Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

by Karen Doornebos

  And she would feel better about al this tramping about the English countryside without knowing where she was real y going if she had a cel phone. Or a portable GPS. Or at least a damn plastic water bottle. How irresponsible it was for a mother to fling herself into the countryside on the other side of the earth without even knowing where she was going? What if something happened to her and Abigail ended up getting raised by her ex? In Boston? With the fortunate Marcia Smith?

  By the time she reached the top of the third hil , she didn’t have to shield her eyes from the sun, because a battalion of rain clouds had floated in.

  The breeze, cooler now, dampened her skin, and she could tel that it was going to rain. How could it rain on her almostwedding day? She pul ed her pelisse back on even as she licked her dry lips. The sight of a church spire and slate-roofed red-brick houses in the distance helped spur her on.

  Someone in a passing car tossed a white cardboard coffee cup out the window and over a hedgerow. The blacktop turned to cobblestone as she crossed what must’ve been a stone bridge from the Roman era. Normal y, Chloe would’ve loved this quaint vil age with its cobblestoned main street and whitewashed, half-timbered cottage storefronts where cars seem oddly out of place. As she read the sign at the end of the bridge, HUNTSFORDSHIRE, she walked right into a woman pushing a jogging strol er in her workout gear and talking on her cel .

  “So sorry,” the young mom said. The baby looked up at Chloe with big blue eyes.

  She had to get back to Abigail. What was she doing?

  “Are you quite al right?” The young mom took the cel from her ear.

  Chloe nodded yes, even though she real y wasn’t.

  “Sorry again.” The mom pushed the strol er on.

  Chloe, out of habit, curtsied. She curtsied!

  The mom’s eyes narrowed and she looked Chloe up and down, navigating her precious baby around in a wide circumference as if Chloe were some kind of lunatic.

  Her head throbbed with the onslaught of car engines, a train, honking horns, voices, and car radios. Raindrops fel , and umbrel as of al different sizes and colors popped up al around her.

  None of the men bowed to her. The women didn’t curtsy. Nobody even looked at her, or if they did, they quickly looked away out of politeness.

  She was the raving lunatic homeless woman on the street.

  Pelting rain dripped down her face and neck and probably by now had smudged her eyebrow liner made from candle ashes. Even in the rain, though, the aroma of scones spil ed out of a bakery. She stood in front of a tearoom and coffeehouse under a dripping awning, looking at a reflection in the window of her sodden self. The antibride with a child hidden in her attic.

  She pressed her hand to the window. She needed a plane ticket home, but first—coffee. It didn’t even have to be a double espresso latte, but she didn’t have any money. For the first time in a long time, she ached for a credit card, and couldn’t believe she cut up al her credit cards in a fit of rage al those years ago.

  A young man sat inside the tearoom, holding a bouquet of flowers wrapped in white paper. For the first time in forever, a man with flowers didn’t make her moon over Winthrop. She smiled. They were better off, the two of them, without each other. She had left him for good reason, and now she final y felt the strength to fight him in the upcoming custody trial. She could do it—and win.

  The young man in the tearoom gave Chloe a hostile glance; no doubt she looked crazy. She stepped back and the rain from the awning dripped heavily on her. He was waiting for someone, because he had a life, a real life, with real people in it. Al these people had a life. She had nothing.

  Except for Abigail, who counted on her for everything. And as far as that went, she had blown it. She’d be coming home without the prize money.

  What she would be coming home with, though, was a resolve to leave the past behind—al of it—even the nineteenth century, and that was worth a lot more than a hundred grand.

  She darted under a covered bus stop where an old woman sat in her green trench coat with a cloth market basket ful of lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers. Lettuce! Green lettuce helped digestion. She craved lettuce. She’d trade the gown off her back for a chopped salad.

  She sat on the bench next to the woman, wiped her glasses with her wet gloves, put them back on, and looked up the street, where, high atop a hil in the distance, Dartworth Hal stood. It would’ve made a great postcard. Hel , it probably was one and probably was sold in the shops along this street.

  “I can’t believe—” she said out loud, like a homeless woman.

  The old woman looked at her, then quickly looked at her watch.

  “I threw it al away.”

  The woman pushed back her plastic rain scarf. “Threw what away?” She eyed Chloe up and down; she was curious.

  “Dartworth Hal . The prize money. Everything.”

  The woman gave Chloe a tissue from her trench pocket, which only reminded Chloe of Henry and his handkerchiefs. Chloe wiped her dripping nose.

  “Are you part of that film going on up there?”

  Chloe nodded. “They wanted me to marry him. But I couldn’t. Even though it was just for TV. I couldn’t.”

  The old woman had kind green eyes. “Marry who?”

  “Why, Sebastian, of course. Sebastian Wrightman.”

  The old woman looked confused. She stood up. “Who? Ah. Here’s my bus. But Dartworth Hal doesn’t belong to anyone named Sebastian.” The bus lumbered up. “Henry Wrightman is the master of Dartworth Hal .”

  “What?” Chloe clenched her pelisse around her chest; her lips quivered.

  The bus doors opened and the woman stepped up the first step in her black flats. “I would say it’s a good thing you didn’t marry that Sebastian—”

  “Door’s closing!” the annoyed driver yel ed, and the doors snapped closed.

  Chloe stepped out from under the Plexiglas bus stop, into the rain, to watch the woman take her seat and wave.

  She col apsed back down on the bench under the covered bus stop and buried her head in her hands. Maybe that old woman didn’t know what she was talking about. Maybe she had Alzheimer’s or dementia or some sort of addled-brain disease that Chloe was convinced she would get someday, too, if she didn’t have it already. She better start doing crossword puzzles or something—and soon. Wait a minute. Crossword. Acrostic

  —she opened her wedding reticule and pul ed out the wel -worn folded-up poem from Sebastian. The acrostic jumped out at her now: A s the sun shines high in the sky

  L ove blooms in my heart, I cannot lie.

  L et our love grow

  I s what is want, I know.

  S till I cannot be convinced

  N ay, I need more evidence

  O f your intentions, are they true?

  T o convince me here is what you need to do:

  A s the clock strikes two you must find

  S omething in a garden where light and shadow are intertwined

  I nspect the face in the garden bright

  T hen follow the line of light

  S traight to a house without walls

  E nter the door and go where the water falls

  E xtrapolate from this poem the puzzle within

  M ake a note of the six-word answer, write it, and you will win

  S end your missive through the secret door and the answers you seek will be in store!

  The first letter of every line was to be read down, and it spel ed out ALL IS NOT AS IT SEEMS. She squeezed her eyes shut and heard something familiar in the din of gushing rain and cars. The sound of hooves clomping on the cobblestone.

  It was Henry on a white horse. On Sebastian’s white horse. Rain dripped from his wide-brimmed hat and nineteenth-century greatcoat as he rode right smack down the middle of the road and ignored the chaos he was causing. Two hunting hounds nuzzled up to Chloe and slipped their soaked heads under her hands. Never in her life had she been so happy to see a dog, not to mention two sopping wet hounds.
She rubbed their bony heads. But Henry? If he was real y the master of Dartworth Hal , he had lied to her. And who the hel was Sebastian, then?

  Henry slowed his horse right in front of the bus stop, tipped his hat, and held out his hand to her. “Miss Parker, your conveyance has arrived.”

  She folded her arms and the dogs wagged their tails against her wet gown. The lady was not amused.

  His lips curled into a smile as he eyed her up and down. “I must say that your dramatic exit from the church was better than any production crew could dream of. Even now they’re salivating over the prospect of skyrocketing ratings. Wel done.”

  Traffic wove around the horse. Chloe looked up the street, and half expected to see the camera crew. A smal crowd under umbrel as gathered around them.

  “And where are the cameras now? I’m sure they’d love to get me on film looking like this.”

  “No cameras. I lost them in the deer park. And as for your looks, wel , I’ve never been happier to see you.”

  “I wish I could say the same.” If what that woman said was true, then he’d been lying to her for weeks! Chloe took off her glasses and tucked them into her soaked white reticule. She looked away from Henry and toward Dartworth Hal , where a patch of blue sky had broken through the clouds.

  Henry dismounted, tied his horse to the bus-stop sign, and sat down next to her on the bench. She slid over and looked the other way.

  “Can I buy you a cup of coffee? How about a double espresso nonfat latte?”

  How did he know what kind of convoluted coffee she drank? The rain made a soft splashing sound on the cobblestones, the breeze picked up, and she shivered. Across the street, people darted into the red-brick pub with leaded windows. A sign swung on a wrought-iron post that read THE

  GOLDEN ARMS in forest-green letters. She’d been in England for almost three weeks and hadn’t even been to an English pub.

  Henry slid closer. “Or maybe a pint sounds better?”

  There he was, reading her mind again.

  “If you bought me a pint, I’d probably dump it al over you.”

  He looked confused. “Lady Anne informed me that you pontificated to no end about my merits.”

  A young pierced-nose couple in wet leather jackets came into the shelter, his arm around her shoulder, hers around his waist. They were taking pictures of Dartworth Hal with their cel -phone cameras. Chloe realized they were trying not to stare.

  She stood up and the dogs did, too. “Forget the coffee or Guinness or whatever you people drink. I want the truth. Can you give me that? That would be good right about now. Let’s start with this simple fact: Are you the owner of Dartworth Hal or not?”

  He stood and took his greatcoat and hat off, a lock of hair fal ing into his eye. “Oh. Someone told you.”

  “Yes.”

  The pierced couple and several others were outright gaping. But Chloe and Henry were used to being watched by cameramen, by George, the hidden production and editing crew.

  Chloe paced in front of the bus-stop shelter in the rain, her hands clasped behind her. “It pays to get out into the real world and talk to real people and find out what the real deal is—”

  He draped his greatcoat around her. “I understand you must be upset but—”

  “Upset? I wish I were merely upset. I’m freakin’ furious!” Though the greatcoat did feel warm and dry around her. “I thought you were a gentleman.

  No—first I thought Sebastian was a gentleman, possibly even someone I could love. Took me a while, but I figured that one out. Then I thought you were a gentleman. Ha!” Suddenly the rain stopped. “You’re both fakes.”

  “I see your point.” He linked his arm in hers. “I’m going to buy you a coffee.” He guided her toward the tearoom.

  “I don’t want you to buy me any coffee. You can’t buy me with your money.”

  He opened the tearoom door for her. “As you wish, my lady. Please just step in to warm up. They have a fabulous hearth.”

  When the door opened, the smel of coffee and tea and cream hit her with a jolt. The fireplace, flint stone al the way to the ceiling, lured her in with its warmth. Various dogs rested inside, at their owners’ feet. The English loved their dogs. Of course, the dogs could hardly wait outside, in the pouring rain. The hounds fol owed Chloe in.

  A sideways glance in a silver platter hanging from the wal along with other tea accessories proved to Chloe that she real y did look like the Bride of Frankenstein. She fumbled with her hair while Henry removed the greatcoat from her shoulders and hung it near the door.

  The hostess signaled a busboy. “Clear that table by the hearth for Mr. Wrightman.” The busboy scurried off, and in no time they were at the best table in the house, in front of a sizzling fire.

  “What can I get you?” a waitress asked Chloe, clearly trying not to stare at her ruined gown.

  “A double espresso nonfat latte. To go.”

  “To go?”

  Chloe imagined that book on her head. She straightened her spine and spoke in her best English-ese. “In a takeaway cup, please.”

  The waitress raised an eyebrow.

  Henry ordered a pot of Earl Grey and a plateful of scones and clotted cream. He smoothed his napkin in his lap. “Just where are you planning to go with your coffee?”

  “Home.”

  “I see. Are you planning to walk to Heathrow in the rain? And then board a plane without a ticket, passport, or credit card?”

  She folded her arms and scowled into the fire.

  “Al ow me to rescue you. I’ve even brought the white horse.”

  “That’s Sebastian’s white horse.”

  “It’s my white horse.”

  “Whatever. I don’t need to be rescued anymore. I just need one thing from you before I go.”

  “Ah yes. I should’ve given it to you sooner. If you wil excuse me a minute.”

  He stood, bowed, headed over to his greatcoat, pul ed out a maroon velvet drawstring bag, opened it, and revealed Chloe’s tiara. He set it on the white tablecloth.

  Chloe cupped her hands around the tiara. He real y knew how to throw her off guard; she had actual y forgotten al about her tiara. “Thank you.

  Real y.” She ran her fingertips along the diamonds and rubies. “Did you real y fix it yourself?”

  “Yes. With nineteenth-century silversmithing tools, no less. It was a bit of a chal enge to get it right.”

  She couldn’t even see the seam where he’d welded it together. “Thank you. You are—talented.” She tucked the tiara back into the velvet bag and steeled herself. “But this isn’t what I need from you.”

  The waitress brought a fragrant pot of tea, a plate of sliced lemons, sugars, and a pitcher of cream. The stack of scones came next and a dish of clotted cream so thick it took everything in Chloe’s power not to scoop it up like ice cream. She was famished. The waitress set Chloe’s white paper cup of coffee with the familiar plastic lid right where her plate should be.

  Henry swept the blond hair out of the corner of his eye. “Please bring the lady a plate for the scones. Perhaps a paper one, if you have it. Pity, but she’s not staying.”

  Chloe held back a smile. After al that weak tea and coffee that tasted as if it real y were hundreds of years old, this coffee tasted amazing. Stil , jokes and good coffee aside, she didn’t want to get sidetracked. “The truth. Spil it.”

  Steam from his tea rose out of his cup. “It’s true that I’m the heir of Dartworth Hal . I’m a doctor, but I don’t need to work for the money. I do it because I enjoy helping people. I’m forty years old. My friend George came up with this crazy idea for a TV show because women kept coming after me for my money. But you—you forfeited the money. A hundred thousand dol ars. For me, it was a game until you came along. I’ve wanted to tel you for so long that the bio you read about Sebastian back in Chicago? That profile was—me.”

  “Al of it was you? Al this time, you were behind every little—”

  “Detail. Not o
nly do I love art, I own a few gal eries. You already know I’m a Jane Austen fan and a bird-watcher. I’m also an avid traveler and architecture buff.”

  “Everything was a lie,” Chloe said, shaking her head.

  “It wasn’t a lie—it was al me. There were clues everywhere. Al laid out for you.”

  “What clues? I didn’t see any clues.”

  “No, you didn’t. The poem, for example. That was a clue.”

  “If that’s your idea of a clue, then you’re clueless. I’m not Sherlock Holmes here. I’m just a girl. A girl who’s been played by Sebastian. Ultimately, though, I hold you responsible.”

  Henry looked down.

  Chloe clenched her fists. She wanted to swear at him up and down, but the Regency Miss Parker kept the modern Chloe’s mouth in check. “This was al an experiment of some kind. I was right about you when I first met you. Who do you think you are that you can just put people in a petri dish and watch them squirm under a microscope?”

  “It was an experiment, of sorts, and I realize now it was wrong of me.”

  “I’l say! Hearts were broken! Dreams were dashed!”

  “You’ve taught me. I was wrong.”

  Chloe shook her head. “Another thing I don’t get: Why keep Grace? Why send Julia and Imogene home?”

  Henry looked into her eyes. “George had me keep her on. For production value.”

  “Is that why you kept me on?!”

  “No—no, not at al .”

  She didn’t believe him.

  “I just wanted to find a loyal and true love, a kind of modern-day Anne El iot, if you wil . But it was a crazy idea.”

  The waitress brought a Wedgwood china plate rimmed in gold.

  Chloe slathered clotted cream on her scone and not even the cream at the Drake could compare. She dabbed her mouth with her napkin and calmed herself. “So. If Dartworth is yours and Sebastian’s profile is yours, then who is Sebastian?”

  “A distant cousin. Who wants to break into the film industry.”

  Chloe looked up from plastering another scone with two inches of clotted cream, and looked at Henry.

  “He’s—an actor?”