Definitely Not Mr. Darcy (23 page)

He regained his footing after they cleared the jump. Chloe inhaled as if she forgot how to breathe. Behind her, she heard Grace's horse knock the log off-kilter. Chloe almost stopped to turn around and help, but then she heard the stream of obscenities that confirmed that Grace had to be okay.

Her blood pumping, Chloe urged Chestnut on and caught up to Sebastian, but up ahead, in a ravine, she saw a black riding hat floating in the water, and it wasn't Sebastian's. She spotted Henry's horse rearing up, without anyone on him. Fear zigzagged through her. Henry was on the ground near his horse. He could get trampled. Was he hurt?

Sebastian mustn't have seen him. He clipped right by his brother.

Closer now, Chloe slowed Chestnut. Time froze as she looked to her left at Henry, who was struggling to sit up and rubbing his leg, then at Sebastian, who was galloping after the hunt master.

“Are you all right?” Chloe asked Henry.

“I'm fine! Go ahead!” Henry waved her on. “You're winning! Go!” He sat up, but didn't get up off the ground.

Chloe looked toward Sebastian. Clods of dirt flew from his horse's hooves. She frowned and brought Chestnut to a halt. The cameramen on the ATV switched their focus to Grace, who careened past and cracked her riding crop hard on her horse, spinning after Sebastian. The ATV drove alongside Grace and disappeared into the woods.

It took Chloe a while to dismount with her unwieldy skirt and Henry had meanwhile hoisted himself to his feet. He grabbed his horse's bit and calmed the horse.

Just then Julia galloped up and slowed her horse to a trot.

“Go, Julia, go ahead! Don't let Grace win!” Chloe said. “Hurry!”

Julia took off, with Gillian and Kate close behind. Kate looked back, but never said anything.

Chloe hurriedly tied Chestnut to a tree and hustled over to Henry.

“Is your leg all right?” She could see he was favoring it.

“I'll be fine. It's my horse's leg that's cut. No wonder he threw me. But it's not bad. Don't worry about me. If you go now, you still have a chance.”

Blood was running from his horse's front leg. It looked like a deep gash. Chloe wasn't good with blood. The horse tossed his head up and down.

“I can't just leave you here,” Chloe said. “You're both hurt.”

“I can handle this. Go ahead or you'll lose! You want that money, don't you? Or Sebastian? Or both?”

It all seemed so crass, the way he put it. He whipped off his riding jacket, tossed it aside, pulled off his white muslin shirt, and ripped it into strips.

Chloe tried to avoid gaping at his abs, which also happened to be—ripped. She felt woozy, from the blood dripping down the horse's leg to his hoof, then curdling on the dirt, no doubt.

Chloe snapped to. She did her best to push up her tight sleeves. “You can't get rid of me that easily. Tell me what I can do.”

Henry gave her The Look. As in The Look Mr. Darcy gave Elizabeth Bennet in virtually any film adaptation of
Pride and Prejudice
when he realized that he loved her. It was that Look along with the dive in the lake that typecast Colin Firth as romantic leading man for fifteen years, much to his chagrin. Chloe would know it anywhere, and it happened very quickly, but it was The Look.

She skipped a breath. Her riding jacket felt too tight and she stepped back.

“Here,” Henry said. “You hold the bit and steady him while I wrap him up.”

Henry expertly wrapped the strips of shirt like a bandage around the horse's leg, the horse whinnying and stamping as he tied it off. Blood saturated the shirt and it turned blood brown. He coiled the strips, but the blood soaked through everything.

Henry worked so quickly, so confidently, it impressed Chloe unlike anything she had seen before. He was a man who took action and took care of things, and people, and animals.

What was she thinking?! Her instinct had been to stop and help Henry, but had she made the right choice? She'd just sacrificed Sebastian, not to mention the Accomplishment Points. She thought about Abigail, the business, and her head began to spin. If she'd eaten that cow's tongue on toast for breakfast, she might have more strength—

“Miss Parker? Miss Parker?!” Henry was tapping water on her face with his hands, looking down on her from above, his face lit with a shaft of light coming through the canopy of trees. Her head was in his lap as he knelt on one knee. She heard the water lapping in the ravine. The bun of her hair rubbed right against his manhood, as they would say in the nineteenth century. Or was that just in romance novels? In a stupor, she turned toward his bare chest. His flesh felt warm against her cold, wet cheek. His pecs were impeccable. He had a pine scent about him. Or was that just the forest floor?

“Henry.”

He leaned into her, she lifted her head toward him, and he kissed her with a hunger and a force that both surprised and excited her.

Just as suddenly he stopped, slowly releasing her bottom lip, and smiled. “Now you're going to tell me you didn't faint.”

“I never faint.”

“Clearly.” He moved in for another kiss, and that was when Chloe noticed a cameraman sidestepping down the ravine toward them.

With Henry's help, she staggered to a standing position and turned to face the camera. Blood was rushing to her head. The cameraman hadn't got her head lolling in Henry's lap, had he? Henry, shirtless. Her, without her chaperone. Them kissing! What had possessed her? She broke into a shiver and her teeth began to chatter uncontrollably. This was not how she wanted it to end, not at all.

W
elcome, ladies, to the second-to-last Invitation Ceremony,” the butler said, rubbing his hands together like a seasoned gambler.

The cameras panned from him to the five women in gowns perched in front of the pianoforte in the drawing room at Bridesbridge Place. Their chaperones sat near the game table, fidgeting. Mrs. Crescent lowered her head to look at her locket portrait of William while Fifi twisted and turned at her feet, unable to settle down.

Even though Chloe had changed into a jonquil gown and put an ostrich feather in her hair, she still smelled of horse and muck, and she couldn't shake the thought of Henry kissing her. Okay, she was attracted to him for some reason, but what a mistake! She didn't think the cameraman had captured the kiss, or she would've heard about it. For four years she didn't have a man in her life at all and now she had two? That was one man too many. Kissing Henry? It never should've happened and she swore to herself that it never would again. Thankfully, she wouldn't have to see him tonight, because of the Invitation Ceremony. It would only be Sebastian.
Sebastian
. . . she smiled.

But it was Henry who set her, despite his hurt leg, back on her horse, and led both horses back to Bridesbridge, with a camera in tow. He got her back in time to change, wash up, and even attend to the last-minute details of the hunt tea she was hosting. If only it had been Sebastian.

Here she was dwelling on the men, and not the money!

She fingered the reticule she had sewn and trimmed herself during her sewing lessons, made of vintage maroon silk, embroidered with golden horses. It was barely big enough to hold a girl's calling cards—but able to carry a simple wish. A wish to stay.

“We have five ladies,” the butler said. “And three invitations.”

A footman promenaded into the room and set a silver tray on the marble table in front of the fire. Three crisp invitations lay fanned out on the tray, each sealed with a red wax
W
.

“Two of you will be sent home immediately.” The butler looked Chloe smack in the eye.

Chloe looked down at her reticule. It was over. Tonight she'd be on her way back home, and the best she could hope for from this ordeal would be some PR for her business.

“Might I remind you,” said the butler, “that Lady Grace won the foxhunt, Miss Tripp placed second, and Miss Harrington third.”

Chloe sucked on her lower lip, which didn't matter because she had no lipstick on.

“The fifteen Accomplishment Points for winning the foxhunt will be awarded to . . .” He paused for dramatic effect.

Grace stood on her toes, ready to leap forward and accept her award.

“. . . Miss Parker.”

Chloe looked up.

“Miss Parker?” Grace whined.

The butler nodded.

All heads, with feathers and headdresses, turned toward her.

“Miss Parker wins the Accomplishment Points for making the most ladylike choice of all the contestants by stopping to help a wounded horse and Mr. Henry Wrightman, who had been thrown. Only one other lady considered helping, and that was Miss Tripp, who will be awarded five points for her considerateness. Congratulations, ladies.”

Chloe smiled, Mrs. Crescent and Julia's chaperone clapped, and Chloe thought for a moment that there might be a glimmer of class in this circus of a reality show after all. She credited Sebastian, who had to be behind this turn of fate. He was a true gentleman.

“I wanted to stop, but—” Gillian started to say.

Grace gave Chloe an icy stare and whispered, “It's obvious that you care for Henry. Perhaps more than just as a potential brother-in-law?”

Chloe could feel her pinned-up hair practically standing on end. “I care for a lot of people,” she replied. “But I'm here for Sebastian. I've put everything on the line for him.”

The butler cleared his throat and looked into the cameras. “Before Mr. Wrightman presents these invitations, Miss Parker has arranged a posthunt tea in the back drawing room. This will allow all of you ladies to make any last impressions before he announces his decision. Best of luck.”

The footmen opened the doors to the hall. Sebastian stepped in, radiating heat, and Chloe could feel herself gravitate toward him. His crisp white shirt and cravat enhanced the effect of his sun-kissed skin. He offered each of the women a red rosebud posy wrapped tightly with pink ribbon.

A certain hunger came over Chloe. In her best imitation English accent she asked, “Shall we go to tea?”

Grace locked her eyes on Sebastian, then took his arm and spoke over her shoulder to Chloe. “How did you ever manage to find the time to save the wounded
and
put a tea together Miss Parker? You are too
good
.” Her gaze shifted to Chloe's reticule. “What other tricks do you have up your sleeve—or should I say in your bag? Do tell.”

Whatever did she mean by that? Even Sebastian looked confused.

Grace led Sebastian toward the hall, Kate and Gillian following in her wake. Julia took Chloe's arm and the chaperones and Fifi followed them into the back drawing room.

Hosting the tea was her way of taking control and flaunting her knowledge of Regency mores, and as far as she was concerned, a nineteenth-century aristocrat couldn't have pulled it off any better. A quartet of musicians in the corner played Mozart, the punch sparkled in a crystal bowl, and candles flickered around the silver epergnes stacked with slices of strawberry tart, rout cakes, sandwiches, a trifle, the gold-dusted confections, clotted cream, and apricot ice. Wedgwood china dishes crowned the table, a teapot warmed on the grate, and a whist table stood set and ready.

Sebastian looked impressed, or at the very least, hungry.

“I want to host a tea. Why haven't I hosted a tea?” Gillian asked her chaperone.

“You didn't think of it, dear,” was the chaperone's reply.

Julia took a turn about the room with Kate.

Before anyone so much as touched a teacup, the butler suddenly announced a random reticule inspection.

So much for my being in control here,
Chloe thought. “What is he talking about?” she asked Julia.

“This happened a couple weeks ago before an Invitation Ceremony,” Julia whispered. “It's like a pop quiz. They want to make sure you've remembered to bring everything a lady might need at such an event.”

Julia, Grace, and Kate all passed muster. They each had an array of the necessities: fan, smelling salts or vinaigrette, calling-card case. The butler opened Chloe's reticule last. He named each item as he pulled it out. “Vinaigrette. Calling-card case. Fan.” Then he fell silent as he pulled something else from her bag, even though Chloe hadn't put anything else in there. It was a small, square black packet with serrated edges. At the sight of the glistening wrapper, horror flashed through Chloe. It was a condom! What was it doing in there? She had left the condoms in her valise back at the inn!

Grace gasped. “Oh my.” She fanned herself.

The butler held the little packet up high so everyone could see it. It took a while for the crowd to make out what it was, then the room went abuzz.