Definitely Not Mr. Darcy (43 page)

“You. This. Everything.” She thrust her arm up at the arched brick ceiling and paced the cold brick floor in her boots. She felt her torn gown billow behind her; the lantern swung and tossed light randomly around the dark brick like broken glass.

“Wait!” he said just as she aimed for the doors.

He was down on bended bare knee, his shirt, and everything else—dangling. He stretched out a hand toward her.

She stopped, set the lantern down, took his hand, and put her other hand on her hip. “This better be good.”

He kissed her hand as if it were about to disappear forever and looked up at her.

Something as warm as oil burning in a lantern came over her.

“Miss Parker, will you marry me?”

“What?” She laughed and one of the ice-house doors swung open with a breeze, sending in a pool of moonlight.

“Don't laugh.”

She bit her lip.

He pulled her closer, taking both of her hands. “I do believe I've fallen in love with you. I don't know why I haven't asked you sooner. Will you marry me? It'll be the perfect ending. The perfect television ending to our real-life beginning.”

A white gown, flashbulbs flashing, and a carriage festooned with white flowers paraded around in her brain. Did the Regency Anglican church allow divorced mothers to wear white?

He pulled her closer, leaned his head in toward her hips, and wrapped his arms around the small of her back. “You don't have to answer right away. Just let me know you'll think about it.”

“I will. Think about it.” She thought about Abigail, the money, her business, William.

His knee must've been frozen.

He kissed her hip bone, moving slowly across her pelvis, where she felt the warmth of his lips through her crepe-thin gown to the other hip bone, and a tingling like she hadn't felt in years sparked all over her. She lifted off his shirt and laid it on the ice block where he flopped down. He pulled her on top of him.

“Say yes,” he murmured as his fingers worked the buttons on the back of her gown. “Say yes.”

She closed her eyes. She'd gone from something close to a governess to a temptress in a moment's time, and he'd taken her there. “Yes.” She closed her eyes and kissed him with hungry lips and tongue. “Yes!”

And she would've said yes again, but he ripped her bodice open and a lantern appeared at the ice-house doors.

She almost fell off him. What if it was Henry?!

“Excuse me, sir—Mr. Wrightman!” Thank God it was just Sebastian's footman who shone the lantern on them. Sebastian palmed her breasts to cover them as the lantern light swung away.

“Oh—so sorry—ehm—sir.”

“That will be all, Smith. Thank you.”

Henry called all his servants “Mr.” or “Miss” and then their surname.

“It's Mrs. Crescent, sir.” Mr. Smith turned around and spoke toward the forest.

Chloe tucked her breasts back into her torn bodice, buttoned up her pelisse, and swung her leg off Sebastian for the dismount.

“She's having her baby, sir,” Mr. Smith said.

Chloe turned toward the footman. The shadow of his ponytail and wig appeared in the moonlight at the door.

Sebastian propped himself up on his elbow and grabbed Chloe with his other hand just as she moved toward the doors. “This is of no concern to me. Now be gone.”

“Yes, sir.” The footman bowed his head and closed the ice-house doors.

“Mr. Smith! Wait!” Chloe smoothed down her pelisse and tossed Sebastian's breeches over his midsection. “Is it true? Is she really having the baby right now?” She tugged a boot on.

“Yes.” Mr. Smith looked away, into the moonlight, confused about the question. “Of course. I heard her myself from downstairs. She sounds in terrible pain.”

Chloe lunged toward the door, but Sebastian grabbed her arm and snapped her back.

“Ouch!” Her arm smarted.

B
e gone, Smith!” Sebastian sat up on the ice block and yanked his breeches on with one hand and clamped Chloe's arm with the other.

He sneered. “How the devil did he know we were here anyway?”

Chloe turned toward the laced brickwork around the ice-house doors, and tried to wriggle her arm free.

She had totally messed up everything. Her fan splayed across the brick floor. Her yellow-tasseled reticule, flung near an ice block on the other side of the lantern, sat in a pool of melting ice. The outline of Henry's glasses showed through the silk.

She couldn't see much beyond Sebastian's lantern, but heard Mr. Smith's horse gallop off. His lantern bounced away like Tinker Bell disappearing into the night.

Sebastian finally released her arm, combed his hand through his disheveled hair, and took up the lantern. “I didn't want the hired help to know you've been alone with me. You understand, right? I didn't want to compromise your reputation. You'd get booted off the show. Or we'd be forced to marry. But then you had to—talk to him.” He threw his arms up in the air, Italian style.

“Right.” Chloe tightened her pelisse around her like a second skin. Hypothermia set in. “I need to go.” She shivered uncontrollably and picked up her fan and her soaked reticule.

A real gentleman would've never strong-armed a lady. Then again a real lady would've never found herself in an ice house at midnight with Sebastian the bodice ripper. What was she thinking? He only had one proposal in mind, and that didn't involve any kind of church ceremony. Is that all he wanted from her? Sex? Is that why he always seemed to say exactly what she wanted to hear?

She stepped into the moonlight. The sudden brightness made her squint. With a clink of the keys, Sebastian locked the ice-house doors behind them. “I'll escort you back.”

He was hot, he was cold. He could be decent. He could be an ass. But he wasn't the one.

“Did you really mean it when you said you had fallen in love with me?” Chloe asked.

“I think so. But this has all been very difficult for me—”

That was all Chloe needed to hear. George must've written up Sebastian's bio, because the man described as Sebastian Wrightman was not this Sebastian Wrightman. She'd thought this whole thing was real, and that's where she had gone wrong. She was channeling Mr. Darcy when she should've been paying more attention to what was right in front of her.

He helped her up onto his horse. In silence, he led the horse toward Bridesbridge Place. She looked up at the moon as the horse loped beneath her. She had just narrowly escaped, and she had the full moon to thank for inducing Mrs. Crescent's baby.

When the moon was full in England, was it full at home, too? Chloe wondered. Abigail loved the full moon. Chloe used to be Abigail's moon, orbiting around her day and night, year after year, never faltering. Now? Now she didn't think she could ever fall happily back into that eternal elliptical path without feeling alone and cold. Still, the moon called her home like a force stronger than gravity.

On their way to Bridesbridge, they passed the castle ruins. In the moonlight, Chloe could see how the castle had been pummeled by cannonballs. She could see the holes in the walls so clearly now. Why hadn't she seen them before?

Still, she had to win the money. Otherwise it wouldn't have been worth it to leave Abigail.

What was going to happen now that they got caught with Sebastian's breeches down?

At the bottom of the stairs at Bridesbridge Place, she buttoned her pelisse up to her neck. A candelabrum dripped on the griffin-footed table near the banister. A sudden howl from Mrs. Crescent rang out, and it echoed throughout the foyer. Waves of fear and memory crashed through Chloe. She'd never forget that peppermint-green birthing room, the thirst, the pain, the joy of childbirth. Slowly, she slunk up the steps, candelabrum dripping in the one hand, reticule and fan drooping in the other.

How could Mrs. Crescent have a baby here? Without electricity? Without phones? Without relaxation music? And—why?

It was almost as crazy as thinking you could find true love on a TV show.

The closer Chloe got to Mrs. Crescent's room, the more intense the breathing sound became. Chloe had to change her gown. What did a lady wear to a birthing room, anyway? She tiptoed past Mrs. Crescent's half-opened door.

“Miss Parker!” Nothing escaped Mrs. Crescent, even when she was giving birth. “Come here immediately!
Owww!
”

Henry's low voice, like water over river rocks, calmed and comforted Mrs. Crescent . . . and Chloe. She inched the door open. Mrs. Crescent groaned in pain. Chloe couldn't bear to look at the birthing bed—just yet. Instead she focused on their shadows, larger than life on the blue wall. Henry's shadow, Mrs. Crescent's shadow, and—the camerawoman's shadow all flickered in the candlelight like a pantomime play. Would this surreal night never end? And did this, too, need to be filmed?

Mrs. Crescent's shadow rocked back and forth, her knees up, her hair down and scraggly. Chloe squeezed her eyes shut and buried her nose in the silky sleeve of her pelisse. She might need her vinaigrette. She set the candelabrum on the dressing table.

Henry's shadow reached out and massaged Mrs. Crescent's back. “Push. Gentle now. We're almost there. One, two, three. Right. Stop pushing. Breathe. Excellent.”

His shadow turned toward Chloe and bent to check his pocket watch. “How kind of the lady to pull herself away from her diversions to help us.”

“It was hardly a diversion. It was enlightening. And I would've been better off here.” Chloe still couldn't look at either of them. She curled her upper lip and talked to Henry's shadow on the wall. Mrs. Crescent grumbled in pain.

Nothing else might have been real, but this was. Chloe pulled off her gloves, rolled up her sleeves, and looked down at her hands.

“Scrub up, Miss Parker!” Henry nodded toward a washbowl across the room.

Henry wore a billowing shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the collar open. A slight tension pulled the shirt across his broad chest and she could see the curve of his muscles. With his cutaway coat off, his tight drop-front breeches revealed a body more enticing than Sebastian's, if that was even possible. But she was done with men in ruffled shirts and breeches, wasn't she?

“What are you waiting for, Miss Parker? Wash up, please.”

My God, Mrs. Crescent was having a baby, and Chloe's mind was in the gutter, even after a scrape in the ice-house with an absolute rake.

Mrs. Crescent started her breathing, and Chloe hustled to the wash table.

“Do put on a pair of latex gloves,” Henry instructed.

“Latex gloves?” The hot water scalded her hands and the soapsuds felt—real. She snapped the gloves on. She whispered to Henry, “When were these invented? Not during the Regency, I'm sure.”

Henry lowered his voice. “If you must know, Miss Parker, it was 1964. Now please come and help Mrs. Crescent relax.”

Relax? Nothing could've prepared Chloe for what she saw when she turned around, except gory hospital and crime shows that she never watched because she didn't have cable.

Chloe rocked back on her boots, reaching behind her for something to lean on. Her hand awkwardly bumped Henry right on his tight ass. All manners, he pretended nothing happened.

“I offered her a sheet for modesty as they would've done in the Regency, but she refused.”

Chloe knew there was no modesty in childbirth. She watched Henry unroll a suede package on the dressing table.

“Obstetric kit.”

It was an obstetric kit from the Regency era. The instruments, tucked in the suede kit with a strip of leather, looked more like pruning shears, great big tongs, some sort of a spatula, and the biggest fishhook she'd ever seen.

One glance would've been enough to get anyone—maybe even Grace—to sign on for a life of spinsterhood and celibacy. “You're not really going to—”

“To use these? Hardly!” He lowered his voice to a whisper as he pulled out the wooden forceps. “But this is what the OB or ‘accoucheur' would've used. We've come such a long way in just two hundred years. No wonder one in three women died in childbirth.”

“What?! One in three—”

“Uggggggggggh!” Mrs. Crescent's face contorted into a grimace. Red splotches and sweat covered her face and neck.

Henry handed Chloe a stack of cool, damp washcloths. She hadn't known that one in three women died during childbirth in the Regency. It was hard to reconcile the gowns and the glitz and the romance with this horrific statistic.

She scissor-stepped over to the bedside and dabbed Mrs. Crescent's forehead with a washcloth. Her voice wavered. “Just think, Mrs. Crescent, soon you'll be holding your beautiful, healthy, happy baby. Your baby will know you just by your heartbeat, your voice. It'll look up at you—”