“Are you lost?”
“Kind of.”
“You’re not on Dartworth property. I’m on Bridesbridge land.” He took her by the arm. “We’re not far. I’l take you back.” He looked at her careful y, even as the rain came at them sideways. “No harm done. No need to worry. Are you—crying, Miss Parker?”
The cameraman walked backward in front of them, filming.
“No.” She laughed. “They’re raindrops. It rains so much here in England.” She wiped the tears with her wet gloves.
He lowered his voice as he handed her a handkerchief. “I certainly must apologize for my harsh words the other night at dinner. I was a little stressed by—wel —the dining room was not where we planned to birth Mrs. Crescent’s baby.”
“No apologies necessary.” Chloe blotted another tear from her cheek with the handkerchief.
“This is the wettest summer in three years,” Henry said. “And the wettest summer before that was eight years ago, but, most interestingly, the summer with record rainfal previous to that was in the Tudor era. But enough about the English weather.”
“Was that a falcon you were working with back there?” Chloe asked.
“That was King, my Harris hawk. Harris hawks are much more easygoing and sociable than peregrine falcons.”
She always learned something from him. “I should’ve known it was a Harris hawk.”
Henry laughed, but he looked away from her and at the cameraman. “My good man, would you quit your filming and fetch the lady an umbrel a from Bridesbridge?! Much obliged!”
The cameraman, to Chloe’s amazement, complied, and took off toward Bridesbridge as fast as he could. So many times the women had tried to get the crew to quit filming, but it never worked.
“Now, what is the matter?”
Chloe held back the tears. “I’d like to learn falconry. You’re incredibly talented at it. Could you teach me? Would it be apropos?”
“As you know, Miss Parker, it isn’t exactly a female pursuit. Perhaps if Mrs. Crescent joined us, but no, it’s actual y more appropriate if my brother gave you a lesson.”
From a distance, the cameraman ran toward them with two umbrel as under his arm.
Chloe fel silent.
“But Sebastian—doesn’t know much about falconry.” Henry looked at her with intent. “Something has upset you. What is it? I’d like to help.”
As they passed the Grecian temple on top of the hil , the rain tapered off.
“Do I have any chance here, Henry?”
Flecks of gold flickered in his brown eyes. “Personal y, I think you have the best chance of al , depending on what you hope to gain.”
She found this a little abstract, and wanted to press him about it, but settled for the fact that it sounded encouraging. The cameraman, breathless, handed off the umbrel as to Henry, who popped them open while Chloe closed up her parasol. They were nineteenth-century-style umbrel as, made of silk, and soon the silk had soaked through, too. They were at the kitchen garden now, and Chloe spotted several cameras on them from various windows in Bridesbridge.
“I’m going to be in so much trouble with my chaperone.”
“No, you won’t,” Henry said as he led her down the stairs into the scul ery, just off the kitchen. “I’l make sure of that.” He opened the door for her and the scent of rosemary enveloped them. When Chloe closed up her umbrel a, the painting from Abigail and the motion from the court fel from under the crook of her arm onto the stoop, and she froze.
Cook came to the door, hands on her hips.
“Not a word, now, Cook,” Henry said as he picked up the papers and handed them to Chloe without so much as glancing at them. “I’m at your service, Miss Parker, should the need arise.”
Chloe hesitated, then blurted it out. “Henry, I need George. I need to make a phone cal . Something’s happened at home.”
“Of course. Say no more, it shal be done.”
“Thank you, Henry. Thank you.” She handed him his greatcoat and looked down at her wet walking boots. When she looked up at him, wet, dark blond strands of hair had fal en into his caramel-colored eyes. His face was angular but inviting, with an al uring smile.
“Everything wil be al right,” he said.
He had draped his greatcoat over his shoulders and his white shirt and buff-colored breeches had entirely soaked through, making her entirely too aware of his sinewy body. She did, though, remember to curtsy.
He bowed, turned, and hurried off.
When she reached the top of the stairs, she noticed that the red paint on Abigail’s painting had bled through.
To make the cal sooner, Chloe had persuaded Mrs. Crescent to accompany her in the carriage to the entrance gate, where they would meet George.
Now that the rain had stopped, Chloe stood waiting at the iron gates while Mrs. Crescent eyed her pocket watch in the carriage. The gates stood some fifteen feet high with sharp points on top, and the black bars made Chloe think of prison. Or was it a sort of gilded cage?
She paced in front of the gates, the letter from court in hand. Beyond the gates was the real world, and she could even hear the sounds of cars driving on wet paved roads.
She had thought, long and hard, about going home and dealing with this latest stunt of Winthrop’s. Was there anything she could possibly do before the hearing? That was the biggest question she had for her lawyer. Because if there were, she’d be on a plane tonight.
As the sun came out, George appeared on his ATV, and one of the crew unlocked the gates, setting her free from her thoughts.
George granted the cal , Chloe got in touch with her lawyer, and no, nothing could be done until the hearing. Her lawyer advised her to stay on in England and make the best of it. That twenty-minute conversation alone would cost her $350.
As she headed toward the carriage, her head hanging, a glint of silver in the distance caught her eye through the trees, near the hitch post. It was a silver stirrup shining in the sun.
S ebastian cut a dashing figure on a horse. Unfortunately he was surrounded by a pack of barking dogs and two cameramen.
“Miss Parker!” He tipped his hat and waved it.
Mrs. Crescent stirred in the carriage. “Go ahead, go ahead.” She waved Chloe on toward Sebastian. “Just stay in my line of sight. And we wil be making that ink today!”
Chloe turned to walk toward Sebastian, but the dogs—foxhounds—spun and barreled toward her! She froze, Sebastian whistled, and the dogs circled back toward him. He dismounted. His face had tanned in the sun, and as he walked his white horse toward her, she wanted her camera to capture the moment. The tal grasses seemed to part for him as he walked toward her in his boots, riding crop tucked under his arm. His biceps
bulged even under the riding coat. The dogs, panting and tired, lumbered behind. One of the cameramen focused on Sebastian, the other turned his camera toward Chloe.
Sebastian bowed.
Chloe curtsied. She stepped back from the whimpering hounds because she didn’t like hound dogs any more than she liked pugs.
“Don’t worry. I’ve cal ed them off.” He stood so close to her she could almost reach out and touch his designer stubble. “Henry tel s me he thinks you’ve gotten some bad news from home. Is everything quite al right? Why are you out here by the gates? Not trying to escape, I hope.”
Chloe clasped her shaky gloved hands in front of her. “No. I’m doing my best to stay!”
“Good. Good.” He sighed at the cameramen.
There wasn’t much hope for a meaningful conversation.
“The best way to guarantee your stay, Miss Parker, is to dedicate yourself to preparing for the foxhunt. It’s a chal enging task, but one I’m sure you’re equal to. Do you have a sense of adventure?”
“Adventure? I’m al about adventure!” Chloe shot a look at the dogs out of the corner of her eye.
In his Hessian boots, he stepped even closer to her now, blocked the camera for a moment, and slid a note into her hand
. She understood to hide it in her reticule.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “I would want a wife who enjoys adventure and games—a certain element of playfulness and fun. I think you have those qualities and so much more.”
Chloe couldn’t believe he’d said al this while surrounded by cameras and—dogs. Nor could she believe that he had slipped a piece of folded paper into her hands, unbeknownst to the cameramen.
A clipped bow, a tip of his hat, a bucking up of his horse, and he was gone, just as suddenly as he had appeared, his coattails flying in the wind and the pack of dogs hot on his trail.
When at last she closed her bedchamber door under the pretense of having to use the chamber pot, Chloe ceremoniously unfolded the note he had given her. The handwriting was old-fashioned, ornamental, and organized in stanzas. He had written her a poem! At thirty-nine years old, Chloe read the first love poem ever written for her:
As the sun shines high in the sky
Love blooms in my heart, I cannot lie.
To let our love grow
Is what is want, I know.
Still I cannot be convinced
Nay, I need more evidence
Of your intentions, are they true?
To convince me here is what you need to do:
As the clock strikes two you must find
Something in a garden where light and shadow are intertwined
Inspect the face in the garden bright
Then follow the line of light
Straight to a house without walls
Enter the door and go where the water falls
Extrapolate from this poem the puzzle within
Make a note of the six-word answer, write it, and you will win
Send your missive through the secret door and the answers you seek will
be in store!
She read it again. It wasn’t a love poem. It was some kind of Regency courtship riddle turned reality-show task. She sighed. But she was up for it!
It gave her insight into Sebastian’s playful, romantic nature, and it cheered her as no other missive could at this point.
Did the other women get one of these? she wondered. But she couldn’t ask them. Sebastian had expressly written that this task would be one for her to take on alone, without even her chaperone’s knowledge.
What thing in a garden would incorporate light and shadow? The estate had acres and acres of gardens. Could the garden be in a painting? And what about the two o’clock reference? Could the answer be on a painted face of one of the grandfather clocks in Bridesbridge?
The joke was on her. She didn’t get it. Not at al . And she couldn’t ask Mrs. Crescent a thing about it.
M rs. Crescent had handed Chloe a recipe for ink, written by Martha Lloyd, Jane Austen’s sister-in-law: Take 4 ozs of blue gauls, 2 ozs of green copperas, 1 ½ ozs of gum arabic. Break the gauls. The gum and copperas must be beaten in a mortar and put into a pint of strong stale beer; with a pint of small beer. Put in a little refin’d sugar. It must stand in the chimney corner fourteen days and be shaken two or three times a day.
Chloe knew that “gauls” must be the “gal s” she had col ected from the oak trees. As for the rest, a pint of beer, even strong stale beer, sounded good right about now.
With Mrs. Crescent’s help, she managed to get through the recipe, and restrained herself from drinking the beer, but had to remember to visit the parlor chimney two or three times a day from then on to shake her vial of ink.
“Not to worry,” Mrs. Crescent had said. “I shan’t let you forget.”
With a total of ten Accomplishment Points now, Chloe faced two days of practicing riding sidesaddle on Chestnut, the nicest horse in the stable.
In her spare time, she picked up as many of Fiona’s chores as she could when the camera wasn’t around, noting that her maid seemed sadder than ever. She also made a point of scouring the estate, tramping through gardens looking for shafts of sunlight and shadows, trying to solve the riddle from Sebastian. That was how she knew she was more than smitten. None of the paintings or clocks in Bridesbridge fit the description in the riddle, not even the pocket watch on Grace’s chatelaine.
Her oil paints and stack of painting paper went untouched as Mrs. Crescent started Chloe on another task that would take more than a week: needlework. She had to embroider a fireplace screen for fifteen points when in fact the extent of her needlework skil s were sewing on buttons that had fal en off. So much for her days of leisure.
When she scrambled down the servant stairs into the basement kitchen to help Cook do the baking for the tea, she found Cook standing at the pine worktable, beating dough with her fists. Flies buzzed around as a couple of kitchen maids, who seemed sixteen years old at most, stoked the fire in the open range, apparently to set something in the cauldron hanging above it to boil. A hare, dead and skinned, hung from the rafters, and al manner of tongs and knives and industrial-sized soup ladles hung from hooks on the wal s. Black clothing irons stood upon a shelf, and everything reeked of onion.
Cook and the kitchen maids curtsied upon Chloe’s entrance, and the formality flustered her. She rol ed up the decorative, gauzy yel ow sleeves of her overdress. “Do you have an apron? I’m here to bake for the tea party.”
Cook shot Chloe a look with her icy blue eyes. “You can’t possibly bake. You belong upstairs!”
Chloe snagged an apron from one of the wooden hooks near the copper pots and tied it around herself. “If you just tel me where the strawberry-tart recipe is, I’l begin with that. I just made my own ink, I’m sure I can get a couple of the items from the tea menu taken care of over the next two days.”
Cook looked at the kitchen maids, who giggled. “If the lady insists. Here’s the recipe.” Cook opened a reproduction cookbook, cal ed A Propre new booke of Cokery, and pointed with a finger tipped in flour.
To make a tarte of strawberries.
Take and strayne theim with the yolkes of foure egges & a little white brede grated/then ceason it vp with suger & swete butter and so bake it.
Short paest for Tarte.
Take fyne floure and a curscy of fayre water and dysche of swete butter and lyttel saffron, and the yolkes of two egges and make it thynne and as tender as ye may.
“Wel ?” Cook asked. “Get to it. The scul ery maid has gone to the trouble of picking the strawberries. I’m about to fil the mincemeat pies and the kitchen maids are in the midst of making the trifle you requested. I’m afraid you’re on your own for a bit.”
Luckily, Chloe had made enough fruit tarts in her time that a recipe wasn’t even necessary, although she had never used saffron, and washing the strawberries in a dry sink, without running water, wasn’t very effective, and then forcing them through the sieve took infinitely longer than if she’d been able to use her food processor.
Considering that she rarely baked in her own modern kitchen, her sudden enthusiasm for desserts and spearheading tea parties could only be attributed to her overwhelming desire to impress Sebastian. What other explanation could there be for turning into a Regency domestic diva?
When it came time to put the tart crust in the oven, Chloe was stumped. The open range didn’t have knobs, a touch pad, or a temperature gauge.
In fact, the kitchen had no refrigerator, no running water, and no disinfectant soap either. Not to mention a microwave or coffeemaker.
Who knew that two centuries would make such a difference in the kitchen?
She stood in front of the open range a good five minutes until Cook stepped over, took the pie tin with the crust, and shoved it in with a wooden oven handle.
“Keep an eye on it now.” Cook shook a finger at Chloe.
After the crust browned, Chloe fil ed the tart and put it in the range. “What next?”
“You’ve done wel ,” Cook said. “Can you help me gild these confections?”
“Absolutely.” Chloe felt as if she had established some sort of relationship with Cook.
Cook brought a plate
of handmade chocolates from the scul ery and set them on the pine table along with a tin of edible gold dust.
“You simply dab them like this.” Cook demonstrated.
She handed Chloe what at first seemed to be a cotton bal , but it didn’t take long for Chloe to drop the thing on the table. The room began to spin around her.
“What—what is this, Cook? It’s not a cotton bal , is it?”
The kitchen maids, who were beating eggs in a bowl, giggled again.
The scul ery maid plucked feathers from a partridge, but didn’t even look up from her work.
Cook left off from grating suet and came over to Chloe. “That, my dear, is a rabbit’s tail, and it makes a wonderful brush, doesn’t it?”
Chloe steadied herself against the table. She realized she hadn’t eaten the pigeon pies and cold lamb for lunch, and she felt queasy. “I’d better check the oven—I mean range.”
Thank goodness her strawberry tart needed to be taken out. She covered the tart with a cloth to keep the flies off. By the time she returned to the table, Cook had gilded al the chocolates for her with said rabbit tail.
“You’ve done a wonderful job helping us here.” Cook turned to the kitchen maids. “Hasn’t she, girls?” Cook asked.
The maids nodded in agreement.
“Now, I’m sure you have things that need tending to upstairs, like shaking your ink that’s set in the chimney? And we’d best get started on dinner.
There wil be plenty more to do tomorrow.” Cook patted Chloe on the back as Chloe hung up her apron. “As for tonight, I sure hope you’re hungry.
We’re making stewed hare and partridges for dinner!”
O n Saturday evening, after two ful days of alternating between the riding field and the kitchen, Chloe col apsed in a settee in the parlor, wondering if massages had been discovered yet or not.
She’d gained ten more Accomplishment Points for riding, but the others had gained fifteen for more advanced riding and découpaging a box while she was in the kitchen.
“No rest for the weary, Miss Parker.” Mrs. Crescent clapped and Fifi barked.
“I shook my ink vial three times today, Mrs. Crescent.”
“No, no, it’s not that.”
Definitely Not Mr. Darcy Page 15