romance novel and it took serious wil power not to turn and stare long after the carriage had passed. If the rest of the people on the show were as gung ho as that guy, this could be “cool,” as Abigail would say. Real y cool.
She cracked open the rule book in her lap and ran her fingers along the thick pages that had been hand-cut. She brought the book up to her nose to breathe in the smel of paper pulp and ink. Then she settled back to read.
Miss Chloe Parker, you are thirty-nine years old, an American heiress who may be without a fortune due to unforeseen circumstances in your family’s business. You have one foot in the States and another one firmly planted in your mother’s native England. A projected income of five thousand pounds a year is yours, provided you land Mr. Wrightman, a husband of the English gentry, thus securing your family’s social status. Your parents and your younger sister, Abigail . . .
Chloe stopped there. Abigail. She squeezed her eyelids shut for a moment.
. . . and your younger sister, Abigail, depend upon your success. Mrs. Crescent, your chaperone, will introduce you to English society. Best of luck.
The table of contents included chapters on “Archery Rules,” “Bal room Behavior,” “Your Chaperone,” “Dinner Etiquette,” and “Sexual Protocol.”
Hmm. Chloe paged over to that very short chapter:
A lady would never engage in sexual relations with a gentleman until after marriage. So doing would compromise her reputation, her position in society, and her eligibility to marry someone her equal or above. One wrong move and a lady could be ousted from society and plunged into a life of poverty and depravity, doomed to remain an outsider. A lady may be kissed only when she is properly engaged. Before engagement, a gentleman does not touch a lady, except to hand her into a carriage, dance at a ball, or escort her on a walk in the garden with her chaperone. He may only touch her in extreme circumstances, in emergency, if the lady finds herself in trouble.
Chloe looked back, toward the inn, the trailer, and George, but she couldn’t see any of it anymore. And suddenly she felt a mil ion miles from American men, work, TVs, computers, phones—Abigail.
The rule book slid off her lap. She leaned over, struggling to pick it up despite the busk restricting her movements. The cameraman on the ATV
eased back to get a good shot of her boobs, no doubt. She wrapped the shawl tighter around her shoulders.
The carriage lurched to the top of a hil and stopped. Dust rose from the dry road and Chloe coughed, digging into her reticule for her fan.
The driver turned around, tipping his hat. “There it is, miss.”
Chloe tossed the fan aside, put her hand over the brim of her bonnet, and, awestruck, stood up. Tucked in a val ey off in the distance, rising out of the greenery, was a Queen Anne stone mansion, complete with a four-columned portico and stone urns on al four corners of the roof.
She col apsed back in the carriage seat. “Is—is that his estate? Mr. Wrightman’s?” Chloe asked.
“No, miss.” The driver laughed. “That’l be Bridesbridge Place, that. Where you’l be staying with the ladies.”
Chloe had never imagined she’d be staying in such luxury. She had pictured—a cottage. She fel back farther in her seat
and fanned herself, shocked and jet-lagged al at once.
“Mr. Wrightman’s—Dartworth Hal —that’s almost a mile beyond Bridesbridge,” said the driver. “You can’t see it from here.” He snapped the reins and the carriage rol ed ahead.
The sky widened above her as the trees thinned out. The air smel ed of fresh rain and cowbel s clanged in the distance. Pastures dotted with sheep and cows yielded to glistening grasses, as pastoral as a John Constable painting. The dirt road became pea gravel as the carriage approached the ocher-colored gates of Bridesbridge Place.
“Bliss,” she whispered to herself.
A shot rang out. The carriage lurched forward, then toppled to one side. Chloe screamed, the cameraman fumbled. The horses snorted and kicked as she, the cameraman, and the driver stumbled from the lopsided carriage onto the soft, spongy grass.
“Excuse me,” said a sexy female English voice from behind the carriage. Through blinding light and dizziness, Chloe made out a tal woman dressed in an ankle-length red walking dress and red turban, wielding a clunky pistol. The cameraman, despite a bloody nose, continued filming, and the cameraman on the ATV joined the fray.
The sexy woman spoke, looking briefly at Chloe and then past her, at the camera. “Seems I’ve nicked your carriage wheel with my target practicing.”
The wooden wheel lay on the ground, broken in half, spokes blown off.
The woman cocked the pistol against her hip.
Chloe checked herself for blood. Her legs shook. She straightened her bonnet.
“I’m Lady Grace—of the d’Argent family. And you must be the American girl.” Grace switched the pistol to her left hand and held out her right to Chloe.
Chloe didn’t shake. “You could’ve kil ed us!” Not to mention the fact that Grace should be wearing a bonnet.
“Kil ed you? With this sil y thing?” Lady Grace leaned over and whispered in Chloe’s ear, turning her back to the camera: “You Chicago people.
Think everyone’s Al Capone. That’s where you’re from? Chicago?” Stil , she didn’t look at Chloe, but past her, at the cameras. “Did you smuggle in any cigarettes? A mobile phone?”
Chloe opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Suddenly everything went dark around the edges, like the end of a silent movie, where the circle closes in on itself.
Chapter 4
C hloe opened her eyes. A light grew brighter and brighter, taking a rectangle shape while a piano played downstairs, something Baroque.
“Mr. Wrightman? She’s awake,” Fiona said.
The rectangle became a floor-to-ceiling window draped in yel ow silk and tassels. Fiona’s face came into focus, then a video camera. Chloe tried to sit up, but didn’t have the strength. One of her biceps hurt, so she tried to look at it, but stopped to focus on the two faces staring at her. One was Fiona and the other—the light from the window shaded his face. She col apsed back again.
Chloe felt for Fiona’s hand and touched an embroidered cover. She must be in a bed. A lumpy bed that crunched. “Mr. Wrightman? Mr.
Wrightman’s here?”
Fiona patted Chloe’s hand. “Yes, yes, he carried you in. Quite endearing, that was, miss.”
Chloe sighed, and an image of herself, in her white gown, draped over Mr. Wrightman’s strong arms, her head against his broad shoulders, his dark wavy hair grazing her bonnet, popped into her head. He had been forced to do the forbidden and touch her—carry her in. She’d have to wait til it came out on DVD. She squinted at the light and struggled to move.
“Mr. Wrightman’s been tending to you the entire time,” Fiona said.
“Miss Parker,” said a deep voice in an English accent.
Chloe melted just a bit. His voice was enough to make a girl forget she’d been shot at.
“Can you see clearly?”
“Yes, I can,” she lied. The blur of a man looking down at her so intently, with so much concern, came through clearly, even if his features didn’t.
“My arm hurts. Did a bul et graze me or something?”
Fiona stifled a giggle.
“You fainted,” said Mr. Wrightman. “I’m going to put some smel ing salts under your nose now. It wil smel rancid and sting a bit, I’m afraid—”
“Ooooo! What the—” Chloe snorted and sneezed simultaneously, and she sprayed droplets into Mr. Wrightman’s face. “Excuse me,” she said, trying to regain composure.
The first thing she real y saw was Mr. Wrightman’s lips curving into a smile, a very sexy smile, as he handed her his handkerchief. He wore a brown cutaway coat with tails, an upturned white col ar tied with a ruffled cravat, a waistcoat, and cream-colored breeches tucked into buckskin boots. Stil , he didn’t look like the guy in the bathtub or out in the field. Instead of dark wavy hair, he had dirty-blond straight hair, with a couple strands fal ing into light brown eyes. He was pale with round wire-rimmed glasses. Despite his seductive smile, he looked more like a librarian than the local Mr. Darcy.
“The smel ing salts real y clear the senses after a fainting spel ,” he said. With a large but gentle hand he pressed a cool cloth on her forehead.
The cloth felt great, but what if it smeared her elderberry-painted eyebrows? “Fainting spel ? I don’t faint.”
“Of course you don’t.” He stepped back and let Fiona hold the cloth to Chloe’s forehead.
She wasn’t the fainting type. But this was England, after al , and people fainted in England. She handed the handkerchief back to him, but he didn’t take it. Her thumb grazed the blue embroidered HW in the corner. “Wel , I’ve never fainted before.”
“I suppose it fol ows that if one has never fainted before, one never wil . When a lady doesn’t faint, as you clearly haven’t, I recommend a brief rest in her boudoir.”
Chloe’s head spun. She thought sarcasm wasn’t al owed. The nerve of him to spar with a person who’d supposedly just fainted. But—boudoir?
“Did you say ‘boudoir’?” Chloe dropped the handkerchief in the folds of the bedspread and looked around from under the cool cloth at the floral molding, yel ow wal s with painted-grapevine border, Empire writing desk, high marble fireplace topped with a gilded mirror, and the mahogany four-poster bed she’d been propped up in. Boudoir. Bridesbridge Place! She couldn’t wait to explore it, so she sat up, the cloth slid off her forehead, the room spun, and Mr. Wrightman, with a firm hand, settled her shoulders back against the bumpy pil ows.
“Fiona,” Mr. Wrightman said. “Please fetch Miss Parker a cordial water.”
“How cordial of you,” Chloe said. She looked forward to something that smacked of alcohol.
“Standard protocol for a woman who has fainted,” he replied.
“You gave my Fifi and me a most dreadful scare, Miss Parker,” said a gorgeous, probably eight-months-along pregnant woman as she bustled through the doorway in a periwinkle gown and lace cap. The gown complemented her pregnant shape. She carried a pug dog under her arm. “I’m Mrs. Caroline Crescent, your chaperone at Bridesbridge. This is my boy, Fifi.”
Chloe hated smal , hyper, bug-eyed dogs. And who would name a male dog Fifi? She scooched up on her good elbow. “You’re my chaperone?”
Mrs. Crescent was not only pregnant, but probably a year or two older than her. Tops.
“We did arrange a more suitable welcome,” said Mrs. Crescent. “But you fainted.”
Chloe opened her mouth, then shut it.
“Very ladylike. The fainting bit,” whispered Mrs. Crescent. “Wel done.” She patted the panting pug’s head as if he had something to do with it. “I see you’ve met Mr. Wrightman.”
Chloe felt a ripple of disappointment until Fiona waved in two footmen carrying Chloe’s trunks. They set them on the floor near a great mahogany wardrobe.
Across the room, Mr. Wrightman opened another drapery and light gushed in. “It may wel have been hysteria,” he said. “The pistol incident and al .”
Everything came back to Chloe in a flash. “‘Pistol incident’? That woman pr
actical y kil ed us!” She sat up and her left arm, for some reason, felt strange. “Where is that b—”
Chloe stopped herself, but Mr. Wrightman coughed.
“Blanket?” Mrs. Crescent interjected. She covered Chloe’s stocking feet with a tasseled blanket.
“Yes, blanket. Thank you.”
Chloe took a large gulp of cordial water and Mr. Wrightman raised an eyebrow. She barely managed to get it down. Who knew it would taste like mouthwash? Fiona offered it again but Chloe shook her head. “I’m quite refreshed, Fiona. Thank you.” Fiona whisked the drink away.
Chloe’s arm must’ve fal en asleep. She turned her head slowly, trying not to start the room spinning again, but someone had tied a leather strap around her biceps. She quickly untied it. On her night-stand, next to the silver candlestick holder, was a jar with something slithering around in it.
What was it? Maggots? Then it hit her. They were leeches. Leeches for sucking the blood from sick people, because that was what they did back in the 1800s. The leather strap? A tourniquet. The leeches squirmed around in blood and she bolted upright. Did he bleed her or what?!
She wanted to scream. To rant. To possibly crash the Wedgwood washbowl atop Mr. Wrightman’s head. Instead, she cleared her throat. “Excuse me, Mr. Wrightman?”
He was packing up his black medicine bag without a care in the world.
“You didn’t by chance, say, bleed me with leeches, did you?” She dangled the tourniquet in front of her.
He stepped back, folded his arms, and took his glasses off, looking, suddenly, not so librarian-like. If she hadn’t been so steamed she might even consider him attractive in a tal , pale, and blond kind of way.
She let her arm with the tourniquet fal . How could he be insulted? The gown might be exquisite, the boudoir charming, but she didn’t come al this way to get shot at and bled to death just to hook up with someone who wasn’t a Regency buck but some sort of bloodsucking vampire with glasses.
She swung her legs out to stand. “Wel . It was a pleasure meeting everyone, but I do believe I should go back home. Fiona, cal the carriage for me, please.” She stood in her stocking feet, but her knees weakened as she remembered the money, and the glimmer of possible love, although that was fading fast. The man in the tub, the man in the field, was he a stable hand, or perhaps a favored gardener’s son? If so, then Chloe, in al her heiressness, wouldn’t even be al owed to talk to him.
Definitely Not Mr. Darcy Page 5