A Weekend with Mr. Darcy (4 page)

Katherine had just delivered her two beloved cats to a friend in the village and now had the unenviable task of saying good-bye.

‘My darling boys,' she said, bending down to fondle them both.

Her friend shook her head. ‘Freddie and Fitz,' she said. ‘They're unusual names for cats.'

‘They're my two favourite heroes,' Katherine said. ‘Darcy and Wentworth.'

‘Oh, I should've guessed. If they were named after my favourite heroes, they'd be Johnny and Brad.'

Katherine smiled. ‘Make sure you feed them that new food I've left. They don't like that old food anymore.'

‘You spoil them rotten,' her friend said.

‘Of course,' Katherine said. ‘That's exactly what they're for.'

‘And no doubt I'll spoil them rotten too so don't you go worrying about them,' her friend told her.

It was always hard to leave her boys behind but Katherine had to do just that if she was to get down to Hampshire on time; so, saying her good-byes, she took one last look at her beloved cats and left.

Katherine was getting the train down to Hampshire and being picked up from the station by someone from Purley Hall. She'd already packed and was looking forward to relaxing on the train. She had always loved travelling by train. It was rather like being suspended in time—you were neither in one place nor another and it was the perfect time to dip your nose in a good book. Which books was she going to choose this particular journey?
Northanger Abbey
and
Persuasion
were the obvious handbag choices because of their slimness, but
Emma
was her favourite and it was always fun to dip in and out of it, rereading much-loved scenes. A naughty twinkle was in Katherine's eyes as she organised her train reading. She knew she should be getting herself in the right frame of mind for her lecture at the conference by swotting up on some last-minute Austen, but the temptation to take a Lorna Warwick novel instead was just too much, so packing the Jane Austen six into her suitcase, she placed a much-beloved Lorna Warwick in her handbag,
The Notorious Lady Fenton
.

It was always hard to choose her favourite book, but there was something rather special about
The Notorious Lady Fenton
. It was kind of like a reversed
Pride and Prejudice,
where Lady Fenton clashes with a spirited but poor gentleman before realising that she's madly in love with him, defying family and friends to marry him. Isabella Fenton had to be one of Lorna Warwick's best creations. She was selfish yet sparkling, proud yet passionate, and she got the happy ending that all great heroines deserve.

Once Katherine had found her seat on the train, she took the beloved book out of her bag and turned to chapter one, hoping that she wouldn't be spotted by any of her colleagues or students as she indulged herself in the most decadent of fiction.

***

Living in West Sussex and having neither chickens nor cats to worry about, Warwick didn't have to leave his home until the afternoon, driving his black Jaguar through the country lanes at a sedate speed. The car had been his little treat to himself once the US sales for his novels had really begun to take off.

He wondered what time Katherine would arrive and how quickly he would recognize her. How could he introduce himself? Would she even like him as a man? And was he going to use his real name, Warwick Lawton? Was the Warwick not a bit of a giveaway? And what profession should he now have?

All sorts of questions flew around in his mind. He hadn't felt this nervous since dating at university. He felt out of practice at this sort of thing and wasn't sure if he could pull it off. His string of broken relationships over the past few years was surely the evidence that he was meant to be alone. Maybe that was one of the reasons he was a writer: he was far more successful in his own company. But there was something about Katherine that made him want to forget his past failures and try again. She could be worth risking embarrassment, humiliation and rejection for.

If only he had the confidence that he gave to his heroes in his novels, he thought, then he would stride into a room, quickly survey all before him, and draw all eyes towards him, before singling out the woman of his choice, who would, of course, be palpitating with desire by then. He would make his approach, bow, silently admire her décolletage as she curtsied before him, say something immeasurably witty, and then take her hand and lead the first dance.

How easy it was back then, he thought. Men and women had clear-cut roles and were happy to play them. Today everything was muddled. Women didn't want to be bowed to or to be told that they were charming creatures and have their eyes admired.

Or did they?

For a moment Warwick wondered.

The women who were attending the Jane Austen Conference might be different. They might actually want a gentleman who admired the clothes they wore, asked about the books they read and pestered them to play the pianoforte. They'd want a Jane Austen or Lorna Warwick hero, wouldn't they? Wasn't that why they read the books? Wasn't that precisely why there were so many adaptations of Austen's novels—because the female population couldn't get enough?

Warwick grinned at this most amazing discovery. He knew exactly how he was going to play things with Katherine.

Robyn would never forget her first glimpse of Purley Hall. They'd rounded corner after corner of twisting country lane, the vast hedges full of rosy pink blackberry flowers when suddenly there it was, red-gold and glorious across the rolling blond fields. It sat in symmetrical perfection, its aspect cushioned by the countryside around it, with honey-coloured fields stretching out in front of it and deep green woods behind it.

‘Look!' she exclaimed, pointing out the window like an excited toddler.

Jace looked. ‘What?'

‘Purley!'

‘Where?'

‘Where?' Robyn echoed. ‘
There!'

‘That? I thought it would be bigger.'

‘It's perfect,' Robyn said, counting its three visible storeys and its seven sash windows across. ‘Twenty-one,' she said.

‘Twenty-one what?'

‘Twenty-one windows. Or rather twenty. I expect one's a door.'

Jace grimaced. Windows and doors didn't interest him. He took another bend in the road and entered the tiny village of Purley. There was a row of picture-perfect cottages with dark thatched roofs, a pub called The Dog and Boot, and a pale gold church with a modest steeple.

‘Oh, I love it!' Robyn said. ‘Isn't it lovely?'

‘'S all right if you like that sort of thing,' Jace mumbled.

Robyn bristled. Well, she
did
like that sort of thing and it was getting hard to enjoy it all with Jace as her companion. When, she wondered, was she going to get rid of him?

‘Where are we going, anyway?' he asked impatiently.

It was then that Robyn saw a discreet wooden sign pointing right. ‘Purley Hall,' it read, and there was a handwritten sheet of A4 paper tacked underneath. ‘Janeites this way!'

They turned into a driveway that could easily have stretched the length of Robyn's whole village back in Yorkshire. The driveway was lined with mature trees, and there were fields either side of it.

Robyn was almost on the edge of her seat as the driveway widened and the grand front of Purley Hall greeted them.

‘Oh!'

‘What's wrong?' Jace asked.

‘Nothing! Nothing at all,' Robyn said.

Jace tutted and brought the car to a screeching halt, its tyres firing up a shower of gravel. He parked almost—but not quite—parallel with a black Jaguar.

‘Someone's got some money,' he said.

‘Yes, apparently some people have,' Robyn said, wondering what it must be like.

Robyn got out of the car and looked up at the house. The front was in shade, and a great cedar tree to the left shaded the tennis courts and cast its shadow across an immaculate lawn, its branches sprawling out like dinosaur limbs. A set of croquet hoops had been left out on the lawn and beyond that, Robyn spied a bright blue swimming pool.

She looked up at the house once more, awestruck by the size of its windows, which were as large as the great door, and the triangular pediment at the top which soared into the blue sky above.

‘Right,' Jace said, interrupting her thoughts, ‘I'm off to the pub.'

Robyn did her best to hide her relief. ‘What are you going to do with yourself this weekend?'

He shrugged. ‘Come and see you.'

‘Oh, but you can't,' Robyn said. ‘There are activities all day, and you'd be bored stupid by them.'

‘All right, all right, I get the message. I'll call you, okay? You've got your mobile, haven't you?'

Robyn nodded.

Jace leant in to kiss her and gave her bottom and affectionate squeeze. Robyn blushed. It wasn't seemly to have one's bottom pinched at a Jane Austen Conference.

Jace hauled her suitcase out of the boot of the car and handed it to her. ‘I won't come in,' he said.

‘Best not,' Robyn said.

‘I'll give you a call.'

‘Okay,' Robyn said, watching as he got in the car, did a boy-racer manoeuvre on the immaculate driveway, and disappeared. As soon as he was out of view, she took her mobile out of her handbag and switched it off.

***

Warwick had arrived a little earlier than predicted but had been welcomed by one of the event organisers and shown to a very nice room upstairs that looked out over the gardens to the river and fields beyond. Nadia had worked wonders at getting him a room in the house at the last minute, and he marvelled at the beauty of it. It sported an enormous bed in a rich dark wood with a pretty yellow bedspread. Four fabulously plump pillows caught his eye and promised a sweet slumber that night.

He looked around the room, and a pretty mahogany dressing stand inset with a porcelain bowl in blue and white caught his eye. He knew that such a piece of furniture would have been common in a Regency gentleman's bedroom, and he took delight in the fact that he was to be its owner for the next few days although he was also glad that he had a modern en suite with power shower. Jugs and bowls just didn't cut it in the hygiene stakes anymore.

A crystal vase of yellow and white roses stood on the deep windowsill and scented the room with their delicate fragrance, and the walls were painted in a shade Warwick recognised as verdigris—a willowy green that was in keeping with the period of the house and gave the room a wonderfully fresh feel. It was a beautiful room.

Warwick wasn't at Purley Hall to stand admiring his bedroom, though. He had to register and see if Katherine had arrived yet, so quickly changing his shirt, he checked his reflection in the mirror—more out of fear that something might be out of place than for vanity—and headed down the grand staircase to where a table had been set for registration.

‘The dreaded name badges,' Warwick said to himself. He didn't have time to create yet another pseudonym for himself, he thought. He was to be Warwick Lawton this weekend. His fate was sealed.

About a dozen people milled around the registration table and more were arriving by the minute. Warwick stood at a respectable distance and watched the goings on. As a writer, he was used to observing, and his height gave him the advantage of being able to see everything. The young girl at the reception table was quizzing an elderly woman about her name badge.

‘Norris?' the girl said.

‘Yes,' the lady with cloudy white hair said. ‘Like in
Mansfield Park
.'

‘
Doris
Norris?'

‘Yes,' the lady said with a cheery smile. ‘I know what you're thinking. It's not very likely, is it? But I wasn't always a Norris, you see. I was Doris Webster. Perfectly normal. But then I met Henry Norris and had the misfortune to fall in love with him so here I am—Doris Norris.'

The young girl grinned, and Warwick could see that she was doing her very best not to laugh. He watched for a moment as Doris Norris pinned her name badge onto her pink cardigan, but then a young woman by the door caught his attention. She had long blond hair that corkscrewed down to her waist. Her face was pale with perfect features set into a slightly anxious expression as if she were asking herself, what do I do now? She was wearing a pretty white dress dotted with daisies, and her feet were encased in a pair of silver sandals. Warwick watched her as she looked around the hall, tiny white teeth biting her lower lip, and a part of him wanted to go help her—to take her bag and say, ‘Come this way,' but the writer in him stayed perfectly still and watched.

That was one of the things about being a writer—one always stood slightly apart, listening and watching. It was hard to tell sometimes, if one were really alive, for life seemed to be happening to everybody else, and yet the writer's lot seemed to be one of permanent stillness. Had Jane Austen felt like that? he wondered. With neither husband nor children of her own, had she felt that her role had been to watch others? And had that made her happy? Her books made other people happy, that fact was unquestionable, but had they made
her
happy?

Warwick shook his head. He might well be at a Jane Austen Conference, but he wasn't ready to get all philosophical just yet. He wanted to have some fun. He wanted to see Katherine. He could feel his pulse accelerate at the thought of seeing her for the first time. She wouldn't know who he was so he couldn't call out to her across the room. He would have the chance to watch her. Wasn't that role his favourite? He could get to know a little bit about her before he said hello.

He smiled. He certainly had the advantage in this relationship, he thought.

‘My wheels seem to be jammed,' a voice suddenly boomed across the hallway.

Warwick's eyes fixed on the sort of woman who can only be described as a battle-axe. She had an enormous bosom that was thrust out before her indignantly and a face that seemed to be carved out of angry granite. Warwick watched as she struggled with her suitcase and decided he'd better do the gentlemanly thing and offer some assistance. He was in training for a hero, after all, wasn't he?