Undressing Mr. Darcy (24 page)

Once in the gift shop, Vanessa’s guard spoke. “Do you intend to make any purchases?”

“No,” Vanessa replied, just as Lexi said, “Yes.”

Vanessa shot her a look.

“I want,” Lexi said. She nodded toward a life-sized replica of Colin Firth’s wax figure propped up next to all kinds of Rolling Stones and Beatles memorabilia.

If there were two words that summed up Lexi, they were “I want.”

“How much is he?”

Her guard escorted her over to the figure and looked at the price tag. “It’s a one-of-a-kind item. It appears to be a hundred and fifty pounds.”

“I’ve invested more than that in a man before,” Lexi said.

Vanessa sighed. “And just how will we get around London with him? Not to mention the train back to Bath—the airplane back to Chicago? Forget about it, Lexi.” She turned to her guard. “Please escort us outside. I think we’ve caused enough trouble for one day.”

“Thanks for giving us the finger.” The guard smiled.

Sherry burst out laughing.

Lexi was too busy getting a last look at the Colin Firth replica.

As soon as the security guard took Vanessa outside and gave her a final warning to “best stay out of trouble,” she spotted a familiar figure standing on the sidewalk in sunglasses with gorgeous brown hair parted in the middle and cut to the length right around his Adam’s apple, checking his phone with a skull and crossbones skin on it, leaning on his black umbrella.

It was Chase. He cocked an eyebrow at the three of them being escorted out by security guards.

“Why does this not surprise me?” he asked with a smirk as he walked over.

He leaned right in and kissed Vanessa, full on the lips. He tasted of coffee.

“Chase!” Vanessa said.

“What? We’re practically family.” Then he gave her a quick but determined pat on her butt.

“Right.”

And he was wearing a nicely tailored gray suit. Most likely Italian.

* * *

T
urned out that Chase couldn’t resist a treasure hunt, as he called it, and he seemed to be good at it, too. Go figure. He was the one who solved the second clue:

Cassandra Austen drew her own conclusions about her sister. Where can one of these conclusions be found? You may find me there. Regardless, you will need to write up a description of the item in less than 100 words to get your next clue.

“Really?” he had teased while they were out in front of Madame Tussauds. “None of you have any idea?” He paused. “I think I’ve been spending too much time with Paul. We’re going to the National Portrait Gallery, where you’ll find Cassandra Austen’s drawing of her sister, Jane. The only officially confirmed portrait of Jane Austen. Although that is being contested with the latest research on the Rice portrait.”

Vanessa followed him as the back of his suit jacket flapped against him while he hustled up the stairs from the twisting tunnels of the Charing Cross tube stop. He moved pretty quickly for having nothing to gain by winning this scavenger hunt—Vanessa was impressed by his selflessness.

At the top of the stairs an entirely new vista of London opened up before her and the sound of whirring traffic surrounded them.

“There’s the gallery,” Lexi said as she took big strides across the square.

Chase walked briskly alongside Vanessa. “This is Trafalgar Square, and the far corner there, where the statue of Charles the First stands, marks the center of London. Distances in and out of the city are measured from that point. And if you look up, you’ll see Nelson’s Column.”

Vanessa glanced briefly up, but was much more interested in making her way to the gallery.

Chase suddenly stopped and hung back.

“Chase?”

He looked at his watch. “Listen, you girls are busy. I’ll get everyone some fish and chips to go.”

“Wow, thank you,” Vanessa said. “I pegged you for a fish-and-chips guy. Get it? ‘Pegged’? Arrgh!”

The joke was lame and he cracked a small smile. Not his usual. He signaled a wave with his umbrella. “After you get the next clue, meet me at the top of the National Gallery stairs.”

Without a word further he spun off in the opposite direction. In that split second she felt what it would be like to lose him—his friendship, his connection to Paul and her aunt. It was weird.

“Hello. Where is your portrait of Jane Austen?” Sherry asked once they got to the information desk.

“That’s a popular portrait today.” The woman behind the desk smiled.

Lexi shot Vanessa a concerned look. “We better get our act together.”

“We?”
Vanessa asked as they scurried up the stairs.

Lexi stood at the top of the stairs and glared at Vanessa.

“You’re the one who got us kicked out of Madame Tussauds.”

“I’ve been kicked out of worse places,” Lexi said.

“Come on, people,” Sherry said. She led the way to the portrait, in a very hushed room with creaky wooden floors and an arched skylight for a ceiling that let in the light despite the gathering clouds outside. The wooden trim had been lacquered black and the walls painted ocean green. Massive oil portraits, in gold-leaf frames, of John Constable, William Blake, John Keats, and Lord Byron dominated the room.

A small glass display box stood at about chest height, and if they hadn’t been looking for it, they might have walked right by.

A throng of women encircled the box. Vanessa, Lexi, and Sherry looked at each other. They weren’t leading the way on this scavenger hunt.

“We need to divide and conquer. Vanessa, you write up the description,” Lexi said. “Sherry and I will look around for the next clue. We’ve got to get ahead of that crowd!”

Vanessa had already been scanning the room for Julian, or someone who might give them their next clue, even as she inched toward the display box.

Yes, she wanted to get a look at Jane Austen!

Finally the women around the display box moved on, and Sherry followed them for the next clue while Lexi got distracted ogling the portrait of Lord Byron.

Vanessa had Jane Austen all to herself.

Her first thought went something like: Thank you for the fabulous novels. Her second thought came just as quickly: Damn you, Jane Austen!

Austen had, after all, gotten her into this. Without her, a certain “Mr. Darcy” would never have Regency-danced into her life, wreaking havoc on her priorities and her heartstrings.

The light in the display box went off as if in response to her silent rant. She had to press the button to light up the display again.

It wasn’t so much a portrait as it was a small drawing, about the size of a wallet photo, and unfinished, too—an underwhelming representation of such a powerful author.

Vanessa folded her arms just like Austen had her arms folded in the drawing. Austen looked a little smug in the drawing, and her head was turned to the side, looking away.

Vanessa unfolded her arms, pulled pen and paper from her bag, and began writing a description of the woman in the drawing, who didn’t look anything like how she had pictured Jane Austen.

Unlike the other luminaries in the room, Austen was at a distinct disadvantage, though, and this actually made Vanessa feel sorry for her. The portraits of the men in the room gleamed in oil paint, and some had been painted larger than life. Austen’s portrait was a mere drawing, done not by a professional artist but by her sister, an amateur.

Unlike Lord Byron, who had dressed in an Albanian costume for his commissioned portrait, Jane Austen sat in a simple day dress and cap. It occurred to Vanessa that neither Cassandra nor Jane ever intended this unfinished drawing to be displayed in London’s National Portrait Gallery, and it might have really embarrassed them both to see it here!

Cassandra had, with watercolors, painted in brown tendrils curling out of her sister’s cap, brown eyebrows, and big brown eyes as well as rosy cheeks. But she hadn’t painted any further and left everything else in pencil, including a rather pointed nose and a small, pinched mouth.

As the notation on the display read:
This frank sketch by her sister and closest confidante Cassandra is the only reasonably certain portrait from life. Even so, Jane’s relatives were not entirely convinced by it: “There is a look which I recognize as hers,” her niece wrote, “though the general resemblance is not strong, yet as it represents a pleasing countenance it is so far a truth.”

After Vanessa finished writing up her own description of the work, she stared at the portrait with a sisterly feeling, as if the two of them got each other. Vanessa smiled at her.

“If you give me your write-up, I’ve found who will give us the next clue,” Sherry broke in.

“Here it is.” Vanessa said as she handed it to Sherry, who hurried off.

Vanessa gave a wink to the portrait, stepped back, and the light in the display went off, as if Jane Austen herself were winking back.

With that, another group of women and a few men encircled the display box while Sherry and Lexi caught up with her.

“Too bad we don’t have time to see the Brontë sisters’ portrait before we leave,” Lexi said.

“Brontë? Isn’t that blasphemy to Jane Austen? Do you want to curse our entire scavenger hunt? Besides, Chase is waiting out in front for us with food!”

“That’s so nice of him,” Sherry said.

“Yes, yes, it is,” said Vanessa as they scrambled down the stairs.

“There’s also a portrait of Charles Dickens here when he was young,” Lexi said. “He was a sexy young Victorian dude, you know, before he grew all that facial hair.”

“Forget Dickens, Lexi. Aren’t you hungry?”

“I’m starved,” Sherry said.

Lexi nodded in agreement. “I’m always hungry. But let’s eat on the run. We’re going to win this thing if it kills me!”

Once they were outside, Vanessa took two stairs at a time to the top of the National Gallery steps, but she didn’t see Chase anywhere.

“We can’t wait for him,” Lexi said as she looked at her watch. “Here’s the next clue: ‘Something Jane Austen called all her “worldly wealth” almost went by carriage to Gravesend and then the West Indies, but it now resides in a library. Visit it, procure proof of your visit, and describe the item in twenty-five words or less, including what lies atop it. Perhaps you will meet me there . . .’”

Sherry and Vanessa gave each other blank looks.

“Wait a minute.” Vanessa snapped her fingers. “I remember Julian saying something about this to Aunt Ella. But what was it?”

“I’m pretty sure whatever it is, it’s at the British Library. Or it could be the London Library,” Lexi said. “It’s time to call your aunt. Give me your phone.”

Vanessa handed Lexi her phone and looked out across Trafalgar Square for Chase. Beyond the fountains in the square, beyond various eighteenth– and nineteenth-century buildings, and above a few spires towered Big Ben, and a British flag flapped in the wind across the way under a clouded sky. Her heart thudded with the recognition that yes, she was in London, and it was gorgeous and exciting and new, well, new to her anyway. Just then, Chase came into view, carrying a large brown bag in each hand, his umbrella tucked under his arm and his sunglasses up on his dark brown hair.

“There’s Chase!” Sherry said.

“Mmmm,” said Lexi as she waited for Aunt Ella to pick up. “There’s only one thing better than a gorgeous guy coming your way. It’s a gorgeous guy coming your way
with food
.”

* * *

C
hase. Thank you,” Vanessa said as she squeezed his arm.

He no doubt made a great business partner for Paul, but she could see he’d make some lucky woman a great life partner, too. She was happy to have him as a friend.

“Aunt Ella didn’t pick up her phone,” she said. “Should I be worried?”

Chase shook his head no. “She’s with Paul. Why don’t you call him?”

“I hate to bother them.”

Lexi scrolled through her contacts, trying to get hold of another Jane Austen Society member who might know. Meanwhile, on her phone, Vanessa searched for “British Library” and “Jane Austen,” and it yielded a link to
Jane Austen for Dummies
by Dr. Joan Ray. Under the heading “The British Library at St. Pancras, London,” she read:

The British Library in London is the official library of the United Kingdom, and they have Jane Austen’s writing desk—

“St. Pancras! That’s the Piccadilly Line, isn’t it, Chase?” Lexi spoke a mile a minute.

“Yeah. Let’s cut over to the Leicester Square station.”

Off they dashed, crossing the city again underground, this time on the Piccadilly Line. Piccadilly. How English was that? They went right underneath Covent Garden of
My Fair Lady
fame, and Vanessa would’ve liked to have stopped! She also wished the Internet worked on the tube because she would’ve read more about the writing desk.

Had Julian inadvertently or purposely given her
all
the answers to the hunt during his time with her? Why hadn’t she paid attention to his Austen spoutings? What a great loss, to have an expert on a subject in her midst and to have been completely oblivious to it.

Why did she find all things Austen so interesting now? Was it because of Julian? Because she’d read the novels and loved them? Or some strange brew of both?

Once out in front of St. Pancras Station, waiting impatiently for the light to turn in the drizzle, Chase opened his umbrella and offered it to her to share with Lexi and Sherry.

“Look, ladies.” He pointed behind them as the drizzle gave his hair a sexy gloss and he pushed it back. “Check out St. Pancras Station behind us.”

Vanessa looked back over her shoulder.

“It opened in 1868, and it’s a glorious example of Victorian Gothic architecture.”

Certainly the massive dark-red brick building, with its clock tower that seemed Big Ben–ish, its three tiers of arched windows atop a ground level of arched doorways, and its series of chimneys and spires sprouting up, impressed her, but then the light turned.

“They say the five-star St. Pancras London Renaissance Hotel is London’s most romantic building.”

Vanessa smiled at Chase. He was easy to travel with—a font of knowledge and a man who found joy anywhere, it seemed. This hunt just had her a little sidelined, that was all.