“You’re drunk!”
It had taken a few days to find the laudanum, but she managed to find it despite her busy schedule of wedding-gown fittings and trimming her wedding bonnet. Chloe and Sebastian had been caught together in the ice-house, and just like in the Regency era, they were forced to marry. It was to be a rushed wedding on a Tuesday morning.
So, when Chloe poured more than a few drops of laudanum in her tea this morning, it made it taste like sherry.
Mrs. Crescent leaned over in the chaise-and-four to get a whiff of Chloe’s breath.
“I’m not drunk.” Chloe rubbed her forehead under her white bonnet. These carriage rides always undid her updo, but today horse’s hooves seemed to be clomping on her brain. Hungover? Yes. Buzzed? That was earlier this morning. She looked out of the carriage window at the hedge maze, wondering how she’d ever get out of this.
Mrs. Crescent tightened the pink bonnet ribbon under her chin and narrowed her eyes. “Did you get into the sewing-cabinet vodka again?”
“No. No. Just took a drop of that laudanum at dawn to calm my nerves. One tiny drop! As any Regency lady would do under the circumstances.”
Mrs. Crescent slapped her hands on the leather-covered bench. “What? Opium! On your wedding day—”
“This is not my wedding day.”
Chloe looked down at her white pelisse, white muslin wedding gown, and white calfskin pumps. Her wooden trousseau trunk had been filled with all sorts of frills and Belgian-lace gowns, and strapped to the back of the carriage, in anticipation of the honeymoon. Packing that trousseau was an exercise in humility, preparing for a honeymoon that would never happen after a wedding she didn’t want.
She came across Henry’s handkerchief in her washstand drawer, the handkerchief he gave her on her first day at Bridesbridge, and she decided to pack that as well as her vial of ink that had only just congealed to perfection.
Mrs. Crescent fumbled around in her reticule. “You are getting married today. Here.” She pushed fresh mint leaves into Chloe’s gloved hand. “Where did you get laudanum?”
Chloe popped the mint leaves into her mouth, then pointed at her closed lips as she chewed. A lady would never talk with her mouth full. Finally, she swallowed. “I got it from your room. I relieved you of it.”
“You stole it.”
Chloe sat up straight, pinning her shoulders against the upholstered black leather seat back.
“The night you gave birth to Jemma. I added it to my stockpile.” She folded her arms over her bodice.
“Dear Lord! What are you stockpiling?”
The carriage passed the hollyhocks where she and Henry had caught butterflies. The pink flowers swayed in the breeze.
“I’ve been stockpiling things that Grace smuggled onto the show to prove that she planted that condom on me, and that although I bent a few rules, she broke so many of them.”
Mrs. Crescent grabbed Chloe by the arm, the same arm that Sebastian had grabbed only a few nights ago. “Listen, dear, we’ve been over this a thousand times. You were caught. You have to marry him.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “It’s what would’ve been done in 1812.”
As soon as those drop-front pants came down, the deal was sealed for Chloe because she got caught by the footman, who told. Grace didn’t get caught by anyone—except Chloe.
The carriage, with its wooden wheels, jostled on the crusty road and seemed to punctuate Mrs. Crescent’s words. “Be glad he wants to marry you. Not all Regency girls are so lucky. Anyway, it’s just for the telly. You’re not really marrying him. By hook or by crook, this is what we wanted. We’ve won!” She clapped her gloved hands joyfully.
But she stopped when, in a clearing alongside the road, she saw cameras filming a throng of servants gathered around a—gallows? A noose swayed, and a girl appeared to be hanging from it. A girl about Abigail’s age. Chloe’s gloved hands shook. “What—what’s going on?” Waves of horror crashed through her.
“It’s a hanging. They’re hanging that orphan girl.” Then she whispered, “A mock hanging. It’s a dummy, not a girl.”
The dummy twisted on the noose in the sunshine and turned toward Chloe, who cringed. “Ugh. That’s horrifying. Why?”
“She stole a loaf of bread.”
Chloe didn’t mean why did they hang her, but why stage a mock hanging at all. “But—wait. That little girl was hanged for stealing bread?”
Mrs. Crescent nodded.
“That seems a little medieval to me.”
“It’s very Regency. Typical Regency.”
“She’s just a schoolgirl.”
“Girls don’t go to school, you know that.”
Chloe did know. Girls weren’t educated. They couldn’t go to Oxford or Cambridge. And ladies couldn’t choose to work. They had to marry. Chloe looked down at her white reticule. A mock hanging on her mock wedding day. How appropriate. The shadow of the girl as she twisted toward Chloe stayed with her long after they’d passed it. And even though the execution wasn’t real, it rattled Chloe to the core.
Regency life was grim for women, very grim, and this, too, had been one of Austen’s messages, just not the one Chloe had wanted to acknowledge.
The carriage came to a jarring halt in front of an old limestone church that looked to have come straight out of a fairy tale. Bay-leaf garlands draped the stone gateway to the churchyard. A round rose window adorned the front of the church. A fuzzy figure stood in the doorway, holding open the door for guests. If she would’ve just worn the glasses Henry made for her, she could’ve seen it all clearly.
“Anyhoo, it’s a beautiful morning for a wedding,” Mrs. Crescent said for the video cam as she looked out of the carriage window at the blue sky frosted with white clouds.
Chloe slumped back in her seat. “Morning. Who gets married in the morning, anyway?”
Mrs. Crescent frowned. “We do, dear, here in the Regent’s England. Have I taught you nothing?”
A footman opened the carriage door to hand her out.
“I won’t marry him.” She turned to Mrs. Crescent, who, short of breath, stepped out of the carriage with the footman’s help. She had left the baby with the nursemaid and her husband and children, all at Bridesbridge Place, so she could be Chloe’s matron of honor. Chloe had one and only one bridesmaid: the breast-feeding Mrs. Crescent. The bride herself? A divorced single mom with a child nobody knew about and a tryst everybody knew all about. It was warped.
Together, bride and matron of honor walked under the bay-leaf garland and into the churchyard. Tombstones, old crumbling tombstones, littered the green grass around the little church. Chloe couldn’t do this, no matter how fake the ceremony.
“Who dreams of getting married in a white bonnet trimmed with white lace, anyway? I want a tiara, a veil—an engagement ring, for God’s sake.” She stuck out her left hand. No ring. Regency couples rarely marked their engagement with a ring, and certainly, this debacle allowed no time for a ring.
A camera swung toward her as her white shoes navigated the cobblestone path to the church door. An older man in knee breeches and a black coat with tails cut a familiar figure at the door. He took off his black top hat, bowed to Chloe, and opened the church door.
Chloe practically tripped over a loose cobblestone. She gripped her nosegay of pink rosebuds tightly. It was her dad.
She stopped. “Dad?!”
“I believe that would be ‘Father,’” he corrected with a smile. “You look beautiful, Princess.” He held out his arms. He came forward, the church door closed behind him, and they hugged as if she were five years old all over again.
“Oh my gosh! How’s Abigail? Does she miss me? Is she here?!”
Chloe pulled away. He smelled of too much Ralph Lauren aftershave.
“Of course she misses you. But no, she’s not here. She’s at Ned’s. She’s happy to be with her cousins. She’s fine. We came for you. Our little princess.”
Chloe sighed. Happy as she was to see him, she wanted to see Abigail more than anyone back home.
He held her hands. “Someone has to give you away. Right?”
Her mother appeared at the door in an appropriate mother-of-the-bride beige silk gown, a color Chloe knew her mom would never willingly wear, topped off with a poke bonnet. The churchyard, tombstones and all, spun around her. She was getting married. All over again. Her parents were mother and father of the bride. All over again. A dummy girl was swinging from a noose. She shuddered.
Her mother gave her a Chanel-lipstick kiss. How they still managed to afford their little luxuries on their reduced income was beyond Chloe. How did they afford to fly over here? “Darling. You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. And wow. You’ve lost weight! But really, we’re so proud of you, sweetheart.”
“You are?” Chloe linked arms with her dad for support. Did they realize why she was getting married?
Her mother crinkled her nose. “I’m afraid you do need a shower.”
Funny, but Henry had installed a primitive shower at Bridesbridge just yesterday and she’d used it today. But it was hardly a shower, more like a cold sprinkle of water from a bucket for a total of one minute.
Chloe’s mom waved her hand in front of her face. “Have you been drinking, Chloe?”
Chloe breathed through her nose.
Her mother leaned in and whispered, “Your betrothed paid for our plane tickets. He’s quite the gentleman. He deserves better than to have his bride inebriated at the wedding ceremony.”
Mrs. Crescent made her way up to the church. She cleared her throat. “Ahem. I’m Mrs. Crescent.” She held out her hand and Chloe’s father kissed it.
Mrs. Crescent blushed, because, of course, this behavior would’ve been de rigueur back in the eighteenth century, but in the nineteenth, kissing a woman’s hand meant much more. But how was he to know?
Chloe’s mother noodled between her husband and Mrs. Crescent, even though there was plenty of room on the landing. “So pleased to meet you. I’m Mrs. Parker.” She extended her hand. “My grandmother was a titled English lady, you know.”
Heat rose from Chloe’s chin to her forehead.
Mrs. Crescent seemed unimpressed.
“Perhaps your family knew her. Lady Blackwell?” Mrs. Parker waited a moment. “Lady Anne Blackwell?”
Mrs. Crescent checked her chatelaine for the time. “No. I’m afraid I don’t know the family.”
Chloe’s mom tossed her head, but when you have a poke bonnet over your hairdo, such gestures lose their effect. “Well. Our little Chloe is quite the celebrity back in Chicago.”
“I am?” Chloe opened her silver vinaigrette and took a whiff. She was feeling faint.
Chloe’s mom directed the entire conversation to Mrs. Crescent. “Everybody’s been following the blog, the twittering—”
Chloe stomped her calfskin pump on the church step, but it didn’t make a sound. It just hurt. “Blog! Twitter! I knew it! Who’s been blogging?”
“Why, your betrothed, dear—”
“He’s not my betrothed!” She popped out her hip and crossed her arms, while her mom, suddenly aware of the camera, oozed like a jelly donut.
Her mom smoothed down her gown, smiled, and spoke right to the lens. “We’re so excited she’s marrying a landed English gentleman. Imagine.” She clapped her gloved hands together. “An English gentleman choosing an American—”
“Imagine,” Chloe interrupted, swinging the camera toward her. “I haven’t had a toilet for three weeks and he’s been tweeting—” She whipped the nosegay against the church door, but at that moment the door opened, and the curate ended up with a bunch of flowers in his face.
“Oh! Excuse me, sir, uh, Father—I apologize.”
When her dad bent to pick up the nosegay, her mom rushed to the curate, apologizing in a hushed voice.
Her dad put his arm around her and nodded his head toward the video cam as he whispered, “The cameras, Chloe. They’re filming. Think about your reputation. Abigail. Our family. The family’s reputation. Previews of the show are all over the Internet in order to promote it. In a month it’ll be on international TV. We came here thinking this is what you wanted.”
“I thought it was what I wanted,” Chloe said. She turned her back to the church and the camera. “England. Manners. A gentleman. Eighteen-twelve. The most romantic time in history.” Not to mention the money. But the past few days, while she struggled to prepare for this sham of a wedding, had given her time to think about the money and she realized that she had the power within herself to turn her business around. She’d taken copious notes with her quill, planning just how to go about it. She looked down at her white pumps on the gray stone.
The church bell tolled out the time. One, two, three—Her dad talked louder now, and the bells drowned out his voice. The boom boy jockeyed around them with the mike.
“Let’s just have some fun with this, okay? Your mother and I came all this way.”
Chloe sucked on her strawberry-stained lower lip.
“It’s just a game. For TV. This isn’t real. Pretend you’re an actress. A movie star. Think of all the buzz this show will generate about you. You can do anything you want after this. I was against this when you found out it was a reality show, but it’s very tasteful.”
Chloe smiled. “It’s just like I wrote to you. Not a hot tub in sight.”
Seven, eight, nine gongs. She looked up into a lime tree. She knew about lime trees now, because of Henry. A bird bounced among the branches. The bell rang ten, and the last gong echoed. The ceremony was supposed to begin at ten. She opened her white silk reticule and pulled out the glasses Henry made, hooking the silver over her ears.
Her mom scurried over and took Chloe’s gloved hand in hers. “If you’re disappointed about the wedding party itself, angel, well, so was I. Really. I mean who wants to settle for a wedding breakfast for eleven people instead of a steak dinner for four hundred with a live orchestra? When I found out there won’t even be a wedding cake, I . . .”
Her mother kept talking, but Chloe focused on the bird. It was a green finch.
Her mother patted her back. “. . . but I guess that’s how they did it in 1812. Sad, really. When you two really do marry, you’ll have a real wedding. I’ll see to that. Let’s go, dear. It’s time. Do take off those glasses. Since when do you need glasses? They look so—horsey.”
Chloe kept the glasses on. Her dad stuck the nosegay in her right hand and linked his arm in her left. Just as they stepped over the threshold of the church door, she heard a finch call out.
The church felt twenty degrees cooler and smelled—like churches smell everywhere, all over the world. Vaulted ceilings and carved stone moldings added to the chill. Candles flickered in the drafts. With his perfect profile, Sebastian stood at the altar, waiting.
For a fake wedding, it sure felt real. She leaned on her dad. Henry wore a bottle-green cutaway coat and practically paced in his pew.
She wanted to wrap her arms around him, or at least catch his eye. But he was the only one not looking at her, the bride, as she made her way to the altar. Even Grace glared and drummed her gloved fingers on the scrolled pew railing in front of her. Immediately after the wedding, Grace would be sent home. She had lost the competition. But of course, filming her watch the wedding made fabulous drama, so she had to stay.
For a minute it did seem like a movie and not like the real thing. Chloe felt like she was looking down on herself getting married—again. The first time around, sixteen years ago, it seemed exactly the same. Movielike. Unreal. An out-of-body experience in a white dress. Back then, of course, the white dress was appropriate. As a thirty-nine-year-old divorcée with an eight-year-old stateside, not to mention her ice-house moment, it seemed downright scandalous.
Sebastian, the cad, in a tight black cutaway coat, white breeches, and black shoes, looked the part he was playing. Chloe could tell he didn’t like the glasses. He kept squinting and clearing his throat as the curate spoke.
She looked around the rim of her bonnet for Henry.
The curate had already started the ceremony. “. . . and therefore is not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding . . .”
How could you take this lightly? She looked up at the rose window.
“. . . but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God; duly considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained.”
She was sober all right. A lot more sober than she was hitting the laudanum at the crack of dawn this morning. Two video cams turned in on her.
“. . . if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it . . .”
Chloe looked up at the curate, and opened her mouth, afraid that nothing would come out, but it did.
She let her rosebud nosegay drop to the stone floor. “I can’t marry him.”
“Pardon me?” The curate’s book slid down from his chest to his side. A great rustling and shuffling and whispering came from behind her.
“Well, that’s a relief!” Grace stood up. “It saves me from having to announce an impediment—or two.”
Chloe’s mother stood, too, and leaned on the pew in front of her, apparently for strength. And Henry—where was Henry?
Chloe looked straight into Sebastian’s eyes. “I can’t marry the wrong Mr. Wrightman. Even if it is just for TV.” Her eyes darted around the church. Henry was gone.
Whispering rose up to the church’s vaulted ceiling.
Sebastian grabbed her by the arm. “What are you doing?” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You can’t do this to me in front of everybody.”
Mrs. Crescent stepped up to the wedding group. “She can’t mean it, Mr. Wrightman. She’s just nervous. Let me talk with her.”
The curate furrowed his brows.
The cameras stayed on Chloe.
“Let go of me,” she said to Sebastian, and yanked her arm away from him. A ray of sunlight shone through the rose window. “You’re no gentleman. And you never will be. You’re not the brooding, silent type. In fact, I don’t know what you are, and you don’t know what—or who—you want. I don’t care how much money you have—you can take it and stick it into your breeches for all I care!”
Sebastian stepped backward, his perfect jawline askew.
Cook—Lady Anne—made her way up to the altar. “Miss Parker—let me explain.”
“No, let me explain.” Chloe stood next to the marble altar draped in a maroon sash. Her voice echoed throughout the pulpit. “The real gentleman here is Henry, who stands to win nothing and gain nothing. The rest of us are just modern-day screwups in gowns and cutaway coats. Pretending. Grace is pretending so she can win back her family’s land that her great-great-great grandfather lost gambling. I’m pretending I’m not divorced, with an eight-year-old daughter at home waiting for me.”
The small crowd gasped. Henry was still nowhere to be seen.
“I thought this was real. It isn’t. Everyone’s pretending—except of course, for Lady Anne, who, as far as I can tell, is the real deal. But the rest of us? We can’t even act like Regency people. We know too much, we’ve done too much, and said too much to even pretend to live in the nineteenth century. Here, Grace.” Chloe tossed her nosegay to Grace, who caught it. “You marry him. For TV or real life or land or money or all of the above. I don’t care.”
Chloe untied her wedding bonnet. Her dad tried to pull the cameramen away. She dumped her bonnet upside down on the altar, where the cameras filmed a vibrator, a pink MP3 player, whitening strips, a pack of cigarettes, and condoms wrapped in black foil tumble onto the maroon altar cloth.
“Dear God!” Mrs. Crescent gasped. “Don’t throw it away now, Chloe. We’ve won. Don’t.”
“We can’t live like it’s 1812. Not even for a few weeks. Come and get your stash, Grace. I’m going home. Back to my daughter, where I belong.”
The curate stepped up to her and put his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off.
Grace stepped up to the altar. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. These aren’t mine.”
“Don’t be stupid, Grace. This is the twenty-first century. I had my gloves on every time I handled them. A simple dusting for thumbprints will prove they’re yours, and if that doesn’t work—there are always DNA tests.”
Chloe’s mother barreled up to the pulpit. The cameras loomed in on Chloe from the front. She felt hunted. Her dad clenched his teeth. Her mom’s manicured nails clawed at her even through her gloves. She had to get out of here.
She hoisted up her gown, dodged them all, and ran all the way down the aisle, out the church door, down the steps, past the tombstones, and right smack into the white wedding carriage, an open barouche covered in pink peonies and pink ribbons. Not just one, but four horses turned their heads. She untied them from the hitching post, clambered up to the driver’s perch, and with a shaking hand, flicked the reins. The horses lunged forward. When she looked back she saw everyone had spilled out of the church, past the stone fence, but nobody else had a horse. They had all walked to the wedding in their finery! She brought the horses to a trot. The great carriage rattled along, peonies flew off, ribbons flapped, her updo collapsed.
When she finally reached the iron gates that marked the end of the deer park and the beginning of the real world, she stopped the carriage. The gravel road ended. A paved road intersected it. She hadn’t seen blacktop in weeks. It looked so unnatural, yet so promising. The open road. It was the American in her, all right, thrilled to hit the open road.
A red Jaguar whizzed by on the wrong side of the street, because of course, this was England, and it startled the horses. She couldn’t exactly ride a barouche into town, now, could she? She stepped out of the carriage, guided the horses to a wrought-iron hitching post on the edge of the deer park, and tied them to it.
She stood on the edge of the blacktop, looked east and west, followed the road with her eyes. Thanks to the glasses, she could actually see the road twist into the distance. Which way to civilization? She went west. She bunched up her gown to jog, and tried to run, but her shoes didn’t cooperate. They had even less support than her stays. Who knew she would actually miss her harness of a sports bra and running shoes? She slowed to a walk, letting her gown fall back to her ankles.
She passed English farmland pungent with manure and grasses. A hawk circled overhead and she thought of Henry. Her thoughts always circled back to Henry. Sunshine poured down on her and she felt naked without a bonnet and, for once, she could actually use a parasol and fan. Sweat dampened her silk stockings and her lower back, so she stripped off her pelisse and gloves. Those lemons she rubbed under her underarms this morning were not exactly meant to hold up under a power walk in nineteenth-century wedding attire.
And she would feel better about all this tramping about the English countryside without knowing where she was really going if she had a cell phone. Or a portable GPS. Or at least a damn plastic water bottle. How irresponsible it was for a mother to fling herself into the countryside on the other side of the earth without even knowing where she was going? What if something happened to her and Abigail ended up getting raised by her ex? In Boston? With the fortunate Marcia Smith?
By the time she reached the top of the third hill, she didn’t have to shield her eyes from the sun, because a battalion of rain clouds had floated in. The breeze, cooler now, dampened her skin, and she could tell that it was going to rain. How could it rain on her almostwedding day? She pulled her pelisse back on even as she licked her dry lips. The sight of a church spire and slate-roofed red-brick houses in the distance helped spur her on.
Someone in a passing car tossed a white cardboard coffee cup out the window and over a hedgerow. The blacktop turned to cobblestone as she crossed what must’ve been a stone bridge from the Roman era. Normally, Chloe would’ve loved this quaint village with its cobblestoned main street and whitewashed, half-timbered cottage storefronts where cars seem oddly out of place. As she read the sign at the end of the bridge, HUNTSFORDSHIRE, she walked right into a woman pushing a jogging stroller in her workout gear and talking on her cell.
“So sorry,” the young mom said. The baby looked up at Chloe with big blue eyes.
She had to get back to Abigail. What was she doing?
“Are you quite all right?” The young mom took the cell from her ear.
Chloe nodded yes, even though she really wasn’t.
“Sorry again.” The mom pushed the stroller on.
Chloe, out of habit, curtsied. She curtsied!
The mom’s eyes narrowed and she looked Chloe up and down, navigating her precious baby around in a wide circumference as if Chloe were some kind of lunatic.
Her head throbbed with the onslaught of car engines, a train, honking horns, voices, and car radios. Raindrops fell, and umbrellas of all different sizes and colors popped up all around her.
None of the men bowed to her. The women didn’t curtsy. Nobody even looked at her, or if they did, they quickly looked away out of politeness. She was the raving lunatic homeless woman on the street.
Pelting rain dripped down her face and neck and probably by now had smudged her eyebrow liner made from candle ashes. Even in the rain, though, the aroma of scones spilled out of a bakery. She stood in front of a tearoom and coffeehouse under a dripping awning, looking at a reflection in the window of her sodden self. The antibride with a child hidden in her attic.
She pressed her hand to the window. She needed a plane ticket home, but first—coffee. It didn’t even have to be a double espresso latte, but she didn’t have any money. For the first time in a long time, she ached for a credit card, and couldn’t believe she cut up all her credit cards in a fit of rage all those years ago.
A young man sat inside the tearoom, holding a bouquet of flowers wrapped in white paper. For the first time in forever, a man with flowers didn’t make her moon over Winthrop. She smiled. They were better off, the two of them, without each other. She had left him for good reason, and now she finally felt the strength to fight him in the upcoming custody trial. She could do it—and win.
The young man in the tearoom gave Chloe a hostile glance; no doubt she looked crazy. She stepped back and the rain from the awning dripped heavily on her. He was waiting for someone, because he had a life, a real life, with real people in it. All these people had a life. She had nothing. Except for Abigail, who counted on her for everything. And as far as that went, she had blown it. She’d be coming home without the prize money. What she would be coming home with, though, was a resolve to leave the past behind—all of it—even the nineteenth century, and that was worth a lot more than a hundred grand.
She darted under a covered bus stop where an old woman sat in her green trench coat with a cloth market basket full of lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers. Lettuce! Green lettuce helped digestion. She craved lettuce. She’d trade the gown off her back for a chopped salad.
She sat on the bench next to the woman, wiped her glasses with her wet gloves, put them back on, and looked up the street, where, high atop a hill in the distance, Dartworth Hall stood. It would’ve made a great postcard. Hell, it probably was one and probably was sold in the shops along this street.
“I can’t believe—” she said out loud, like a homeless woman.
The old woman looked at her, then quickly looked at her watch.
“I threw it all away.”
The woman pushed back her plastic rain scarf. “Threw what away?” She eyed Chloe up and down; she was curious.
“Dartworth Hall. The prize money. Everything.”
The woman gave Chloe a tissue from her trench pocket, which only reminded Chloe of Henry and his handkerchiefs. Chloe wiped her dripping nose.
“Are you part of that film going on up there?”
Chloe nodded. “They wanted me to marry him. But I couldn’t. Even though it was just for TV. I couldn’t.”
The old woman had kind green eyes. “Marry who?”
“Why, Sebastian, of course. Sebastian Wrightman.”
The old woman looked confused. She stood up. “Who? Ah. Here’s my bus. But Dartworth Hall doesn’t belong to anyone named Sebastian.” The bus lumbered up. “Henry Wrightman is the master of Dartworth Hall.”
“What?” Chloe clenched her pelisse around her chest; her lips quivered.
The bus doors opened and the woman stepped up the first step in her black flats. “I would say it’s a good thing you didn’t marry that Sebastian—”
“Door’s closing!” the annoyed driver yelled, and the doors snapped closed.
Chloe stepped out from under the Plexiglas bus stop, into the rain, to watch the woman take her seat and wave.
She collapsed back down on the bench under the covered bus stop and buried her head in her hands. Maybe that old woman didn’t know what she was talking about. Maybe she had Alzheimer’s or dementia or some sort of addled-brain disease that Chloe was convinced she would get someday, too, if she didn’t have it already. She better start doing crossword puzzles or something—and soon. Wait a minute. Crossword. Acrostic—she opened her wedding reticule and pulled out the well-worn folded-up poem from Sebastian. The acrostic jumped out at her now:
As the sun shines high in the sky
Love blooms in my heart, I cannot lie.
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!
The first letter of every line was to be read down, and it spelled out ALL IS NOT AS IT SEEMS. She squeezed her eyes shut and heard something familiar in the din of gushing rain and cars. The sound of hooves clomping on the cobblestone.
It was Henry on a white horse. On Sebastian’s white horse. Rain dripped from his wide-brimmed hat and nineteenth-century greatcoat as he rode right smack down the middle of the road and ignored the chaos he was causing. Two hunting hounds nuzzled up to Chloe and slipped their soaked heads under her hands. Never in her life had she been so happy to see a dog, not to mention two sopping wet hounds. She rubbed their bony heads. But Henry? If he was really the master of Dartworth Hall, he had lied to her. And who the hell was Sebastian, then?
Henry slowed his horse right in front of the bus stop, tipped his hat, and held out his hand to her. “Miss Parker, your conveyance has arrived.”
She folded her arms and the dogs wagged their tails against her wet gown. The lady was not amused.
His lips curled into a smile as he eyed her up and down. “I must say that your dramatic exit from the church was better than any production crew could dream of. Even now they’re salivating over the prospect of skyrocketing ratings. Well done.”
Traffic wove around the horse. Chloe looked up the street, and half expected to see the camera crew. A small crowd under umbrellas gathered around them.
“And where are the cameras now? I’m sure they’d love to get me on film looking like this.”
“No cameras. I lost them in the deer park. And as for your looks, well, I’ve never been happier to see you.”
“I wish I could say the same.” If what that woman said was true, then he’d been lying to her for weeks! Chloe took off her glasses and tucked them into her soaked white reticule. She looked away from Henry and toward Dartworth Hall, where a patch of blue sky had broken through the clouds.
Henry dismounted, tied his horse to the bus-stop sign, and sat down next to her on the bench. She slid over and looked the other way.
“Can I buy you a cup of coffee? How about a double espresso nonfat latte?”
How did he know what kind of convoluted coffee she drank? The rain made a soft splashing sound on the cobblestones, the breeze picked up, and she shivered. Across the street, people darted into the red-brick pub with leaded windows. A sign swung on a wrought-iron post that read THE GOLDEN ARMS in forest-green letters. She’d been in England for almost three weeks and hadn’t even been to an English pub.
Henry slid closer. “Or maybe a pint sounds better?”
There he was, reading her mind again.
“If you bought me a pint, I’d probably dump it all over you.”
He looked confused. “Lady Anne informed me that you pontificated to no end about my merits.”
A young pierced-nose couple in wet leather jackets came into the shelter, his arm around her shoulder, hers around his waist. They were taking pictures of Dartworth Hall with their cell-phone cameras. Chloe realized they were trying not to stare.
She stood up and the dogs did, too. “Forget the coffee or Guinness or whatever you people drink. I want the truth. Can you give me that? That would be good right about now. Let’s start with this simple fact: Are you the owner of Dartworth Hall or not?”
He stood and took his greatcoat and hat off, a lock of hair falling into his eye. “Oh. Someone told you.”
“Yes.”
The pierced couple and several others were outright gaping. But Chloe and Henry were used to being watched by cameramen, by George, the hidden production and editing crew.
Chloe paced in front of the bus-stop shelter in the rain, her hands clasped behind her. “It pays to get out into the real world and talk to real people and find out what the real deal is—”
He draped his greatcoat around her. “I understand you must be upset but—”
“Upset? I wish I were merely upset. I’m freakin’ furious!” Though the greatcoat did feel warm and dry around her. “I thought you were a gentleman. No—first I thought Sebastian was a gentleman, possibly even someone I could love. Took me a while, but I figured that one out. Then I thought you were a gentleman. Ha!” Suddenly the rain stopped. “You’re both fakes.”
“I see your point.” He linked his arm in hers. “I’m going to buy you a coffee.” He guided her toward the tearoom.
“I don’t want you to buy me any coffee. You can’t buy me with your money.”
He opened the tearoom door for her. “As you wish, my lady. Please just step in to warm up. They have a fabulous hearth.”
When the door opened, the smell of coffee and tea and cream hit her with a jolt. The fireplace, flint stone all the way to the ceiling, lured her in with its warmth. Various dogs rested inside, at their owners’ feet. The English loved their dogs. Of course, the dogs could hardly wait outside, in the pouring rain. The hounds followed Chloe in.
A sideways glance in a silver platter hanging from the wall along with other tea accessories proved to Chloe that she really did look like the Bride of Frankenstein. She fumbled with her hair while Henry removed the greatcoat from her shoulders and hung it near the door.
The hostess signaled a busboy. “Clear that table by the hearth for Mr. Wrightman.” The busboy scurried off, and in no time they were at the best table in the house, in front of a sizzling fire.
“What can I get you?” a waitress asked Chloe, clearly trying not to stare at her ruined gown.
“A double espresso nonfat latte. To go.”
“To go?”
Chloe imagined that book on her head. She straightened her spine and spoke in her best English-ese. “In a takeaway cup, please.”
The waitress raised an eyebrow.
Henry ordered a pot of Earl Grey and a plateful of scones and clotted cream. He smoothed his napkin in his lap. “Just where are you planning to go with your coffee?”
“Home.”
“I see. Are you planning to walk to Heathrow in the rain? And then board a plane without a ticket, passport, or credit card?”
She folded her arms and scowled into the fire.
“Allow me to rescue you. I’ve even brought the white horse.”
“That’s Sebastian’s white horse.”
“It’s my white horse.”
“Whatever. I don’t need to be rescued anymore. I just need one thing from you before I go.”
“Ah yes. I should’ve given it to you sooner. If you will excuse me a minute.”
He stood, bowed, headed over to his greatcoat, pulled out a maroon velvet drawstring bag, opened it, and revealed Chloe’s tiara. He set it on the white tablecloth.
Chloe cupped her hands around the tiara. He really knew how to throw her off guard; she had actually forgotten all about her tiara. “Thank you. Really.” She ran her fingertips along the diamonds and rubies. “Did you really fix it yourself?”
“Yes. With nineteenth-century silversmithing tools, no less. It was a bit of a challenge to get it right.”
She couldn’t even see the seam where he’d welded it together. “Thank you. You are—talented.” She tucked the tiara back into the velvet bag and steeled herself. “But this isn’t what I need from you.”
The waitress brought a fragrant pot of tea, a plate of sliced lemons, sugars, and a pitcher of cream. The stack of scones came next and a dish of clotted cream so thick it took everything in Chloe’s power not to scoop it up like ice cream. She was famished. The waitress set Chloe’s white paper cup of coffee with the familiar plastic lid right where her plate should be.
Henry swept the blond hair out of the corner of his eye. “Please bring the lady a plate for the scones. Perhaps a paper one, if you have it. Pity, but she’s not staying.”
Chloe held back a smile. After all that weak tea and coffee that tasted as if it really were hundreds of years old, this coffee tasted amazing. Still, jokes and good coffee aside, she didn’t want to get sidetracked. “The truth. Spill it.”
Steam from his tea rose out of his cup. “It’s true that I’m the heir of Dartworth Hall. I’m a doctor, but I don’t need to work for the money. I do it because I enjoy helping people. I’m forty years old. My friend George came up with this crazy idea for a TV show because women kept coming after me for my money. But you—you forfeited the money. A hundred thousand dollars. For me, it was a game until you came along. I’ve wanted to tell you for so long that the bio you read about Sebastian back in Chicago? That profile was—me.”
“All of it was you? All this time, you were behind every little—”
“Detail. Not only do I love art, I own a few galleries. You already know I’m a Jane Austen fan and a bird-watcher. I’m also an avid traveler and architecture buff.”
“Everything was a lie,” Chloe said, shaking her head.
“It wasn’t a lie—it was all me. There were clues everywhere. All laid out for you.”
“What clues? I didn’t see any clues.”
“No, you didn’t. The poem, for example. That was a clue.”
“If that’s your idea of a clue, then you’re clueless. I’m not Sherlock Holmes here. I’m just a girl. A girl who’s been played by Sebastian. Ultimately, though, I hold you responsible.”
Henry looked down.
Chloe clenched her fists. She wanted to swear at him up and down, but the Regency Miss Parker kept the modern Chloe’s mouth in check. “This was all an experiment of some kind. I was right about you when I first met you. Who do you think you are that you can just put people in a petri dish and watch them squirm under a microscope?”
“It was an experiment, of sorts, and I realize now it was wrong of me.”
“I’ll say! Hearts were broken! Dreams were dashed!”
“You’ve taught me. I was wrong.”
Chloe shook her head. “Another thing I don’t get: Why keep Grace? Why send Julia and Imogene home?”
Henry looked into her eyes. “George had me keep her on. For production value.”
“Is that why you kept me on?!”
“No—no, not at all.”
She didn’t believe him.
“I just wanted to find a loyal and true love, a kind of modern-day Anne Elliot, if you will. But it was a crazy idea.”
The waitress brought a Wedgwood china plate rimmed in gold.
Chloe slathered clotted cream on her scone and not even the cream at the Drake could compare. She dabbed her mouth with her napkin and calmed herself. “So. If Dartworth is yours and Sebastian’s profile is yours, then who is Sebastian?”
“A distant cousin. Who wants to break into the film industry.”
Chloe looked up from plastering another scone with two inches of clotted cream, and looked at Henry.
“He’s—an actor?”
“Well, he wants to be, but—”
“That explains his lines. He always knew exactly what to say. He’s a damn actor. No wonder he never told me what kind of an artist he was. He’s a scam artist!”
“Those lines were true—they were coming from me—Miss Parker—”
Chloe took the scone dripping with clotted cream and pushed it into his face, turning it a few times just for effect.
The tearoom went silent while Henry wiped cream from his face with his napkin.
“I deserve that, I know. But do you know that I love you? It’s not a game anymore. There’s more. I want to tell you everything. Your ‘Cook,’ Lady Anne, is my mother—”
Clotted cream covered his eyebrows and Chloe got a flash of him, decades from now, as an old man with white eyebrows.
“So she lied to me as well? Guess what? I lied, too. A lot. I’m divorced. I have a little girl at home. How’s that for a deal breaker?”
She put a hand on her hip.
He wiped the clotted cream from his eyebrows. “I know about your daughter. And your divorce. They’re not deal breakers.”
She took a long, slow sip of her coffee. “I need to go. I’ll be taking your horse.”
Henry bowed. “Of course. Because that’s what you do best. You run away.”
If her coffee didn’t taste so damn good, she’d pour the rest of it on him. Her hand quivered with the thought.
“I’m not running away. For once I’m running to something. My real life. In the real world. Where people are—real!” She stamped her calfskin pump to no effect.
Coffee in one hand, tiara in the other, she burst into the . . . sunshine? How dare the sun shine now?
Henry stood in the doorway, his greatcoat draped over his shoulders. “Despite everything—I think what we have is real. It’s a real beginning—”
In half a second she untied the horse, tied the velvet bag to the saddle horn, and mounted western style, her gown hiked up to her thighs, coffee cup still in hand. The wet saddle chafed against her legs.
“You’re no more real to me than a character in a Jane Austen novel—no—a character from a bad film adaptation. You played me. I played you. We never had anything real.”
She tossed her empty coffee cup into a trash can on the sidewalk and tossed her head. “And we never will.” If only all this could’ve been caught on camera.
Henry moved closer to her. “I’m not a character from a book. I’m a real person. Who makes real mistakes. And so are you. But look what came out of it—we’ve found each other—”
“I don’t think I found anybody—except, as the old cliché goes—myself.”
She pulled on the reins to turn the horse around. After starting up the street, she took one last peek at Henry, who was running after her in his riding boots. She brought the horse to a canter. She didn’t need Sebastian or Henry or Winthrop or any man. She was going home—home to the twenty-first century, where she would ramp up her letterpress business with Web capability. Ideas on how to bring the business into the modern world tumbled around in her.
She soon realized she was cantering up the wrong side of the road. Once on the left side of the street, she brought the horse into a brisk gallop. Cars and trucks swerved around her, some drivers honked, others stared, and still others swore, but she had her plan. She couldn’t wait to put it all into action.
Without looking back, she galloped out of the only English village she’d ever been in, without even a souvenir T-shirt for Abigail that said ENGLAND on it, without having had a pint in the local pub, and without a clue as to what she would do once she got back to Bridesbridge.