In the rose garden, the summer sun warmed the roses and perfumed the air around Chloe. This moment would’ve been bliss if her bonnet were not loaded with cigarettes, a pink MP3 player, condoms, and a vibrator.
Mrs. Crescent and Henry were discussing the upcoming birth. Henry straddled a wicker chair.
“You asked for me, Mrs. Crescent?” A bead of sweat slid down from under Chloe’s heavy bonnet, past her brown tendrils, and onto her brow, where she wiped it with her walking glove.
Mrs. Crescent scowled at Chloe. “Whatever happened to your gown this time?” She brushed something off Chloe’s capped sleeve with one hand and rubbed her belly with the other. Fifi circled around them.
Chloe looked down at her dress, and the vibrator slid to the other side of her bonnet, throwing it off-kilter. She steadied it with her hand as she noticed that her gown was flecked with dust and cobwebs.
She slapped at her skirt, brushing off the gown with her gloves.
“Do you need—a hand?” Henry asked as he squinted at her in the sunlight, the corner of his mouth turning up.
“No! No—thank you.” Chloe said, finally settling back down on the settee with a squeak from the wicker. Her bonnet slumped to the other side, nearly falling off. Fifi lifted up his head.
She retied the bonnet ribbons tightly under her chin.
Mrs. Crescent collapsed in the padded chaise under a shady bower across from Chloe and Henry. “Miss Parker, I’ve told Mr. Henry Wrightman that I’d like your assistance during the birth,” she said. “Will you agree to helping?”
Chloe gulped. She was no nurse. It would be the first home birth she’d ever witnessed. “Of course.”
Henry shaded his eyes from the sun with his hand. “Ah. Here comes Mr. Tanner, the footman, one of Bridesbridge’s most loyal employees. Let’s hope he made good on my special request.”
Mr. Tanner had worked up a sweat in the heat. He set a large wooden crate at Henry’s riding boots.
“Toys,” Henry said with a smile as he looked at Chloe.
“Toys?” Mrs. Crescent sat up and stared at the crate.
Henry lifted the lid off the crate. “I have arranged a surprise for you, Mrs. Crescent.” He looked up at her with a smile and brushed the hair out of his eye.
Mrs. Crescent fanned herself. “If it is a toy, I am not amused.”
Henry stood up and put the crate on the wicker table in the center of the parterre. “I’ve arranged for your boys to visit at three o’clock and—”
“My boys! Oh, Mr. Wrightman!” She dropped her fan, and he picked it up for her. “All of them?” She put her gloved hand on her heart. Fifi wagged his tail and jumped up and down.
“The entire brood.”
Chloe’s eyes welled with tears. “I’m so happy for you, Mrs. Crescent. To see your boys after all this time!”
Mrs. Crescent flapped her fan as if it were a wing and Fifi ran up and down the length of the parterre.
“Hence—the toys. But Miss Parker and I must test the toys first, of course.” He pulled a wooden sword from the box and tossed it to Chloe, who caught it.
It had been weeks since she’d held one of Abigail’s toys. A wave of sadness came over her.
Henry brandished a toy sword at her. “En garde!”
Chloe, with a hand on her bonnet, jumped up and pretended to duel with him. Their swords clashed and they both collapsed in the settee laughing.
Mrs. Crescent lowered her eyes at Chloe. “A lady would never—”
“Ah. But a lady would catch butterflies.” Henry pulled two butterfly nets out of the crate and handed one to Chloe.
Chloe smiled. She looked at Mrs. Crescent.
Mrs. Crescent continued fanning herself and Fifi. “How can I refuse? My children are coming! I miss them so much—”
She did? Except for little William, Mrs. Crescent didn’t talk about her children much, but then again, Chloe didn’t talk about Abigail at all.
“I know you’ve missed them.” Henry surveyed the lawn. “Mr. Tanner. Please have the canopy set up on the clover patch. I’m sure the boys will want to play ring toss and lawn bowl.”
The footman dashed off as Henry unpacked the crate, stacked with historical reproductions of children’s books, a flower press, sketchbooks and charcoal. He pulled out a pair of binoculars and set them on the wicker table.
“Do you have any bird-watchers in the family, Mrs. Crescent?” He winked at her.
Mrs. Crescent shook her head. “No. No bird-watchers. Too many other gizmos at our house, if you catch my drift.”
Henry laughed, closed up the crate, and took one of the butterfly nets from Chloe. “I’m afraid bird-watching is terribly out of fashion—almost as démodé as catching butterflies.” He picked up a huge jar and a piece of cheesecloth from the crate and headed out to the lawn with the net propped on his shoulder like a fishing pole. He stopped and turned, scanning Chloe from bonnet to boots. “Come on, Miss Parker. Let’s see what you can catch.” He headed for the hollyhocks.
Chloe looked at Mrs. Crescent, who turned her chaise to face the lawn. “Just remember.” She pointed a finger at Chloe and lowered her voice. “The one thing you’re supposed to catch—is Sebastian.”
Chloe watched Henry as he set the jar down under the sundial. “I’m beginning to think they’re both quite a catch. That was so thoughtful of Henry to invite your children.”
Mrs. Crescent picked up Fifi. “Think again. You’re here to win, and so am I. Do you want to be seen on the telly all across America as a failure? As the poor sap who fell for the penniless younger brother and lost out on a hundred thousand dollars?” She petted Fifi and looked out toward the side gate where the children would come spilling through. “We need to finalize the details of your gown for the ball before my baby comes, which could be anytime now. I’ll give you a few minutes. No more.”
Normally, Chloe would’ve been all over picking the trim for her ball gown and choosing just the right shoes. Instead, she scampered under the pink rose arbor with the butterfly net, hurrying toward the sundial. The only thing dragging her down was her bonnet.
Henry had already caught a butterfly, and after setting the jar on the stone ledge of the sundial, he slipped in a few hollyhocks for it to feed on.
The shadow on the green sundial showed that it was almost two-thirty. Wait a minute. Sundial! Chloe propped her net against the sundial and dug into her reticule for the poem. She turned her back on Henry and read the pertinent lines again:
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 . . .
After folding the poem back up and putting it back in her reticule, Chloe bent over the sundial’s face. It had a green patina, and the dial itself stood in a formal knot garden. Why hadn’t she put it together before? She had seen the sundial several times already. She studied the green patina on the face. She almost forgot that Henry was there until he cleared his throat.
Henry raised an eyebrow at her sudden fascination with the sundial and handed her the butterfly net. “If you see a dark brown butterfly with a red splotch or orange bands on each wing, it’s a Vanessa atalanta. Better known as a red admiral. Oh, and I’m sure you’d recognize the orange-and-black one. Cynthia cardui.”
Chloe grinned. “Of course I would. I go around spewing the Latin names for butterflies all the time.” Her eyes followed the trajectory of light from the sundial, but of course, it was past two o’clock, and everything would be slightly off. She had memorized the next three lines of the poem:
Then follow the line of light
Straight to a house without walls
Enter the door and go where the water falls . . .
Chloe lifted her butterfly net. “I’ll go this way.” She padded in the direction the sundial pointed, until Henry began pontificating like a professor. As a proper lady would, she felt obliged to stop and listen, even though she could hardly wait to figure out where the shaft of light would lead her.
“Are you in a hurry for any particular reason, Miss Parker?”
“No. I’m just anxious to catch a butterfly, that’s all.” She swung her butterfly net like a golf club.
“Look,” Henry said. “This one’s a painted lady.” He held up the jar in the sunlight.
She really didn’t want to hear his nature documentary narration, but there was something about the way his large hands wrapped around the jar, something to the way he turned it while the butterfly flitted around, that stopped her. Suddenly she had a vision of him as he held her in her ball gown and turned her on the dance floor. She tried to shake it. She even shook her head, but the vibrator shifted, and the bonnet almost fell off. She tensed up and tightened the ribbons again. Really, she should’ve gone inside and emptied out the bonnet, but she had to solve the riddle now, and given all that she had to deal with at that moment, the last thing she needed was to fall under Henry’s spell.
“You think you have it rough.” Henry pointed to a butterfly in the hollyhocks. “Look at this green-and-white one. See the orange marking on the top of its wing?”
“Yes. It’s beautiful.” She watched as the butterfly lowered and raised its antennae at her as if it were trying to communicate.
“It’s a male Anthocharis cardamine.”
She smirked.
“All right, he’s an orange tip. It’s unusual for him to be around this late in the season. They only have eighteen days to find a mate.”
“And then what?”
“They die.”
Chloe picked up her net and aimed for the orange tip, but it flew off. The net billowed in the air. “That’s harsh. If I don’t find my mate, I just lose out on a hundred thousand dollars.”
“You don’t care about losing out on the money?”
“Well . . .” Chloe didn’t know what to say. It must’ve been a trick question. “This may sound like a cliché, but to me, it’s not about the money.” And it wasn’t, anymore.
A cloud floated in front of the sun and the shadow on the sundial disappeared.
“Oh no!” Chloe lowered her butterfly net.
“What is it?”
“I—I see some butterflies over there.” She hurried in the direction the sundial had pointed.
Henry followed. “We’ll see what kind of nineteenth-century botanist you really are.”
The trajectory led more or less right into a thick hedgerow, and Chloe stopped at the dead end. Now what? Butterflies flitted around her. She looked at her net, then back at Henry, who leaned on his butterfly net as if it were a walking stick. He was watching her. “I’ve never caught butterflies before,” she said.
“Really? What about when you were little?” The cloud passed, and the sun beamed down on them again.
Chloe stood back to see if there was a way around the hedgerow. She laughed as she pushed her fist into the net, straightening it. “I spent most of my childhood being shuttled between ballet, piano, and voice lessons. I hardly had time for catching butterflies.” And she shouldn’t be taking the time now either, but Henry was on her. She better just catch one and be done with it. She raised the net and aimed for the blue one.
“Wait.” Henry reached from behind her and clasped her fist.
Her blue butterfly flew away. “Hey! I could’ve had him.”
Henry bent her arm and lowered the net. “Did your mum have you take tennis lessons, too?”
“How did you know?” She stepped back and looked at his hand wrapped around hers.
He put his other hand on her shoulder.
“You’re holding the net like a tennis racket. We’re not out to kill. Think of it as netting a fish out of a fishbowl. Like this. Gently.”
He guided her arm in slow, swishy, underhanded swoops. His minty breath felt cool on her warm neck. She shouldn’t be here, like this, with Henry, when the riddle needed to be solved. The sun shone in what had become a Tiffany-box-blue sky, the birds sang overhead, and she was, of all things, chasing butterflies with a captivating man. How a guy could’ve made catching butterflies look manly, sexy even, blew her mind.
“There. That’s better. Just relax.”
Easy for him to say, he didn’t have a stolen vibrator rattling around in his bonnet and a burning desire to find something that matched the description of a house without walls.
He released his hand from hers, and even in this summer heat, her hand suddenly felt cold. “Mr. Wrightman, would you be so kind as to fix my tiara? I’m quite sure you could do it, after all.”
“I’m happy to do the smithing, but there isn’t enough time to have it ready for the ball.”
“That doesn’t matter. I’ll have a footman bring it to you before you leave. Please, though, don’t let Lady Grace help you with it.”
“Did Mr. Darcy allow Caroline Bingley to mend his pen?”
Chloe laughed. Did this mean he saw Grace as a Caroline Bingley type?! Chloe knew she couldn’t be the only one who’d noticed a similarity between Grace and the Jane Austen character.
He pointed to a couple butterflies across the lawn in the lavender, and motioned her toward them, but then stopped and squinted toward the rose garden. “You’re wearing my glasses and I’m nearsighted—is Mrs. Crescent trying to get your attention?”
“No. Not really.” Chloe pretended not to see Mrs. Crescent, who stood now under the shady bower of roses, and waved Chloe in like a jumbo jet on a foggy runway. As Mrs. Crescent waddled toward them, Chloe’s arm went limp and the net fell to her side. She didn’t catch a single butterfly and she wasn’t able to go beyond the hedgerow. She took a step back and crushed a clump of lavender behind her.
Fifi trotted up to Chloe as Henry bowed to Mrs. Crescent. “Thank you for releasing your charge for a few moments, Mrs. Crescent.” He reached for the butterfly net in Chloe’s hand, but she moved it behind her back and pushed it into the lawn as if she were staking her claim.
The servants had set up a green-and-white striped canopy above the clover patch.
Mrs. Crescent wiped sweat from under her cap with a lace-trimmed handkerchief. “Miss Parker, the mantua-maker is here to work on your gown.” She lifted her watch from her chatelaine and tapped on it. “I would’ve sent a servant to tell you, but I thought I’d deliver the message personally, so you understand the sense of urgency.”
Chloe looked back at the hedgerow. “Mrs. Crescent, Mr. Wrightman, you must excuse me. I’ll be right with you. Just wait here!” She curtsied, held on to her bonnet, and ran all the way to the end of the hedgerow.
“Obstinate girl!” she heard Mrs. Crescent say.
“Is she, really?” Henry asked.
“I implore you, Mr. Wrightman, to please get her back here immediately.”
Chloe heard all this, because she was on the other side of the hedgerow, exactly where the shaft of light would’ve pointed, and she found herself looking at a gazebo she had never noticed before.
“A house without walls,” she said to herself.
By the time Henry caught up with her, she had discovered a fountain on the other side of the gazebo. It was in the form of a statue, a merman tipping a seashell, but the fountain was dry. She looked frantically for a secret door of some kind, but the fountain was solid.
“What are you doing?” Henry asked.
“Admiring this fountain,” Chloe said. She was still looking for some kind of secret door when she stepped on a small metal square with a green patina. It must’ve had something to do with accessing the plumbing for the fountain.
“Your chaperone is growing very impatient. I think you’ve pushed her to her limit.”
Chloe yanked on the weathered ring that was set into the metal until the small square creaked open. There, just under the lid, was a basket with a note that read, You have found the secret door outside the house without walls, but have you solved the puzzle in the poem? If so, you may place your answer here. If not, then you must go back and begin again.
Henry walked over, but Chloe slammed the lid shut just in time.
“Mrs. Crescent is waiting.”
Chloe sighed. He escorted her back to Mrs. Crescent, who stood with her hands on her hips. Fifi whimpered at her feet. Chloe stopped and stood, statuesque, near the lavender, because a bumblebee had buzzed onto her bonnet and she hadn’t solved the puzzle in the poem. She did a sort of whiplash move with her neck, the bee flew off, and the bonnet went toppling. It crashed to the lawn, rolled over, and the vibrator spilled out. It landed just in front of a marble statue of a naked nymphet smelling a marble rose.
Her first coherent thought was to thank God that the camerawoman who was following Henry and her had had to sneak off to go to the bathroom. The rest of the camera crew was off filming Julia and Grace horseback riding.
Mrs. Crescent and Henry gawked at the fleshy-looking object in the grass.
As Chloe watched a blue butterfly float by, and noticed how lovely the green-and-white striped canopy looked in the clover patch, she thought how perfect the moment would have been if not for that monster vibrator lying in the grass. She wanted to run, but everything, the canopy, the sundial, the secret door, the unsolved riddle, started spinning around, and she grabbed onto the butterfly net for support.
Fifi trotted over to the vibrator and sniffed it. Then he picked it up like a bone, carried it to Mrs. Crescent, and dropped it at her swollen ankles. Mrs. Crescent, with a hand on her belly, looked at Chloe.
Chloe clung to the butterfly net and swallowed. “It’s not mine.”
Mrs. Crescent’s eyebrows furrowed.
“It’s Lady Grace’s.”
“Of course it is,” Henry said, unhooking his arm from Mrs. Crescent’s. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, bent over, and wrapped up the vibrator. He seemed to be stifling a laugh.
“I’m all for practicality, but it’s hardly historically appropriate.” Mrs. Crescent turned to Henry. “It—it’s a—”
“A neck massager.” Henry stood up with the wrapped vibrator in his hands.
“It is?” Mrs. Crescent turned her head to look at Henry, but because of her chaperone’s poke bonnet, Chloe couldn’t see her face.
“Absolutely.”
“Well, you’re the doctor. The neck massager should be confiscated.”
Chloe’s gloved arm swung out, knocking over the butterfly net. “No!”
Henry, who was cracking up now, turned his head away and pretended to cough. The white roses behind him swayed in the wind like little white surrender flags. Maybe she should’ve told them about the stash from Grace’s room. They were on her side, weren’t they? Chloe opened her mouth, ready to confess all.
Henry interrupted. “Here, Miss Parker. Take it.” He held the sheathed vibrator out toward her.
The stretch of grass between them seemed to go on forever. Her cheeks flushed with heat.
“Take it back—to Lady Grace, of course.” Henry smiled.
“See the mantua-maker immediately after that,” Mrs. Crescent said.
“You have to believe me.” Chloe studied his eyes. “It really is Grace’s.” She took the thing in one hand, still unsure how to hold it. She swung her bonnet up off the grass by the organza ribbons and plopped the swaddled vibrator in it, holding her chin high and her back straight, as if she had a book on her head, and sauntered toward the parterre.
Henry followed her. “I daresay, Miss Parker, it certainly doesn’t surprise me that you have more than a bee in your bonnet.”
Could he see the cigarettes and the MP3 player? Chloe eyed the bonnet swinging at her side. No. She whipped her head back at him and narrowed her eyes. Her hair spilled down around her sweaty neck and forehead. “Better to have a bee in my bonnet than nothing at all—like some of the ladies around here.”
“Touché.” Henry laughed, and Chloe cracked a smile, even as she looked straight ahead at the mantua-maker waiting near the partarre.
Chloe spun toward the kitchen door, where, on a wooden table outside, the scullery maid gutted fish. The fish skins shone in the sun and the stench almost made Chloe lose it.
“Not the servant door, Miss Parker—” Mrs. Crescent said in an annoyed-as-ever voice. “Take her through the main doors.”
She had to walk past Henry, who politely bowed as she escorted the dressmaker to the main doors. As soon as the footmen closed the doors behind them, Chloe excused herself for a moment, and before the exasperated woman could protest, Chloe was up in her chamber. She stashed the vibrator, the MP3 player, the whitening strips, the condoms, and the cigarettes under the rags in the basket next to her chamber pot. Only the poor chambermaid touched that. She rang for a footman to bring her tiara to Henry.
In the parlor, as Chloe stood on a cushioned stool, the dressmaker pinned her dress for final alterations. The satin drapes had been drawn, and Chloe could see clear through to the parterre, where five boys spilled through the wrought-iron gate in the east garden wall. Each one of them wore knickers and a vest and looked straight out of a costume drama. Mrs. Crescent must be pleased at the historical accuracy.
“Turn, please,” the mantua-maker mumbled with a mouthful of pins.
Chloe turned, and saw Henry playing with one of Mrs. Crescent’s older boys. Which one was William? Mrs. Crescent hugged two of her littler ones, and they patted her pregnant belly. Henry gathered the boys around him and showed them the jar with the butterfly in it. They all looked, even the oldest one, wide-eyed, with tiny hands on the jar. Chloe thought only of Abigail. She would’ve enjoyed all this.
Henry held up the jar, pulled off the cheesecloth, and the butterfly flew up and around the boys, who clapped and jumped up and down.
The boys hung on to Henry, laughing and smiling, and Chloe got butterflies in her stomach. He was so good with kids. And, she couldn’t help but think, he would be good with Abigail, too.
The dressmaker tugged on Chloe’s gown to get her attention. “Would you like a Greek-key trim or tattered lace?” Chloe tried to focus on the two snippets of trim the seamstress handed her. “Oh. Um. Greek key.”
“Turn, please.”
Chloe turned again and this time she saw herself in the full-length gilded mirror. The peach-colored silk gown glimmered in the summer sun that streamed through the windows. Was it just the light or did she lose about ten pounds? For the first time ever, she wanted to hop on a scale. Even with the glasses, she looked—like a lady.
Henry had a toddler in his lap and he was reading aloud from one of the children’s books. A wave of warmth washed over her.
“You have lost inches since I was here last, Miss Parker.”
Chloe heard the dressmaker, but she sounded far away, as if she were in another room.
Grace, in her low-cut white gown, sauntered over behind Henry and put her arm around his chair as he continued to read. She seemed to be reading it aloud with him to the boys. Henry looked up at Grace and smiled as they mouthed the words together.
Chloe’s fingers clenched like claws. Et tu, Henry? Wait a nineteenth-century minute. She was getting jealous over—Henry.
Then Julia romped onto the parterre and set up the ring toss for the boys, and the boys left Henry and Grace alone with the book.
“Miss Parker?” A gorgeous footman, maybe even Grace’s most recent conquest, held out a silver salver with a handmade envelope on it addressed to her. Chloe picked up the thick note and the footman bowed and left. It was sealed with a red wax W.
“Now for your pelisse, Miss Parker.” The dressmaker held out the thin, floor-length tailored jacket for alterations. Chloe broke the seal and opened the note.
Dear Miss Parker,
I am hoping to see you at the upcoming ball. If you come to the ball, I would like to meet you at the ice house just past the stables after the last dance. I have something to ask you, so please arrive alone. Hoping you do not disappoint.
Yours,
Mr. Wrightman
Even with the tight-sleeved pelisse covering her arms, she got goose bumps. Of course, meeting Sebastian at the ice house alone would be against the rules, but it sounded like he was going to propose. He had something to ask her!
But didn’t most Regency proposals take place in the daytime? In a parlor or drawing room, after all the sisters and nosy mothers had been whisked away? At least, that was what happened in the novels and costume dramas. This meeting had to be aboveboard. Sebastian wouldn’t jeopardize her position on the show, would he?
Chloe repeated the poem again in her mind. She still couldn’t decipher it.
As the mantua-maker cuffed the sleeves of the shimmery silk pelisse, Chloe watched Grace, Julia, and Henry play “London Bridge Is Falling Down” with the littlest boys. She could see them mouth the words: “Falling down. Falling down. London Bridge is falling down. My fair lady.”
That was the problem with wearing glasses. You began to see things clearly.