Definitely Not Mr. Darcy (47 page)

The first letter of every line was to be read down, and it spelled 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 really the master of Dartworth Hall, he had lied to her. And who the hell 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. Well done.”

Traffic wove around the horse. Chloe looked up the street, and half expected to see the camera crew. A small crowd under umbrellas 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, well, 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 Hall, 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 all 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 Hall with their cell-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 Hall or not?”

He stood and took his greatcoat and hat off, a lock of hair falling 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 smell of coffee and tea and cream hit her with a jolt. The fireplace, flint stone all 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 followed Chloe in.

A sideways glance in a silver platter hanging from the wall along with other tea accessories proved to Chloe that she really 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.

“Allow 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 will excuse me a minute.”

He stood, bowed, headed over to his greatcoat, pulled 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 really knew how to throw her off guard; she had actually forgotten all about her tiara. “Thank you. Really.” She ran her fingertips along the diamonds and rubies. “Did you really fix it yourself?”

“Yes. With nineteenth-century silversmithing tools, no less. It was a bit of a challenge 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 all that weak tea and coffee that tasted as if it really were hundreds of years old, this coffee tasted amazing. Still, jokes and good coffee aside, she didn't want to get sidetracked. “The truth. Spill it.”

Steam from his tea rose out of his cup. “It's true that I'm the heir of Dartworth Hall. 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 dollars. For me, it was a game until you came along. I've wanted to tell you for so long that the bio you read about Sebastian back in Chicago? That profile was—me.”

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

“Detail. Not only do I love art, I own a few galleries. 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 all me. There were clues everywhere. All 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 all 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'll 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 all.”

She didn't believe him.

“I just wanted to find a loyal and true love, a kind of modern-day Anne Elliot, if you will. 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?”

“Well, he wants to be, but—”

“That explains his lines. He always knew exactly what to say. He's a damn actor. No wonder he never told me what kind of an artist he was. He's a scam artist!”

“Those lines were true—they were coming from me—Miss Parker—”

Chloe took the scone dripping with clotted cream and pushed it into his face, turning it a few times just for effect.

The tearoom went silent while Henry wiped cream from his face with his napkin.

“I deserve that, I know. But do you know that I love you? It's not a game anymore. There's more. I want to tell you everything. Your ‘Cook,' Lady Anne, is my mother—”

Clotted cream covered his eyebrows and Chloe got a flash of him, decades from now, as an old man with white eyebrows.

“So
she
lied to me as well? Guess what? I lied, too. A lot. I'm divorced. I have a little girl at home. How's that for a deal breaker?”

She put a hand on her hip.

He wiped the clotted cream from his eyebrows. “I know about your daughter. And your divorce. They're not deal breakers.”

She took a long, slow sip of her coffee. “I need to go. I'll be taking your horse.”

Henry bowed. “Of course. Because that's what you do best. You run away.”

If her coffee didn't taste so damn good, she'd pour the rest of it on him. Her hand quivered with the thought.

“I'm not running away. For once I'm running to something. My real life. In the real world. Where people are—real!” She stamped her calfskin pump to no effect.

Coffee in one hand, tiara in the other, she burst into the . . . sunshine? How dare the sun shine now?

Henry stood in the doorway, his greatcoat draped over his shoulders. “Despite everything—I think what we have is real. It's a real beginning—”

In half a second she untied the horse, tied the velvet bag to the saddle horn, and mounted western style, her gown hiked up to her thighs, coffee cup still in hand. The wet saddle chafed against her legs.

“You're no more real to me than a character in a Jane Austen novel—no—a character from a bad film adaptation. You played me. I played you. We never had anything real.”

She tossed her empty coffee cup into a trash can on the sidewalk and tossed her head. “And we never will.” If only all this could've been caught on camera.

Henry moved closer to her. “I'm not a character from a book. I'm a real person. Who makes real mistakes. And so are you. But look what came out of it—we've found each other—”

“I don't think I found anybody—except, as the old cliché goes—myself.”

She pulled on the reins to turn the horse around. After starting up the street, she took one last peek at Henry, who was running after her in his riding boots. She brought the horse to a canter. She didn't need Sebastian or Henry or Winthrop or any man. She was going home—home to the twenty-first century, where she would ramp up her letterpress business with Web capability. Ideas on how to bring the business into the modern world tumbled around in her.