Definitely Not Mr. Darcy (7 page)

Surely she would be better behaved than some American heiresses are wont to be. The carriage lumbered forward, crushing the mike on the small of her back into the velour. She eyed the camera on the ATV beside the carriage and, with her gloved hand, gave George the royal wave and a clipped smile. He gave her the royal wave back. She'd miss him—the cad. Something about him intrigued her.

The horse hooves clomped and gunned her forward. She felt as if she were leaving something behind, something important, like her cell, for one thing. She looked away from the camera with a feigned disinterest as any heiress would. Ancient and storied trees laced into an archway overhead. The sky seemed bluer in England, the sun brighter. Of course, she didn't have sunglasses on because they hadn't been invented yet.

Sunlight dappled in a clearing far from the road, and when Chloe squinted her eyes she saw two men, one dark-haired in a white shirt open to his chest, in breeches and boots, jogging with two logs atop his shoulders, and the other brawny and bald, who clapped and cheered and yelled. The dark-haired man hurled the logs onto a cart, then ran back for two more. The bald man put his hands on his hips and shouted at the guy. Chloe looked back at the footman behind her on the coach, wanting to ask, knowing it would be improper.

The footman spared her. “Training.” That was all he said.

Chloe nodded. It was the Regency term for working out. Was it Mr. Wrightman? Only a gentleman would be able to afford a trainer. Whoever it was, she admired the fact that this guy was so into the Regency that he even stepped up his workout to a nineteenth-century routine.

He flung two more logs onto the cart and she heard the impact all the way out on the road. He turned his head toward her carriage and shielded his eyes to see her.

She wanted to wave, but didn't, especially when she thought she saw him smile. The trainer turned his head toward the carriage, then pointed toward the logs and shouted until the dark-haired man lifted four logs.

It was her first real glimpse of Regency life here on the estate, not to mention her first glimpse of a man in an unbuttoned shirt and snug pants in a while. He looked as if he had just burst from the cover of a Regency romance novel and it took serious willpower not to turn and stare long after the carriage had passed. If the rest of the people on the show were as gung ho as that guy, this could be “cool,” as Abigail would say. Really cool.

She cracked open the rule book in her lap and ran her fingers along the thick pages that had been hand-cut. She brought the book up to her nose to breathe in the smell of paper pulp and ink. Then she settled back to read.

Chloe stopped there. Abigail. She squeezed her eyelids shut for a moment.

The table of contents included chapters on “Archery Rules,” “Ballroom Behavior,” “Your Chaperone,” “Dinner Etiquette,” and “Sexual Protocol.” Hmm. Chloe paged over to that very short chapter:

Chloe looked back, toward the inn, the trailer, and George, but she couldn't see any of it anymore. And suddenly she felt a million miles from American men, work, TVs, computers, phones—Abigail.

The rule book slid off her lap. She leaned over, struggling to pick it up despite the busk restricting her movements. The cameraman on the ATV eased back to get a good shot of her boobs, no doubt. She wrapped the shawl tighter around her shoulders.

The carriage lurched to the top of a hill and stopped. Dust rose from the dry road and Chloe coughed, digging into her reticule for her fan.

The driver turned around, tipping his hat. “There it is, miss.”

Chloe tossed the fan aside, put her hand over the brim of her bonnet, and, awestruck, stood up. Tucked in a valley off in the distance, rising out of the greenery, was a Queen Anne stone mansion, complete with a four-columned portico and stone urns on all four corners of the roof.

She collapsed back in the carriage seat. “Is—is that his estate? Mr. Wrightman's?” Chloe asked.

“No, miss.” The driver laughed. “That'll be Bridesbridge Place, that. Where you'll be staying with the ladies.”

Chloe had never imagined she'd be staying in such luxury. She had pictured—a cottage. She fell back farther in her seat and fanned herself, shocked and jet-lagged all at once.

“Mr. Wrightman's—Dartworth Hall—that's almost a mile beyond Bridesbridge,” said the driver. “You can't see it from here.” He snapped the reins and the carriage rolled ahead.

The sky widened above her as the trees thinned out. The air smelled of fresh rain and cowbells clanged in the distance. Pastures dotted with sheep and cows yielded to glistening grasses, as pastoral as a John Constable painting. The dirt road became pea gravel as the carriage approached the ocher-colored gates of Bridesbridge Place.

“Bliss,” she whispered to herself.

A shot rang out. The carriage lurched forward, then toppled to one side. Chloe screamed, the cameraman fumbled. The horses snorted and kicked as she, the cameraman, and the driver stumbled from the lopsided carriage onto the soft, spongy grass.

“Excuse me,” said a sexy female English voice from behind the carriage. Through blinding light and dizziness, Chloe made out a tall woman dressed in an ankle-length red walking dress and red turban, wielding a clunky pistol. The cameraman, despite a bloody nose, continued filming, and the cameraman on the ATV joined the fray.

The sexy woman spoke, looking briefly at Chloe and then past her, at the camera. “Seems I've nicked your carriage wheel with my target practicing.”

The wooden wheel lay on the ground, broken in half, spokes blown off.

The woman cocked the pistol against her hip.

Chloe checked herself for blood. Her legs shook. She straightened her bonnet.

“I'm Lady Grace—of the d'Argent family. And you must be the American girl.” Grace switched the pistol to her left hand and held out her right to Chloe.

Chloe didn't shake. “You could've killed us!” Not to mention the fact that Grace should be wearing a bonnet.

“Killed you? With this silly thing?” Lady Grace leaned over and whispered in Chloe's ear, turning her back to the camera: “You Chicago people. Think everyone's Al Capone. That's where you're from? Chicago?” Still, she didn't look at Chloe, but past her, at the cameras. “Did you smuggle in any cigarettes? A mobile phone?”

Chloe opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Suddenly everything went dark around the edges, like the end of a silent movie, where the circle closes in on itself.

C
hloe opened her eyes. A light grew brighter and brighter, taking a rectangle shape while a piano played downstairs, something Baroque.

“Mr. Wrightman? She's awake,” Fiona said.

The rectangle became a floor-to-ceiling window draped in yellow silk and tassels. Fiona's face came into focus, then a video camera. Chloe tried to sit up, but didn't have the strength. One of her biceps hurt, so she tried to look at it, but stopped to focus on the two faces staring at her. One was Fiona and the other—the light from the window shaded his face. She collapsed back again.

Chloe felt for Fiona's hand and touched an embroidered cover. She must be in a bed. A lumpy bed that crunched. “Mr. Wrightman? Mr. Wrightman's here?”

Fiona patted Chloe's hand. “Yes, yes, he carried you in. Quite endearing, that was, miss.”

Chloe sighed, and an image of herself, in her white gown, draped over Mr. Wrightman's strong arms, her head against his broad shoulders, his dark wavy hair grazing her bonnet, popped into her head. He had been forced to do the forbidden and touch her—carry her in. She'd have to wait till it came out on DVD. She squinted at the light and struggled to move.

“Mr. Wrightman's been tending to you the entire time,” Fiona said.

“Miss Parker,” said a deep voice in an English accent.

Chloe melted just a bit. His voice was enough to make a girl forget she'd been shot at.

“Can you see clearly?”

“Yes, I can,” she lied. The blur of a man looking down at her so intently, with so much concern, came through clearly, even if his features didn't. “My arm hurts. Did a bullet graze me or something?”

Fiona stifled a giggle.

“You fainted,” said Mr. Wrightman. “I'm going to put some smelling salts under your nose now. It will smell rancid and sting a bit, I'm afraid—”

“Ooooo! What the—” Chloe snorted and sneezed simultaneously, and she sprayed droplets into Mr. Wrightman's face. “Excuse me,” she said, trying to regain composure.

The first thing she really saw was Mr. Wrightman's lips curving into a smile, a very sexy smile, as he handed her his handkerchief. He wore a brown cutaway coat with tails, an upturned white collar tied with a ruffled cravat, a waistcoat, and cream-colored breeches tucked into buckskin boots. Still, he didn't look like the guy in the bathtub or out in the field. Instead of dark wavy hair, he had dirty-blond straight hair, with a couple strands falling into light brown eyes. He was pale with round wire-rimmed glasses. Despite his seductive smile, he looked more like a librarian than the local Mr. Darcy.

“The smelling salts really clear the senses after a fainting spell,” he said. With a large but gentle hand he pressed a cool cloth on her forehead.

The cloth felt great, but what if it smeared her elderberry-painted eyebrows? “Fainting spell? I don't faint.”

“Of course you don't.” He stepped back and let Fiona hold the cloth to Chloe's forehead.

She wasn't the fainting type. But this was England, after all, and people fainted in England. She handed the handkerchief back to him, but he didn't take it. Her thumb grazed the blue embroidered
HW
in the corner. “Well, I've never fainted before.”

“I suppose it follows that if one has never fainted before, one never will. When a lady doesn't faint, as you clearly haven't, I recommend a brief rest in her boudoir.”

Chloe's head spun. She thought sarcasm wasn't allowed. The nerve of him to spar with a person who'd supposedly just fainted. But—boudoir?

“Did you say ‘boudoir'?” Chloe dropped the handkerchief in the folds of the bedspread and looked around from under the cool cloth at the floral molding, yellow walls with painted-grapevine border, Empire writing desk, high marble fireplace topped with a gilded mirror, and the mahogany four-poster bed she'd been propped up in. Boudoir. Bridesbridge Place! She couldn't wait to explore it, so she sat up, the cloth slid off her forehead, the room spun, and Mr. Wrightman, with a firm hand, settled her shoulders back against the bumpy pillows.

“Fiona,” Mr. Wrightman said. “Please fetch Miss Parker a cordial water.”

“How cordial of you,” Chloe said. She looked forward to something that smacked of alcohol.

“Standard protocol for a woman who has
fainted
,” he replied.

“You gave my Fifi and me a most dreadful scare, Miss Parker,” said a gorgeous, probably eight-months-along pregnant woman as she bustled through the doorway in a periwinkle gown and lace cap. The gown complemented her pregnant shape. She carried a pug dog under her arm. “I'm Mrs. Caroline Crescent, your chaperone at Bridesbridge. This is my boy, Fifi.”

Chloe hated small, hyper, bug-eyed dogs. And who would name a male dog Fifi? She scooched up on her good elbow. “You're my chaperone?” Mrs. Crescent was not only pregnant, but probably a year or two older than her. Tops.