Definitely Not Mr. Darcy (18 page)

George seemed to have vaporized and Henry appeared just as quickly and bowed to Chloe. He held out his arm and offered to escort her. “I'm sorry that Miss Wells was asked to leave. I know you'll miss her.”

Henry was not only observant, but thoughtful. “Thank you, Mr. Wrightman. I
will
miss her.”

“Someday, when we have a chance,” he said, “I'd like to show you the library. I think you'd quite like it.”

F
rom Chloe's vantage point in the back of the promenade, Sebastian looked hot and bulging in his “inexpressibles.” His tight cream-colored breeches were revealed every time his coattails wafted open. With this potent cocktail of sexiness and intelligence that she had only ever seen on screen, she forgot everything else.

She felt compelled to reconnect with him as she had this morning, or next time around he could kick her off the show with his gold-buckled shoe. But she was at the end, the very end, of the line of guests walking through the mahogany-paneled hall toward the dining room at Dartworth. It made her jealous that he led the procession, arm in arm with Grace, and then it made her mad that she felt jealous. She was just getting to know him! Why was she crushing on him already? The rest of the party followed in order of rank with Chloe, the token poor girl (and come on, she had always thought of herself as decidedly upper middle class despite her current strife) bringing up the end.

Holding her chin high and her spine straight, she walked through the doors with Henry, the cameras all over her. Once she lowered her chin, she found herself standing in front of a long table bedecked in a white tablecloth, and she felt wistful now, on top of everything, because it was Wednesday night, her pizza-and-movie night with Abigail. The grand dining table in front of her stood resplendent with five-pronged candelabra and beeswax candles, silver-rimmed china bowls, and crystal wine goblets at each place setting. Pineapples and shiny red apple pyramids punctuated each end of the table. Fruit! She hadn't eaten fruit in days, as it was considered bad for a lady's complexion. Dainty desserts stood on silver epergnes, and five footmen in blue coats and gold waistcoats, all equally young and handsome, and all of uniform height, stood behind the Chippendale chairs, waiting to serve. And then she remembered pizza gave her heartburn and Abigail was probably having fun with her grandparents or, God forbid, her dad and stepmom-to-be.

“You were perhaps expecting a larger dining room?” Henry asked.

Chloe must've been frowning at the thought of Marcia Smith.

Henry smiled. “I do hope you find Dartworth Hall to your liking. You don't think it too ostentatious?”

“Ostentatious? No. No, not at all.” She tried to remember the last time a man spoke to her using polysyllabic words like
ostentatious
. “I find it elegant.”

“Allow me to escort you to your chair,” he said.

Nobody had ever said
that
to her before. She took his arm. “Thank you.” He was so nice she actually felt guilty for thinking maybe getting in good with Henry would help her score points with Sebastian.

Henry pulled out her chair and pushed her in next to him. Sebastian sat on the other end of the table, at the head, with Julia on his left and Grace on his right. He caught Chloe's attention and then rolled his eyes when Grace wasn't looking. Chloe shrugged. Next to Grace and Julia were Gillian and Kate, then Chloe and Henry, and all the chaperones.

“It appears that American heiresses don't pull much rank at the dinner table,” Chloe said to Henry.

“Do you seek to improve your rank in this world, Miss Parker?”

“Oh no! I'm mainly here for the white soup.”

Henry smiled. “Ah. You may not care about rank, but you do have expensive tastes.”

Chloe had no idea that white soup was expensive.

“I'm sorry to say you're in for a disappointment. White soup isn't on the menu tonight.”

Chloe eyed her empty wineglass. “Not to worry. The wine will more than make up for it.”

Henry laughed as the footmen poured the claret. Chloe didn't think it was that funny—she hadn't had wine in days. Ladies didn't drink wine on their own unless they were “unwell,” a stunt Grace had pulled every night since Chloe arrived.

“I propose—” Sebastian said, raising his glass, looking at Chloe.

Chloe raised her wine goblet, which was no bigger than a bud vase. A proposal already?

“I propose a toast to our new guest at Bridesbridge Court, who comes all the way from America. Miss Chloe Parker.” He lowered his voice. “Welcome to Dartworth.”

What class. What manners. What—luscious lips. Enthralled with watching him bring his wineglass to his mouth, she almost forgot to respond.

“Thank you,” she said. “I'm thrilled to be here.”

“May you find what you're looking for,” Henry said.

Grace looked at Sebastian from behind her wineglass. “
I've
found what
I'm
looking for.”

Thank goodness for the wine, because Chloe needed a drink. And with just a hint of oak and fruity notes, it went down smoothly. Henry looked at Chloe's empty wineglass, and almost as quickly, he emptied his.

The footman offered soup from a china tureen, and Chloe accepted two ladlefuls before she realized it was fish soup or bouillabaisse. No matter what kind of spin you put on it, she didn't like fish soup and neither did her stomach. She also didn't like the fact that she wasn't allowed to talk to the footmen and servants, that she had to forget they were real people. Even worse, the servants had actually faded into the background for her over the past couple days, and she, too, was beginning to treat them like the furniture, except for Fiona, whom she did her best to coddle. She stared at the cut-up fish flesh floating in the broth, stirring with her soup spoon. It didn't matter. She hadn't been hungry since the outing with Sebastian this morning.

Kate, who sat next to Chloe, scratched her bare arms. Under her caplet sleeves Chloe detected another outbreak of hives.

“Miss Harrington,” Chloe asked Kate, “have you tried Gowland's Lotion? I've heard it's quite good.”

Kate didn't get the obscure reference to the lotion mentioned in Jane Austen's
Persuasion
.

“Sir Walter highly recommends it,” Henry said, completing the reference.

Henry—a Jane Austen fan? Just like his brother, as it had said in Sebastian's bio? Chloe did a double take. But then she remembered that it had been Henry who made the wet-shirt comment at the pond.

Kate tapped Chloe on the hand, her eyes already puffy. “Do you think there are any shellfish in this soup? I mustn't eat shellfish, or I'll blow up like a hot-air balloon.”

“I can assure you there are no shellfish,” Henry said. “Miss Parker. I hear you explored the old castle ruins today. Did you know it was built around the year 1130? Additions were made to it in the thirteenth century. Did you notice the herringbone pattern of stonework on the outer walls?”

“No. I'm afraid I didn't notice—that.”

“It's too bad my brother didn't point it out to you. It's very rare to find that pattern of brickwork in a twelfth-century wall.”

Sebastian had pointed—other things out to her.

Still, for a fleeting moment Chloe felt as if she had missed out on something. She could always go back to the ruins, couldn't she? “I did notice, though, that the archer holes were square and not narrow slits. That was unexpected.”

Henry nodded in agreement and started to say something about how the castle was destroyed by cannonballs during the English Civil War, but Chloe turned away from him to make eye contact with Sebastian. She caught Grace's eye instead.

Everyone was talking with the person sitting next to them, and over the din of conversation, Grace raised her voice above them all. “This bouillabaisse is simply ecstasy. What a joy to have a French cook. I do so love French food and fashion. I would love to go to Paris again, wouldn't you, Miss Parker?”

This was some kind of trap. Grace must've known Chloe had never been to Paris. She'd been to Martha's Vineyard, Lake Tahoe, the Hamptons, but never Europe. Chloe opened her mouth and then shut it, like a fish. “I'm quite happy to be
here
,” she said.

Mrs. Crescent nodded in approval from across the table.

Henry saved her butt. “Surely the Americans find France to be no place for a lady at the moment.”

Grace sipped a spoonful of soup.

“Thank you for that,” Chloe said to Henry.

“Thank Napoleon,” he said, watching her play with her soup. “You're doing a wonderful job of not eating your bouillabaisse. Do you not like it? I can have Mr. Hill take it away and bring you something else. Mr. Hill? Mr. Hill—”

It was the first time she heard anyone refer to a servant with such respect. Everyone else just called the servants by their last names, without a “Mr.” or “Miss” attached. “The soup is fine, really. Thank you.” Chloe strained to keep eye contact with Sebastian even as she kept conversation going with Henry. She had to wonder why Henry was here, although she suspected he was supposed to help his brother scout out the women, and his latest assignment was to get the dish on her. It was obvious. So she thought she'd have some fun with it. It teetered on the edge of impropriety, but it didn't strike her as against the rules.

“Are you secretly engaged, Mr. Wrightman? Or otherwise spoken for?” Chloe asked.

Henry sputtered into his soup. “No. No, I'm not engaged, and have no prospects at the moment.”

“Really?” Chloe was surprised. He seemed like the settled type. He didn't sport a wedding ring, or she might think he was married already.

“I'm taking a bit of a sabbatical from all that.”

“By throwing yourself into a gaggle of eligible women in the middle of the countryside for six weeks?”

“Point well taken, Miss Parker. But you no doubt realize I'm here to help my brother find a suitable wife. He is ready to marry and settle down.”

“And you, I take it, are not.”

“I'm younger.”

Not by much,
Chloe thought. Maybe a year or two.

“My brother doesn't want to waste his time with anyone he can't envision as the love of his life. I'm here to help him in any way I can.”

“A great sacrifice on your part.”

“It is.”

She turned to Sebastian. Once or twice he ogled down the table at her, steam rising from his soup bowl.

Sebastian wasn't very good in groups, Chloe decided. Shy. Darcylike. Still, she suspected that he wanted to talk to her; he kept looking at her. But she had to admit, he was looking at the other girls, too, and she didn't like that. He was so gorgeous that his eyes gave her a rush every time she caught them. Made her hyperaware of everything. By the time the footmen cleared the soup bowls, Chloe determined he might well be her Mr. Darcy. When would she get him alone again? How would she possibly get to know him better? She conjured an image of them dancing, turning hand in hand, eyes locked in on each other—

“Partridge or fish, Miss Parker?” Henry asked.

A footman held a silver platter loaded with roasted birds and fish with the heads still on toward Chloe. A row of dead fish eyes gaped up at her and her stomach churned. She looked at the footman. “Are there any potatoes?” There were always boiled potatoes.

“I've been living on potatoes,” she said to Henry.

“Suckling pig and cow tongue doesn't appeal?” Henry asked. More than anything, the nineteenth-century presentation, where everything came with the head or the feet still attached, didn't work for Chloe. She had already lost some weight. She twitched her nose.

The footman nodded. “Just one moment.”

She imagined the footmen and maids must have their own fun and their own pairing-off. She hoped so, anyway. It looked like she would, despite the abundance of food, leave the table without eating much, as was so often the case after a meal here in Regency England.

“I can manage almost anything, but not game birds,” Henry said. His plate had a few fish on it.

“I can't eat them either,” Chloe said.

“Does it have to do with your passion for birds, Miss Parker?”

How did he know about that? Chloe changed the subject to one of his interests—the frog hatchery. “And no doubt you avoid frog legs.”

Henry smiled. “You're right.”

“Tell me. Which one of the women are you currently recommending to your brother?”

Henry took a slug of his wine. “You are quite forward, Miss Parker.”