Undressing Mr. Darcy (19 page)

“I know,” Vanessa said. “Men are a hot commodity around here, but—”

“It’ll make your aunt happy to see you dancing with ‘Mr. Darcy.’”

Vanessa took Julian’s hand and stood. “Well, okay, but I must warn you, Mr. Darcy, I don’t know how to waltz.”

“I will gladly be your teacher,” Julian said. “I think you’re smart enough to catch on.”

With that, Vanessa acquiesced.

She and Aunt Ella smiled at each other across the dance floor, and even though the party had been a resounding success so far, Vanessa couldn’t help but dwell on the fact that by the end of the month her aunt would be married and moving to the northern suburbs to live with Paul—without her car keys.

When Julian clasped his hand in hers and settled his other hand on her shoulder blade as she rested her hand on his shoulder, it took the edge off, almost as if she’d guzzled a strong cocktail.

Yet she didn’t want to call him intoxicating and she didn’t let herself get drawn in by a false sense of—anything—just because he had an arm around her.

It was a dance. With a boy. A boy who would be gone and out of her life tomorrow. Yes, they had chemistry; yes, they had a thing for each other; but no, she couldn’t risk it; it wouldn’t be smart.

She realized, as she followed his lead, counting to three, doing the box step with him, that just having to talk herself out of him meant that she was a little more vulnerable than she’d originally thought.

She’d danced with a lot of guys in her lifetime. Why was this so different?

He was looking at her and smiling.

The room twinkled with chandelier lights, and, as more couples joined them on the floor, Julian drew her closer in until their cheeks nearly touched. She felt him against her, the warmth of him, his hard body moving so slowly and smoothly to the music.

This drove her “mad,” as he would say. She tried to push herself away as the dance ended, but he resisted. Nonetheless, she knew it was best for the success of the party that he mingle, entertain, and dance with Aunt Ella’s friends. Chase, too, asked as many older women as he could to dance.

As the evening progressed and Julian floated around the room, talking and dancing and falling in and out of her line of sight while she took video and pictures, she felt as if she
were
watching him in a movie dance with other women. Other white-haired women, but still.

The last thing she felt like doing was sharing him tonight. The only “sharing” she liked to do was on social media!

Which reminded her. She reached for her phone and scrolled through her texts, e-mails, and posts, looking for “urgent” or “emergency.” How did she ever get through all this crap on a daily basis and still do her job? The sheer volume of it astounded her.

And then there was another message from an eBelieve prospect.

Could Julian be right? Maybe, maybe she didn’t eBelieve anymore.

As far as she could tell, in Jane Austen’s time you’d be limited to meeting the local eligible bachelors at the village dance, and maybe there was some merit to that.

“Coffee or tea?” asked the waiter.

“Tea, please.”

Did she just say that?

It occurred to her she needed more tea parties in her life. More dancing. More gowns. Less cell phones and computers. More Mr. Darcy.

In fact, Julian had called it on the very first day he’d met her.

Everybody needs a little Mr. Darcy in their lives.

While the quintet took a break, she caught a glimpse of him again, across the room, entertaining a semicircle of women and men, too. Their eyes met and she smiled, then she raised her teacup to him. He beamed and bowed, reached for a cup of tea himself, and toasted her from across the dance floor. Then he started clinking his cup of tea with a spoon. Others chimed in.

It reminded her of the clinking of car keys.

Oh, shit—she’d almost forgotten to give her little speech!

Soon the whole roomful of people were clinking their glasses.

Vanessa stood up and smiled and pulled two index cards from her bag. The first one had her speech outlined on it, and the second had the quote Julian had recommended she use.

“I had a little something I wrote a while ago here, but”—she tucked the first index card back in her bag— “things have changed since then. For the better.”

She looked out into the room, scanning for Aunt Ella, until she found her with Paul. “First of all, I wanted to thank everyone for coming on such short notice.”

Chase began taking pictures of her from across the room, and she hadn’t even thought of asking him to do it. For once, she wasn’t the one behind the camera.

Julian pulled up a chair for Aunt Ella, who sat down.

Vanessa smiled.

“Once in a lifetime, you meet someone—someone like my aunt Ella—who not only loves you for who you are, but”—she began tearing up—“but also loves you for who you become when the two of you are together. Someone who recognizes, even when you don’t, that together you’re infinitely better than either one of you could be on your own.” Vanessa dabbed a tear in the corner of her eye. She laughed. “I’m going off my script here. Does that make any sense?”

“Yes, yes!” quite a few shouted out. Others clapped and nodded.

“Yes, dear,” one of Aunt Ella’s lifelong friends called out.

“As it turns out, I’m not very good at improvising,” Vanessa said as she looked down. “But it makes you feel grateful to know that person, and even if you’ve only been together a short time, you know you’ve become a different, better person because of it.

“Aunt Ella is one of those people. That’s why this room is full of her friends, her family, and everyone here loves her, am I right?”

The room resounded with clapping and heads nodding. Vanessa raised her teacup. “So here’s to Aunt Ella, who took me in as a cranky, surly teenager, full of attitude and with more than a chip on my shoulder, and showed me that life could once again be elegant and good and full of hope. Thank goodness for people who can deal with sarcastic, wisecracking troublemakers! And thank you for showing me beauty and kindness and intelligence. After a lifetime of trying to resist it, I think I’ve finally come around.”

She shot a glance at Julian, who half smiled.

“Well! Happy engagement, dear aunt, and here’s to the exciting new chapter in your life with the most incredible gentleman in the room: Paul Nelson. Here’s to the happy couple!” She raised her cup, everyone in the room followed her lead, and they all took a sip.

“I’m not done—you’re not rid of me yet!”

Everyone laughed.

She held the second index card in front of her and her hand shook. She’d been on TV, radio, podcasts, video, Web streaming—still nothing had prepared her for this. The culmination of emotion, from her aunt’s illness to her impending wedding and move, to Julian’s arrival and his imminent departure, was almost too much to bear.

“I have a quote here, from one of Aunt Ella’s favorites. None other than Jane Austen herself.”

The guests nodded and smiled, knowing Austen was a favorite of Aunt Ella’s.

“In October of 1815, Jane Austen’s ten-year-old niece Caroline became an aunt herself. Jane Austen wrote in a letter to Caroline:

“‘Now that you are become an Aunt, you are a person of some consequence and must excite great interest whatever you do. I have always maintained the importance of Aunts as much as possible, and I am sure of your doing the same now.’

“Here’s to my aunt—and Paul!” Vanessa raised her cup again, and everybody cheered and toasted.

In a blur, not only from her teary eyes but in the rush of adrenaline, she invited anyone else to speak, and they did, and, as she made her way toward Aunt Ella to hug both her and Paul, she felt the warm presence of Julian beside Paul as her aunt whispered in her ear.

“Vanessa, darling, you are everything to me. You are my niece, my daughter, my sister—my best friend.” She hugged Vanessa, and Vanessa breathed in her Dior perfume. “Great, great things are in store for you, dear. I just know it! Thank you for this wonderful evening—thank you for everything.”

After the embrace, Vanessa stood back and held hands with her aunt, and Chase took another picture.

Aunt Ella turned to Vanessa and Julian. “I certainly hope you two have plans after this, don’t you?”

Vanessa looked at Julian.

“Yes, we do,” he said. “We’re going on a boat ride.”

“Good! I’m glad to hear it! Keep her out late. I have Paul to look out for me now. I don’t want to hear from anyone until the morning. I insist that you skip out the minute this is over.”

“Well, then, it’s settled,” Julian said as he bowed to the Dowager Countess.

* * *

C
hase’s “boat” turned out to be a sailing yacht that comfortably fit about forty people, including two women who, Vanessa was convinced, were stalking Julian as he walked home with her under the midnight moon and city lights.

Julian looked back at the women dressed in their crisp, nautical blue and white outfits.

“Perhaps they just live in the same general direction as you and your aunt,” Julian said. “I fail to believe they’d
stalk
me, as you say.”

“Oh, they’re stalking you, all right. Must be those tight breeches of yours. You had to wear them, didn’t you?”

“I thought you liked that I stayed in costume. For PR purposes? I’m sure we sold at least forty books tonight, and it wasn’t even an official event.”

He was right. He’d made her job easy by staying in costume. Vanessa playfully nudged his elbow. “Let’s turn this way and see if they follow us.”

He locked his arm in hers and looked back.

“They turned.”

“I told you.”

“Hmmm. Let’s cross the street,” he said, clearly beginning to believe her.

Once they crossed, Vanessa pretended to stop and look in a shop window for a minute so she could look back. “They’re behind us. They’re stalking.”

Julian smiled. “Ahh, the celebrity life. I must say I’m going to miss all this.”

“I’m sure you will miss gorgeous American women swooning over you and stalking you at all hours!”

“No, I’m going to miss—everything. I’ll miss the food, the city on the beach, even the American tea. I’ll miss your valuable input on long-term fund-raising and your work on a sustainable PR plan for my estate. But most of all I’m going to miss—you.”

She slowed her pace from the sheer shock of the comment. Then she eyed his ass, picturing the British flag briefs. She didn’t want to think of missing him. She didn’t want to think of Ferris wheel rides and coffee and tea in the mornings and road trips with his suddenly endearing leather-bound books.

British. Flag. Briefs.

She knew it would be easy to get into them. But would she be able to get out?

“You’ll have another minder in New York,” she said. “And before you know it you’ll be back to things in England.”

“Yes.” He sighed.

Well, the sigh could be interpreted a hundred different ways, but she chose not to venture a guess and not to question it, either.

She looked back, remembering they weren’t alone. “Uh-oh, they’re gaining on us now,” she said. “I have an idea—we’ll lose ’em ninety-five stories up. Follow me.”

She hustled ahead of him into one of her favorite haunts, the John Hancock. Touristy and crowded enough to lose two unwanted women? Yes. Sexiest damn building in Chicago? Yes. Romantic as hell with drinks and views to melt over? Hell yes.

She pressed the up button, trying not to think beyond how dashing he looked in his cravat and coat as he dashed through the marble lobby. How many hours did they really have left together? She couldn’t stop her mind from clicking along.

The sight of him in his gorgeous Regency attire struck her as it did the people who filed in line behind him for the elevator, but the polite, upscale crowd only looked and didn’t ask a thing about the handsome gentleman.

She and Julian went into the elevator first, and a mass of people crammed in after them, crushing the two of them against each other, waistcoat to V-neck dress.

While the two women from the party walked right past the elevator, he took her hand and squeezed it in acknowledgment. At first she pulled away, but then he interlaced his fingers in hers, and she acquiesced, because it really had been a fabulous night, and, well, essentially, the PR job was over.

The boat ride itself would’ve been fantastic, with the lake breeze and the skyline all lit up, were it not for, once again, a posse of women flocking around him. This meant she’d ended up inadvertently saddled with Chase as he manned the boat—no minor feat to raise a sail and guide a small crew on a one-hundred-and-forty-five-foot boat.

Once he’d put her to work steering, she found she couldn’t beg out of it and could only catch glimpses of Julian as he flitted about while Chase pointed out various buildings in the cityscape and laid out his itinerary for the next two months.

Not only would he be traveling to London for auctions, but he would be representing the auction house at the Jane Austen Festival in Bath as a major sponsor, while Lexi, Sherry, and Julian were all there, too.

Why her brain went down a path about Chase when Julian was leaning in and angling his strong jaw and his inviting, falling-open lips her way, she didn’t understand, except this was typically how her bait-and-switch mind worked to protect her from falling—falling for someone when things got dangerous.

But the elevator doors opened with a whoosh and a breeze on the ninety-fifth-floor lounge, and every girl looked better with a breeze blowing through her hair, didn’t she? He dropped her hand as soon as they stepped into the glittering world of clinking cocktails high above the sparkling city, sending her mind reeling with conjecture. Yet the buildings, the beaches, and even the Navy Pier Ferris wheel below seemed to glisten just for them. She showed him around all the windows just as low-hanging clouds began to roll in. The crowd thinned, a window-view table opened up, and they each had a drink while the clouds moved below them, offering peeks at the city lights.

He may have let go of her hand earlier, but now his leg brushed up against hers under the table and, despite the attractive women in their cocktail dresses at the table right next to them, he seemed to just have eyes for her. He leaned in, too, when she spoke, and, just as Lexi had taught her years ago, she looked for more body language clues to determine his interest, and she found them. He reached for his cravat and straightened it. He ran his fingers through his hair. Preening again. A clear sign of a male being attracted to a female—no matter what the species or country of origin.