Undressing Mr. Darcy (3 page)

Vanessa had, as a young teen, developed a sibling rivalry of sorts with Jane Austen, competing with her for her aunt’s attention, even though her aunt doted on her. She never could get through
Pride and Prejudice
and, much to her aunt’s chagrin, she’d only read the outlined study-guide version.

To this day she didn’t quite believe in happy endings.

Condensation rose from the ice cube tray as Vanessa ran it under water and the ice crackled. Each time she opened a freezer, she thought of—even though she tried not to—her life plan and . . . her eggs.

Vanessa was a planner of things, a maker of timelines, but things hadn’t gone exactly according to schedule. She had thought for sure she’d be married and a working mom by now, but the minor detail of finding Mr. Perfect had somehow eluded her. So to take the pressure off, she’d decided to freeze her eggs and take back the power. Five of her eggs had been harvested and frozen, but she aimed for an even dozen. She hadn’t told her aunt about it, but often cracked jokes about her eggs to herself. Cracked. Jokes. The jokes weren’t that funny, obviously.

Once she’d refilled the tray and put it back in the freezer, something sparkly caught her eye near the bag of frozen artichoke hearts.

Several of her aunt’s golden chunky necklaces sat on the shelf collecting ice crystals. They gave her a searing sort of freezer burn as she pulled them out and set them on the granite counter in the sunshine, but she couldn’t leave them there.

The trouble had begun weeks before with a petunia in the microwave. Stress increased these episodes, and Vanessa knew she had done the right thing by taking time away from her clients to help her aunt with this conference. The doctor had assured her that until the rest of her aunt’s test results came in, the goal was to keep her aunt living as independently as possible.

Vanessa poured the water in the goblets and ran the necklaces back to her aunt’s vanity in the bedroom.

“Vanessa? You’re not on your phone again, are you?”

“You know me,” Vanessa called out when she carried the water goblets on a tray, rather unsteadily, toward the screen door. She needed to tell Julian about her aunt’s condition and let him know they were awaiting test results revealing whether it was Alzheimer’s or not.

Julian stood, his head hitting the branches of a dwarf weeping willow, to open the door for her.

“So nice to have a gentleman around,” Vanessa said.

“Pleased to hear it.” He smiled.

Tuberoses, the traditional flower of a bridegroom, filled the air on the terrace with fragrance. Julian had loosened the cravat around his neck, removed his tailcoat and waistcoat, and rolled up his sleeves, lending a certain frisson to the gathering, considering that until now he had been all buttoned-up, in both clothing and actions.

Who was the man underneath the Darcy facade? Could he relax and be—himself?

“There you are, Vanessa. I was just telling Julian about our little secret.”

“You were?”

“I told him how, sometimes, when you or I have a particularly bad day, we go for a nice cocktail or two somewhere.”

“It’s true.” Vanessa stooped to smell the potted lavender before she plopped down at her dinner plate. “We do.”

“It’s our little secret, Julian.” Aunt Ella smiled. “Our little secret.”

“Don’t breathe a word of it to any of my aunt’s esteemed colleagues, Julian,” Vanessa teased.

“Even Jane herself enjoyed a good glass of French wine,” he said and smiled at Vanessa.

Would Julian figure out she wasn’t a card-carrying member of the Austen and Anglophile club?

“Here’s to Jane Austen,” he said as he raised his wineglass.

“To Jane!” Aunt Ella clinked his glass.

“To Miss Austen.” Vanessa raised her glass to the little girl left at the boarding school.

After Vanessa cleared and washed the dinner dishes, refusing Julian’s help, and brought out the tea and coffee, Aunt Ella tapped a green leather photo album that sat on the table next to her antique tea set reserved for the terrace. Her hands looked less and less familiar, but instead, more like the hands of an old woman. “Vanessa, you simply must see the photos of Julian’s estate he’s just shown me.”

All she could think was: Her aunt had put a petunia in the microwave and now her necklaces in the freezer. What next?

“She need not bother with it,” Julian said.

Vanessa snapped to. “Oh, of course, Julian, I’d love to see the album.” She settled into the wrought iron chair next to him, with ever-blooming green and blue hydrangeas surrounding them and the cityscape opened up to them against the evening sky.

Good thing she didn’t go for Regency bucks, because it made it easy to remind herself this was work. It had been a long time since she’d socialized with a client, much less a male client just a few years her senior, who also was very good-looking. And polite. And doting on her aunt. In fact, that had never happened.

Aunt Ella took the flickering on of the Italian lights dotting the terrace as her cue to stand. “I will say good night, then. Tomorrow’s another busy day and then the ball . . .”

Julian stood and bowed. “Yes, do rest. We have so many festivities to look forward to!”

He held the door open for her while Vanessa popped up and gave her aunt a gargantuan hug, a kiss on her velvety cheek, and a playful twist of her necklace.

“Do you need any help with anything?”

“No, no, you two enjoy the evening.”

A glimmer of hope washed over Aunt Ella’s face, and Vanessa needed to nip that in the wedding boutonniere. She knew the machinations of her aunt’s mind.

“We have
work
to discuss. But I won’t keep him up past his bedtime. Especially with his acclimating to the six-hour time difference.”

“Good night, Ella.” Julian smiled.

Once her aunt had left, Vanessa lowered her voice to a whisper. “Julian, I have to tell you something.”

“No need to bother. I already know,” he said as he sipped his tea.

“You already know what?”

“You do not particularly like Jane Austen.”

How did he know that? Unless Aunt Ella had told him . . .

“No, no, I need to tell you that my aunt has been recently diagnosed with dementia. Tomorrow the doctor is going to call me with the test results. We’ll know whether it’s Alzheimer’s or not.”

“Oh. I knew that, too. She told me.”

“She did?”

“We’re rather good friends. You must know we met at a Jane Austen gathering in England years ago. Your aunt is quite open about the dementia; in fact, she wrote me about it weeks ago, when you went in for the first appointment.”

“I see. And the Jane Austen thing—?”

“It’s obvious to me.”

“I have nothing against her, you know—” She really didn’t. It was just a bad association more than anything.

“No need to explain. It’s quite all right.”

“I hope you understand that just because I’m not a lifelong member of the Jane Austen Society, I’ve still done and will do everything I know of to help you sell as many books and earn as many donations for your estate as possible.”

“You have done a bang-up job and all without any remuneration—”

“I do like to donate to good causes when I can.”

“Yes, your aunt told me about the cat shelter.”

“She did? Now you’re going to think I’m a crazy cat lady—”

“That’s not what I think about you at all.”

What
did
he think of her? Wait a minute. Why did she care what a client thought of her? She only cared about what he thought of her work.

“I’m most appreciative. I certainly never anticipated so many radio interviews and telly interviews.”

“Cable television, but yes. But you never know, we could still end up on prime-time news if something goes our way! As for the dementia, I wanted you to know in case she does something odd. Just this evening I found her necklaces in the freezer.”

“I am most, most sorry. Whilst I’m here I will surely look after her.”

Vanessa sighed. “Thank you. So. Julian.” She gave the photo album a quick tap. “Give me the grand tour of your humble abode.”

As he pulled his chair closer to hers, church bells chimed down the street, and for an awkward moment their eyes met, but Vanessa looked away and at the album.

He’d carried this thick, heavy photo album overseas?

With ceremony, he opened it up.

The pages were the color of coffee cream and each black-and-white photo had been carefully mounted with black corners.

He began by showing her photos of the ornate front gate, lawns, a pond, and semicircular gravel drive. The front grounds alone looked bigger than the city block that her condo building was on.

“And this is the view from the road.”

Her coffee spoon fell with a loud clank on her saucer. She pushed her coffee aside, wiped her fingers with her napkin, and took the album in both hands. Was dropping her spoon terribly obvious? She might as well say it. “Julian, it’s gorgeous. Wow.”

“Do you like the style?”

“Very much. What’s not to like?”

“It was built just before Jane Austen’s time, and she would’ve been very familiar with the architecture.”

“When was it built?”

“Seventeen twenty-six. So it’s not that ancient by many standards.”

Vanessa laughed. “Not by English standards.”

He smiled, too, and their eyes locked again.

“We think of Aunt Ella’s place here as vintage, and it was built in 1920!” She laughed.

He smiled.

“But your place—” She focused on the photo.

“It does have a gorgeous Palladian ashlar facade, does it not?”

She wasn’t even sure what that meant, but the six-columned, three-storied gray stone structure had twenty-something windows on the front alone and a tricorner pediment topped it off. It could be a museum. To say it was impressive would be an understatement, but there was something else about it, too; she just couldn’t figure out what.

“You live here all alone?” Was that a question she would ask any other client? “I—I mean it’s a huge place—”

“I am living alone in the drafty old place at the moment, aside from the skeleton staff it takes to keep such a place from crumbling entirely to bits. Most of it is cordoned off and the back grounds in particular need more tending than I can afford, I’m sorry to say.”

Vanessa stared at photos of an interior marble staircase in crumbling disrepair, water damage in the basement kitchen, and another room with peeling wallpaper and furniture draped in white tarps. “I didn’t know it was so beautiful and needed so much work.”

Julian sat back and folded his arms. “I didn’t think you’d read my book. I spend a large portion of the middle chapters addressing my challenges with inheriting an estate in such a—state.”

Did Vanessa just feel herself blush? When was the last time she’d blushed?

“I’m sorry, no, I didn’t. I just haven’t had the time. But that hasn’t affected the campaign I’ve created for you. And I will read it—I have some time now.”

The rest of the photos documented the disrepair of this once-handsome home. She wanted to read his book, and suddenly she regretted not reading it. Instead she had put her energies into what she thought was a better use of her time, lining up media opportunities for him.

For the first time in a long while she had the urge to read, and she only hoped his book could hold her attention. These days she never seemed to get past any opening chapters in her recreational reading.

“Since you didn’t read the book, you may not know that the home, in my extended family for generations, fell into neglect under my great-uncle’s occupancy. He was an eccentric old bachelor who suffered an undiagnosed neurological disorder, and he lived there his entire life, until he went into a home, and then the house really took a turn for the worse as it remained vacant for four years, complete with roof leaks. I was the next in line to inherit, and I didn’t want to leave off being a history professor, but—well, my younger brother laughs at me, considering the inheritance more of a curse than anything. It’s a massive responsibility.”

Still fascinated by the photos, Vanessa sipped her coffee and pointed to a photo of what appeared to be a tomb, built atop a hillside overlooking the estate.

“What’s this?” she asked.

His hand brushed against hers and she moved her hand to her lap.

“Oh, that.” Julian laughed. “That’s my great-great-grandfather, looking down on me, making sure I don’t catapult the family estate into ruination.”

“No pressure, right?”

“Exactly.”

The project took a grip on her in a way it hadn’t before. Seeing these photos, meeting Julian, sensing his passion for the restoration made it personal, just like her work had been in the beginning, when people took the time for face-to-face meetings instead of Skype sessions, conference calls, and endless e-mail volleys.

“I’m doing everything I can to restore it to its former glory and open it to the public to see, but it’s going to take millions. It’s currently listed in the English Heritage at Risk Register and I have only two years to turn it around or it could be condemned and torn down. This is why I wrote
My Year as Mr. Darcy
. Maybe I’m daft, but I can picture it fully restored. Perhaps even turned into a hotel with public areas open for touring.”

“I can see it, too. Yes, Julian, you’re going to make it happen!”

He smiled. “You have a wonderful enthusiasm. Whilst many are encouraging, others are not so optimistic.”

“Like . . . your significant other?”

Did she just say that? Really?

He looked right at her with his dark eyes. “It takes an extraordinary person to be keen on such a massive project.”

She pushed her chair farther away from him. “I’m thrilled to have you as one of my clients, Julian, and I look forward to working on this with you while you’re here.”

He leaned back in his chair. “There is one lady in particular who wants me to restore it.”

So, he had a girlfriend after all.

“Perhaps then she will leave me alone.”

Wait. He didn’t have a girlfriend? She wished she didn’t care. “Who’s that?”

“The female ghost in the drawing room.”