Even 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.
Sebastian 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.”
Chloe clasped her shaky gloved hands in front of her. “No. I’m doing my best to stay!”
“Good. Good.” He sighed at the cameramen.
There wasn’t much hope for a meaningful conversation.
“The best way to guarantee your stay, Miss Parker, is to dedicate yourself to preparing for the foxhunt. It’s a challenging task, but one I’m sure you’re equal to. Do you have a sense of adventure?”
“Adventure? I’m all about adventure!” Chloe shot a look at the dogs out of the corner of her eye.
In his Hessian boots, he stepped even closer to her now, blocked the camera for a moment, and slid a note into her hand. She understood to hide it in her reticule.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “I would want a wife who enjoys adventure and games—a certain element of playfulness and fun. I think you have those qualities and so much more.”
Chloe couldn’t believe he’d said all this while surrounded by cameras and—dogs. Nor could she believe that he had slipped a piece of folded paper into her hands, unbeknownst to the cameramen.
A clipped bow, a tip of his hat, a bucking up of his horse, and he was gone, just as suddenly as he had appeared, his coattails flying in the wind and the pack of dogs hot on his trail.
When at last she closed her bedchamber door under the pretense of having to use the chamber pot, Chloe ceremoniously unfolded the note he had given her. The handwriting was old-fashioned, ornamental, and organized in stanzas. He had written her a poem! At thirty-nine years old, Chloe read the first love poem ever written for her:
As the sun shines high in the sky
Love blooms in my heart, I cannot lie.
To let our love grow Is what is want, I know.
Still I cannot be convinced
Nay, I need more evidence
Of your intentions, are they true?
To convince me here is what you need to do:
As the clock strikes two you must find
Something in a garden where light and shadow are intertwined
Inspect the face in the garden bright
Then follow the line of light
Straight to a house without walls
Enter the door and go where the water falls
Extrapolate from this poem the puzzle within
Make a note of the six-word answer, write it, and you will win
Send your missive through the secret door and the answers you seek will
be in store!
She read it again. It wasn’t a love poem. It was some kind of Regency courtship riddle turned reality-show task. She sighed. But she was up for it! It gave her insight into Sebastian’s playful, romantic nature, and it cheered her as no other missive could at this point.
Did the other women get one of these? she wondered. But she couldn’t ask them. Sebastian had expressly written that this task would be one for her to take on alone, without even her chaperone’s knowledge.
What thing in a garden would incorporate light and shadow? The estate had acres and acres of gardens. Could the garden be in a painting? And what about the two o’clock reference? Could the answer be on a painted face of one of the grandfather clocks in Bridesbridge?
The joke was on her. She didn’t get it. Not at all. And she couldn’t ask Mrs. Crescent a thing about it.
Mrs. Crescent had handed Chloe a recipe for ink, written by Martha Lloyd, Jane Austen’s sister-in-law:
Take 4 ozs of blue gauls, 2 ozs of green copperas, 1 ½ ozs of gum arabic. Break the gauls. The gum and copperas must be beaten in a mortar and put into a pint of strong stale beer; with a pint of small beer. Put in a little refin’d sugar. It must stand in the chimney corner fourteen days and be shaken two or three times a day.
Chloe knew that “gauls” must be the “galls” she had collected from the oak trees. As for the rest, a pint of beer, even strong stale beer, sounded good right about now.
With Mrs. Crescent’s help, she managed to get through the recipe, and restrained herself from drinking the beer, but had to remember to visit the parlor chimney two or three times a day from then on to shake her vial of ink.
“Not to worry,” Mrs. Crescent had said. “I shan’t let you forget.”
With a total of ten Accomplishment Points now, Chloe faced two days of practicing riding sidesaddle on Chestnut, the nicest horse in the stable. In her spare time, she picked up as many of Fiona’s chores as she could when the camera wasn’t around, noting that her maid seemed sadder than ever. She also made a point of scouring the estate, tramping through gardens looking for shafts of sunlight and shadows, trying to solve the riddle from Sebastian. That was how she knew she was more than smitten. None of the paintings or clocks in Bridesbridge fit the description in the riddle, not even the pocket watch on Grace’s chatelaine.
Her oil paints and stack of painting paper went untouched as Mrs. Crescent started Chloe on another task that would take more than a week: needlework. She had to embroider a fireplace screen for fifteen points when in fact the extent of her needlework skills were sewing on buttons that had fallen off. So much for her days of leisure.
When she scrambled down the servant stairs into the basement kitchen to help Cook do the baking for the tea, she found Cook standing at the pine worktable, beating dough with her fists. Flies buzzed around as a couple of kitchen maids, who seemed sixteen years old at most, stoked the fire in the open range, apparently to set something in the cauldron hanging above it to boil. A hare, dead and skinned, hung from the rafters, and all manner of tongs and knives and industrial-sized soup ladles hung from hooks on the walls. Black clothing irons stood upon a shelf, and everything reeked of onion.
Cook and the kitchen maids curtsied upon Chloe’s entrance, and the formality flustered her. She rolled up the decorative, gauzy yellow sleeves of her overdress. “Do you have an apron? I’m here to bake for the tea party.”
Cook shot Chloe a look with her icy blue eyes. “You can’t possibly bake. You belong upstairs!”
Chloe snagged an apron from one of the wooden hooks near the copper pots and tied it around herself. “If you just tell me where the strawberry-tart recipe is, I’ll begin with that. I just made my own ink, I’m sure I can get a couple of the items from the tea menu taken care of over the next two days.”
Cook looked at the kitchen maids, who giggled. “If the lady insists. Here’s the recipe.” Cook opened a reproduction cookbook, called A Propre new booke of Cokery, and pointed with a finger tipped in flour.
To make a tarte of strawberries.
Take and strayne theim with the yolkes of foure egges & a little white brede grated/then ceason it vp with suger & swete butter and so bake it.
Short paest for Tarte.
Take fyne floure and a curscy of fayre water and dysche of swete butter and lyttel saffron, and the yolkes of two egges and make it thynne and as tender as ye may.
“Well?” Cook asked. “Get to it. The scullery maid has gone to the trouble of picking the strawberries. I’m about to fill the mincemeat pies and the kitchen maids are in the midst of making the trifle you requested. I’m afraid you’re on your own for a bit.”
Luckily, Chloe had made enough fruit tarts in her time that a recipe wasn’t even necessary, although she had never used saffron, and washing the strawberries in a dry sink, without running water, wasn’t very effective, and then forcing them through the sieve took infinitely longer than if she’d been able to use her food processor.
Considering that she rarely baked in her own modern kitchen, her sudden enthusiasm for desserts and spearheading tea parties could only be attributed to her overwhelming desire to impress Sebastian. What other explanation could there be for turning into a Regency domestic diva?
When it came time to put the tart crust in the oven, Chloe was stumped. The open range didn’t have knobs, a touch pad, or a temperature gauge. In fact, the kitchen had no refrigerator, no running water, and no disinfectant soap either. Not to mention a microwave or coffeemaker.
Who knew that two centuries would make such a difference in the kitchen?
She stood in front of the open range a good five minutes until Cook stepped over, took the pie tin with the crust, and shoved it in with a wooden oven handle.
“Keep an eye on it now.” Cook shook a finger at Chloe.
After the crust browned, Chloe filled the tart and put it in the range. “What next?”
“You’ve done well,” Cook said. “Can you help me gild these confections?”
“Absolutely.” Chloe felt as if she had established some sort of relationship with Cook.
Cook brought a plate of handmade chocolates from the scullery and set them on the pine table along with a tin of edible gold dust.
“You simply dab them like this.” Cook demonstrated.
She handed Chloe what at first seemed to be a cotton ball, but it didn’t take long for Chloe to drop the thing on the table. The room began to spin around her.
“What—what is this, Cook? It’s not a cotton ball, is it?”
The kitchen maids, who were beating eggs in a bowl, giggled again.
The scullery maid plucked feathers from a partridge, but didn’t even look up from her work.
Cook left off from grating suet and came over to Chloe. “That, my dear, is a rabbit’s tail, and it makes a wonderful brush, doesn’t it?”
Chloe steadied herself against the table. She realized she hadn’t eaten the pigeon pies and cold lamb for lunch, and she felt queasy. “I’d better check the oven—I mean range.”
Thank goodness her strawberry tart needed to be taken out. She covered the tart with a cloth to keep the flies off. By the time she returned to the table, Cook had gilded all the chocolates for her with said rabbit tail.
“You’ve done a wonderful job helping us here.” Cook turned to the kitchen maids. “Hasn’t she, girls?” Cook asked.
The maids nodded in agreement.
“Now, I’m sure you have things that need tending to upstairs, like shaking your ink that’s set in the chimney? And we’d best get started on dinner. There will be plenty more to do tomorrow.” Cook patted Chloe on the back as Chloe hung up her apron. “As for tonight, I sure hope you’re hungry. We’re making stewed hare and partridges for dinner!”
On Saturday evening, after two full days of alternating between the riding field and the kitchen, Chloe collapsed in a settee in the parlor, wondering if massages had been discovered yet or not.
She’d gained ten more Accomplishment Points for riding, but the others had gained fifteen for more advanced riding and découpaging a box while she was in the kitchen.
“No rest for the weary, Miss Parker.” Mrs. Crescent clapped and Fifi barked.
“I shook my ink vial three times today, Mrs. Crescent.”
“No, no, it’s not that.”
“What, then? Darning a footman’s stockings? Trimming Lady Grace’s pantalets?”
Mrs. Crescent motioned her to get up. “Come here, dear, and you will see.” She led Chloe to the drawing room, a footman opened the doors, and at first, all Chloe saw was the candlelight.
Sebastian rose from a high-backed chair near the fireplace, stepped over to her, and bowed.
Chloe wondered if she still smelled of mincemeat from the kitchen. She curtsied.
“Mr. Wrightman is here to take your silhouette.”
“Only if Miss Parker wishes me to,” he said.
If he only knew her wishes! “Yes, yes of course,” Chloe said.
A candle burned in front of a large piece of paper attached to the wall and Mr. Wrightman escorted Chloe to the chair turned sideways in front of it. Chloe sat down, her back straight, thanks to the busk. He picked up a stick of charcoal.
Mrs. Crescent and Fifi sat on the far end of the drawing room, out of earshot, but not out of sight.
Mr. Wrightman put his hands on her head, then her shoulders, adjusting her until he achieved the desired effect, that effect being her whole body going aflutter.
“This may be a challenge for you, Miss Parker, as you cannot talk while I’m tracing your shadow.”
Chloe smirked. “I can accept that challenge.”
He started to trace. “Consequently, you’ll simply have to listen. I must say, Mrs. Crescent is quite the taskmaster.”
Chloe’s eyes, not her head, turned toward Mrs. Crescent, who merely turned another page in her book and continued to pet Fifi.
“Ah, there, she can’t hear me, so I can say what I came here to say.”
Chloe couldn’t imagine what that would be.
“You must know, Miss Parker, that I know significantly more about you than you know about me, and this puts me at a great advantage. I can confidently say we are ideally matched. Not only was I privy to your audition video, but to all the transcripts of your interviews with our producers.”
He paused for a moment. “Certain strands of your hair simply refuse to be pinned in, and I find that infinitely charming and entirely indicative of your character.”
Chloe didn’t know how much longer she could remain silent. Her lips parted and her eyelashes fluttered.
“I also had the opportunity, since I knew your full name and the city you live in, to look you up on the Internet.”
She gulped. This was exactly the kind of cyberstalking Emma would do. So much for a slow-build Regency courtship. He had TMI while she had—nothing.
“That’s the advantage of the era we live in, that with just a few clicks we can learn so much.”
That was exactly what she couldn’t stand. A day after you’ve met someone, via Twitter or Facebook, you know what they ate for dinner last night. Where was the mystery? The romance? The courtship?
He paused again and stood back from the tracing, within her line of sight. He studied the shadow on the wall, not her, so her eyes were free to wander down from his broad shoulders in his tightly tailored cutaway coat, past his cravat, down the last two undone buttons on his waistcoat, to his suggestive white breeches tucked into boots with the tops folded over.
“Yes, I think I will continue past your slender neck and trace your bust, even though I am risking Mrs. Crescent’s disapproval.”
Chloe did her best to breathe slowly.
“Well, as it turns out, we have much in common, Miss Parker, perhaps most markedly in our charitable ventures and choice of entertainment. Architectural preservation events, the opera, theater, gallery openings, museum galas, gourmet restaurants, I see us together, you on my arm, perhaps even as my wife, in my London town house. Or my lodgings in Bath. Or here in Derbyshire, or all of the above.”
Chloe did everything she could to keep her mouth from going ga-ga. She couldn’t even imagine that kind of life.
“There.” He stood back, hands on his hips, and stared at his work. “Not as good as the original, but—”
He could be a little too charming. “Really, Mr. Wrightman!”
He took the piece of paper down, picked up the scissors, pulled a Chippendale chair up across from her, and sat down, just looking at her. “But true, all of it true.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Might I have a lock of your hair?” He held the scissors in his palm.
Was he for real?
“Go ahead,” she said.
She offered some split ends to him, and, most seductively, he smoothed her hair, and slowly snipped about two inches off.
It was amazing how intimate an act it was, especially as he had to pocket it before Mrs. Crescent came over, rubbing her belly.
“A very good likeness, Mr. Wrightman, though I do find it a bit shocking just how low you’ve chosen to go. I daresay this needs trimming.”
He rolled up the paper. “Not to worry, Mrs. Crescent. I shall trim it and lampblack it at home.” He bowed. “I must let you both rest for the big day tomorrow. Until then!”
Chloe curtsied, and he left.
“Did he take a lock of your hair?” Mrs. Crescent asked.
Chloe didn’t think she should say yes.
“You don’t need to answer, I can see in your face that he has. Very clever of him to come under the pretense of a silhouette, with shears. It’s a good sign, a very good sign!”
Sunday, the day of the mock foxhunt arrived, and everyone was excited except Chloe, whose sidesaddle riding wasn’t exactly show quality yet.
Instead, she focused on the footman at the stable, with his blond hair tied back in a short ponytail and his taut calves that practically popped out of his tights. He took her tiny hand in his strong, white gloved one and helped her mount the horse for the hunt. She locked her legs into the stirrups and gripped the reins. Just a week ago, the prospect of an attractive footman would’ve enchanted her, but now more than ever, she wanted to win the fifteen Accomplishment Points and gain some more time with Sebastian.
Afraid she hadn’t practiced enough, she mounted Chestnut with a show of bravado because horses, like dogs, sensed fear, and she had to be strong. She hardly recognized her shadow, cast on the fine gravel in front of the stable. It exuded confidence, from the tip of her riding hat with a ribbon underneath to her tight jacket, long riding habit skirts and crop tucked under her arm. The sun glistened on the Kelly-green hills, the hounds barked and horses milled about in the field, and—the stable stench snapped her back to reality. Where was Sebastian?
Her hands quivered as the footman carefully strapped the sidesaddle belt across her lap. Her skirt seemed the size of a circus tent and she tucked in the heavy folds.
Grace trotted up on horseback. “Your skirt does look more unwieldy than mine,” she said.
The cameras weren’t on them. “Thank you for that brilliant observation,” Chloe said.
“Perhaps the seamstress made a mistake on yours. You’d best not flash any leg while riding. That would be an infringement of the rules.”
“And flashing a breast isn’t?”
“That was an accident, Miss Parker.”
“I’ll say. I can only hope there won’t be any accidents today.” Chestnut started sniffing Grace’s horse’s behind. Chloe tugged at the reins, urging him to turn, and he would obey for a minute then turn his head again to sniff.
“I’ve spoken to Mr. Henry Wrightman about fixing your tiara. I would delight in undertaking a little project like that with him.”
Chloe flinched. Now she was after Henry, too? “I’d prefer the jeweler it came from, Tiffany’s, to do the fixing.”
Grace seemed insulted. “I had very little to do with your tiara breaking, whilst you had everything to do with all of our Accomplishment Points getting wiped out. We worked weeks to acquire those points and making ink isn’t exactly my forte.”
“I’m sure it’s not.”
Grace kicked her horse and it trotted off—she was an expert rider. Chloe patted her horse’s neck.
The master of the hunt, a red-faced man with a brass hunting horn tucked under his arm, headed over to Chloe. He took off his top hat and bowed toward her and the cameras.
“Our hunt awaits you, Miss Parker. Need I remind you that should you choose not to ride, you must go from whence you came?”
Chloe tapped the riding crop in the palm of her hand. The image of her whipping him with the riding crop flashed through her mind. “I do thank you for that gentle reminder,” she said.
“Mr. Wrightman is quite keen on riding, and whatever woman he chooses should love to ride as well.”
“Sir, I fully intend to ride. But might I ride western style?” she asked, trying to sound as 1812-ish as possible.
“I’m afraid not. Only a lady of title may choose to ride astride.”
The footman led Chestnut toward the field where the rest of the riding party waited. The horse took steady, solid steps. Still, even this hunky footman couldn’t hold a cheap tallow candle to Sebastian, who appeared on the field like the sun bursting from behind a cloud. There was something about a man on horseback—especially such a cultured, Oxford-educated man who also happened to be, well, a total hottie, as Emma would say.
She pictured herself and Sebastian in a white carriage festooned with pink peonies, pulled by white horses, riding off into the sunset together, he reciting poetry and—
Just then the hounds howled and Grace’s gray horse sidestepped away from Henry’s and toward Sebastian’s. The tail on her horse whisked back and forth, brushing Sebastian’s as if in shameless flirtation, as if even her horse were moving in on the guy.
Henry trotted over on his horse, and glad as she was to see him, he blocked her view of Sebastian.
“Will you manage, Miss Parker?” he asked.
What struck her was that he’d picked up on her fear.
“You have the gentlest horse in the stables.”
“Let’s hope he’s not too gentle, I’ll need some speed.” She moved Chestnut backward to keep an eye on Sebastian, but Henry guided his horse closer, eclipsing Sebastian again.
“Just because he’s gentle doesn’t mean he’s not powerful and fast,” Henry said.
Chloe raised an eyebrow. “We’ll have to see, then, what he’s made of.”
“I think you’ll be quite pleased with his performance.” Henry smiled.
Chloe wasn’t quite sure they were sparring about Chestnut anymore, but she knew Grace was monopolizing Sebastian. Gillian, Kate, and Julia waited at the starting gate, doing the smart thing and resting their horses.
Chloe brought Chestnut forward again and stopped in full view of Sebastian. She waved good-bye to the footman, who, embarrassed, nodded awkwardly. She wasn’t supposed to wave to the servants, and Henry chuckled.
“Just take it easy during the hunt, Miss Parker.”
“Are you saying you don’t want me to win? That ultimately you’d prefer your brother to end up with, let’s say, Lady Grace, so you could spend all your holidays and birthdays with her?”
“How kind of you to think of me and my long-term happiness, Miss Parker. It’s almost as if you’re winning my brother over just to save me from a lifetime of misery. I’m much obliged.”
“I’m always thinking of others.”
“People who say they’re always thinking of others are usually thinking of themselves.”
Chloe sighed. As if she willed Sebastian to do it, he turned his horse away from Grace’s and cantered toward her, tipping his hat. She went all aflutter, and certain swaths of her skirt unfolded.
“Have fun on the trail,” she said to Henry. She brought her horse to a walk and left Henry in the dust. She patted Chestnut and gave a nod to Mrs. Crescent and Fifi under a tree on the sidelines.
“Ready for the hunt?” Chloe asked Sebastian. His designer stubble glistened in the morning sun.
He shook his head. “I’m not really a hundred percent. I’ve been rather out of sorts since the night of the dinner party. One of my French cooks kept the cream off the ice too long, and it went bad.”
Chloe’s mouth fell open. “I was sick the night of the dinner party, too.”
“You were? I think we were the only two. I’m so sorry about that. It won’t happen again.”
“It only lasted a few hours for me.” Chloe wanted to change the subject, and quick. “Perhaps you can inform me, Mr. Wrightman, what exactly it is we are hunting?”
He smiled. “It’s only the smell of a fox we’re after, not a real fox. The hunt master lays down the scent and trees it at the end.”
“Trees the scent?”
“The hunt master will end the scent at a certain tree and the dogs will surround it, signaling the end of the hunt.”
They trotted toward the gate, where the hunt master and the rest of the riders stood ready.
“I do so love the chase,” Sebastian said as he adjusted his cravat. “Even if it is just a mock hunt.”
“Do you prefer to chase or be chased?” Chloe asked.
“Why he prefers to be chased, of course,” Grace butted in. “Isn’t that why we’re all here, darling? To chase you?” Sebastian looked out past the fence, toward the field. Henry slid his horse between Julia’s and Chloe’s.
The hunt master raised the horn to get attention and shouted. “I might remind everyone that fifteen Accomplishment Points are at stake in this race. Lady Grace, Miss Tripp, Miss Potts, and Miss Harrington lead with twenty-five Accomplishment Points each. Miss Parker has fifteen. Now, a scented trail has been laid out—along with some false leads and dead ends. Experienced riders may take the jumps. Others are advised to take the way around. Ladies are advised to keep pace with Mr. Wrightman and me if you can. Be the first to finish the race by finding the ‘fox’ and win. Everyone ready?” He brought the horn to his lips.
Chloe tightened her grip on the reins. “Let the chase begin,” she said to no one in particular.
“I believe it already has, Miss Parker,” Henry said.
“Tallyho!” shouted the hunt master. He blew the horn, the gate swung open, and the hounds came hurtling through, barking and yipping. A pounding of hooves sent a spike of determination up Chloe’s back.
She gripped the reins, doing her best to stay on Sebastian’s tail for what seemed like forever, until the hounds howled, the hunt master blew the horn, and the pace increased. Her riding hat flew off, and the ribbons chafed her neck, until finally she released one of her tight fists from the reins and untied the hat, letting it soar into the thicket.
Sebastian looked back at her and winked. He didn’t have to ride sidesaddle, so he was able to go increasingly faster. Still, she gained on him with Chestnut. Grace’s horse huffed and snorted right behind her, but Chloe knew better than to look back and lose any rhythm. The camera crew drove alongside them on ATVs.
Finally she caught up to Sebastian and leaned over, tapping him on the butt with her riding crop.
“Caught you!” she shouted.
He flashed a smile and spurred his horse to go even faster. Suddenly he turned, driving his horse off trail into the thick of the forest. Far ahead, the hunt master had stopped, his horse pointing in the direction of the yipping hounds, his hat signaling the turn.
Chloe hesitated just long enough for Grace to lunge ahead of her. Julia charged past, too. Kate and Gillian were still behind her, but Chloe realized she’d fall into second, then third, and then no place at all.
She kicked Chestnut, spurring him on, gaining on Grace, and finally passing her. But where was Sebastian? She saw his horse’s backside way up ahead, and the horse seemed to be doing a jump. She couldn’t do a jump, she’d have to go around, but she’d lose time. She leaned into the horse and squinted, making out a long tree trunk stretched over two stumps. Chloe’s neck tightened as she bore down to steer him around it—but she had waited too long and Chestnut stumbled.
He regained his footing after they cleared the jump. Chloe inhaled as if she forgot how to breathe. Behind her, she heard Grace’s horse knock the log off-kilter. Chloe almost stopped to turn around and help, but then she heard the stream of obscenities that confirmed that Grace had to be okay.
Her blood pumping, Chloe urged Chestnut on and caught up to Sebastian, but up ahead, in a ravine, she saw a black riding hat floating in the water, and it wasn’t Sebastian’s. She spotted Henry’s horse rearing up, without anyone on him. Fear zigzagged through her. Henry was on the ground near his horse. He could get trampled. Was he hurt?
Sebastian mustn’t have seen him. He clipped right by his brother.
Closer now, Chloe slowed Chestnut. Time froze as she looked to her left at Henry, who was struggling to sit up and rubbing his leg, then at Sebastian, who was galloping after the hunt master.
“Are you all right?” Chloe asked Henry.
“I’m fine! Go ahead!” Henry waved her on. “You’re winning! Go!” He sat up, but didn’t get up off the ground.
Chloe looked toward Sebastian. Clods of dirt flew from his horse’s hooves. She frowned and brought Chestnut to a halt. The cameramen on the ATV switched their focus to Grace, who careened past and cracked her riding crop hard on her horse, spinning after Sebastian. The ATV drove alongside Grace and disappeared into the woods.
It took Chloe a while to dismount with her unwieldy skirt and Henry had meanwhile hoisted himself to his feet. He grabbed his horse’s bit and calmed the horse.
Just then Julia galloped up and slowed her horse to a trot.
“Go, Julia, go ahead! Don’t let Grace win!” Chloe said. “Hurry!”
Julia took off, with Gillian and Kate close behind. Kate looked back, but never said anything.
Chloe hurriedly tied Chestnut to a tree and hustled over to Henry.
“Is your leg all right?” She could see he was favoring it.
“I’ll be fine. It’s my horse’s leg that’s cut. No wonder he threw me. But it’s not bad. Don’t worry about me. If you go now, you still have a chance.”
Blood was running from his horse’s front leg. It looked like a deep gash. Chloe wasn’t good with blood. The horse tossed his head up and down.
“I can’t just leave you here,” Chloe said. “You’re both hurt.”
“I can handle this. Go ahead or you’ll lose! You want that money, don’t you? Or Sebastian? Or both?”
It all seemed so crass, the way he put it. He whipped off his riding jacket, tossed it aside, pulled off his white muslin shirt, and ripped it into strips.
Chloe tried to avoid gaping at his abs, which also happened to be—ripped. She felt woozy, from the blood dripping down the horse’s leg to his hoof, then curdling on the dirt, no doubt.
Chloe snapped to. She did her best to push up her tight sleeves. “You can’t get rid of me that easily. Tell me what I can do.”
Henry gave her The Look. As in The Look Mr. Darcy gave Elizabeth Bennet in virtually any film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice when he realized that he loved her. It was that Look along with the dive in the lake that typecast Colin Firth as romantic leading man for fifteen years, much to his chagrin. Chloe would know it anywhere, and it happened very quickly, but it was The Look.
She skipped a breath. Her riding jacket felt too tight and she stepped back.
“Here,” Henry said. “You hold the bit and steady him while I wrap him up.”
Henry expertly wrapped the strips of shirt like a bandage around the horse’s leg, the horse whinnying and stamping as he tied it off. Blood saturated the shirt and it turned blood brown. He coiled the strips, but the blood soaked through everything.
Henry worked so quickly, so confidently, it impressed Chloe unlike anything she had seen before. He was a man who took action and took care of things, and people, and animals.
What was she thinking?! Her instinct had been to stop and help Henry, but had she made the right choice? She’d just sacrificed Sebastian, not to mention the Accomplishment Points. She thought about Abigail, the business, and her head began to spin. If she’d eaten that cow’s tongue on toast for breakfast, she might have more strength—
“Miss Parker? Miss Parker?!” Henry was tapping water on her face with his hands, looking down on her from above, his face lit with a shaft of light coming through the canopy of trees. Her head was in his lap as he knelt on one knee. She heard the water lapping in the ravine. The bun of her hair rubbed right against his manhood, as they would say in the nineteenth century. Or was that just in romance novels? In a stupor, she turned toward his bare chest. His flesh felt warm against her cold, wet cheek. His pecs were impeccable. He had a pine scent about him. Or was that just the forest floor?
“Henry.”
He leaned into her, she lifted her head toward him, and he kissed her with a hunger and a force that both surprised and excited her.
Just as suddenly he stopped, slowly releasing her bottom lip, and smiled. “Now you’re going to tell me you didn’t faint.”
“I never faint.”
“Clearly.” He moved in for another kiss, and that was when Chloe noticed a cameraman sidestepping down the ravine toward them.
With Henry’s help, she staggered to a standing position and turned to face the camera. Blood was rushing to her head. The cameraman hadn’t got her head lolling in Henry’s lap, had he? Henry, shirtless. Her, without her chaperone. Them kissing! What had possessed her? She broke into a shiver and her teeth began to chatter uncontrollably. This was not how she wanted it to end, not at all.