Adventures with Jane and her Legacy 01 Jane Austen Ruined My Life (14 page)

He smiled. "I don't know if I want you to leave me alone. Life's gotten a lot more interesting since you showed up."

A flush crept across my cheeks, and I had no idea why. Except that maybe I did. A little.

"Look, Em, maybe someday you'll want to pawn your rings or something. But I don't think you're ready today. Not yet."

The most frustrating part was that he was right. In spite of everything that had happened, the thought of turning my rings over to a stranger in exchange for a wad of cash made me ache all over again.

"But--"

"Like I said, I'll loan you the money. You can pay me back whenever ... well, whenever you can pay me back."

His understanding and his generosity shamed me. He was being far too gracious, considering that he was right about me. I had let our friendship go far too easily once I felt secure with Edward.

"I'm glad Anne-Elise double-booked us," I said. "I've missed you, Adam, and I really appreciate your help."

"No problem," he said. He glanced at his watch. "If you're done with your tea, we might as well get moving."

"Good idea." The longer I sat there, talking with Adam and looking into his eyes, the more vulnerable I began to feel, and vulnerable was the last thing I could afford to be ever again.

With that stern reminder to myself, I followed Adam from the cafe, out of the library, and into the diesel-fumed air of London.

I
t's hard for modern-day people to imagine how lives used to be changed by the receipt of a letter. Today, bad news comes over the phone, in an e-mail, or via a text message. But in Jane Austen's day, important information had to travel by post, and so many historical, life-changing moments still rest upon the page for us to witness.

On the train to Bath, I opened my copy of Jane Austen's letters and looked through the book, searching for any clues about Jack Smith. Surely some inkling of her relationship with him remained, although I was beginning to suspect that Cassandra's caretaking of her sister's legacy had been far more thorough than anyone had dreamed. Certainly some of the existing letters had been edited--usually with the help of a pair of scissors--but the general wisdom had always been that Cassandra was merely excising the more spiteful of her sister's comments or her unladylike references to bodily issues.

My dealings with Mrs. Parrot now led me to believe that Cassandra might have sorted the letters into two categories: those banal enough for public consumption, for bestowing on nieces, nephews, and friends, and those that had been hidden away by the Formidables.

Mentions of Jack Smith had apparently been consigned to the latter category, I realized, as I made my way through the existing letters. That realization gave me hope but also made me even more dependent upon the goodwill of the current Formidables, Mrs. Parrot and the unknown Miss Golightly. I would have to do exactly as they told me, which meant continuing to keep their secret, especially from Adam. I glanced at the seat next to me, where he slept as the train clicked along toward its destination.

I hadn't been able to slip out of the house that morning unnoticed after all. After the British Library intrigue, and after he talked me out of pawning my wedding rings, he'd kept studying me with a speculative gleam in his eye. He was obviously very curious about what I was up to, but at least he had the restraint not to ask any more questions. Instead, he'd invited himself along on my trip to Bath, paid for the train tickets, and now I had to figure out how to ditch him before my appointment with Miss Golightly.

As the train left the environs of the city and made its way into the open landscape of the English countryside, I relaxed. Over the course of the past few weeks, I had begun to feel as if I were playing out a prearranged script. Even though I'd
lost my faith in what my father would have called God's plan, somehow things were falling into place. The only problem was, I didn't know if the path I was following was meant to lead me to triumph or doom, and given my recent track record, doom seemed more likely.

The day before, when I'd stopped short of handing over my rings in exchange for a substantial number of pounds sterling, I'd felt as if my actions were part of something much greater than me, as if I were a pawn in a larger game. I should have been able to relinquish the rings. I should have danced a jig at the prospect of a huge pile of money. Instead, I'd felt unexpectedly sentimental. Edward hadn't always been dictatorial. Once, we'd been happy. And my rings had reminded me of that. Adam had been right. I wasn't ready to let go of them, or those memories, quite yet.

The man slumbering beside me was, of course, another unexpected complication, but he was also a pleasant surprise. If I was honest with myself, I found Adam very attractive. I always had. And, of course, I'd always known he was easy to be with. And--

Stop!
I admonished myself. That way was madness. The last thing I needed was to jump into anything as ill-conceived as an attraction to a former friend. No, the only man I was going to moon around after was the mysterious Jack Smith. He was the only one who had the power to give me back everything I had lost. He was the only man I could think about right now.

By the time I'd skimmed Austen's letters yet again, the train
was approaching the station at Bath Spa, and I nudged Adam awake. "We're here."

"
Hmm?
" He roused and opened one eye. "What?"

"We're in Bath."

He sat up, blinking heavily. "Already?"

I laughed. "It's been an hour and a half."

"I don't believe you." But he grinned, slow and lazy, and my toes curled. With a deep breath and more resolution than I knew I had, I made them uncurl.

"Come on. Let's go," I said.

"Yes, ma'am."

We made our way off the train and through the high Victorian architecture of the station before emerging into Bath itself. From my research, I knew that the town hadn't changed all that much since Jane Austen's day, although what she would have made of the shops selling tea towels and coffee mugs with her purported silhouette on them, I could only guess. The buildings glowed golden in the sunlight, their classical Georgian lines as elegant and timeless as an Austen novel itself.

They were constructed of local limestone and had a honey hue and simplicity that bespoke elegance and good taste, even when the ground floor boasted a takeaway fish-and-chip shop.

"Where are you planning to start?" Adam asked.

I knew, of course, exactly where I was going from studying Google Maps. Through the middle of town, skirting the cathedral and the Roman baths, over Pulteney Bridge and to the outskirts of Sydney Gardens. Miss Golightly could be found
in a house on Sydney Place, across from the former pleasure garden. But somehow, between here and there, I had to get rid of Adam, who seemed suddenly nervous. He kept glancing around, as if waiting for brigands to appear and rob him at gunpoint.

"Look," I said, pointing. "I think the parade grounds are that way." The parade grounds were a small park that skirted the main part of the town. "Let's head there."

"I don't understand why she hated this place so much," Adam said, still looking about as we made our way along the street. "It's amazing."

Steep hills rose on either side of the valley. To our right, I could see through the trees to the tops of the buildings of the local university high on the hill. To the left lay the older part of Bath, built in the 1700s, when the town had been a glamorous health retreat. Aristocrats and gentry had come to take the waters--both internally and externally--that flowed from the hot springs beneath the city. And there, ahead of us, the spire of Bath Abbey rose to angelic heights.

"She was a country girl at heart," I said. "Bath would have been alien to everything she'd ever known." I thought of our visit to Steventon only a few days before. The bustling spa town would have been the antithesis of Austen's backwater country village. "No wonder she fainted when her parents told her they were moving."

Jane Austen had been twenty-five when her father retired, in modern parlance, and her parents decided to sell off all the
furniture and books and everything she had held dear to move to lodgings in Bath. Now I wondered if somehow her relationship with Jack Smith had played a part in forming her dislike for the town. Had she wanted to remain in Hampshire merely because it was dear and familiar? Or would she have been more likely to see Jack there?

"She was that attached to Hampshire?" Adam asked, echoing my own thoughts.

"I think that's why they didn't tell her until it was a fait accompli," I said. "They never gave her a chance to object."

We stopped alongside a wide stone railing that overlooked the river where it spilled from a causeway just below Pulteney Bridge. The bridge was rather unusual in that it also housed a number of shops along each side, so that it was more like a long building that just happened to straddle the Avon.

"Why don't we meet back here in an hour or two?" I said with a false smile plastered on my face. If I brightened any more, I could replace a standard one-hundred-watt bulb. "I appreciate you coming with me, but I need a little time to just be here in Bath. Just to soak it all in. You know what I mean?"

I could tell from his expression that he didn't have a clue what I was talking about.

"Is this part of what you're not telling me?" he asked, confused.

"Yes, okay? It is. But it's a secret, so I need to go by myself."

"Go? I thought you just needed to
be
." The teasing light in his eyes made my stomach twist in a not necessarily unpleasant way.

"Adam ..."

"All right, all right." He looked at his watch. "Can we meet for a late lunch? I don't like eating by myself."

"Why don't we meet at Sally Lunn's at one o'clock," I said, pleased with my suggestion. The little tea shop had been famous for its eponymous buns since well before Jane Austen's time.

"Isn't that a little touristy?"

I looked around at the open-air double-decker buses touting their services and the Jane Austen memorabilia that occupied almost every shop window. "Is there something here that isn't?"

Adam nodded. "Actually, there's quite a bit. Which you ought to know, if you're the Austen scholar you claim to be."

"
Humph
." I didn't have a good reply for that, because he was right, so I settled for looking indignant.

"Fine. We'll meet at Sally Lunn's at one." He paused. "Just be careful, Emma. Please."

"Careful? Of what? I'm doing research, not undercover operations for the CIA." I was half annoyed at his patronizing tone and half thrilled that he cared about my well-being.

"Suit yourself." He shrugged, but I could see that I'd annoyed him.

"I appreciate your concern." I knew better than to reach over and put my hand on his arm. I didn't need any reminders of the strength I would feel there. "Please understand. I just need to do this on my own."

"Okay." His expression relaxed. "I'll see you later."

With that, he turned and made his way toward the Abbey and the Roman baths, eating up the pavement with purposeful strides. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought that he had an appointment of his own to keep. And I was left there, beside the parade grounds that flanked the River Avon, to consider whether keeping a secret was worth alienating the one ally I had left.

The interior of Miss Hester Golightly's home on Sydney Place did not look quite as I had pictured it. In my imagination, I had seen Axminster carpets, Staffordshire china dogs, perhaps a Robert Adam mantelpiece--all straight out of an Austen novel and one-hundred-percent English. Instead, when the diminutive woman, a dead ringer for Judi Dench, waved me inside, I found myself in a monochromatic homage to contemporary interior design. The outside of the building might have been purely Georgian, but inside, all was sleek and modern.

"Miss Grant, how lovely that you could visit," Miss Golightly said as she led me into the lounge. The sofa was so pristine that it hurt my eyes to look at it. "Won't you sit down? Would you like some tea?"