A Weekend with Mr. Darcy (14 page)

Robyn sighed and gazed up into the deep, dark sky. ‘You're probably right,' she said. ‘It's so unfair. I came here to escape all that, but it won't let me be.'

‘What won't?'

She turned her attention away from the heavens and looked back at the earthy yet equally celestial Dan.

‘Jace,' she said. ‘It's all a mess. You're right.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said.

‘And I've been trying to sort it out. I really have. Except I keep making a mess of things. It's like some terrible farce. The harder I try, the worse it becomes.'

‘Have you told him how you feel?' he asked.

‘Not in so many words, but I've dropped quite a few hints.'

Dan shook his head.

‘What?' she asked.

‘Some people can't take hints, and your friend strikes me as one of those types. You'll have to be more direct with him. Tell him straight that you're not happy.'

Robyn looked out across the lake. The moon was reflected perfectly on its surface. ‘It's not easy being honest.'

‘No,' Dan said, ‘but it doesn't look very easy being dishonest either, not from what I've seen.'

They were quiet for a moment and in the distance, far across the fields, an owl hooted.

‘Why do things become so complicated?' Robyn asked.

‘Because we let them,' Dan said. ‘We let things get out of hand. It's very easy to do.'

‘Has it happened to you?'

‘All the time. It's happening right now.'

Robyn stared at him. ‘What do you mean?'

‘I can feel things are about to get even more complicated,' he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

Robyn didn't get the opportunity to ask him what he meant again because he bent down towards her and kissed her, very sweetly and very firmly, on the mouth.

‘Gosh,' she said a moment later.

‘Have I gone and complicated things even more for you?'

Robyn nodded slowly. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘I think you have.'

There were two piles of discarded clothes on the floor of the Temple Room and the kissing had started in earnest. Katherine felt she had left her old self back in Oxford and a new, uninhibited woman was emerging, and it felt wonderful. When Warwick kissed her, it felt like a perfect piece of heaven had landed on her lips and she didn't want it to stop—ever.

At first their kisses had been light and feathery soft, the sort of kisses that send tingles everywhere at once. But things became more intense, and Katherine and Warwick ripped each other's clothes off faster than if they'd been on fire.

‘Katherine!' he'd groaned as he took his first glimpse of her, and her heart raced at her first sight of him.

What would Jane Austen have made of it all? Perhaps it wasn't the right moment to think about darling Jane. It seemed almost sacrilegious to be doing such things at the Jane Austen Conference. Shouldn't the two adults be downstairs playing cards and discussing whether Jane and Bingley would really have been financially abused by every passing tradesman and servant?

Katherine didn't want to think about books now, though, unless it was one of those hot scenes from one of Lorna Warwick's books. That's what this was reminding her of—a wonderfully abandoned scene of lust on a night that could easily pass for summer, where lips kissed hungrily and hearts beat wildly behind thin muslin gowns.

***

Down by the lake, Robyn was feeling dazzled and dazed and while it wasn't a totally terrible feeling, it was one she hadn't anticipated.

‘What are you thinking?' Dan asked her.

Robyn shook her head slowly. ‘I
can't
think.'

‘I haven't overstepped the mark? I haven't gone and ruined things, have I?'

Robyn looked up at him. He was tall, and a funny thought occurred to her, even though she'd just protested that she was unable to think. What if they were to spend the rest of their lives kissing each other? Surely he'd get a bad back or a crooked neck from stooping down to kiss her. Well, she couldn't be responsible for that. It would be too awful.

‘You're so tall,' she said.

He laughed. ‘What a funny thing to say!'

She started to walk because she didn't trust herself standing still anymore. If she continued to stand there in front of him, she'd be sure to kiss him again, and she didn't want that. Well, she did, but she shouldn't, should she? It wouldn't be right.
Oh, what a mess! Keep moving. Don't look at him.

They walked along the banks of the lake until they came to the wooden bridge that crossed onto the island. It was too tempting and before she could think of the implications and complications, Robyn was walking across it towards the round temple whose white columns were bright in the moonlight. There were roses climbing up the temple, but it was impossible to tell if they were pink or white. They smelled of heaven on the warm night air.

‘Aren't they perfect?' she said.

‘There was a wedding here last weekend,' Dan said. ‘The bride wanted roses everywhere.'

‘They've lasted all this time?'

‘No,' he said. ‘But Pammy saw them around the temple and insisted we had some for this weekend too. I think she'll always want them here now. Flowers are a particular weakness of hers.'

‘And every woman's,' Robyn said. ‘Even if we say they're not. One of my friends is always complaining that flowers are a waste of money, but you should see her face when she receives them. Her boyfriend sent her a huge bouquet at work last month, for her birthday. She couldn't stop smiling all day.'

Robyn bent to inhale the sweet perfume of one of the huge pale blooms. ‘I love how silent flowers are.'

‘What's that?' Dan asked.

‘You know… how
quiet
they are. I mean, this is so beautiful, and yet it doesn't make a song and dance about it, does it?'

Dan laughed. ‘Well, I never thought about that before. You are a strange one,' he said.

Robyn frowned at him.

‘But wonderful,' he said.

Robyn gave a nervous little laugh. ‘No I'm not. I'm a mess and a muddle, and I don't know what I'm doing half the time.'

Dan grinned. ‘You're not going to put me off, you know.'

‘Put you off what?' Robyn asked.

‘Kissing you again.'

There was no escaping him as he lightly pushed her against one of the temple columns and his mouth sought hers. She closed her eyes and felt she was floating in a great sky filled with roses. Her senses were overwhelmed, and when he moved away from her, she felt as if she were going to float away—far across the fields and woods.

‘You okay?' he asked.

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘I feel all floaty.'

Dan smiled. ‘Me too.' He bent forward and stroked her hair, his fingers twirling her long curls. ‘Your hair reminds me of honeysuckle.'

She looked up at him in surprise. ‘Jace says it reminds him of noodles boiling in a pan.'

Dan frowned. ‘That's the most bizarre thing I've ever heard.' He sighed and removed his hand from her noodly honeysuckle hair. ‘Tell me about him.'

‘Must I?'

‘I think you must.'

***

Katherine lay back on the white pillows of Warwick's bed and stared across at the window through which the moonlight was streaming. She felt caught up in some sort of dream world and didn't dare move for fear of waking up.

Warwick was asleep beside her, and she could hear his breathing—deep, slow, and satisfied. She smiled. She hadn't felt so relaxed in—she was going to say weeks but if she were perfectly honest, she didn't think she'd ever been so relaxed in her whole life.

Well, she thought, she hadn't expected a night of wild passion when she packed for the Jane Austen weekend. She thought it would be a weekend of polite conversation over cups of tea, rather than having one too many glasses of mulled wine and ending up naked in a stranger's bedroom.

But he's not a stranger
, she thought, sitting up in the bed and looking at him, his dark hair falling across his face and his skin marble pale in the moonlight. She felt as if she'd known him for aeons. It was a strange but wonderful feeling, and it was hard to imagine a time when she hadn't known him. Had it been only two short days?

It had never been like this with David, she thought, and she knew why now—because he was always in a hurry to leave her. ‘Things to do,' he always said, but it was more like the other woman he had to get back to. They never spent an entire night together.

Smiling to herself as she sneaked out of bed, Katherine padded across the room to the tray where there was a kettle and a bottle of still water. She took the top off and poured some into a glass and drank it down in one go. She'd forgotten what a workout making love could be. Had it put a sparkle in her eyes? she wondered. Did she have that wonderful bloom that had been absent for so long?

She walked across to the window, carefully hiding herself behind the folds of the heavy curtains, in case somebody was out there in the shadowy gardens. What a magical place Purley was, she thought, and how caught up in its spell she had become. But wasn't that going to make it all the more difficult to leave when Monday finally reared its ugly head?

Katherine didn't want to think about that right now—or did she? When she returned to Oxfordshire, she would be researching her latest nonfiction book about Jane Austen and would certainly have plenty to keep herself busy. But she couldn't stop wondering if Warwick wanted to be a part of her world.

For a moment she fell into a Warwick reverie of autumn bike rides around the golden Cotswolds and picnics in the hills and of long warm nights like tonight. But maybe she was getting ahead of herself. Just take things slowly, she thought.

She smiled. That was a laugh, wasn't it, after hopping into bed with him after so short a time?

She looked around the room and her eye caught a big black notebook on the dressing table. She turned to look at Warwick. He was sleeping on his front now, his head swallowed up in his pillow. Like most women, Katherine couldn't resist poking her nose into things, especially things like a notebook that had been left out with the intention of being nosed at although she was aware that it was horribly wrong of her.

Tiptoeing across the carpet, she opened the book, but it was too dark to make out anything inside it so she took it back to the window where the moonlight lit up the pages of writing. It was a bit of a mess. His handwriting was terrible and there were crossings out and great blobs of ink as if half a dozen fountain pens had committed suicide on his pages.

‘Anna Conville,' Katherine read. ‘Laurence. Louis.' The names were written down the left-hand side of the first page and Katherine wondered what they were. Perhaps they were names of friends or maybe they were authors Warwick was searching for as part of his trade as an antiquarian.

‘She always wears black,' she read. That was curious, Katherine thought. Why would somebody need to write that fact down?

‘Louis is the fourth marquis,' she read on the next page. That was even more curious. Perhaps these were names of important clients who were after rare first editions or something.

Katherine looked at the writing and frowned. There was something vaguely familiar about it, but she couldn't quite think what. Maybe it reminded her of one of her student's badly scrawled essays.

Warwick suddenly stirred and afraid of being caught holding the notebook, Katherine hastily returned it to the dressing table. She should really return to her own room, she thought. It would be the right thing to do. But she didn't want to do the right thing, so she walked back across the room and slipped into the bed again next to Warwick and closed her eyes for the most perfect night's sleep of her life.

***

Out in the gardens, Robyn and Dan had left the temple on the island and were walking slowly back to the house. A shadow partly clouded the moon at one point and they'd been thrown into darkness, but Dan reached out and took Robyn's hand and he hadn't let go of it since.

‘So how did you two meet?' he asked.

‘Jace and me?' Robyn asked, knowing that's exactly what he meant but not really wanting to take the conversation in that direction. ‘We've always known each other. Since school.'

‘High school?'

‘Preschool,' Robyn said. ‘We went to the same nursery, then the same primary and high school. We weren't really friends—not until high school—but he's always been there somewhere in the background of my life.'

‘When did you start going out together?'

‘Just before high school finished.'

‘And was it all—'

‘Look, Dan, do you mind if we don't talk about it?' Robyn said. ‘It's been such a perfect night. I don't want to spoil it.'

He stopped walking for a moment and with her hand still firmly in his, looked at her. ‘But you're not happy.'

‘I am right now.'

‘That's not what I meant.'

She sighed. ‘I know what you meant.' And then she did something that was completely out of character but that the moment was demanding. She stretched up on tiptoes and kissed him. Was it to shut him up or was it because she simply had to kiss him? She wasn't sure, and Dan wasn't complaining either way.

When Katherine next woke up, she was still in Warwick's bed, but his side was empty.

‘Warwick?' she said, sitting up and brushing her hair out of her face. She could hear the shower in the ensuite and decided that it might be a good time to get dressed and return to her own room. Lord only knew what she looked like. She hadn't taken her make-up off the night before. There was a pretty good chance that Warwick had kissed most of it off, but she had a feeling that her eyes would look like giant bruises, and that was never a good look.

Getting out of bed and trying to locate the right number of clothes in the right order, Katherine caught sight of her reflection in the mirror on the dressing table. She looked wonderfully dishevelled. Her face was flushed and her eyes—although panda-like, as she'd suspected—were sparkling with mischief.

She dressed quickly and then opened the bedroom door, peering outside first to make sure there was nobody around to see her escaping from a room that wasn't hers. That just wasn't the behaviour of a guest speaker from Oxford, was it?

***

Robyn, too, had woken up with a smile on her face. Her mouth still felt swollen from kissing although she thought that was probably being fanciful. Still, as she put her fingers to her lips, she couldn't help being a little fanciful and imagining Dan's lips had left their impression upon them. She'd never been kissed like that before in her life and she knew she never would be again, unless she did something about it.

Flinging herself under the shower, Robyn thought of the position she found herself in. It wasn't what she'd expected from a weekend in Hampshire; that was for sure. Who would have thought that she'd fall in love at the Jane Austen Conference, although, now she thought about it, it seemed like the most perfect thing in the world.

It wasn't perfect by any means, though, was it? Robyn knew that and Dan knew it too, and he'd tried to find out what was going on last night, hadn't he? Did that mean he really cared about her and thought they had a future together? Robyn couldn't see how it would work. For a start, she lived in Yorkshire. She had a home there with chickens! She couldn't just up and move, could she? No matter how much she'd fallen in love with Dan and Purley.

She smiled as she thought of Purley. It was a beautiful place. Perhaps she wasn't in love with Dan at all but had fallen for his home. Hadn't Elizabeth confessed to have fallen for Darcy at the time that she first saw his home, Pemberley?

As she got dressed, she promised herself that she wouldn't stress about the two men in her life. Yes, there were some decisions to be made—and sooner rather than later—but she could forget about them for the space of a morning. After all, it was the morning she'd most been looking forward to: the trip to the Jane Austen Museum in Chawton. She had seen photographs of the redbrick cottage and watched all the home movies on YouTube, but visiting the real place herself was going to be beyond compare. Her visit to the little church at Steventon had been exciting enough, but to walk through the rooms where Jane had lived many of her years and written all her adult fiction was going to be the most wonderful experience that couldn't come quickly enough, and Robyn was one of the first to board the coach that had been hired for the trip to the Hampshire village.

Oh, what is everyone doing? she thought, looking back at the house and wondering why everyone wasn't champing at the bit to get going like her. Where were they all? What was more important than getting to Chawton?

She checked her handbag for her camera. She'd already checked to see that it was there three times. It had been charged up that very morning after she deleted every single photo that she no longer needed. There must be plenty of room to capture everything, she thought. Would 418 images be enough, though? There was always her mobile phone as a backup, which also took pictures, except she hadn't recharged that. Oh, dear! Would she have time to nip back up to her room and charge it? But then she'd lose her place at the front of the coach, and it might actually leave without her. She couldn't risk it.

‘You're becoming paranoid,' she whispered to herself. ‘Just relax and enjoy the day.'

She looked at the faces of her fellow day-trippers as they got on the coach. Were they as eager as she was? It was hard to imagine that anyone could possibly be looking forward to it as much as she was. Some had been coming to the conference for years, and Chawton must surely be quite commonplace to them by now.

She smiled as Doris Norris boarded.

‘Ah, my dear. How are you?' she said, taking the seat next to Robyn.

‘I just wish we'd get a move on,' Robyn said. ‘I can't wait to see Chawton.'

‘You'll love it,' Doris said. ‘You know, I've been five times now, and I never tire of it. It's the most beautiful place in the world to me.'

Robyn's eyes widened, and she felt guilty at supposing that the day would be special only to her. Of course, true Jane Austen fans would get something out of every single visit, no matter how many times they'd been before. Just to spend time in the place that their idol had once inhabited was enough.

‘And how did you enjoy last night?' Doris asked. ‘Your team did well.'

‘Yours did too,' Robyn said.

‘Those books were beautiful,' Doris continued.

‘They are lovely,' Robyn said. ‘I shall always treasure them.'

‘But we didn't see you after that. Did you go off for a little walk?' Doris's eyes were twinkling and, for a moment, Robyn wondered if she'd been spied out in the garden with Dan.

‘Yes, I… er… I went for a walk.'

‘A moonlit walk,' Doris said. ‘I remember those.' She looked wistful for a moment. ‘My Henry and I used to take walks in the moonlight when we lived on the north Norfolk coast. Have you ever been there? It has the most amazing beaches that stretch for miles. Acres and acres of sand that are quite magical in the moonlight. Of course we were younger then, and it didn't matter if we got a bit of sand here and there.' She gave a little chuckle, and Robyn's eyes widened in delighted surprise.

It was then that Katherine boarded the coach. Robyn caught her eye and smiled. She'd been looking forward to finding out what had happened to her the night before, especially as Warwick climbed the steps of the coach right behind her and the two of them took a seat together towards the back. Robyn grinned. Perhaps Katherine had had as magical an evening as she'd had.

When everyone was finally on the coach, including a dashing Dame Pamela wearing fuchsia from head to toe, they left Purley, going down the tree-lined driveway and turning out into the lane. How long ago it seemed since she'd driven up that driveway with Jace, Robyn thought, and how she dreaded leaving with him once the weekend came to an end. Being at Purley was like living on a little island—one seemed far removed from the rest of the world and its troubles, and it was something that one could get used to very easily.

Once they reached the main road, the atmosphere on the coach reminded Robyn of a school outing, with everyone seeming to harbour the feeling of being let loose from their everyday routines. Chatter levels escalated and as the bus entered the village of Chawton, every pair of eyes strained to be the first to see the cottage.

The village was lined with pretty cottages but Robyn knew what she was looking for, and her first glimpse didn't disappoint. Sitting on a quiet curve of a road, Jane Austen's house seemed to overlook the whole village, and Robyn thought what a perfect position it was for a writer. Jane would have been able to see so much of village life from the many sash windows. A low brick wall surrounded a very pretty garden full of flowers and trees, and Robyn couldn't wait to get inside and walk in the steps of its former owner.

‘It's so pretty,' she said, and Doris nodded.

Robyn's heart rate accelerated, and she was the first off the coach once it parked. The group from Purley had been split into two—the first was to tour the house while the rest viewed the garden, outbuildings, and shop. Robyn was in the second group. Along with most of the others in her group, she made a beeline for the shop and although she was eager to get into the house, the shop was a good substitute and was pure heaven for any Austen fan.

It was a long, low-lying building with beams and white walls and shelves stuffed with books.
Books!
Robyn's hand reached out and grabbed one after another. She owned all the Austen titles, countless times over, but she could never resist picking up the latest editions. Then there were all the wonderful books
about
the books—biographies, titles about life in Jane Austen's time, collections of her letters, travel guides to Bath, recipe books, and more. Robyn's eyes were well and truly boggled as she took a copy of each title from the shelf and flicked through it.

I have to have this one,
she thought, spying a title that was new to her.
And this too. I can't leave without this.

Then she saw the diaries, a collection of fictional accounts from the viewpoint of Austen's heroes, and her hand reached out to
Mr Darcy's Diary
by Amanda Grange without a moment's hesitation. Hadn't Carla been talking about that title to her? Well, she had to have that, didn't she? And she couldn't
not
buy
Colonel Brandon's Diary
alongside it. He was a special hero, after all, and the portrait of him on the cover was particularly dashing. But could she buy those two and leave Captain Wentworth to sulk on the shelf? The answer was no, and Robyn grabbed a third book which joined her two nonfiction titles and made her way to the till, looking around the shop in case she'd missed anything.

The brooding image of Colin Firth as Mr Darcy stared back at her from every direction. Robyn had never seen many items featuring the handsome face. There were “I Love Mr Darcy” bookmarks and Mr Darcy mugs, posters, notepaper, and even thimbles. Colin Firth was everywhere. Robyn wondered what he thought about being seen as the quintessential Darcy, and was Matthew Macfadyen put out by it all?

Just as the assistant was popping her books into a bag, Robyn ran across the shop and grabbed a couple of Darcy bookmarks. Well, if you had books, you had to have bookmarks, didn't you?

There were one or two Austen snobs in the group from Purley who looked down their noses in the most condescending of fashions at some of the shop items, but most of the group loved it, gathering up great armfuls of tea towels and spending inordinate amounts of time deciding which Mr Darcy bookmark to buy.

Robyn watched for a moment as Roberta and Doris stood in front of the shelves housing the DVD film adaptations.

‘Oh! Have you seen this one?' Roberta asked.

Doris laughed. ‘I've seen
every
one. And if they made a hundred more, I'd see those too.'

Robyn nodded. It was the same for all true fans. There could be a new version of
Pride and Prejudice
every month, and the fans would still want more.

She left with her goodies and walked into the stable that housed the lovely little donkey carriage Jane Austen would have ridden in, wondering what she would have made of it all—the museum, the coach loads of tourists, and the innumerable books that had been written about her. What would she have thought of the shop paraphernalia and the rows of DVDs and the Mr Darcy mugs? It was sad that she would never know about the huge industry that existed because of her imagination.

What would she have made of all the films? Would she have fallen in love with the actors just as so many women did? Would she have had favourites? And what would she have made of the famous wet shirt scene in the BBC version of
Pride and Prejudice
?

It was a game Robyn often liked to play: what would Jane Austen be like if she lived in the twenty-first century? What kind of books would she read now? What kind of music and television would interest her? Would fans queue around the block for her at book signings like they did for JK Rowling? Would she endorse Darcy figurines and theme parks? Jane World or Austen Land, perhaps with
Northanger Abbey
ghost rides and a Mr Darcy waterlog.

Robyn walked into the garden, gazing up at the pretty cottage and admiring the flame-coloured flowers in the borders. What changes would Jane see were she to visit today? Robyn wondered. Certainly the signpost announcing Jane Austen's Cottage wouldn't have been there or the Cassandra's Cup tearoom across the road. If only Jane could visit the present. What changes she would see! And what would she make of computers? Would she have shunned her scratchy quill and steel-nibbed pen in favour of a laptop, sitting by the window tapping lightly on the keyboard, exchanging emails with Cassandra when they were apart and putting her day-to-day observations on Twitter?

Robyn had many questions that would never be answered, but perhaps the most persistent one was,
would Jane have liked me
? As a reader, one always felt close to the authors, as if they were telling their story just for you. They were born to entertain only you, and their characters became your friends. You trusted your narrators and shared the most intimate of moments with them, so you naturally assumed that you knew them. But what was Jane really like? Would she and Robyn have been friends had they ever met?

‘I hope so,' Robyn said quietly to herself as she sat on a seat in the garden and gazed at the white sash windows that Jane would once have looked out of.