And what had all that massaging business been about with Pie? Shelley smiled as she remembered the delicious tingles she’d felt when he touched her. She’d never had a massage before. Well, not a professional one. She’d had a very poor substitute for one from a boy at drama school who knuckled her shoulder blades for a bit and then expected her to kiss him, but Pie had been wonderful, and she sincerely hoped her first massage wouldn’t be her last.
Life was intensely interesting at the moment.
Since leaving the café, Mia had managed to get lost—not only in her thoughts, but in the backstreets as well. What was she doing? Had she just made a huge mistake? Should she have pushed Alec more? He was, after all, the father of her son, and surely it was only right that he take an interest in him.
‘He doesn’t even want to see him,’ she whispered to herself. ‘How can he not want to see his own son?’ She thought about the blank look on his face as he glanced briefly at the photograph of William. It could have been a photo of any young boy in the world, for all he cared. A part of Mia was absolutely furious with Alec, but there was also a part that was relieved. If she was honest with herself, she didn’t want Alec in her life. Ever since she found out she was pregnant, William had been her child and her child alone. She had coped through the most difficult years of her life without Alec. She didn’t need him now, but at least she’d done the right thing in telling him. She didn’t need to feel guilty anymore.
For a moment, she thought about Gabe and how he would have responded if he’d been in Alec’s position—not that he would ever be in such a position, because he wouldn’t be the sort to become involved with two sisters at once, get one pregnant, and then marry the other one.
She wondered how he’d have reacted when shown the photograph of William, and she could imagine no response other than total delight that he had a son. She knew he desperately wanted a family and had been heartbroken when he lost his chance with Andrea. Life seemed unfair. It was a cruel trick of fate that one man had been denied a child, whilst another had been given one he didn’t want.
Mia looked at her watch and gasped when she saw the time. She must have been wandering around for ages, losing all track of time, and Shelley would no doubt be worrying about her.
She reached for her phone and switched it on. Almost instantly, it rang.
‘Oh, thank goodness!’ Shelley’s voice cried into Mia’s ear. ‘Where on earth are you? I’m here at the café right now.’
‘I don’t know,’ Mia said.
‘What?’
‘I’m a bit lost.’
‘Well, look for a street name,’ Shelley told her. ‘Bath isn’t that complicated.’
Mia searched for a street name. ‘Lansdown Road,’ she said a moment later. ‘And I can see a street called Alfred Street.’
‘Good heavens! How did you end up all the way out there?’
‘I’m not sure. I’ve just been walking and thinking.’
‘Well, it’s time to stop,’ Shelley said and proceeded to give her some directions. ‘Do you think you can get yourself to the Pump Room?’
‘I think so.’
‘Good, well get yourself there as fast as you can. I’ve got a surprise for you.’
By the time Mia reached the Pump Room, a huge crowd had gathered there, and it took a further five minutes before Mia and Shelley were reunited.
‘What’s going on here?’ Mia asked, bending to give Bingley an affectionate tickle.
‘I’ll tell you about it in a minute. How did it go with Alec?’
Mia sighed. ‘About as bad as it could go. He doesn’t want anything to do with William.’
Shelley frowned. ‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it? I mean, it’s appalling and diabolical and totally unforgiveable, but isn’t it also the best thing too?’
Mia nodded. ‘I really think it is, but I feel guilty for feeling like that.’
‘Don’t,’ Shelley said. ‘You’ve got absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.’
‘I’ve made such a mess of my life,’ Mia said.
‘No, you haven’t,’ Shelley said.
‘How can you say that? I’m a single mother with no career prospects who hasn’t spoken to her sister in over three years and who, in the Bath Pump Room, managed to slap her ex-lover who, it seems, wants nothing to do with his son.’
‘Okay, when you put it like that, it does sound rather a mess.’ Shelley gave Mia’s shoulder a quick squeeze.
‘It serves me right if no man falls in love with me ever again,’ Mia said.
‘How can you say that?’
‘Because I don’t deserve it.’
‘Men will always fall in love with you, Mia, just because you’re you.’
‘Shelley, that’s a really sweet thing to say, but I’m afraid it isn’t true.’
‘You mean you don’t know?’
‘Know what?’
‘About Gabe.’
‘What about Gabe?’
‘Gosh, Mia! He’s madly in love with you.’
Mia looked baffled. ‘He’s not interested in me.’
‘Oh, no? Then why is he taking part in this appalling Darcy lineup?’
‘What lineup?’
Shelley nodded toward the thickest part of the crowd before them. ‘Gabe came round when you were out yesterday and asked if I had such a thing as a Darcy shirt. He’d heard about a Darcy lineup for a wet shirt competition run by Vive! newspaper, and he thought it would be fun to take part in it, because he knew you’d like it.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ Shelley said. ‘It’s not part of the official Jane Austen Festival, and the Jane Austen Centre quite rightly didn’t want anything to do with it, but… well, you can see how popular it is.’
Shelley was right. It had drawn a huge crowd, and cameras were at the ready.
‘We have to try to get near the front,’ Shelley said. ‘Come on, follow me.’
Chapter 44
Mia followed Shelley, doing her best to keep up with her friend, who pushed mercilessly through the endless rows of people.
‘Excuse me! Guide dog coming through,’ she yelled at the top of her voice. Mia blushed at the blatant lie. Nobody would believe that the boisterous Bingley was a guide dog, but neither did anybody want his persistent wet nose pushed into the backs of their knees, so the crowds parted quickly, and Mia and Shelley soon found themselves at the front.
It was the strangest sight Mia had ever seen: a neat row of Darcy wannabes all lined up together on a small stage, awaiting their watery fate. There were all sorts of men in the lineup, from a teenager who was being egged on by his girlfriend, who was waving a camera excitedly in the air, to an elderly gentleman whose Darcy days were long past.
And then there was Gabe. Mia’s breath caught in her throat when she saw him. What on earth was he doing there? He looked out of place, yet the knowledge that he was there for her pierced her very soul.
A man stood with a microphone near a row of buckets of water, like some ghastly television game show on a Saturday night.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the man at the microphone announced, ‘have we any Mr Darcy fans here today?’
The crowd roared in the affirmative.
‘And have we anyone who would like to see Mr Darcy in a wet shirt?’
Again the crowd roared in an eardrum-splitting manner.
‘Then let the soaking commence!’
A great cheer went up as two men sloshed the first buckets of water over the teenage boy. His hair was instantly plastered to his face, and his white T-shirt clung to him.
Shelley burst into laughter, and Bingley started barking, but Mia wasn’t sure how to respond. A part of her wanted to join in with the crowd and laugh, but the whole thing seemed awful and tacky, and she wished that poor Gabe wasn’t a part of it.
He’s doing this for you, a little voice said. He knows you adore Mr Darcy. He’s trying to make you happy.
‘He’s madly in love with you,’
another voice said—Shelley’s voice. Mia looked at Gabe as he awaited his watery fate further along the lineup. He hadn’t spotted her yet, and she had a chance to look at him unobserved. He was wearing a pair of blue jeans and sturdy boots, and most importantly, a Mr Darcy-style shirt in immaculate white. His arm was still in a sling, but Shelley’s adept skills as a seamstress had accommodated him, and he looked like the perfect hero, with his dark-blond hair flopping across his face and his eyes bright with laughter. Was he really in love with her? Was he really prepared to humiliate himself just to put a smile on her face?
The old man was the next to get a drenching, and the crowd roared with laughter as his white shirt clung to his bony rib cage.
‘Poor Gabe. What on earth was he thinking of?’ Mia said.
‘You,’ Shelley said. ‘He was thinking of you.’
Mia watched in horror as the next in the lineup—an unlikely looking man wearing a white shirt and tie as if he were about to walk into a board meeting—got the drenching of his life.
The crowd cheered before the next two men in line got thoroughly sploshed too.
‘Gabe next!’ Shelley said.
‘Oh, I don’t know if I can bear to watch,’ Mia said.
‘You have to. He’s doing this for you.’
Mia’s whole face screwed up in consternation as the two men approached Gabe with their buckets of water.
‘Go on!’ a middle-aged woman shouted from somewhere behind Mia’s shoulder. Mia had the urge to tip a bucket of water over her.
Splash! went bucket number one.
Splosh! went bucket number two, careful to avoid his sling.
The crowd went mad, and Mia had to cover her ears, for fear of losing her hearing completely.
On and on went the men with the buckets until the complete lineup were thoroughly soaked, but Mia didn’t see any of that, because her eyes were fixed firmly on Gabe as he stood dripping and laughing on the stage. In that moment, Mia felt a great warmth filling her heart for the sweet man who had done nothing but try to please her. He had listened to her when she needed somebody to talk to; he made her hot chocolate and let her wear his cardigan, and he shared some of the saddest moments of his life with her.
She just told Shelley that she didn’t deserve love in her life anymore, but here it was, staring her right in the face.
‘And the winner is…’ the man announced into the microphone, startling Mia out of her reverie. ‘The winner of the Mr Darcy wet shirt competition is…’ he paused, dragging out the moment for as long as possible, ‘even though he looks more like Napoleon Bonaparte than Mr Darcy, with that bandage… Gabe!’
The audience erupted into cheers and some very saucy wolf whistles as Gabe was presented with a white T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan Mr Darcy Forever.
‘He won! He won!’ Shelley cried, jumping up and down with joy. Bingley gave a volley of excited barks, and then the whole crowd started to disperse and people all got caught up somehow and pulled away from the stage.
‘I’ve got to find Gabe,’ Mia said, pushing her way through the sea of people, but he’d disappeared too. She kept thinking she’d spotted him, but it was another of the wet-shirt contestants. Mia sighed in exasperation. Why was it that she spent all her life trying to find Mr Darcy, and then twenty came along at once?
Suddenly he was there, and the crowds seemed to part in one of those magical film-like moments that life rarely throws at you.
‘Gabe!’ Mia said softly.
He took a step toward here. ‘You came!’ he said.
‘Yes!’ Mia said. ‘I was in the front row.’
‘I didn’t see you.’
‘No,’ she said, feeling inexplicably shy.
‘Is this really what girls like?’ he asked, his eyes sparkling and his wet hair dripping down his face.
Mia smiled. ‘You do look very dashing,’ she said.
‘Are you saying you’d never have noticed me unless I had a bucket of water chucked over me?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ she said.
Bingley burst onto the scene, and before anyone could stop him, he leapt upon Gabe, leaving a great dirty paw print on his bandage.
‘Gabe,’ Shelley yelled. ‘You were brilliant! I can’t believe you won!’
‘I know!’ he said. ‘I thought that man with the funny hat was going to win.’
‘Oh, he was dreadful,’ Shelley said, ‘and his hat was more Dr Seuss than Mr Darcy. Down, Bingley!’
‘Oh, no! Look at your bandage!’ Mia said. ‘It’s all wet and filthy.’
‘Not to worry,’ he said. ‘It comes off tomorrow.’
‘Does it?’
He nodded. ‘And then I can wrap both my arms around you.’
Shelley grinned and obviously thought it was a good moment to sneak away and pull a reluctant Bingley with her.
‘Listen,’ Gabe said, ‘I know you’ve only just agreed to move in with Shelley—’
‘She told you?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and I wanted to…’ he paused.
‘What?’ Mia said.
‘Well, it seems that it’ll be a bit of a crush in there for you and William, what with Pie and Bingley and everything.’
‘It’ll be pretty luxurious, after the flat I’ve been living in,’ Mia said.
‘I know, but, he paused again and then looked directly at her, ‘there’s far more room in my home.’
Mia swallowed hard. She’d realized what he was going to say, but the actual words struck her so deeply that she thought she was about to cry. What had she done to deserve this man’s kindness? She’d never met anyone like him before and couldn’t help feeling that she wasn’t good enough for him.
‘You’re offering me a room?’ she asked. ‘Why? Why would you do that?’
He frowned. ‘Why?’ he said.
She nodded.
‘Because I’m falling in love with you,’ he said.
‘You hardly know me,’ Mia protested.
‘That doesn’t seem to matter. I’m still falling in love with you.’ He gazed at her, and his eyes seemed full of love. ‘I know I’m not good enough for you. I know you think I’m way too old, and I know you’ve been through a terrible relationship, and I really don’t want to put any more pressure on you, but I just had to tell you how I feel.’
They stared at each other, their eyes locking, as strangers in the street pushed by them, unaware of the importance of the moment.
At last, Mia spoke. ‘I’m glad you did tell me,’ she said.
‘You are?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Because I think I’m falling in love with you too.’
He looked at her as if she might be teasing him. ‘You do?’
Mia nodded, and the wonderfully warming sensation she’d felt when looking at him up on the stage returned.
‘If you’d told me that all this was going to happen to me during the Jane Austen Festival, I might have been too scared to come here,’ she confessed to him.
‘Then I wouldn’t have met you,’ he said, a frown shadowing his face.
‘I know. Isn’t that awful?’ she said, placing her hands inside his. They felt warm and comforting and right, and she knew that, if she placed all her love and trust in this man, it would be returned tenfold.
‘But you did come,’ Gabe said, ‘and we did meet.’
‘Yes,’ Mia said with a huge smile. ‘Jane Austen couldn’t have written it better herself.’
Dr Katherine Roberts couldn’t help thinking that a university lecturer in possession of a pile of paperwork must be in want of a holiday.
She leant back in her chair and surveyed her desk. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Outside, the October sunshine was golden and glorious and she was shut up in her book-lined tomb of an office.
Removing her glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose, she looked at the leaflet that was lying beside a half-eaten salad sandwich, which had wilted hours before. The heading was in a beautiful bold script that looked l
ike old-fashioned handwriting.
Purley Hall, Church Stinton, Hampshire, it read.
Set in thirty-five acres of glorious parkland, this early eighteenth-century house is the perfect place in which to enjoy your Jane Austen weekend. Join a host of special guest speakers and find out more about England’s favourite novelist.
Katherine looked at the photograph of the handsome red-bricked Georgian mansion taken from the famous herbaceous borders. With its long sweep of lawn and large sash windows, it was the quintessential English country house, and it was very easy to imagine a whole host of Jane Austen characters walking through its rooms and gardens.
‘And I will be too,’ Katherine said to herself. It was the third year she’d been invited to speak at the Jane Austen weekend, and rumour had it that novelist Lorna Warwick was going to make an appearance too. Katherine bit her lip. Lorna Warwick was her favourite author—after Jane Austen, of course. Miss Warwick was a huge bestseller, famous for her risqué Regency romances of which she published one perfect book a year. Katherine had read them all from the very first—Marriage and Magic—to A Bride for Lord Burford, published just a month earlier, and which Katherine had devoured in one evening at the expense of a pile of essays she should have been grading.
She thought of the secret bookshelves in her study at home and how they groaned deliciously under the weight of Miss Warwick’s work. How her colleagues would frown and fret at such horrors as popular fiction! How quickly would she be marched from her Oxford office and escorted from St Bridget’s College if they knew of her wicked passion?
‘Dr Roberts,’ Professor Compton would say, his hairy eyebrows lowered over his beady eyes, ‘you really do surprise me.’
‘Why because I choose to read some novels purely for entertainment?’ Katherine would say to him, remembering Jane Austen’s own defence of the pleasures of novels in Northanger Abbey. ‘Professor Compton, you really are a dreadful snob!’
But it couldn’t be helped. Lorna Warwick’s fiction was Katherine’s secret vice, and if her stuffy colleagues ever found out, she would be banished from Oxford before you could say Sense and Sensibility.
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