Undressing Mr. Darcy (23 page)

A few weeks before and her replies might have gotten her name in the paper.

He did answer the few questions she had for him, however. He was a freelancer originally from Lancashire, northern England, now relocated to Bath, and his article would be running in the
Bath Chronicle
, both the print and online versions. And yes, he would try to put in a plug in the article for her friend Julian Chancellor about Friday’s
Undressing Mr. Darcy
event.

She was still pumping for Julian.

After the interview, David followed her into the Guildhall, trying to get her attention by calling several men “spooners,” something derogatory, no doubt, and wondering out loud where he could get a pint. He called her a “cracker” as she ascended the wide staircase in front of him, and she interpreted that to mean something positive, but why did
he
follow her around? Why not—Julian?

At the top of the staircase, despite David’s ramblings and the buzz of hundreds of people all around her, the strains of a Regency trio plucked at her heartstrings, reminding her of dancing with Julian. Off to her right, a room with an elevated ceiling, sparkling chandeliers, and afternoon sunshine gleaming in on walls the color of pastel green pastilles prompted her to stand in awe gaping at the oil paintings and floral molding until some woman, with a very sweet English accent, said, “Excuse me, dear.”

As if she really had gone back in time, everyone in her immediate view (as long as she didn’t look to her left at David) wore Regency clothes. It felt like time travel.

Her mind flitted to Aunt Ella as she gravitated toward the shop “stalls,” as the English called them, surrounding the perimeter of the room, where she subscribed to the print version of a glossy little magazine produced there in Bath called
Jane Austen’s Regency World
. It was the first nonelectronic magazine she’d ordered in years, and she sent one to herself and one to Aunt Ella’s new address.

It would be nice, she thought, to get some real mail once in a while.

Across the room, beyond the haberdasher’s stall loaded with decorated hats, straw bonnets, masquerade masks, a smattering of multicolored ribbons, and exactly the turban she had been seeking, sat Julian, in a shaft of sunlight, signing books.

He wore his Regency-era reading glasses and his head was bent toward the page. He sported the very coat she had stripped off him and a cravat tied in the same mathematical knot she had untied on their last night together.

Stacks of his books surrounded him on the table, and a line of mostly female fans stood in a—queue obscuring the walking stick stall next to him and snaking around into the middle of the hall.

She froze for a minute. She’d never been rendered so shy by any man.

She pretended to be engrossed in one of the vendors’ loose tea offerings next to a silhouette artist who cut miniature silhouettes in a matter of minutes for his customers in their bonnets and feathers.

How she could stare at jars of tea, and even physically read their names and descriptions, but comprehend none of it was beyond her. Her face flushed, and she took off her shawl in the sudden heat.

Here she’d been hunting him down this entire time, but now that she saw him, she had no idea what to say or do. She picked up sealed bags of loose tea as she racked her brain.

Hi, Julian. Fancy seeing you here.

Or . . .

Come here often?

She shot a glance at him, because with the horde of people around, he’d never see her from here. For the first time in her life, she considered buying a bonnet, if for no other reason than that it would conceal most of her face and she could spy on him without being detected.

He looked so good, so peaceful, so smart, so . . . sexy. Damn. Why did he have to look so good? And why did he have to be doing some good—good for the historical money pit he’d inherited? It really made him endearing. She knew he really hated all this public showmanship. But there he sat, signing and chatting and smiling . . .

“Would you like to purchase that tea, miss?” one of the women at the stall asked with a nice inflection at the end of the question.

Translation: Put. The. Tea. Down. Or buy it. The English were so polite.

“Oh,” Vanessa said as she set the tea down and stepped away. “Your tea sounds great. I have to think about it. Thank you.”

She had to think about a tiny packet of tea that cost the equivalent of a dollar fifty?

She made up her mind—about the turban anyway. She would buy it
and
a spy bonnet.

At the haberdashery she tried on the straw bonnet with a rim longer than a dryer vent tube.

“That,” said one of the bonnet makers, “is a poke bonnet. Lovely, isn’t it?”

Lovely? Not really. Designed to make you appear invisible in a sea of nineteenth-century reenactors? Yes. Made to cast a dark shadow over your entire face? Absolutely.

“I’ll take it,” Vanessa said. “And that turban.” She pointed to the turban she’d been eyeing.

“Oooooh, that bonnet is sooooo not a good look for you.” It was Lexi—and Sherry. “It hides your gorgeous hair, your face, everything. You look like a stovepipe popping out of a smashing gown.” A handsome redcoat trailed Lexi.

Someone tapped Vanessa on the shoulder. Was it . . . Julian? But when she peered from out of the tunnel vision of her bonnet, she saw David’s ruddy face.

“Here, luv, I’ve bought you a pint.”

He handed the glass to Vanessa and, even though it would’ve been more appropriate to be drinking ratafia or Constantia wine, she promptly took a gulp, though it proved difficult to navigate the glass to her lips without hitting the rim of her bonnet. She could use more than just a pint, too. How the hell should she approach Julian?

“Drink up and let’s get the hell out of here,” David said.

“You’re such a charmer,” Vanessa replied. “And I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“If you want charm you’d best stick with the ponces around here, luv. I don’t do charm.”

Not all English guys were gentlemen. It struck Vanessa that she now preferred the “ponces,” whatever that meant, to guys of his ilk. There happened to be one ponce in particular she had set her bonnet on, and David’s no-frills tactics reminded her she needed to be as feminine as possible with Julian.

Lexi could smell the testosterone emanating from this Lancashire he-man. She took the other pint of beer from him, the one he’d bought for himself, and sipped.

The redcoat who had been following her gave up and walked away.

“Thank you for thinking of me, sweetheart, but you forgot to get Sherry a beer.”

A smile broke over David’s face. He had never run into the likes of Lexi before. The two of them would make a great couple!

“Let me make a formal introduction,” Vanessa said. “David Mills, freelance journalist, this is Lexi Stone and Sherry Pajowski.”

Lexi plucked David’s smartphone from his shirt pocket and keyed something in. “Here’s my number. Text us once you’ve gotten two more pints. We’ll be around here—somewhere.”

With that she slid the phone back in his pocket and turned her back on him, but he took his pint of beer back from her.

“Thanks for your number. I’ll be dialing it tonight, around half past ten.”

The bonnet makers were busy helping other customers, but they were also listening in on all this, looking up with their wide eyes as they relinquished their bonnets neatly trimmed with flowers and fruit.

“Hmmm, we shall see,” Lexi said, eyeing him up and down.

David’s mouth fell agape.

For a moment Vanessa forgot all about Julian sitting across the room, signing his books. It had been a while since she’d seen Lexi in action like this.

The women surrounding them fiddled with their topaz cross necklaces, tightened their bonnet strings, and moved on toward the silhouette-cutting stall.

Determined to take a more ladylike approach with Julian, Vanessa turned toward his signing table, confident her bonnet obscured her face, but the queue had disappeared.

And so had he. Damn.

Was this a good PR move? Creating scarcity? Generating a little mystery? Yes, it could work.

He’d left a note, scripted in quill and propped atop a stack of his books.

Dear Ladies (and Gentlemen),

Look for me tomorrow at the London leg of the Dash for Darcy scavenger hunt . . .

Yours,

Mr. Darcy

C
hapter 15

V
anessa woke to the sound of seagulls and pigeons squawking outside the flat’s sash windows.

Who knew that Bath, the most exquisite Georgian city in England, had the same problem as the typical inland American parking lot with an influx of displaced seagulls?

Even this, however, wouldn’t ruin her glittering first impressions of the city, and she was reluctant to leave for a day trip to London until, once again, her first thoughts of the day turned to Julian. He would be in London.

By midmorning—their scavenger hunt strategy mapped out, their Pump Room water downed, their breakfast-sausage “takeaway” sandwiches and nonalcoholic juices and coffee for three consumed—Vanessa sat with Sherry, plus a zonked-out Lexi, on the train, and the nearly two-hour trek from Bath to London was almost under her skinny faux-alligator belt.

Today she had dressed for London, her phone was charged, her e-mails and messages “sorted,” as Julian would say, and she, Lexi, and Sherry had shaken hands on conquering the Dash for Darcy together, pooling their knowledge, and letting Vanessa have the dinner with Julian, should they win.

“What do you mean ‘should’ we win?” Lexi asked. “I’m on Team Vanessa and we’re going to win.”

The first mission in the hunt was:

You will find Mr. Darcy at a certain madame’s London residence. You must pay him a visit and have your photograph taken as proof. You need not leave your calling card as it is unlikely he will be returning your call. It is there you will receive your next clue.

“That’s ridiculously easy,” Vanessa said. “Even I knew this one as soon as I read it last night.”

“You did?” Sherry had asked, while Lexi slept in the seat across the aisle from them. Was that drool glistening on the corner of Lexi’s mouth?

She didn’t get back until two in the morning, although her evening with David had started much earlier than ten thirty. She’d missed all the theatricals in the Guildhall that night and, unlike every other time she’d hooked up with a guy, she didn’t wake up bragging about the hot sex she’d just had.

Vanessa leaned in to Sherry. “I’m going to whisper because you never know—our competition might be sitting right behind us. My self-quarantine after the accident paid off, because, in all my googling of Colin Firth, I stumbled across his wax figure at—”

“Madame Tussauds,” they both whispered together.

“Once we hit Paddington Station, we each have to get an Oyster card and take the Hammersmith & City or Circle Line on the tube to Baker Street.”

“You’ve got it all figured out,” Sherry said.

“I do. Stick with me.”

“I am.”

She had a friend in Sherry, after all, she thought, a good friend.

“I figured it out last night and ordered three advance tickets thanks to the beauty of the Internet. Gotta love modern technology. Couldn’t do that with a quill pen and paper.”

Sherry smiled and cracked her gum. Her red T-shirt had a gold imprint of the crown and in gold block letters it said:

KEEP CALM

HE IS SINGLE

OF GOOD FORTUNE

AND IN NEED OF A WIFE

“I like that T-shirt,” Vanessa said.

“Most Janeites do.” Sherry nodded. “I get lots of compliments on it. You’re one of us now.”

As the train barreled toward Paddington, Vanessa actually looked forward to seeing Colin Firth’s figure, wax or otherwise. She knew she’d officially crossed over to the Jane side. Still, she had to wonder at the nonpurist, nonscholarly choice to launch the hunt at Madame Tussauds. Could it be that Julian had actually listened to her and decided to branch out from his usual scholarly stronghold and include a pop-culture spin in his marketing mix?

Her phone vibrated with a text, and as usual, she had a glimmer of hope it might be from Julian. But no, it was—Chase.

“He heard from Aunt Ella that we’re heading into London today and he wants to meet us,” Vanessa said.

“And?”

“I don’t want anything—or anyone—to slow us down.”

“He might be able to help. He travels to London all the time, doesn’t he?”

“Yep.”

“Tell him what we’re up to, where we’re going. If he’s game, he can join us. He knows London even better than Lexi.”

“True.” Still, she hesitated to type anything.

“And you know it makes your aunt happy that you two get along. You can’t just go to London and blow him off.”

“You’re right.” Vanessa started keying the message in.

“Soon you guys are gonna be like—brother and sister.”

Vanessa cocked her head at Sherry. “Ewww . . .” Why did that thought repulse her?

“Or something. Cousins?”

“No,” Vanessa said.

They transferred to the tube, where, after they stepped out of the tube car, the overhead announcement said “Mind the gap” repeatedly, meaning the gap between the tube car and the platform.

How could a country with the same language, plus or minus a few words, be so different from and so much more interesting than hers? Was it the centuries of history that made a difference?

The tube seemed very otherworldly to her, and the Baker Street stop featured profiles of Sherlock Holmes smoking a pipe imprinted on the white wall tiles. This proved appropriate for their day, since it would include a certain level of mystery and intrigue as they tried to kick ass in the capital city and score as many scavenger hunt items as possible.

When she emerged from the underground onto Marylebone Road NW1, as the street sign read—a very different street sign from the ones in Chicago—the verve of the city swirled around her. Red double-decker buses and black cabs really did speed along on the wrong side of the road and English coppers really did wear hats with chin straps.

Lexi wanted to hit a pub.

But Vanessa steered them right toward the massive green dome of Madame Tussauds and, finally, into the line for visitors with advance tickets.

“I need a drink,” Lexi said. “Because I can’t believe what I did with David last night.”

“Let me guess. You slept with him.”

“No. I
didn’t
sleep with him! We—talked. For six hours. I’m exhausted and didn’t get my eight hours of sleep. What the hell?”

“Sounds serious. Or maybe you just like him as a friend?”

“Honey, I have lots of men in my life, but none of them are
just friends
. What would be the point?”

They both laughed. Vanessa knew she was kidding.

“So you want to sleep with him.”

“Of course!”

“But you didn’t. Instead you had a meaningful first date. Congratulations.”

“I have got to get my mojo back. This guy is turning me upside down. He invited me to a movie tonight.”

“That’s sweet.”

“Exactly. And I said yes because it actually sounds—sweet.”

“Good for you, Lexi. Consider it a change of pace. Do you see a map of the museum anywhere?” Vanessa had scoured the Internet for a map of the interior, and none was to be found. Now, in the admission line, she noticed the brochure didn’t have any map, either. She grilled one of the ticket takers on the whereabouts of Colin Firth only to learn that he was somewhere in the “A-List Party Room” and no, there was no quick exit, they’d have to make their way through the entire museum and exit at the gift shop.

Vanessa was only too familiar with the old ploy of getting people to buy more by funneling them through the gift shop.

“Marketing!” she and Lexi said simultaneously with a laugh.

Vanessa led them away from the mob at the elevators to the stairs, and, as luck would have it, as soon as they reached the top of the stairs, the very first room happened to be a very cheesy-looking Academy Awards red-carpet room labeled
THE A-LIST PARTY
.

“Now, where is he?” Vanessa asked.

“How about right there?” Sherry pointed her finger, with
Darcy
rubber wristbands up her arm, and yes, there he stood, in a tux, commanding the room on a distant platform with an array of other stars, right in between Kate Winslet and Justin Bieber in front of a pinkish curtain.

Lexi bolted across the room, scissoring through the crowd and almost knocking over a woman taking a photo, which turned out to be a wax figure itself.

“What’s up with her?” Sherry asked as they headed toward Colin Firth.

“She’s very competitive and I don’t think she got very much sleep last night. She gets crabby when she doesn’t get her eight hours.”

“What took you two so long?” Lexi asked as she handed Sherry her phone from her perch right next to Colin Firth. “Sherry, can you take a picture of me—of us?”

Lexi corrected herself as Vanessa stepped up on the platform and hooked her arm in Colin’s left arm.

Vanessa smiled for the shot because even though he was made of wax, and this entire place was nothing but a shrine to celebrity worship, it felt pretty cool to be on Colin Firth’s arm.

“Wait. Vanessa, I want that side,” Lexi said. “Let’s switch.”

Vanessa glared at her. Not only had Lexi cut in front of people who were there before them, but more people had gathered, not so patiently waiting their turn.

Lexi came over to Vanessa’s side and gave her a little shove with her hip.

“Fine,” Vanessa grumbled. “Take this side. He’s looking toward his right anyway.”

Once they’d made the switch, Sherry announced she was taking the picture. “Hold still, Lexi.”

Lexi looked at Vanessa. “I want that side again.”

“No. Now smile, damn it!”

Lexi stomped over and pulled Vanessa’s arm, but Vanessa stood fast and smiled for the camera until something . . . snapped. It was Colin’s finger—in her hand!

“Lex-iii!”

Vanessa looked at the finger in the palm of her hand with horror. Did anyone notice? Were there security cameras? Of course there were!

Shock rumbled through her. It was the tip of his middle finger, and he seemed to be flipping her off! Her first reaction was to shove the finger in her purse and step off the platform.

Her second was to complete this mission.

“Sherry, get up there.”

Sherry didn’t move. Her mouth had fallen open, exposing her pink bubble gum, and the golden letters on her shirt shone in mockery.

Vanessa guided Sherry up onto the platform before anyone else could squeeze in. “Smile.”

Sherry couldn’t smile, but Vanessa snapped a few pictures of her bug-eyed face. “Got it.” Vanessa took deep breaths. “Now. Where’s the clue to the next checkpoint?”

As her face flushed at the thought of the finger in her purse, and while several people stared at her as others stepped up to pose with Colin, she looked all around for some sign of the next clue.

Could she have been wrong about this being a checkpoint? She was, after all, a neophyte Austen fan.

Her eyes darted around the room, which seemed to be getting more and more crowded, hoping to catch a glimpse of Julian, until a woman dressed in a Regency gown and carrying a wicker basket in her hand dipped into view from across the room, near Russell Brand. “Follow me,” Vanessa said.

Lexi checked out Russell Brand in his tight pinstripe suit.

“Very hot, isn’t he?” Lexi smiled.

“Any hotter and he’d melt,” said Sherry.

Vanessa stammered to the woman in Regency garb, “H-hi . . . we’re part of the Dash for Darcy—”

She didn’t have to say anything more, thank goodness, because the thought of Colin Firth’s finger in her purse had really taken her breath away.

The woman smiled and, without saying a word, handed off a calling card with elaborate script printed on it.

But before Vanessa could read it, three security men dressed in blue escorted her and her friends to the periphery of the room.

“How exciting!” Lexi said. “We’re finally getting escorted by British men in uniform!”

The security guard with Vanessa spoke up. “Please hand over the finger.”

“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lexi said. “We need to call a lawyer.”

“There will be no charges,” the security guard said, “if you hand over the finger.”

“Don’t give him the finger,” Lexi whispered in her ear with a giggle.

Vanessa thought about it.

“It’s all on the security camera,” the guard said. “Please hand it over and you will merely be escorted out. If you resist, we will have to take this to a higher authority.”

Vanessa opened her purse, slid the clue card in, and pulled out the wax finger.

“Thank you for cooperating,” he said as he took the finger. “Now we will escort you to the gift shop and you will not be allowed reentry.”

“Of course,” Vanessa said. “We’re very sorry.”

The guards marched them through the museum, past the royal family, past the literary greats, beyond the Hulk, but Vanessa stopped in her tracks when she almost bumped right into Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow.

Not only did he look completely lifelike—much, much more so than Colin Firth did, but it made her think of Chase. Chase! Would he have responded to her text message by now? Would he meet up with them? She might need his help after all.

“Let’s keep moving,” the guard said to her.

She looked back over her shoulder at Jack Sparrow, whose eyes, outlined in kohl, seemed to follow her.