Definitely Not Mr. Darcy (20 page)

E
ven though she'd only just arrived, every day Chloe asked James, the Bridesbridge butler, if there were any letters for her. She couldn't wait to hear from Abigail.

“Not today, miss,” was his reply as he offered letters from his silver salver to the rest of the women.

Mail from overseas took at least a week, sometimes two, so how could she expect something in just four days? She spent the morning arranging the hunt-tea menu with Cook, thrilled that hosting the tea would bring her fifteen Accomplishment Points, and the afternoon working on mounting and dismounting sidesaddle, until she earned five Accomplishment Points for that. Grace and the other women earned ten Accomplishment Points because they were ahead of her, practicing their jumps.

James arrived at her side during teatime with the silver salver.

“Letter for you, Miss Parker.”

The other ladies at the tea table set their teacups down and eyed the overnighted envelope with curiosity.

Chloe ripped open the cardboard envelope and almost bolted to the foyer, but then she remembered to ask first. “Mrs. Crescent, might I take this to the Grecian temple to read? I won't be long.”

Mrs. Crescent, completely recovered from her false labor and feeling no ill effects, fed Fifi a lump of sugar under the table. “Go ahead, dear, but watch for rain. Soon as you're back, you must make your ink and start your needlework project.”

Chloe's cameraman followed her as she trounced past the herb garden in her bonnet and walking gloves, parasol in hand, blue day dress flouncing at her ankles. Once under the green dome of the Grecian temple atop the hill at Bridesbridge, she sat on a stone bench and ceremoniously opened the envelope.

Abigail had painted the two of them surrounded by hearts and flowers. The painting had been wrapped around a plain white envelope, sent first-class mail, and addressed to her in care of her parents' house. Her mom had put a sticky note on the envelope:
We miss you. Write again soon! All's well here! This just arrived. We sent it off ASAP . . . Love, Mom.

The cameraman knelt on the grass, probably to get a better angle at her smile. She opened the enclosed white envelope only to reveal a flimsy sheet of paper laser-printed entirely in Helvetica. The top of the page read:
State of Illinois Judicial Court
, and in bold:
Motion Regarding Custody
. It was a motion to change the custody agreement and it had been served to her on a silver platter.

Winthrop was prepared to show a substantial change in circumstances, as the motion read, to warrant increasing his rights in regards to legal and physical custody of Abigail.

From what she could tell, the attached list of circumstances included not only his impending marriage on July 15 but the fact that as the new senior vice president of PeopleSystems, he and his new wife would be moving to his company's headquarters in Boston. He would no longer be traveling for work. He was motioning to change his custody to summers and holidays.

In Boston.

The hearing was scheduled for July 30.

Chloe folded the painting, then the motion, and ran her fingers along the creases. She looked at her cameraman, who stood up now and backed away a bit. Her lips quivered. She swallowed. Off in the distance, Bridesbridge stood, as it had for the past two hundred and fifty years or so, stalwart and elegant. Its strong ocher-colored exterior had held up despite whatever untoward events had gone on within its thick, ivy-covered walls. Starlings crisscrossed in the cloudy sky above.

She couldn't go back to Bridesbridge just yet, despite the impending rain. She couldn't face the women and more cameras. The weather suited her mood, so she took a turn toward the deer park, where the leaves of the trees were fluttering in the wind. Her cameraman followed, and for once, his presence gave her a sense of security. The clouds moved quickly overhead, but they weren't ominous looking yet. She watched her brown lace-up walking boots move along the path, one foot in front of the other.

Winthrop couldn't possibly take Abigail for entire summers in Boston, could he? How could this be happening? How could she stop it?

A brown hawk circled overhead when she reached a grassy clearing. Then it tucked its wings, took a sudden dive, and flew just a few feet off the ground, fast and sure. Suddenly the hawk slowed, alighted on a man's outstretched, gloved left hand, and just as quickly soared overhead again, circling. The man wore a long, tan greatcoat and black boots. Was it Henry? It looked like him.

A servant stood by him, as did a cameraman filming. No sooner did he hold his arm out to the side than the bird dove and landed again.

Chloe had only ever seen falconry like this in the Andrew Davies TV adaptation of
Sense and Sensibility
. It wasn't in any Jane Austen novels, but it was historically correct. She focused on the exquisite choreography of man and falcon, and it took her mind off of her abrupt change in circumstances.

It began to rain, of course, sporadically at first, then steadier. Chloe opened her parasol, but the rain quickly soaked through. Water dripped from the edges of her bonnet, and raindrops rolled down her cheeks. Or were they tears? She could hardly tell.

The man in the clearing had turned with the bird on his arm. It was Henry. The falcon opened its wings to fly, and the wingspan had to have been three or four feet. The tips of the bird's wings brushed against his face, but Henry was unfazed. He handled the bird with complete mastery. The bird tucked its wings in, and that was when Henry saw her. He signaled to his servant, who gathered the bird's perch.

Chloe didn't know what to do. Was she on Dartworth property? Henry handed the bird off to the servant, who seemed dwarfed by it. While the servant headed in the opposite direction, Henry strode quickly toward her, his cameraman struggling to keep up. Finally the cameraman turned back. Chloe looked up at Henry. He seemed taller, somehow.

“Miss Parker. Whatever are you doing out here?” He took off his falconry glove and his greatcoat, bowed, and smiled. “Do you really need to go to all this trouble just to avoid your needlework?”

Chloe choked up with laughter and tears as he wrapped his greatcoat around her. The coat was heavy and warm and had a piney aroma.

“I hope I'm not on Dartworth property,” Chloe said into the camera.

“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'll take you back.” He looked at her carefully, 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—well—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 rainfall 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 umbrella 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 actually more appropriate if my brother gave you a lesson.”

From a distance, the cameraman ran toward them with two umbrellas under his arm.

Chloe fell 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 hill, the rain tapered off.

“Do I have
any
chance here, Henry?”

Flecks of gold flickered in his brown eyes. “Personally, I think you have the best chance of all, 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 umbrellas to Henry, who popped them open while Chloe closed up her parasol. They were nineteenth-century-style umbrellas, 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 scullery, just off the kitchen. “I'll make sure of that.” He opened the door for her and the scent of rosemary enveloped them. When Chloe closed up her umbrella, the painting from Abigail and the motion from the court fell 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 call. Something's happened at home.”

“Of course. Say no more, it shall 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 fallen into his caramel-colored eyes. His face was angular but inviting, with an alluring smile.

“Everything will be all 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 call 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 call, 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 will 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 tall 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 called them off.” He stood so close to her she could almost reach out and touch his designer stubble. “Henry tells me he thinks you've gotten some bad news from home. Is everything quite all right? Why are you out here by the gates? Not trying to escape, I hope.”