Being a corn-fed girl from the Midwest, Chloe had seen corn mazes, but never a maze sculpted from eight-foot-tall yew trees. Ever since she arrived, she’d been enticed by the prospect of the hedge maze, and now, it seemed, was her chance to see it, although it did sting that the visit to the maze had trumped her scheduled outing with Sebastian.
The women and their chaperones were gathering around the entry to the maze while Sebastian and Henry came riding toward them on their horses.
Chloe had imagined running along the narrow, pebbled paths between the high hedges, dropping red rose petals behind her, Sebastian at her heels. They would meet in the pagoda in the center to kiss, his lips finally touching hers, her fingers finally grazing his squared-off sideburns, nothing but green all around and blue sky above—
The butler interrupted her reverie. “This morning the three of you will be competing for fifteen Accomplishment Points. Mr. Wrightman will be sitting in the pagoda in the middle of the maze. You will all be sent off into the maze at the same time, and the woman to reach Mr. Wrightman first wins the points and time alone with him until the other ladies catch up.”
Chloe almost groaned out loud. This, of all the competitions so far, seemed the most demeaning. She crossed her arms and kicked the dust with her walking boots.
Just then, out of nowhere, George came zipping up in an ATV. George!? Was he here to send her packing?
Janey was sitting next to him, sipping coffee from a white cardboard cup.
Chloe had given up drinking coffee here in England. Regency coffee tasted horrid, and the weak tea proved only marginally better.
George swung his blue-jeaned legs out of the cart and pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. A Bluetooth was stuck on his ear. Chloe couldn’t stand those things; Winthrop used to wear his all the time.
“Girls.” He made guns with his fingers and aimed at Chloe and Grace. “A word?” He whipped off his Bluetooth and raked his hair. The air around him hinted of shampoo and toothpaste. His hair must’ve been loaded with product. How else could it have smelled of shampoo and looked so much like bed head?
“Over here.” When he grabbed them by the elbows, their parasols tipped to the sides. Regency men didn’t call women “girls” and they didn’t yank women around by the elbows. After weeks of Sebastian’s and Henry’s gentlemanly behavior, even Grace seemed shocked at such treatment. In addition to bowing, Sebastian and Henry always stood when a lady entered the room, and a lady could get used to such things.
George led them, faster than their calfskin boots could carry them, toward the topiary arch at the entrance of the hedge maze. Overhead, clouds were rolling in.
“No cameras,” George barked at two of the crew, and they backed off.
Moments later, Sebastian and Henry arrived and tied their horses to a tree.
Grace’s chaperone looked intent with concern and Mrs. Crescent sent Fifi on to be with Chloe.
“Listen, ladies,” George began ominously, “I can be the king of grouchy Brit reality-show judges, you know.”
Grace folded her arms just under the hem of her spencer jacket, which so nicely accentuated her boobs and tiny waist. “I don’t see what I have to do with all this.”
Chloe stooped down to pick up Fifi’s leash.
George flashed a frown and pointed his iPhone at Chloe. “Officially, Miss Parker, you’re on probation. You haven’t gotten caught on camera, and your antics are great for ratings, and those are just two reasons why I’m not getting rid of you here and now.” He paced around the soft grass, checking his phone.
Chloe picked up Fifi, who began pushing at her arm as if he wanted her to rub his neck, or what would be his neck if he had one.
“Suffice it to say that both of you are here, for the moment—with warning. Mr. Wrightman wants you both here because somehow he can picture you both as wife material, although I can’t say I agree with his judgment. Then again he doesn’t know everything I know, although I am tempted to tell him. Condoms appearing in reticules, shagging every footman in sight, going out after curfew—these are serious infractions.” He keyed something into his phone.
Chloe tipped her well-coiffed head, which, at the moment, was covered in the unfortunate poke bonnet. “Did you know that the condom was planted on me?”
“We have no proof the condom was planted on you, Miss Parker, and unless you can produce proof, the jury’s still out on that one.” George’s phone rang and they were saved by the bell.
It’d been a while since Chloe heard a phone ring and it actually sounded pleasant. For the first time in a long while, she didn’t cringe at the sound. She watched George as he talked on the phone to someone far away, to people other than this small crowd, and she marveled at it, as if she really were from 1812. She felt a sudden urge to snatch the phone from him and call Abigail, just to hear her voice.
Chloe watched George slide the phone into his back pocket. She just wanted to hold it, really. Okay—she wanted to check her e-mail! Surf the Web! Buy toilet paper online! My God, what was happening to her? She clutched Fifi.
“Now, Miss Parker, we’re on National Trust property at Bridesbridge Place—the key word being trust, okay? Respect it. The clothing, the grounds. Mr. Wrightman would be none too pleased if any damage befell his ancestral home or belongings.”
“I would never damage anything on the grounds!” Chloe swore off sewing-cabinet vodka right then and there.
“You must have the common decency not to destroy our English heritage, Miss Parker,” Grace said. When she tossed her head a few of her blond sausage curls fell out of her turban. “You of all people should be concerned for the grounds, what with your last name.”
Chloe put her hand on her hip. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’ll tell you what it means,” Grace returned. “The surname ‘Parker’ originates in the Old French, meaning ‘keeper of the park.’ Your ancestors, Miss Parker, were groundskeepers and gamekeepers. It’s a most dreadfully common last name.”
Fifi nuzzled under Chloe’s arm. “And your last name means ‘money’ in French, perhaps because your ancestors, not unlike yourself, I might add, were overly preoccupied with it.”
George took his sunglasses off. “Ladies. I blame you both. Equally. For everything.”
Grace pouted. For some reason, her lips seemed plumper than they had been yesterday.
George’s phone rang again. He smiled and talked as if nothing were the matter. He was the British version of Winthrop. She wondered if he, too, would make the crucial mistake of e-mailing his wife “Happy 35th Birthday” from across the country, without sending flowers, a present, or even bothering to call.
George wrapped up his conversation and set his sunglasses atop his head as the sky began to darken. “You’ve both been duly warned.”
Fifi growled and Chloe forced herself to pet him, just to calm him down.
George raked his hair. “God knows nothing can happen in a silly hedge maze, but we have an archery competition slated for tomorrow if the weather holds. Aim for the targets. If so much as an apple gets hit by a stray arrow, the game’s over and you’ll be replaced with two beautiful, smart, and eager prospects.”
“You wouldn’t!” Grace practically popped out of her spencer. “After all the time I’ve invested in this? Leaving all my clients high and dry? Really! When you know very well that all this is Miss Parker—Chloe’s doing!”
Fifi quivered in Chloe’s arms, and at first Chloe thought it was from the rain, the first drops of which had started coming down, but then he snarled at something that looked like a weasel. It was burrowing under the hedge. All of a sudden Fifi lunged from Chloe’s grip, flinging his hot little body into the gargantuan maze with his leash trailing behind him.
Chloe held out her arms, as if she somehow expected him to come bounding back. “Fifi!” she cried, clapping as the dog squeezed under the hedge. “Come back here!”
“Fifi! My Fifi!” yelled Mrs. Crescent, cradling her belly and waddling over. “He’ll get hopelessly lost in there!”
Chloe tossed aside her parasol, hiked up her gown, and sprang into the maze.
“Cameras! Get on this!” George whistled with his fingers, and the cameras rolled behind her. “That girl’s golden,” she heard him say. “Wherever she goes, drama follows.”
Grace laughed and George’s ATV spun off.
Fifi growled somewhere within the maze, but Chloe couldn’t see him. She ran toward the spot from where the growling seemed to be coming. Her walking boots were so thin she could feel the gravel under the soles of her feet.
“Fifi! Fifi! Come here!” Her bonnet fell to her shoulders. Her white shawl snagged on a yew branch.
“Miss Parker! Miss Parker!” Mrs. Crescent called from outside the hedge maze. “Save my baby Fifi! Hurry! Before he gets hurt! Oh, Mr. Wrightman—thank goodness you’re here!”
Sebastian? Great. He was supposed to be chasing her through the maze, and here she was chasing a droopy-eyed pug. She heard more growling and shuffling.
“Fifi! Fifi!” Chloe found herself bumping into dead end after dead end as larger and larger raindrops began to fall faster and faster.
“Yip! Yip!” Fifi yelped, and Chloe spun, sprinted, took a sharp turn in the hedge, and barreled right into—Mr. Wrightman—the younger, the penniless.
“I’ve been meaning to run into you,” he quipped, offering her a hand to steady her. “But not quite like this.”
That sounded like something she would say, or did say, to Sebastian.
The rain was falling even harder now.
“Listen, I’ll get the dog. You head back,” Henry said.
“Yip! Yip!” Fifi yelped again, and Henry marched off.
But Chloe couldn’t leave Fifi. She clambered behind with a broken shoelace and her flimsy boots soaked through. Deep into the maze, she finally caught up to Henry and watched him throw his jacket on a tangle of pug and weasel and somehow magically extract the dog from the pile. He tucked Fifi under his arm like a football while ribbons of blood and mud trickled down the dog’s back. Fifi was yipping and crying.
Chloe felt as if the seams of her corset were showing through her white dress. Her gown clung to her legs, revealing her garters at midthigh.
Henry’s eyes roamed from her face to her neck, her breasts, her legs—then he turned to head back. “Follow me for the way out,” he said in the pouring rain as he led the way. “If you lose sight of me, keep your left hand on the hedge. I’ve got to hurry and get the dog cleaned and bandaged before infection sets in. He’s covered in mud.”
Henry didn’t know her lace was broken. As she followed him, her cameraman followed her, rain running down her face, over her lip, and into her mouth, tasting sweet and salty at the same time. The sky flashed lightning.
In a matter of moments she lost sight of Henry and could no longer hear his boots crunching in the gravel. She placed her wet glove on the hedge to her left. Fog was rolling in among the hedgerows, and all at once the vivid green hedges seemed grayer, taller, woodier. What kind of mother would let herself get lost in a hedge maze in the middle of nowhere in England, during a thunderstorm?
“Hand on the left. Hand on the left.”
Rain dripped down from her fingertips to her elbow as if she were a human gutter. She felt as if she’d been in this very spot five minutes ago. Did she just make a big circle? It occurred to her what a brilliant invention the GPS was, and she determined that as soon as she got home and could afford it, she’d buy one, because she hated being lost and alone. But, as it turned out, she wasn’t alone.
She turned and looked right at the cameraman. “All right. How do we get out of here?”
He didn’t respond, he just kept filming.
“You don’t have to say anything. Just lead the way. I’ll follow you.”
He stayed put.
“Ugh!” Exasperated, Chloe threw her arms up.
Thunder rumbled and the hedges seemed to grow taller. Left hand. Left hand against the hedge, she reminded herself. Her gloves went translucent on her fingers. Tufts of fog blew through the hedgerows, obscuring the path. She kept bumping into the same dead end over and over. When the rain began to let up, she stopped shivering. Her hair had gone wild and windblown around her shoulders and the bottom of her white gown was brown with mud.
Finally, she saw an opening in the distance. It was the exit! She did it. She’d made it! All by herself. Something moved toward her, ran toward her in the fog. It was Sebastian come to save her, a little too late, unfortunately. She shook off the disappointment, but not the cold and rain.
“Miss Parker! Are you all right?” Sebastian called out.
“I think so, Colonel Brandon,” she replied.
He smiled at the Austen reference and opened his arms to her. Did he forget he couldn’t touch her? She was too cold and wet to care about protocol or the camera. He held out his arms to her and she had no resistance left. She buried her head in his wet, white ruffled shirt, taking in his wine-barrel, snufflike aroma. He, too, had been soaked through and his body felt chilled.
“I think we make a pretty cool couple.” She shivered and whispered in his ear, alone with him at last.
Sebastian didn’t have an umbrella or a coat to offer her, but in an instant he swooped her up in his arms.
She locked her arms around his strong neck, and he carried her toward Dartworth Hall. Now, where were all the cameras when she needed them?
“You are Colonel Brandon after all,” Chloe said.
Sebastian smiled while his Hessian boots trudged on. He seemed an enigma to her, but the scent of spongy grass filled the air and being in his arms made her feel safe and taken care of.
His dark eyes looked straight ahead at the doors of the hall, his nostrils flared slightly. The rain had stopped, but it had made him slick back his black hair, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. His cheekbones were so chiseled a girl could go rock-climbing on them. The moment was right out of a movie, until he lost his footing, slipped in the mud, and Chloe slid out of his arms and landed with her feet on the ground.
He caught her, helped her regain her footing, and their hands touched for the first time. “So sorry,” he said, with his incredible English accent.
“I’m not.” She melted faster than a chocolate molten lava cake. “Maybe you’re falling for me.”
He laughed and there they were, face-to-face. “I am—falling for you. I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re a rarity.” He moved closer as if to kiss her, and her lips parted. She resisted taking his designer-stubbled jawline in her hands.
His lips were almost pressing against hers and his arms had almost gone around her waist when they heard twigs snap behind them, reminding them that Chloe’s cameraman was still there, and now another cameraman had appeared as well.
She stepped back. She couldn’t help but notice Sebastian’s very revealing breeches, so she tried instead to focus on the wet shirt clinging to his muscled torso—and that was certainly no punishment. Their bodies quivered to be together, and for the first time, Chloe felt for Regency women who weren’t allowed to act on any of their impulses, or, if they did, they’d suffer life-altering consequences.
Chloe needed more time with Sebastian, preferably not in a thunderstorm and surrounded by cameras, and perhaps not in the nineteenth century, for that matter. She had to admit that in the modern world, they’d have slept together already! Their relationship would’ve been so much further along by this point. How could you get to know a man when you were surrounded by chaperones? When you couldn’t talk to him, be alone with him—or rip off his ruffled shirt and breeches?! Did Regency women really know who they were marrying? How could they have?
Chloe could learn more in a single weekend away at a beach cottage with him than six or even twelve more weeks of this. And, if she really wanted TMI, she could’ve done what Emma did with men she’s just met, and Google them, check out their Facebook page, follow them on Twitter. Just a few minutes of cyberstalking would’ve revealed more than she’d learned about Sebastian in two full weeks!
The hedge maze was far off, and however enticing it had once looked, Chloe couldn’t be happier than to be free of it.
At that moment a footman came running toward them. “Mr. Wrightman, we need you in the stables. Do you have a moment?”
Sebastian looked at Chloe. So much for their romp in the hedge maze, she couldn’t help but think. “Go ahead,” she said. “I’m fine. Is everyone inside? Do you want me to just—head into Dartworth?” It was awkward asking if she should just drop into his sprawling estate or what.
“Yes, I’m sure everyone’s gathered in the music room. The competition will be postponed.”
“I’ll escort you,” the young footman offered.
Sebastian bowed, she curtsied, and he headed toward the stable.
She tied off the broken lace on her waterlogged boots and noticed that one of her white stockings had gone shocking pink at the ankle. Mrs. Crescent would never approve of pink stockings. It seemed she had cut her ankle on the hedge and blood had turned the stocking pink.
On her way toward Dartworth, she and the footman stepped over a little creek that had swelled up during the storm. She stepped on a wide rock in the middle of the creek to get to the other side and noticed how two streams of water flowed on either side of it. This divergence weakened the streams, until they trickled off into nothingness.
She never imagined she’d fall for two so very different men, brothers no less, so quickly. The money and the winning got washed away, and too often, she forgot all about them. She had to stay focused, follow ridiculous Regency protocol, and not allow her resolve to weaken any more. No more getting lost. She’d set her GPS for Sebastian, and that would be it.