A Weekend with Mr. Darcy (2 page)

Honestly, any man who wasn't safely tucked between the covers of a book was a liability. You couldn't trust any of them. Was it any wonder that Katherine turned to fiction time and time again? Ever since her father had left home when she was seven, she'd hidden from the world around her, nose-diving into the safety of a friendly paperback. Books had always rescued her and remained the one constant in her life.

Before she dated David, she'd had a long-term relationship with an architect called Callum. She'd thought he was perfect and that they'd be together forever, like Elizabeth and Darcy, but he'd been offered a job in San Francisco, and he couldn't turn it down. He asked Katherine to go with him but her mother had fallen ill and she couldn't leave her.

‘Follow me out later,' he said, but it hadn't worked out. The weeks passed, telephone calls became fewer, postcards became shorter, and then they stopped altogether. He hadn't even called when she wrote to tell him that her mother had died.

‘And that's
real
men for you,' Katherine said to herself as she took the road out of Oxford that led to her village. She thought again about David's words to her. He was unfair. It wasn't as if her whole life revolved around Jane Austen. It was just—well, most of it. But she had other interests. There was her yoga class which kept her in good shape and her weekend jogging with her best friend, Chrissie. And she had lots of other friends who weren't fictional and she was forever attending dinner parties and little get-togethers. It was just that she preferred to spend her free time with her head in a book. She wouldn't be the respected academic she was if she hadn't worked as hard as she had and, as far as she could see, there was no harm in that, was there? She'd made a very good career out of books, for one thing and as far as she knew, she wasn't doing anyone any harm.

Unlike David.

Yes, Katherine might very well be guilty of living a life that was more fiction than reality but at least she didn't lie to anyone. If there was one thing in the world Katherine hated more than anything else, it was a lie.

Lorna Warwick was just putting the finishing touches on a rather amusing chapter involving a very naughty duke when the phone rang.

‘Hello, darling!' a voice chimed. ‘Not a bad moment, is it?'

‘No, not at all,' Lorna said, saving the chapter and switching the computer off for the day.

‘Good, good. Look, I've had a word with the organiser at Purley Hall and he said not to worry, it's your call.'

‘Thanks, Nadia. I appreciate that.'

‘So, what are you going to do?'

Lorna sighed. ‘I'm not sure yet but I'd like to give the writer a break for a while and just be me.'

‘You sure that's wise? You'll be letting down a lot of fans, you know.'

‘Yes but I'd be letting down a lot of fans if they knew who I really was, wouldn't I?'

‘You must be kidding! They'd go mad if they knew the truth,' Nadia said.

Lorna smiled. ‘Well, I don't think I'm quite ready to face that.'

‘All right, babes. It's your decision.'

‘You coming then?'

‘Maybe for the Saturday evening dance.'

‘Any excuse to buy a new pair of shoes,' Lorna said.

‘How well do you know your agent?'

‘As well as she knows me.'

Nadia laughed. ‘I'll see you at Purley, babes.'

‘Okay.'

Lorna stood up and walked across the study to the window that looked out over the garden. It had needed attention for some time. Dandelions yellowed the lawn, grasses had sprouted up in the borders, and brambles tumbled over the wall from the fields beyond. The house needed attention too because Lorna had fired the cleaner two weeks ago, after she'd been caught pocketing pages of the latest manuscript. Now the desk was covered in a fine layer of dust and a potted plant was wilting quietly in the corner.

It was always the same when a book was going well. Boring jobs such as housework and food preparation got neglected. The only thing that mattered was the flow of the story and—at the moment—the story was flowing well. Nadia was going to love this latest one, and no doubt Lorna's editor would too. Tansy Newman of Parnaby and Fox was Lorna's biggest fan and couldn't wait to get her hands on the latest manuscripts. Edits were usually minimal and Lorna was in the lucky position to be consulted about everything from jacket design to publication date—hardbacks were released just before Christmas, and paperbacks in time for the summer holidays. Lorna was lucky; her advances were legendary and her royalties substantial. Not all writers were in such a good position.

For a moment Lorna looked at the bookshelves that lined the study walls. They were filled to capacity with hardback editions, paperbacks, large print, audio books, and foreign editions that included German, Spanish, Japanese, and Russian. It was an impressive collection considering that the first novel hadn't been received at all well in the press.

‘Lorna Warwick is attempting to cash in on the fact that Jane Austen's Regency is a perennial favourite,' one critic wrote, ‘but what we have here is a cheap imitation. It's soft porn dressed in a little fine muslin.'

The words had stung bitterly until the book had become a bestseller in the United States and was now seen as the forerunner in a very popular genre of Austenesque literature which included sequels, updates on the six classic novels, and the sort of sexy books that Lorna wrote. It was a huge and much-loved industry.

Lorna's fingers brushed the spines of the UK editions. Each featured a sumptuously clad heroine. ‘All breasts and bonnets,' another critic had declared, after which sales rocketed. The public couldn't get enough of the feisty young heroines and devilishly handsome heroes and, of course, the happy endings.

Lorna loved writing. Nothing could beat the day-to-day weaving of a new story or getting to know characters that might captivate the readers' imaginations as strongly as they did their creator. But there was more to being a writer than writing, and Lorna was under increased pressure to handle publicity, hence the agent's phone call about the conference. Year to year, those publishers had tried to persuade their favourite writer that it would be a great idea to attend.

‘Incognito, if you must,' they'd said, but Lorna hadn't been at all sure about it. The public face of publication had never been appealing. Writing was a private thing, wasn't it? One didn't need to be endlessly signing copies and giving talks. What was there to say, anyway? Surely the books spoke for themselves, but Lorna's publisher had often spoken of how writers were now seen as celebrities.

‘The public has to be able to
see
you.'

‘Oh, no,' Lorna had said. ‘I don't want anybody to see me.'

What was to be done about Purley Hall? A part of Lorna was desperate to go. Being a writer was a lonely job and it would be good to get out and actually talk to real live people for once. That part would be fun, wouldn't it—to get away from the study and meet people?

‘Katherine,' Lorna suddenly said. Katherine was going to be there. Her letter had made it very clear that she'd love to meet her favourite author, and a part of Lorna wanted that very much too. Over the months, they'd become very close, sharing secrets and talking about their hopes for the future. Maybe it was the fact that they were writing letters—beautifully old-fashioned, handwritten letters that one savoured and kept. It wasn't like receiving an email one reads and deletes. These were proper letters on high-quality paper that the writers took time to fill. They had crossings out and notes in the margins and funny PS's too. They were to be reread and treasured just like in the time of Jane Austen when letters were a vital means of staying in touch with loved ones.

If there was one good reason for Lorna to attend the conference, it was Katherine.

Suddenly her feet thundered upstairs to the bedroom where a wardrobe door was quickly opened and clothes were pulled out and flung onto the bed. What to take? What should Lorna Warwick take to the Jane Austen Conference? That was a question that was easy to answer because although Lorna gave very few interviews and never gave out author photographs, it was obvious how the public perceived their beloved author. Nothing but velvets and satins would do in rich jewel colours with sequins and embroidery. Old-fashioned but with a quirky twist. A fascinator wouldn't be completely out of place or a sparkling brooch in the shape of a peacock. Shawls, scarves, a pair of evening gloves, perhaps even a shapely hat. Shoes that were elegant but discreet. That kind of thing people would expect.

Lorna wasn't going to wear any of those things, though. Velvets and satins were instantly rejected and shawls were totally inappropriate and the reason was simple. Lorna Warwick was a man.

It would have been very unfortunate if Robyn Love had turned out to be anything other than a romantic. As it was, she fit her name perfectly, choosing to read nothing but romances, wearing only feminine dresses, and renouncing any film that didn't have a happy ending.

Life for her was never as good as it was in fiction. A good story beautifully told was always preferable to reality. For Robyn, nothing came close to the highs she got when reading. Her reception job at a small college in North Yorkshire tickled only the surface for her and she could never wait to get home and stick her head in a favourite book and for her, the very pinnacle of literary perfection was Jane Austen.

Some took their pleasures in the spin-offs and Regency romances told by modern authors but Robyn was a true Janeite who preferred her Austen undiluted.

‘If only she'd written more,' Robyn would often say with a sigh. The big six just weren't enough. There were the shorter stories too, of course, but they weren't the same as the big novels, and the letters and endless biographies just didn't give the same satisfaction; they were takeaways rather than a three-course meal. They might fill a gap but they left you feeling unsatisfied and wanting more.

There was never enough. No matter how many versions of
Pride and Prejudice
or
Persuasion
there were—whether for the cinema, TV, or theatre, she would devour them. Each one was different, shedding some new light onto Austen's world and her characters. Whether it was
Pride or Prejudice
or
Bride and Prejudice
,
Emma
or
Clueless
, Robyn would unplug the house phone, turn off her mobile and tune in for her allotted slot of pure happiness.

There were favourites, of course. Who could forget Colin Firth's brooding Mr Darcy from the 1995 BBC version? But equally, Matthew Macfadyen striding across the meadow at dawn could be the recipe for many a happy sleepless night. There was Jennifer Ehle's witty and intelligent Elizabeth and Keira Knightley's youthful exuberance. How could one possibly choose? It entirely depended on what mood you were in. One thing was for sure, though: there could never be enough. Robyn had often wondered what it was about Austen that inspired such devotion. In these modern times of CDs, DVDs, computer games, iPods, and the Internet, there were still people who preferred to sit down in a quiet corner and read a Jane Austen novel.

Perhaps it was the irresistible blend of wit, warmth, and romance that did it. Robyn had never stopped to analyse what it was that gave her such a buzz. She knew only that when her mind was immersed in the Regency period, her twenty-first century problems evaporated. Well, most of them.

It was late afternoon before the Jane Austen Conference in Hampshire, and Robyn was standing in her back garden behind the row of friendly Yorkshire terraces that overlooked fields and allotments. She had shed her work clothes which had consisted of a white shirt and navy skirt and was wearing a knee-length dress in a floaty floral fabric. Her long hair was unpinned and blowing around her face in a tangle of curls, and her bare feet had been thrust into a pair of sparkly sandals.

Her garden was quite unlike all the others in the terrace. They were mostly given over to neat lawns lined with bedding plants or patios housing tubs of begonias but Robyn's was home to her chickens, and her obsession with Jane Austen extended to her feathered friends. There was Mr Darcy—the obvious name to be chosen by an Austen addict for her first rooster, except it wasn't a terribly fitting one as he soon turned into something more approaching a villain, and Robyn had to rethink his name, eventually coming up with Wickham, the villain of
Pride and Prejudice
. The trouble was that Robyn liked sandals and bare feet, and Wickham had a fascination with her toes, pecking at their painted extremes with great vigour.

He was now ‘Wickham the chicken,' and his ladies were also named after characters from
Pride and Prejudice
. There was Lizzy, the bright young thing who was quite aware of her surroundings and always the first to raise an alarm. There was the tiny chestnut called Lydia because she was always running away. The supercilious lavender grey was called Lady Catherine. The speckled hen was Mrs Bennet, for she was always fussing around the others like a typical mother hen, and the pale gold was Miss Bingley because she had an air about her, and Robyn was convinced that she looked down her beak at everyone else.

Robyn looked at them all now, pecking around the garden in the sunshine. She loved watching them and could spend many a happy hour reading in her deck chair, listening to the funny little noises they made.

‘You ready, then?' a friendly voice called over the low fence.

‘Hi, Judith,' Robyn said, smiling at her elderly neighbour who kept an eye on the chickens when Robyn was at work and whenever she went away.

‘You sure this isn't going to be too much bother?' Robyn asked.

Judith put her hands on her hips. ‘I've brought up four sons single-handedly. I think I can manage a few bantams.'

Robyn laughed. ‘I can't thank you enough. It's a real weight off my mind. You're like an auntie to these chickens.'

Aunty Judith shook her head, obviously not approving. ‘You just enjoy your weekend. You work too hard, you do. You need to get out more.'

‘That's what Jace is always saying.'

Judith's mouth straightened into a line. ‘You're still with him, then?'

Robyn blushed. She knew how her neighbour felt about her errant boyfriend. He'd never managed to endear himself to the old woman—not since the time when he woke her up with his drunken singing at three in the morning and then vomited all over her prize roses.

‘I thought you were going to break up with him.'

‘I will,' Robyn said.

‘You've been saying that since that young Lydia was an egg.'

Robyn sighed. It was true. She'd been meaning to sort things out with Jace for some time. Indeed, she'd been on the verge of saying something only last week but he obviously picked up on things and decided to safeguard his position by suddenly being nice to her and buying her the biggest box of chocolates she'd ever seen. He'd eaten most of them himself but it was the thought that counted, wasn't it?

She'd been going out with Jace since school, and it was more of a routine now rather than romance. Jason Collins or ‘Jace' as he preferred to be known, for years insisted that his pals called him ‘Ace,' but it had never taken which didn't surprise Robyn in the least. For one thing, he still lived with his mother in a house on the edge of Skipton. It was a lovely property with three large bedrooms and a garden that Robyn's chickens would adore, but a young man of twenty-five shouldn't still be living with his mother, having all his laundry done and meals cooked by her. It just wasn't natural. Not that Robyn had ever felt the urge to live with him—oh, no! But if she was ever going to live with somebody, then it would be someone who was a little bit more independent than Jace.

And I could never marry him, anyway,
Robyn suddenly thought.
For one thing, I'd be Mrs Collins!
She grinned naughtily as she thought of the ridiculous character of Mr Collins in
Pride and Prejudice
. Robyn Collins. It would never work; it was just another one of the tragedies about their relationship, but the biggest tragedy of all was the fact that she didn't love him anymore.

She tried desperately to think about their early, heady days together when they were at high school. Holding hands under the table during lessons, the secret kisses in the corridor on the way to class, and the little love notes that were constantly being confiscated by infuriated teachers. Where had all that love gone? Had it not been strong enough to leap the gulf between adolescence and adulthood? Had it been left behind with homework, teenage mood swings, and compulsory PE?

‘I'd better get moving,' Robyn told Judith, shaking the images of the past from her mind. ‘Jace'll be here in an hour, and I want to get packed before then.'

‘Well, don't you go worrying about this lot,' Judith said, nodding towards the chickens. ‘They'll be fine.'

‘Thanks,' Robyn said with a smile before heading indoors.

The terraced cottage was cool and dark after the brightness of the garden, and Robyn headed upstairs to her bedroom at the front of the house. Packing was simple—as many dresses and books as she could fit in her suitcase. She never liked to go anywhere without a copy of one of Jane Austen's big six.
Persuasion
was usually a favourite because it was slim and easily slipped into a handbag but
Pride and Prejudice
was her preferred choice if room permitted because it never failed to raise a smile, whether she happened to be waiting for a train that was more than an hour late or sitting in the dentist's office knowing that the drill was awaiting.

She sighed with pleasure as she placed a copy of each of the novels in her case. Well, she couldn't go to a Jane Austen Conference without one of each, could she? She'd chosen her oldest versions that didn't mind being beaten up a bit in transit. There was the copy of
Sense and Sensibility
with the coffee stain over the scene where Willoughby scoops Marianne up in his arms, and the edition of
Emma
that had taken a tumble into the bath and was now the shape of an accordion.

Her newer copies of the books were downstairs, their covers shiny and pristine and the spines only faintly cracked. Nothing was more perfect to Robyn than a brand-new copy of an Austen novel.

‘Rob!' a voice called from downstairs.

‘Jace?' Robyn said in surprise.

‘Well, of
course
it's Jace!'

Robyn's mouth screwed up in frustration. He was early.

Leaving her packing, she ventured downstairs and was surprised to see that Jace had been doing some packing of his own.

‘What's that?' she asked.

‘A suitcase, dopey,' he said, dropping it to the floor and ruffling her hair before grazing her cheek with a stubbly kiss. ‘I'm coming with you.'

‘What?' she asked, following him through to the living room as he settled himself on the sofa, kicking off his shoes and putting his feet up on the coffee table.

‘I'm coming with you,' he said, giving a loud sniff. ‘Going to drive you down to Hereford.'

‘Hampshire,' Robyn said.

‘Can't have you getting the train on your own, can I?'

‘But I've got my ticket.'

‘Doesn't matter,' he said.

‘But Jace—it's such a long way, and it sounds as if you don't even know where Hampshire is.'

‘I'm making a weekend of it. Booked a B and B just down the road from your Parley Hall place.'

‘Purley Hall.'

‘That's it!'

Robyn frowned. This was the last thing she expected and the very last thing she wanted. The Jane Austen weekend was her own special sanctuary, and Jace was the last person she wanted to share it with.

‘It's really not your sort of thing at all,' she told him. ‘And I doubt there's room for you at the conference. All the places are booked.'

‘I'm not coming to the conference, silly! No
way!'

‘Then what are you going to do?'

He shrugged as he picked up the remote control and switched on the TV. ‘Just hang out,' he said.

‘Hang out where?'

‘Wherever you want me to,' he said, giving a lascivious wink. ‘We don't spend enough time together. I thought it would be nice to have a weekend away.'

‘But we won't be together, Jace. I'll be at the conference—
all
weekend.'

‘There'll still be time to see each other, won't there?'

Robyn stared at him. What was this? Jace had never been the sort to suggest a weekend away together before. Maybe he'd guessed she wanted to break up with him. Maybe this was his way of trying to smooth things over.

‘Got a beer?' he asked.

Robyn walked through to the kitchen and retrieved a can of beer from the fridge. What on earth was she going to do? The thought of Jace ‘hanging out' anywhere near Jane Austen country was just frightful.

‘Any crisps?' he asked as she entered the room with the beer.

She shook her head.

‘Nuts?'

She returned to the kitchen and came back with a bag of fruit and nuts. Jace grimaced. ‘No salty ones?'

‘No,' she said, wincing as he placed his beer can on her newest copy of
Pride and Prejudice
. He saw where she was looking.

‘Oh sorry, babes,' he said, picking it up. Robyn saw the dark circle embossed on Elizabeth Bennet's face and couldn't help noticing that Jace's feet which were now sockless, were dangerously close to the BBC DVD of
Persuasion
, a personal favourite of hers.

With such atrocities as these before her, she thought it best if she left the room.