Undressing Mr. Darcy (22 page)

“Wow. Cool,” Sherry said as she took a picture with her phone.

Atop the rougher base, an urn-shaped vessel had been carved out of smooth stone and four spigots, each decorated with a bronze shell, poured a perfect stream of water into one of four bronze fishes’ mouths below.

The server took Vanessa’s pound coin and brought two glasses of water from the pump.

“Here’s to our health. Especially our mental health.” Vanessa laughed as she clinked with Sherry.

Sherry immediately made a sour face, but then drank half her glass.

Vanessa drank her entire glass even though it tasted like liquid metal. Panacea or not, she felt better already and toasted her empty glass to the smirking ghost of Jane Austen across the room.

“Let’s swing by here every day for a glass,” she said to Sherry as they stepped back out onto the cobblestones, where Lexi had already lured the man from across the street to her side. Evidently she’d procured his phone number, seeing as he gave her the universal gesture for “call me” before he took off.

“I’m pumped about the Pump Room!” Sherry said. “Anytime you want to go, Vanessa.”

Three to an English-sized flat proved a bit snug even with the cot and foldout sofa, but the flat had its own washing machine. Besides, it meant more to Vanessa than she’d anticipated that their flat stood a mere block from Trim Street and just a few blocks from Queen Square and Gay Street—all three places that Jane Austen had lived. She couldn’t wait to explore and see the actual houses she’d stayed in!

At the same time, she couldn’t believe her excitement about that.

Once they’d freshened up and changed, they stood in line at the Bath Box Office to collect their preordered tickets for various events during the week.

The very polite ticket girl, wearing a bonnet garnished with fake fruit, handed Vanessa her lecture tickets and then an envelope. In her adorable English accent, she said, “Your vouchers are in here along with your punch card for the Dash for Darcy scavenger hunt.”

Dash for Darcy scavenger hunt?
Vanessa had given Julian that idea—he must’ve used it! He’d listened. But how had she gotten on the list?

“There must be some mistake,” Vanessa said. “I didn’t sign up for a scavenger hunt.”

The girl smiled. “Vanessa Roberts, correct?”

She nodded.

“Right. There you are. Perhaps someone signed you up and paid for you as their special guest?”

Had Julian signed her up? Her heart literally leapt. “I suppose it’s possible. What’s it all about?”

“It’s a brand-new event, introduced at the last minute, really, but it has sold out and people are clamoring to get into it.”

Wow. Just wow.

“It takes place over a couple of days and has you crisscrossing Bath and even some out-of-town sights.”

“Oh.” That didn’t sell Vanessa. She didn’t want to go out of town.

“Our very own Mr. Darcy organized the event and offered the prize: a dinner with him at his historical home and recognition of winning the scavenger hunt at the ball.”

But she had to be sure this was Julian. “Who is your ‘Mr. Darcy’?”

“Why, Julian Chancellor, of course, the esteemed author and Jane Austen scholar. This is all to help benefit the restoration of his historical home. Excuse me, miss, but there is quite a queue behind you.”

Flustered and flummoxed, Vanessa stepped out of line while Sherry and Lexi got their tickets.

“Julian must’ve signed me up for the Dash for Darcy thing,” Vanessa said once Lexi and Sherry had ventured over.

“How do you figure that?” Lexi asked.

“Who else would’ve done it? It’s one of the most expensive things on here. The ticket price is hefty—a fund-raising fee.”

“That was nice of him, then, wasn’t it?” Sherry asked.

“I—I guess so,” Vanessa said.

“If he signed you up for it, he obviously knows you’re here, then. Have you heard anything from him?”

“No.”

“Clearly he wants you to chase him—the old-fashioned way.”

“Did you two sign up for it?”

“I didn’t sign up, but I have a voucher and packet for it,” Lexi said. “How about you, Sherry?”

“I got one, too! He signed us all up!” She’d been rifling through the packet. “It looks like we’ll be taking the train to London—and Chawton, too.”

“Hurrah! We’re trotting off to London town,” Lexi said as she looked at each day’s clues.

“But we just arrived in Bath! I don’t know about this,” Vanessa said.

“What?” Lexi said. “You came all this way and you’re going to let someone else win and have dinner with Julian at his—place? After he paid for you to partake? I don’t get it. Does this approach– avoidance method of snaring men work well for you?”

Vanessa sighed. “I need a drink. A Bath bitter.”

Lexi put her arm around Vanessa. “Me, too.”

“Not too many drinks,” Sherry said. “Tomorrow morning’s the promenade in our costumes.”

Lexi opened her itinerary. “Look. We can start with a glass of wine at the prefestival gathering at the—wait for it—Bath and County Club in the Queen’s Parade.” She said the last bit in a fake English accent and laughed. “Are we in England now, or what, girls?”

“You mean ‘ladies,’” said Vanessa.

She had, after all, come to Bath in order to, in as ladylike a way as possible, hunt down Julian in the costumed crowd, knock him over the head with her parasol, and drag him into her slightly screwed-up modern life. Had she not?

She saw a lot of fantastic things during her first few hours in Bath on Friday night, but she didn’t see the one thing she was looking for—Julian.

C
hapter 14

O
n Saturday morning, once she had her corset, gown, and white stockings on, she only had a few seconds to curl her stick-straight hair into a Regency updo, but when she went to use the mini curling iron she’d heated up, it was cold.

“Time to go, Vanessa; the promenade starts in ten minutes.” Lexi stood by the door that led into the hall, tapping her fan in her hand.

Sherry looked at the watch in her reticule.

“For some reason my curling iron isn’t working,” Vanessa said. “Even with your adapter, Sherry.”

Sherry came to investigate. “You’re supposed to turn on this switch next to the outlet.” She pressed a little switch and the curling iron light went on.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Vanessa cursed the fact that not only did the British have a completely different voltage system, rendering all her plug-ins useless without borrowing Sherry’s adapter, but evidently each individual outlet had its own on-off switch.

“Leaving now,” Lexi said as she opened the door. “Otherwise we’ll miss the start of the promenade.”

Vanessa unplugged her curling iron, switched off the outlet, and headed toward the door.

“Bonnetless? With straight hair?” Lexi looked disapprovingly at Vanessa.

“I don’t want Julian to see me in a
bonnet.
I wanted to do my hair up with a tiara or something with curls. If I had something like what you have on, I’d wear that.”

Lexi tossed her head. “This is a bandeau. And not only is it the only one I have, but it took me twenty minutes to do this—while you were sleeping.”

“I can’t help it if I’m a little jet-lagged. What is that you’re wearing, Sherry?”

“A Regency turban. Maybe you can buy one at the Festival Fayre. But that won’t be until after the promenade.”

Sherry held the door open while Lexi and then Vanessa stepped into the hall.

“It’s not cool, Vanessa, not cool to go with a modern hairstyle,” Lexi said as the door closed behind her. “It screams ‘American.’”

Bonnetless or not, they were off to Queen Square, and Vanessa thought
that
was pretty cool. She just liked the sound of it.

They’d passed by Queen Square the night before on their way to the Bath and County Club, with its black-iron fence, its grassy center punctuated with a
jeu de boules
patch or two, and a stone obelisk in the center.

As she trailed behind Lexi and Sherry among women and men in costume all streaming toward the square, she saw Julian everywhere—and nowhere. More than once she quickened at thinking she’d spotted him, but a turn of a head or a tip of a hat would prove her wrong. She almost wished she weren’t surrounded by hundreds of men in breeches and beaver hats, as it proved to be a sort of torturous game.

And yes, all the women she could see, even the ones pushing strollers with their babies in costume, had made some sort of an attempt at a Regency hairstyle or appropriate headgear.

Lexi was right. Her long straight hair exposed Vanessa for the American that she was. She would have to step it up for the ball.

She overheard a woman in a gown, a cropped jacket Vanessa now knew to be a “spencer” jacket, and Regency accessories to the hilt talking to a group of younger costumed girls who walked alongside of her.

“Look, girls,” she said in her English accent as she pointed with a gloved finger. “On the far south side of the square is Number 13. Jane Austen stayed in that house for just over a month in 1799 when she was twenty-three years old. Just a bit older than all of you.”

Vanessa squinted her eyes and craned her neck to see the last stone town house on the corner that looked just like, and just as elegant as, the other town houses abutting one another and surrounding the square.

Jane Austen stayed there? So close to her flat? She couldn’t wait to tell Aunt Ella she’d not only seen Number 13 Queen Square but was staying very near it.

People in costume were politely standing on the stoop of the town house, taking pictures beside its wrought iron fence and in front of its glossy blue wooden door.

She needed to learn more about Jane’s time in Bath, and then, when she finally did see Julian again, she could talk to him intelligently about it. She shook her head just remembering when she’d driven him from the airport into the city and tuned out an entire discussion about Jane Austen and Bath between him and her aunt. How snobby of her!

People in costume ebbed and flowed all around her, and she realized she’d lost Lexi and Sherry. She pulled her phone out of her reticule only to discover the battery was out and hadn’t charged during the night because she hadn’t flipped the outlet switch on. The soonest she’d be able to stop back at the flat and charge it would be after buying a much-needed turban at the Guildhall’s Festival Fayre.

Hundreds of people in their Regency best swarmed the square, all of them in couples or groups. Well, Vanessa would be promenading alone. Still, as pathetic as that might be, she wouldn’t think of skipping it.

Trying to locate an American accent, and maybe a group she could glom onto, she spotted a bunch who looked like they were Americans but turned out to be speaking German.

Jane Austen had attracted all kinds of people of all races from all over the world to Bath—no minor feat for a female author who had been dead for almost two hundred years. For the first time, Vanessa stood in awe of the sheer staying power of Austen. All these years, her aunt had been on to something, and all these years, Vanessa had done her best to avoid it.

Military drums sounded and about twenty or so “redcoats,” uniformed army men dressed in their smart red coats with gold and navy trim, white breeches, and black hats, and bearing muskets, gathered at the top of the square while the “Town Crier” welcomed and rallied the crowd, which clapped politely.

More than once, groups of happy, smiling women asked her to take their photos. Maybe this was Jane Austen’s way of getting even with her.

Maybe she
had
spent too much time behind her various screens and not enough of it with friends. She stood on her tippy-toes in her flats, the only appropriate shoe for Austen’s time, and hoped that Julian would be leading the promenade with the redcoats, but she didn’t see him.

She followed the promenade uphill, past the enticing Jane Austen Centre on Gay Street with its museum, tearoom, and gift shop with windows jammed full of Austen paraphernalia. An Elizabeth Bennet statue stood out front, and she wore a blue gown that only served to remind Vanessa of the night Julian wore that blue gown. Austen had lived up the street at Number 25 with her mother for several months in 1805. The stone buildings arching along the cobblestone roads were achingly beautiful in their aged patina and a far cry from the modern steel and glass of Chicago.

From the Circus—tall, elegant stone houses complete with columns and elaborate friezes built around a circular park—to the stunning Royal Crescent topping a curved hill like a shining crown, Vanessa took in the beauty of it all.

It felt like a restorative just walking around Bath.

The bright blue sky provided a contrasting backdrop to the golden buildings and the clouds piled up in the sky like so much whipped cream.

At Number 43 Milsom Street, the famed street that, as she overheard, Jane Austen herself used to shop on, she noticed quite a few people stopping to take pictures of worn, painted lettering on the Bath stone above one of the shop fronts.
CIRCULATING LIBRARY AND READING ROOM
, it read in cracked black type.

No doubt Jane Austen used to frequent the library. Vanessa used to like libraries, too, but since she’d gotten her e-reader, she’d stopped going. Maybe she needed more library time in her life. More hushed time among rows of books waiting to be accidently discovered, rather than deliberately seeking one title or another, clicking to order, and moving on. Serendipity.

“There’s Number 2,” a woman with a white ostrich feather said to her friends who walked alongside of Vanessa. “That used to be the old sweetshop Molland’s.”

“Where Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth saw each other again.”

“Yes, yes,” they all agreed and smiled in recognition.

Fact and fiction intermingled freely in this group, and Vanessa had grown to like it. If only Jane Austen could know that two hundred years after
Persuasion
’s publication, people in Regency costume were pointing out where her characters had supposedly visited! It boggled the mind.

At the end of Milsom Street, when the promise of Parade Gardens and the River Avon comingled, a dinged-up black car slowed down alongside her. The driver broke all the rules by turning onto the street—they had closed it off to traffic for the promenade. Why was this guy singling her out?

“Hey! Hey, you without a bonnet there!” the guy shouted from his car in an English accent that seemed to be the polar opposite of Julian’s smooth Oxbridge one.

What the hell? At first Vanessa pretended she didn’t know he was talking to her. As if it weren’t embarrassing enough to be bonnetless in this crowd, walking alone, and now to have some guy shouting out at her from a car that shouldn’t even be on this street? Now some people in the nice costumed crowd were glaring at her, as if he were her fault.

He wasn’t in any sort of nineteenth-century costume and he drove his old sports car with black racing gloves. Really? Racing gloves?

She always attracted the idiots. More than five hundred people in this parade and he chose her. Her blood boiled. She was like a magnet for jerks, or as Jane Austen would say, for rakes, for lotharios.

She looked the other way, toward a gorgeous shop that sold hats. A haberdashery. How nice it would be to shop in that haberdashery . . . He revved his car alongside her and it broke into her reverie. How could she ditch him and fast?

She couldn’t believe her luck, or lack of. She’d flown more than four thousand miles to track down a gentleman, and she ended up doing nothing but attracting the attention of the English version of a hundred guys she’d already encountered in her lifetime in the States.

“I know you can hear me, luv,” he shouted at her. “I’m parking my car now.”

She cut into the crowd, trying to mix in with the people in the middle of the promenade rather than on the fringe. Why couldn’t a nice gentleman-type in a coat, cravat, and breeches try to talk to her?

But sure enough, just as she turned toward the lush greenery of Parade Gardens where the promenade was to end, someone grabbed her shawled shoulder—with a black racing glove.

“Listen, luv, I need you for an interview. Let’s have a sit-down.”

She peeled the hand off her shoulder and found herself looking up at a tall, muscular guy who seemed to be at least five or maybe even ten years older than she was, wearing a wrinkled khaki trench coat, a tie that didn’t match his shirt, and a sneer on his otherwise attractive face, which at the moment was looking the other way, scanning, presumably, for a place they could “have a sit-down.” He squinted in the sunlight.

“There,” he said as his eyes landed on a bench.

She considered enlisting the help of a nearby redcoat.

“Excuse me, but I won’t be ‘having a sit-down’ with you. Thank you.”

Just beyond him, though, the gardens stretched out toward the River Avon glistening in the sun.

He flashed a press badge, but she knew those could be created on anyone’s printer—it wasn’t exactly a credential.

“I’m a journalist. David Mills. I can see you’re American and I need to interview you about the festival.”

It could be the real deal, or it could be the oldest pickup line in the book.

“No, thank you.”

She spun around to follow the crowd toward the curved frontage of the Guildhall, which she’d read had been built in 1775. In the same year in Chicago, Jean-Baptist-Point Du Sable hadn’t even created the first wooden settlement yet. That would happen almost a decade later.

The three tiers of windows in the Guildhall reminded her, for some reason, of a tiered wedding cake. David stood in front of her, blocking her way to the Festival Fayre.

The Fayre in the Guildhall only went until four thirty in the afternoon, and she didn’t want to miss it. Not only could Julian be there, but she needed that Regency turban, plus something to eat, and hopefully she’d find Lexi and Sherry.

She smiled, stepped around him, and picked up her pace.

“You are
exactly
the right girl for this piece. You’re not really an Austen fanatic, I can tell.”

Just because she wasn’t wearing a bonnet?

“The economy’s killing hacks like me. You could make this piece sing, I’m sure of that, I am.”

She stopped for a moment.

“Come on now and help out a down-on-his-luck reporter. I need a fresh perspective. You think I just want to be interviewing the toffs with frilly bonnets, fancy pants, and walking sticks up their arses?”

She laughed. “Okay, David. You have ten minutes. Go.”

* * *

H
is interview questions really didn’t elicit the kinds of snarky answers Vanessa knew he was looking for, either. He’d pegged her as some sort of a fan gone rogue, due to her lack of a bonnet, perhaps a modern prisoner held against her will here during Regency week with her fanatic friends, but he was disappointed to learn she’d come here intentionally, and worse, she’d paid an exorbitant plane fare at the last minute and was rooming with two other women to partake.