Definitely Not Mr. Darcy (30 page)

“May I take a look at the cut?”

Grace moved on to Bach's “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.”

Chloe decided that she had to stop giving Henry mixed messages. “I said I'm fine, Mr. Wrightman!”

Fifi whimpered.

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” Mrs. Crescent singsonged forlornly.

Henry persisted. “I recommend you bathe and replace the bandage in the next twenty-four hours. I also recommend a dram or two of spirits.”

That got her to smile, although she had sworn off that sewing-cabinet vodka . . . and off Henry as well.

“And, of course, I'll need to check on your progress tomorrow.”

“That won't be necessary.”

Just then Sebastian walked in to see Henry and Chloe together—again.

This was exactly what she didn't want to happen! She turned to Sebastian. “And thank you, Mr. Wrightman, for rescuing me in the hedge maze.”

Sebastian merely nodded.

Henry had ruined her progress with Sebastian again!

Grace and Julia chose that moment to swoop in on Sebastian, each vying for his attention, each beautiful, glittering, and—dry.

Chloe decided that Mrs. Crescent was right, she looked a mess and was in no state to compete with Grace and Julia, certainly not physically, and maybe not mentally either! She should listen to her chaperone more often, really.

“Well, Mrs. Crescent and I must go.” Chloe curtsied, the men bowed, and she shuffled toward the foyer, Mrs. Crescent following.

In the marble-tiled foyer, Chloe caught a glimpse of herself in a full-length gold-leaf mirror, and thought she looked more like a madwoman locked in the attic than an Elizabeth Bennet who had just muddied her petticoats running all the way to Netherfield. Regardless, petticoats were hopelessly out of fashion in 1812. She pulled a twig out of her tangled hair.

What had made her think she was worthy of an Oxford-educated aristocratic hottie anyway? She used to think she belonged here in England, and now, it seemed, Grace might be right. She didn't belong here, or anywhere else.

She hesitated before stepping into the carriage, a hard-topped black chaise with a gold
W
emblazoned on the door. The four black horses tossed their manes and stamped their hooves.

“To Bridgesbridge Place,” Mrs. Crescent told the driver.

Fifi tugged at his bandage by Chloe's side and nuzzled his head under her hand. Chloe petted him, he licked her arm, and this time she didn't wince. The carriage lurched forward, the back of her head hit the leather tufts of the carriage seat, and the next time she looked out the carriage window she saw the vine-covered walls of Bridesbridge Place. She must've fallen asleep.

Mrs. Crescent put her hand on Chloe's knee and smiled. “Well, we missed the opportunity to score Accomplishment Points in the hedge-maze competition, but you will gain the bath you've been wanting. And I'm pleased to hear that things are going so well with Mr. Wrightman.”

They had been going well . . . until Henry intervened.

 

 

L
ater that afternoon, Fiona summoned Chloe to the bath, and Chloe was more than happy to leave her embroidered screen behind.

“Let's put on your bath gown.” Fiona reached into Chloe's Chippendale wardrobe and pulled out a thin sleeveless white cheesecloth type of thing.

“There's even a gown to wear to the bath?” Chloe asked. The gown brushed against her ankles as Fiona led her into a stone-tiled room.

“You'll see, miss,” Fiona assured her. She rolled up her sleeves and Chloe spotted the Celtic tattoo she had noticed more than a week ago.

Linens the size of sheets hung from pegs and a large copper tub full of water gleamed in the sunset that was streaming in through the window. The skies had cleared. Candles flickered in the sconces on the wall, and a silver pitcher full of fresh lavender stood on a wooden table near the tub. The only thing missing? A glass of wine. Chloe could almost hear a choir of angels singing “Hallelujah” in her head. A bath! After more than a week now? In a gorgeous copper tub! What joy, what bliss—“What's this?” Chloe picked up what looked to be a brush with a handle that was used to scrub floors.

“That's the brush I'm going to clean you off with,” Fiona said.

A camerawoman stood in the corner, on an upturned wooden bucket, filming.

“You will stop filming now, right?” Chloe asked the camerawoman, who didn't respond. No matter how desperately she wanted a bath, she refused to be filmed naked and have such compromising images of herself blasted all over the Internet. She wouldn't be naive about this!

“Get in the tub, please, Miss Parker.” Fiona hovered over Chloe with the scrub brush. “We haven't all day, other people in the house are waiting their turn.”

Chloe lifted the bath gown up to her thighs to take it off, but couldn't go any higher. How could they do this to her? Show her a tub full of water after seven days without a shower or bath and then expect her to be filmed naked? “You know what? I can't do this. Any of this. Anymore.” She turned on her barefoot heel, but Fiona was blocking the door, scrub brush in hand.

“You're to keep the bath gown on while you bathe,” she said. She put the hand with the scrub brush on her hip.

“I'm supposed to keep this on?”

“Yes. It would be unladylike to do otherwise.”

For the first time in her life, Chloe thought to herself:
Regency England sucks
. Who could bathe with a gown on?

Worse, she didn't want to be filmed in the tub, with or without the gown. But then Fiona sprinkled fresh lavender sprigs into the water, and the bath looked more tempting than ever.

“It's either this or no bath at all,” Fiona said. She took Chloe by the hand and led her toward the tub.

“Everyone else has bathed in their gowns.”

Chloe folded her arms. “They have? Who?”

“Let's see, Lady Grace, Mrs. Crescent, Mrs.—”

“All right. I'm in.” Fiona handed Chloe in and she sank into the water as the gown billowed out around her.

Within seconds, her butt had gone numb. “This water is f-freezing!” She popped up out of the water like a piece of toast from a toaster, only not as warm.

“It's colder out of the water than it is in,” Fiona observed tartly, and pushed Chloe's shoulders back under. Brush in hand, she scrubbed her mistress's neck, hair, and shoulders. “You'll get used to the temperature.”

Chloe cringed. The brush hurt and the wet gown clung to her ribs. “Why is the water so cold?” Her teeth were chattering.

Fiona scrubbed a little harder. “You really don't know, do you?”

“No.” Goose bumps on Chloe's arms and knees were showing through the gown. She brought her knees up to her chest and eyed the camerawoman who was filming discreetly from the side.

Fiona ladled water the temperature of frozen vodka over Chloe's head. “First, the footmen had to pump water from the well,” she said. “Then they had to carry it up two flights of stairs, with wooden yokes on their backs, until they dumped it in here. The two of them had to go up and down about fifteen times.”

Sorry as she felt for the footmen, Chloe touched her lips and wondered if they'd turned blue yet.

“That work alone took the better part of the day. Then, of course, we started the bathing in order of rank. Lady Grace went first, then her chaperone, then yours, then Julia's chaperone, then Julia, and now you. After you, it'll be the servants' turn, starting with Lady Grace's maidservant.”

Chloe saw that a long, curly blond hair was floating in the water along with some of the froth from the raw egg shampoo and she pulled it out, draping it on the side of the tub.

“After a few people have been in the water, it gets colder, it seems.” Fiona rinsed the egg out of Chloe's hair with the ladle. “Best to be first.”

Chloe froze, if an already frozen person could freeze any more. She shot up out of the water and splashed both Fiona and the camerawoman. “What?! I'm taking a bath in
used
bathwater?!” She grabbed her elbows to hide her hard nipples from the camera.

Fiona looked up at her. “Well, yes, of course. Only the titled ladies get fresh water. But you knew that, didn't you?”

“Ugggh!” Chloe vaulted out of the bathtub, knocking over the silver pitcher of lavender, which clanked to the ground. While Fiona bent to pick it up, Chloe whisked a linen sheet from a peg, wrapped herself up, and squished down the hall in her wet feet.

“Does this mean you're finished with your bath, then?” Fiona called out after her.

Chloe had climbed onto her sagging mattress and lay shivering in the linen sheet, which didn't work anything like a terrycloth towel.

“A lady doesn't scream in her bath,” Mrs. Crescent declared as she lumbered into the bedchamber, Fifi and Fiona right behind her.

“I know,” Chloe said while Fiona rubbed her hair with the linen towel. “Tell me. How does a Regency lady quit being on a reality-TV show? I want to go home.”

Fifi chose that moment to bound onto the bed and wag his curl of a tail at Chloe. Someone had removed his bandage and there was only a scrape on his back.

“Quit?” Mrs. Crescent settled into the mahogany chaise with the gorgeous scrollwork at each end. She rested her head on a tasseled cylindrical pillow, closing her eyelids. “You can't. You told me yourself things are heating up.”

Although Fiona had laid out an amazing blue gown, Chloe pulled on her nightgown.

Fiona folded her arms. “What about your dinner gown, miss?”

“I'm too tired for dinner. Tired of suckling pigs and quail. Tired of a cesspool instead of a bath. Tired of chamber pots. I'm tired of Lady Grace's attacks both by bullet, mince pie, and barely minced words. I quit.”

Mrs. Crescent shook her head. “But you look gorgeous, dear. I believe you've lost more than a few pounds. You're not a quitter.”

“Oh, yes I am. If you only knew!”

She'd quit her marriage for one thing. She was the one who left Winthrop. He didn't have the guts to leave her.

As these thoughts swirled through her mind, the camerawoman opened the door and continued filming.

Mrs. Crescent leveraged her pregnant self off the chaise and clapped for Fifi to follow her. “Sounds like you need some rest. Just ring if you want a tray brought up to you, dear.”

Fiona stoked the fire, drew the drapes, and snuffed out the candles.

Chloe fell asleep to the scuttling sounds she had been hearing every night now. She hugged her elbows and tucked her knees to her chest. She could no longer deny it. There was a mouse in her room!

 

 

T
here is a mouse in my room,” Chloe said to Fiona the next morning. She had been here a week and a day, and hadn't had a serious issue with the accommodations until now.

While Mrs. Crescent and Fifi looked on, Fiona laced Chloe's stays and pulled at the laces as if they were reins.

“Mice are all over the house. The kitchen's got black flies and a hornets' nest hangs outside the drawing room. Haven't you noticed?”

She hadn't. Rose-colored glasses again. “I hate mice. I need to get rid of them.”

“Does this mean you're staying after all, miss?” Fiona tied off the stays and pulled the most amazing pomona-green gown over Chloe's head. She slid an almost translucent sleeveless dress over the gown. Chloe looked down at her knees where the dress floated and fluttered.

“What do you call this—this confection?” she asked, turning to admire it in the mirror. It was the first morning she had woken and not immediately hoped for a letter from Abigail.

Fiona tied the dress in the back, cinching it just under her boobs. “It's an organza overdress.”

“Mmm,” Chloe mused while she sat down at the vanity for Fiona to do her hair. Fiona fastened an amethyst necklace around her neck.

“Can't imagine leaving all this, can you?” Fiona asked. “And you have a chance at another five Accomplishment Points with the bonnet-trimming session today.”

A footman arrived at the door with a knock and silver tray. “Miss Parker?” He bowed down to Chloe and held the tray in front of her. “Letter for you.”

At last!
Chloe hoped it was from Abigail. Or Emma. Or her lawyer—or all three.

“A letter! How exciting!” Mrs. Crescent was instantly at the heels of the footman. “Who from?” she asked as she wiped Fifi's drool off her arm.

“Don't get too excited. It's postmarked Chicago.”

“Oh.” Disappointed, Mrs. Crescent waddled out of the room.

There were several pages of computer-generated art from Abigail wrapped around a letter.

Chloe sank down onto her bed, and made a resounding crunch. “What did the chambermaid stuff my mattress with this time?!”

“I think it's cornhusks, Miss,” Fiona said. “And sawdust. Seems we're fresh out of hay.”

Chloe sighed. Grace, due to her higher rank, had a feather mattress.

The letter was from Emma and she read it while Fiona brushed her hair.