Definitely Not Mr. Darcy (27 page)

No guy had ever asked her that kind of question before. A lightning bolt of fear cracked through her as Sebastian took his shot, and a ball ricocheted off the side of the table, but missed the pocket.

“Do tell, Charles,” Sebastian said. “I'd quite like to know myself.”

Henry took off his glasses, folded them, and placed them atop the mantel. “I assume you're around her enough to know the answer.” He smiled, and for the first time, Chloe noticed a dimple on the left side of his clean-shaven cheek. And his sideburns were cut so perfectly.

She spun to face Sebastian, who was chalking his cue stick. Now was her chance to lay it all out on the neoclassical mahogany billiard table. “Miss Parker, from what I can tell, seems fabulous. She's the living embodiment of all the best old-fashioned values.” Chloe folded her gloved hands behind her back. Candles were suspended from some kind of contraption above the billiard table, their wax dripping into the tray underneath; she noticed that the fixture didn't provide much light, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Sebastian walked over to his empty wineglass. “I'm not sure I believe all this balderdash.”

Henry spoke from behind her. “One of those values being—honesty? Another being—loyalty to her friends?”

Chloe again pushed Cook's glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Yes and yes. She seems very honest and good to everyone around her.”

“Of course, dear Charles,” Henry said, “you've only just arrived at Bridesbridge. What would you know?”

Chloe sucked in her cheeks.

Sebastian held his empty wineglass out to the footman, who filled it, and almost as quickly, Sebastian drank it.

Chloe put her hand to her heart.

“Sebastian, no more wine for you,” Henry said. He slid the glass out of Sebastian's hand. “Will that be all, Charles?”

Did Chloe just hear a shuffle in the hall? She'd better be quick. Sebastian was tipsy, and now was her chance, so she leaned in toward Henry and whispered, “Miss Parker wants to apologize to you for her harsh words during the tea party,” she blurted out. “She values your friendship very much and sincerely regrets what she said.”

Sebastian slumped into a chair.

Henry gave his brother a sidelong glance. “Sebastian's had a rough day,” he observed.

Chloe spoke faster. “May I tell Miss Parker that you accept her apology?”

Henry was silent.

“Consider the pressure she's been under. She's quite a nice person and deserves a second chance.”

Henry cracked a smile. “Coming from you, Charles, that's a very objective endorsement, and one to be taken quite seriously.”

Chloe unlocked her knees and couldn't help but laugh.

Sebastian sank deeper in his chair, barely awake.

Henry stepped right up to Chloe and leaned on his pool cue.

Chloe wanted this kind of attention from Sebastian, not from him.

Henry smirked. “Pray tell Miss Parker I will consider her apology. I appreciate the trouble she has gone to in order to express her sentiments. She put herself quite at risk by sending you here, Charles.”

Chloe realized she'd just prioritized Henry over the money, and it shocked her almost as much as it apparently shocked him.

Henry eyed her up and down. “I have to say, though, Charles, you are the most adroit little footman I've ever seen. I'll inquire if we can hire you here at Dartworth. It just so happens that I need a new valet. Would you be interested in the position?” He almost brushed his hand against her cheek.

A valet dressed—and undressed—his master. Chloe stopped herself from mentally undressing Henry right then and there.

“I'm quite happy at Bridesbridge at the moment,” she replied modestly.

“I understand. Just let me know if you change your mind,” Henry said.

As he was speaking, the doors behind him opened and a videocam crew came filing in. Henry guided Chloe toward the door. “Now, Charles, you had best get back to Bridesbridge.” He spoke so quickly, she hardly understood him. “It's getting late. Did you ride here on horseback at this hour?”

“No, sir.” Chloe pulled on her coattails. “I walked.”

A look of astonishment and what could only be termed affection flitted across Henry's face. “Charles. I insist you take a gig. It's too late to walk. I'll ring to have one readied for you.”

Chloe took a shallow bow.

“Now—run along, Charles!” Henry planted the candelabrum in her hand, propelled her into the hallway, and made a point of blocking the cameras from filming her.

Another video cam popped out from round the corner just as she broke into a jog, doing her best to keep the candelabrum alight. With the cameraman hot on her coattails, and Henry behind him, she hurried through the labyrinth of dark halls as if she were being chased through a museum at night. Before she shut the great doors behind her, she passed off the candelabrum with only one candle alight to the night watchman, who told her a gig was waiting for her out front.

Once outside, she stopped only for a moment at the top of the wide, palatial stone staircase glimmering in the moonlight. Just the other night a footman had handed her out of a chaise-and-four and she'd waltzed up these stairs in her gown, gloves, and dancing slippers. Down she went now, taking three steps at a time. One of her calfskin shoes fell off, but she didn't stop. Stockinged foot and all, she hopped into the gig and looked around for the driver.

She could almost hear the proverbial crickets.

The stable boy handed her the reins, because there wasn't a driver.

“Damn! Of course there's no driver! I'm a footman!
I'm
the driver!” Chloe whispered to herself.

The stable boy cocked his head at her, like a dog who knew he was being spoken to but was unable to understand the words. He hung two glowing oil lanterns on the front of the gig. “Just have it sent back in the morning,” he told her.

The seat felt cold and hard. The stable boy stuck the whip into her hands. The horse breathed out of his nostrils and snorted. Terror whipped through her. She'd never driven a horse and buggy! She looked back toward the blazing torches flanking the great front doors at Dartworth Hall. The doors swung open. Two video cams and a boom boy appeared. Henry sidestepped down the stairs and swooped down to pick up her shoe as one of the cameramen barreled down the steps.

“Can you, would you, drive me back to Bridesbridge?” she asked the stable boy. “I'm new and not used to these gigs.”

The stable boy shrugged his shoulders and hopped in next to her. With a flick of his wrist the horses lurched forward, and it wasn't long before the camera crew was well behind them.

The moon was floating high in the night sky now, in what would've been a perfectly romantic night if she weren't crouched in front of a horse's butt dressed in men's clothes. She was torn between men and money, past and present, bending the rules and breaking them.

They approached Bridesbridge in silence.

“Thanks for the ride. I really appreciate it.”

The stable boy shrugged his shoulders again, but as soon as Chloe climbed out, she saw the camera crew catching up to her on an ATV.

Just as she thought her little venture in deception was about to blow up in her face, the scullery door creaked open, Cook held a candlestick into the night, and called out, “Come in, footman! Teapot's on!”

Cook held the door open wide and Chloe stumbled toward the candlelight and the vague thought of hot tea. She slunk into the kitchen, where a teapot was steaming on the range. The smell of potato peels and yeast enveloped her.

“Nothing to see here,” Cook told her, bolting the door so the camera crew couldn't get in.

Chloe collapsed into a chair at the pine table. In her wet stockinged feet, the stone floor felt cold.

Cook grimaced at her. Her face looked as ruddy as a new tomato, and Chloe knew she was about to get grilled but good.

“I should blow the whistle on you right now.” Cook yanked the glasses off Chloe's face. “You stole my spectacles. Do you know how much spectacles cost an underpaid cook like me?” Chloe's eyes slowly readjusted to being without the glasses. “Do you know how long it takes to have spectacles made? I'm sure you don't. And I'm sure you don't care. You're just an uppity Yank without a thought in the world—”

“I am not!” Chloe interrupted, sinking in her chair. “I'm sorry about the glasses. Really. It's just—”

“You don't fool me for a minute.” Cook popped up and, with her bare hands, pulled the steaming kettle from the range and set it on the table. The rising steam helped clear Chloe's head. Cook reached up to retrieve a wooden box of used tea leaves from a shelf, which she had to do because only Grace held the key to the caddy with the fresh tea leaves. Servants had to use sloppy seconds. She darted a blue eye at Chloe. “You don't fool me, dressed up as a footman either.” She mixed the tea leaves, set them in a perforated spoon atop a ceramic teapot, and poured the boiling water over them. “And you don't fool me when you're upstairs dressed in your gowns and gloves and baubles.”

Chloe bowed her head. Cook was right, she was a total fake and could never be an heiress, not even an industrial heiress, from America.

Cook plopped a teacup on the table in front of her. “You're just un upstart Yank with lots of silly ideas and no right. No right to an English blue-blood fiancé.”

Why was this woman talking to her like this? she wondered as Cook took down another locked wooden box from the shelf. With another key hanging from her apron she opened this box to reveal a large, cone-shaped loaf of light brown sugar. Dartworth Hall had highly refined white sugar, the most expensive of the times, while here, at Bridesbridge Place, it was light brown. She took the sugar nippers and clipped off two lumps, dropped them into the cup, poured the tea in, and stirred. “Do you know how long the kitchen staff and I slaved over those confections you and Lady Grace bandied about the drawing room like so many tennis balls?”

“It wasn't exactly like that. And, yes, I do know how much effort goes into the cooking here. I made the strawberry tart and the syllabub, remember?”

Chloe sank lower in her chair. Even the used tea and not-so-refined sugar smelled fabulous. “I didn't think—”

“No, you didn't think, did you, now? If you were my charge, I don't know what I'd do.”

Slowly, guiltily, Chloe stretched out to cup her hands around the warm tea but Cook suddenly whisked the cup away.

“What makes you believe I made this tea for you?” She plunked the teacup down on her side of the table. Her icy blue eyes scanned Chloe's face for a response. “You used to help us servants out, but now you've gotten used to being waited on hand and foot. You feel entitled.”

“That's not true.”

Cook slammed a cloth bag of flour onto the table and a puff of it rose like a storm cloud. “Do you know that I prepare the dough at this hour for your breakfast toast?”

“I didn't realize—”

“You don't realize plenty of things. More than eight thousand proper English applicants. And he turned them away for the likes of you.”

Chloe needed to get out of the frying pan here. “I really am sorry about the trouble I've caused. I blew it by dressing up like this. I just wanted to clear everything up with—Henry.” She looked at the tea caddy and sugar box as if for the last time.

Cook plunked a big ceramic mixing bowl on the table and sent a puff of yeast into the air. “What do you care about Henry?”

“I don't understand why everyone keeps treating him like a second-class citizen. He's a great guy. There, I said it. I was rude to him earlier and I just wanted to apologize, so I dressed up in footman's clothes, because women aren't allowed out after eleven, and I couldn't write a note—or call, e-mail, text, tweet, or send a Facebook message! If wanting to apologize is a crime, then I'm guilty, so turn me in.” She held her wrists out to Cook, as if Cook would handcuff her.

Cook poured some flour and water into the bowl and mixed with a big wooden spoon. “I should turn you in, but I won't. I, too, have a soft spot for Henry.”

Chloe stumbled toward the door and looked away from her disheveled reflection in a row of copper pots and pans. She'd said too much.

“You'd best go to bed,” Cook told her, taking a tin of salt down from the shelf above the washbasin and prying the lid open with her thumbnail. “Just do me a favor.”

“You name it.”

“Remember the cook.”

Like she could forget.

“And remember one more thing. I'm on your side.”

She was?

For a long time, Chloe lay in her canopied bed and tossed in her nightgown, unable to sleep. She thought she heard a mouse scuttle from the floor mirror to the writing desk, but there couldn't possibly be mice running around her bedchamber, could there?

She wished she didn't care about Sebastian or Henry, but it was too late for that. She moved over to her half of the bed—making room for—someone.

 

 

T
he next morning, she woke, unable to do anything except sit on the edge of her bed, even though it was Monday and there might be mail from Abigail. Fiona worked around her while a cameraman filmed. She must've been quite drunk to dress up like a footman and go to Dartworth! The very thought of it made her paralyzed with fear.

“This is how it should be, mum,” Fiona said as she brushed Chloe's hair with a large, heavy, gleaming silver brush in front of the French bombé dressing table. “It's much better when you just let me take care of everything like this. 'Tis my duty.”