Undressing Mr. Darcy (27 page)

Lexi had tried it all, from raising her skirt to flashing her thigh to sucking very suggestively on a Popsicle, but nothing worked. It made a great rollicking story and Lexi always added the punch line that this was why she needed to go back to London: to get a guard to smile.

Lexi. The female Peter Pan. Yet despite Lexi’s emotional immaturity and the trouble she caused, Vanessa was glad to have her back in her life again. No matter what, Lexi brought life to everything, a liveliness Vanessa had been missing.

The lights of London and the grandeur of it only distracted her for a few moments, though, and taking Colin away from the American women, who laughed and made all kinds of “I get him Firth” jokes, she moved to the other side of the capsule, hoping to spot Chase again.

It had grown so dark she couldn’t distinguish the shadows of people in the capsule ahead of her anymore.

Below her the River Thames flowed dark and she realized this would be her first and last glimpse of the famed river. Rain began to fall. Great. She had no raincoat and nothing but a white T-shirt and skimpy skirt on. She did, though, have Chase’s umbrella.

As the capsule went down, she sacrificed the last glimpses of London in favor of tracking Chase and stood right by the door with Colin at her side. It rained harder now, pelting almost.

Once the doors slid open, she bolted out and without taking the time to put up the umbrella, she ran, with Colin under her arm, after the crowd that had emerged from the capsule in front of hers.

She didn’t see Chase, but once she started calling his name, people turned back at her, giving her strange looks—she was getting used to attracting unwanted attention by now. She’d spent more time running and calling after Chase today than she had spent pursuing anyone, ever. But she’d come here first and foremost to chase Julian, hadn’t she?

When she thought of the men she’d left and how she’d left them, it made her more than a little embarrassed. Her twenties were nothing more than a blur of men and public relations jobs.

In sharp contrast, Jane Austen, by the time she was twenty-four, had the better part of four novels written and high standards set for any man she would accept as a suitor or husband.

Meanwhile, Vanessa, in her early thirties, had climbed down a lattice from the second story of a house on the north side and hopped a fence just to escape a super-intense guy who seemed as if he would consume her body and soul. She couldn’t see any way out—other than the second-story bathroom window.

Would a frank conversation and a walk out the front door have done the trick? Probably. But hell, she was thirty-one.

Now, instead of escaping men, she was chasing them. The tables had turned—they had flipped over, even, with a crash of silverware, broken wineglasses, and shattered china plates never registered for.

The rain came down harder now, and it made her cold and shivery with goose bumps, but she felt convinced that the group she saw ahead in the blurry distance at the corner of Westminster Bridge and the river was Chase’s crowd, trying to hail a cab. She could see his familiar figure, even in the dark and the rain.

“Chase!”

The light turned and she ran across the street, yelling out to him, with Colin slipping and sliding in her hands as she kept her eye on the guy she was convinced was Chase. But she splashed in a puddle and tripped on the curb and, together with Colin, catapulted into a souvenir stand crammed with red, white, and blue British—everything.

The souvenir stand guy started belting out swearwords in his English accent, and never in her life had she heard such an impolite Englishman. But her elbow was stuck in a pile of toy red double-decker buses, a bunch of small British flags had toppled onto her boobs, and a rack full of Union Jack T-shirts covered her legs, while Colin lay at her feet on the wet pavement.

If a passerby didn’t know better, it looked like she had “done” London, all right.

“Vanessa? Is that you?”

It was Chase, looking down on her in more ways than one.

“It looks like you’ve reached a new low.”

“Oh, no, I’ve managed worse than this in my lifetime.”

He lifted the Union Jack T-shirts from her bare wet legs while she struggled to get up, and the souvenir stand guy reassembled the double-decker buses and flags, cursing throughout.

Chase gave her a hand and lifted both her and Colin from the ground at the same time.

He smiled so brightly it made her want to kiss him. Where that impulse came from she wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t deny it.

“I’m going to buy you a shirt. You look like you’ve been in a wet T-shirt contest.”

He pulled out his wallet while she looked down at her shirt, which had gone translucent, and the rain and cold revealed her lacy bra and hardened nipples. She instantly crunched her shoulders together.

He held up a small gray
I Love London
hoodie to her, sizing it up. “Much as I like the wet T-shirt look on you, I’m not willing to share it with the men of England.” He lifted and turned Colin Firth toward the street. “Divert your eyes, Colin.”

Vanessa laughed so hard her eyes started tearing up at this reverse wet-shirt scene from the 1995
P&P
. She was tired and hungry and slaphappy and cold, and Chase was funny and warm and—sexy? And not upset anymore about her sleeping with Julian?

He pushed his wet hair back, paid for the hoodie, took off his trench coat, wrapped it around her, and popped his umbrella over the two of them and Colin, too.

Vanessa noticed his clients had gone ahead—they weren’t standing in the rain. He must’ve sent them on.

“What are you doing here?” Chase looked at his watch and then at her with a twinkle in his brown eyes.

She had to state the obvious. “What do you think I’m doing here? I’m stalking you! To apologize to you. To beg you to be—friends with me again. I can’t stand having you upset with me.”

“I like the sound of that. Yes, I do. You begging me? But it’s much more like you to send a text, though, isn’t it?”

Vanessa didn’t know what to say because he put his arm around her and it felt so good, so warm, so—right.

“I was a little out of line myself.
Capisce?
”

“Capisce.”

He tucked Colin under his arm. “I see you’ve bought a little souvenir. You have a thing for English guys, don’t you?”

He wasn’t going to confront her directly on the whole sleeping-with-Julian thing, and she liked that about him. It made him really cool in her eyes.

“Colin’s not for me. He’s Lexi’s.”

She could tell he didn’t quite believe her, and for a split second it occurred to her how she must’ve appeared to the outside world: insane. And insane for one British man in particular.

“Don’t you need to get back to Bath tonight?”

“Yes?” she said, not so sure of it herself. Not so sure of anything.

“Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll take you and Colin to Paddington Station and buy you a cup of tea and something to eat while you change into your new sweatshirt. Then I’ll get you both settled on the train and you’ll be back in Bath in no time, okay?”

“Okay,” Vanessa said, as if she were a little girl.

For once in her life she didn’t have to think. She could put herself in his care and he would do right by her, and she liked that. She really liked that, if only in this one instance. Was this what it felt like to be taken care of?

Had no other man ever cared for her like this before? Or had she just not been ready for it? She fumbled for her phone, and it not only had a signal, but still worked. She sighed with relief.

As she sat on the train with her new hoodie on, Chase’s trench coat still wrapped around her, his umbrella propped against her leg, the tea, sandwich, and soup he’d bought her on the tray in front of her, and strict instructions to text him upon her safe return, she wondered. Two men in her life at once. Three, counting the plastic Colin propped up against the seat next to her. What did it all mean? And could Lexi, despite her warped vision, be right about Chase being the guy for her?

Vanessa had never believed in the soul-mate thing; she’d always thought there were many different matches out there for everyone. But she also knew she’d only be lucky enough to bump into a couple of those right-for-her men during her lifetime in her wide, but limited, social circles. And increasingly, as time went on, her social circles were online and not . . . real.

Moreover, love, like anything else, was not just a matter of the right two people finding each other through some random twist of fate or another. The elements of timing, availability, emotional frame of mind, and chemistry had to be in place.

Perhaps most important of all there had to be that intangible, unmistakable, and hard-to-come-by quality best defined as chemistry. It was also known as attraction, sparks flying,
je ne sais quoi
, or as Lexi would aptly put it, simply wanting to tear the man’s clothes off and have your way with him and
only
him—far into the foreseeable future.

If you didn’t want to have on-the-floor, on-the-kitchen-counter, on-the-table sex with him twenty-four/seven, especially in the beginning of the relationship, Lexi would say walk away without looking back. It would never get any better. If you so much as thought of another man physically, it was time to walk. But that, of course, was Lexi.

Vanessa had gone to high school with Chase some sixteen or seventeen years ago. The timing, availability, and emotional and chemical matrix, evidently, weren’t right back then.

But could Lexi be onto something about him being the right one for her now? Or did he belong squarely in the friend category? Wouldn’t she be better off with a certain Englishman?

She had achieved her goals for the day—acquiring all the items for the Dash for Darcy scavenger hunt and setting things right with Chase.

Why, then, did she not feel like a winner? She was behind, worse off, and more invested in these guys than ever.

And why couldn’t she get kitchen counters and these two men off her mind?

C
hapter 17

T
he next morning in Bath, where life did move at a more leisurely, resort-town pace compared to London, Vanessa laid out her freshly washed underwear on the tiny kitchen counter of the flat. She had to hang some of her leopard– and zebra-print thongs plus a couple of lacy black bras from the kitchenette cabinet pulls since Lexi had already usurped the bathroom shower curtain rod and towel bars with her patterned stockings and camis. Vanessa didn’t realize the flat didn’t have a dryer until she’d washed her stuff.

Plastic Colin lay in Lexi’s bed, alone, where Vanessa had jokingly tucked him in. And he looked good under the covers—quite convincing, especially with one of Lexi’s red bras draped near his face. But Lexi never did come back the previous night, though via text she insisted she still hadn’t slept with David.

Before Sherry had left that morning, she commented that Vanessa looked rather hellish, and when Vanessa looked in the mirror, she discovered her eyes had gone all puffy and watery, and her nose had turned red. Perfect timing for her end-of-summer cold.

Sherry went off with a festival crowd on an early-morning hike up to the top of Beechen Cliff, tempting to Vanessa on this fabulous blue-sky day, as Henry Tilney himself had escorted Catherine Morland up the hill for a picturesque view of Bath as well as his endearing lecture on “the picturesque.”

But Vanessa, especially in light of the cold she’d acquired, slid a pack of travel-sized tissues in her bag and chose instead to take her daily dose of healing water from the Pump Room and a text from Chase surprised her.

He’d wrapped up his morning meetings and was on the train into Bath now. He told her to check in with her locational network and he’d find her. She rather liked how he assumed she’d be thrilled with this prospect, and she did find herself looking forward to it, but what confidence! What if she didn’t want him around? Unnerving!

She did, though, want him. Around.

Why he said he’d be bringing his swimsuit and hoped she’d packed hers, she didn’t bother to figure out. Certainly her flat didn’t have a pool.

She stood on the narrow sidewalk very near the cobblestone street outside the Georgian town house where she’d had breakfast and texted Chase back as the morning sun bathed the streetscape. Was that a teahouse tucked into that Georgian town house across the street? Vanessa smiled and made her way through a group of women and men dressed in Regency attire filtering past as she walked into the café to buy the biggest English breakfast tea to go possible.

Chase. What other man had ever gone so out of his way for her? Who else had ever made plans—the swimming—without asking her first? She found it sweet and sexy all rolled into one.

But the Bath leg of Dash for Darcy came first and foremost. She had all of ten minutes to hoof it to the Bath Abbey, where she’d get her first clue of the day, and once she arrived, the abbey tenor bell struck eleven, making her arrival in the abbey churchyard undeniably dramatic—fitting, even—for a Regency heroine. A portent, perhaps, of good fortune?

Vanessa put an immediate stop to the dangerous flow of these thoughts. Who was she turning into? The hopeless romantic Marianne Dashwood or the naïve Catherine Morland? It wasn’t the smart Elizabeth Bennet!

The grandeur of the abbey and the centuries-old churchyard humbled her, despite her modernity. She took a picture of the abbey and e-mailed it to Paul as well as posting it on all her personal social networking sites. This seemed to be Vanessa’s, if not everyone’s, way of processing intangibles and things much bigger than themselves.

Nothing gave a better sense of control than to capture it, caption it, and “share” it. Doing so meant you’d done it. Or, it would have, just a couple of weeks past. Posting just didn’t give her the same jolt it once did, and both her work and her social media popularity had suffered as a result.

She realized she wanted to share—in person—with someone. Finally. This churchyard had to be one of the most beautiful she’d ever seen, yet here she was, all alone.

With her tea in one hand, phone in the other, and a sniffle tickling her nose, she found her crowd. A hodgepodge of people, some Regency clad and others wearing bonnets with T-shirts, all formed a circle around a tall gentleman in a beaver top hat, coattails, breeches, and—very familiar boots.

She meant to pocket her phone but now it buzzed and beeped with texts and a call, and in trying to shut it off she spilled her tea on her hand, and she sneezed, and yes, the familiar boots belonged to Julian.

He smiled at her, but whether he smiled in pity or as in
So great to see you again; you haven’t changed a bit (except for the watery eyes and the red nose)
she couldn’t tell.

Either way, she didn’t want this to be her grand entrance! She’d fully expected to see him the day before in London with her hip little outfit and without her cold. Even though she wanted to see him today, she’d been lulled into thinking she wouldn’t, and she hadn’t even been thinking about him for some reason, and then, poof! He just appeared, looking just as good, or better, than ever.

The sight of his raised dark eyebrows brought back a torrent of feelings. She had to take a moment to blow her nose.

“Good morning, Vanessa,” he said as he tipped his hat and offered a controlled Mr. Darcy smile. “Welcome to England.”

Even though she knew he had to stay in character, his “welcome” seemed a little cold.

She had, after all, had sex with the guy! Couldn’t he at least pull her aside and take a moment to speak privately with her?

Her mind flashed to them writhing and kissing and . . .

Meanwhile, everyone turned to look at her as if to ask
How does he know this American? We don’t see anything special about her. Plus her nose is all red.

She sneezed and then almost curtsied! “Oh, hi—Mr. Darcy. How’s things? I didn’t expect to see you here.”

She said it as if she’d just dashed off to the corner store and bumped into him there. When in reality, she’d paid more than a thousand dollars for a last-minute airplane ticket, traveled more than four thousand miles to come to the Jane Austen Festival and his book promotion in Bath, and then proceeded to dash all over in his Dash for Darcy scavenger hunt.

There was nothing casual or accidental about this!

He eyed her phone as she tucked it into her bag.

“Things are very well, thank you,” he said. “How are you faring? And your aunt?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“Glad to hear it. I have just expressed my gratitude to the group for participating in this contest, and I should like to thank you as well, Vanessa.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, channeling good duchess behavior.

One of the men in the crowd took out his monocle and looked at her through it, because intelligence marked the Jane Austen crowd and nothing escaped them. She could tell . . . that they could tell . . . that something had gone on between her and Julian. But what?

What, indeed.

She didn’t want to define it as a one-night stand, but now that she stood in front of him like this, and he was treating her like a virtual stranger, the evidence stacked up.

Why, then, couldn’t she just walk away? Just turn around and go get a Bath bun or something? Why did she want to talk with him, to laugh with him? Why did she want to be alone with him more than anything else in the world right now?

She reminded herself he had to act in this standoffish, Mr. Darcy way. So she had no choice but to win the damn promotional dinner with him, didn’t she?

“I sincerely hope that one of
you
wins the dinner at my home. I am very much looking forward to the evening.” He looked directly at Vanessa.

That split second reassured her.

He then addressed the group. “Right. Today you shall be putting together the puzzle of, and tracing the course of, Jane Austen’s various lodgings here in Bath. It is of the utmost importance that you go in chronological order, as Jane herself experienced each abode.”

A couple of the women in the crowd eyed each other, nodded, and smiled.

Vanessa knew nothing about Austen’s life here in Bath except that she supposedly hated it. As the newest Janeite on the Crescent here, she felt at a distinct disadvantage.

“Whilst you’re on your journey, it will be a battle of will to see if you can resist the pleasures that the festival, and Bath itself, offers en route to your destinations. Today will not be a test of endurance so much as a race against the clock. This will give you ample free time in the afternoon to attend festival lectures and events. Although, you will be expected to reflect upon Miss Austen’s life here in Bath, and that may take a bit of time. Here are your instructions.”

Vanessa had to forcibly look away from him, to stop thinking about the thick dark hair she had raked with her hands, the mouth she had kissed so fervently, the cheekbones she had brushed with her fingertips. She read the day’s instruction sheet.

Fill In Jane Austen’s Timeline in Bath
, read the headline at the top of the page. When she looked up from the instruction sheet, where the letters had become a blur, replaced by thoughts of him, he smiled at her.

She suddenly wanted to ask him what his middle name was. Plus he seemed like he’d be good with puppies and children. How could she get a baby into his arms and see?

What the hell did she just think to herself?

She had no idea what he’d just instructed them to do, but the group began to disperse, and there, from behind Julian’s back and across the churchyard, strode Chase.

Julian didn’t see Chase coming, and for a moment they were alone. “Best of luck on today’s hunt, my dear,” Julian said. “It would be a joy if you won.”

“Would it?”

“Oh, yes.”

She sneezed and had to pull out the tissues.

Chase broke in with a smile, a kiss, and a squeeze on the ass for Vanessa.

She slapped his hand while it was still on her butt, and Julian was none the wiser.

“Hello, Julian,” Chase said as he held out the very same hand that had just squeezed her, and they shook.

“Well, hello, Chase. I didn’t know you were in England.”

“I’m here on—business.”

“Speaking of which, I have work to get done here,” Vanessa said as she handed him the instruction sheet.

“I’ll say you do,” said Chase with a wink. “We’d best get going.”

“Until our dinner then, Vanessa,” Julian said.

“That’s assuming I win.”

“You’d best win!”

Chase led her away and then she thought better of it, deciding to ditch Chase and forgo the hunt to talk with Julian, but when she looked back at him, he was sitting on a bench with a dark-blond-haired woman with porcelain skin dressed in a blazer and skirt. In her lap sat a white puppy.

* * *

W
ho was this blond, puppy-toting woman? And why did Chase have to show exactly when he did?

To say Jane Austen saved Vanessa from losing her mind over the next hour and a half would be absolutely true.

Right from the get-go she needed to call in the scholarly reinforcements—her aunt. Since it happened to be the very early morning Central Time, Aunt Ella picked up the phone. She proved herself infinitely better than any audio tour or app out there, too.

Vanessa made her way to Number 1 the Paragon with long, quick strides and Chase by her side as her aunt spoke.

“She stayed at the Paragon, a part of town she didn’t like, with an aunt she didn’t particularly like, on her earliest visits to Bath and until they found their first lodgings. Mind you, after her father’s retirement, Jane had been plucked from her lifelong home with just a few days’ notice and forced to sell her family’s entire household, including her father’s library, before the move to Bath . . .”

The building stood on a busy street, among a row of similar town houses, without anything green in sight, and even Vanessa could relate to how a country girl who loved to walk must’ve been put off by the location, not to mention the unwelcome change.

Chase took a quick picture of her in front of the place. “We’re so close to Walcot Street, the arty side of town,” he said. “It’s just one street over. Wouldn’t you like to see the glassblowing at Bath Aqua Glass? There are some fantastic restaurants and galleries, too—”

But Vanessa was too focused to allow Chase to distract her. She cut across town along George Street toward Queen Square while Aunt Ella continued.

“On top of the surprise move, in 1799 Jane Austen’s aunt, the one she stayed with in Bath, had supposedly shoplifted a card of lace from a Bath shopkeeper. But, you know, she vehemently denied she had stolen it, and in those days, it was merely the shopkeeper’s word against hers. Anything stolen worth more than a shilling was punishable by hanging. She was put in jail for eight months and during her trial faced hanging or being deported to Australia for fourteen years.”

“What?” Vanessa hurried past a gourmet deli, several boutiques, and a hair salon, all housed in gorgeous Georgian buildings. How could such beauty coexist with such brutality?

“The jury returned with a not-guilty verdict.”