The Man Who Loved Jane Austen

gave that green dress to one of the hostesses.”

Still not understanding, Eliza cautiously lifted the yards of delicate rose-colored silk from the bed. Beneath the gown lay a pair of matching slippers and a petticoat embroidered with wild rose vines. Turning back to Jenny with the dress, she held it up in front of her.

Jenny glanced from Eliza to the painting of Rose Darcy in the alcove and nodded approvingly. “Isn’t that something?” she marveled. “I told Fitz it would probably need to be altered but he said he knew it would fit you.”

Eliza looked down and saw that the spectacular gown did indeed seem to have been tailor-made for the contours of her own slender body.

“Pretty amazing when you consider that dress hasn’t been worn for almost two hundred years,” Jenny continued.

Eliza, who had been only half-listening until that point, stared at her new friend in horror. “This is Rose Darcy’s actual dress, not a reproduction?”

“Yep, Fitz sent Artie and me up to the museum in Richmond this morning to get it.” She laughed at the memory. “I thought we were gonna have to arm wrestle ’em for it. Some stuffy old curator told us it was a priceless historical artifact and that it would be on our heads if anything happened to it.”

“Jenny, why would Fitz do a thing like this?” she asked, dropping the filmy gown back onto the bed as if her hands had been burned.

Jenny Brown placed her hands on her hips, closed one eye and focused appraisingly on the distraught artist with the other. “Now why do you think he did it, Eliza?”

Eliza shook her head helplessly, not daring to confront the only possible explanation that popped into her mind. She looked again at the delicate froth of precious silk and tentatively picked it up. It was so soft that the folds fluttered like feathers falling from her hands. “What if something happens to it?” she whispered.

“What if it does?” Jenny said matter-of-factly. “It’s just a dress.”

“But…you said the museum people told you it was priceless…” Eliza stammered.

“Sure,” Jenny snorted, “and they also had it draped on some damned dummy in a glass case, like one of their stuffed birds. It was a dead thing up there, Eliza.”

Jenny smiled then, her lovely features filling with warmth. “When you put on that gorgeous gown tonight it will be alive again for the first time in two hundred years.” Her eyes flicked up to the face of Rose Darcy silently watching them from the safety of her gilded frame. “Like it was meant to be,” Jenny added softly.

Wavering, Eliza continued to hold the nearly weightless gown in her hands, which she noticed were shaking. Her brain was reeling with doubts and all of her carefully reasoned logic had again turned topsy-turvy. The sheer enormity of Darcy’s gesture was so overwhelming that she could hardly breathe.

“Why?” she whispered for the second time. “I really don’t understand why he would do this, Jenny.” Eliza lowered her eyes and her voice fell to a barely audible whisper as she confessed, mostly to herself, “I’ve been pretty awful to him.” She held the shimmering gown before her. “So why would he…”

Eliza left the sentence hanging, afraid to give voice to the unreasonable surge of hope that she felt building within her heart.

The other woman simply shook her head and sighed. “Eliza,” she said, “let me tell you something about Fitz Darcy. He may be a cautious person when it comes to parceling out his goodness, regard and love, but when he does it’s not in small spoonfuls or halfheartedly. And you can believe me when I say that Fitz never does anything with ulterior motives, there is nothing devious about him, everything is open and aboveboard. And there’s no stingy little accountant standing by to keep tabs on what he does either. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Eliza nodded, a disturbing image of Jerry chastising her for her fiscally unsound impulsiveness and her unbridled flights of fancy surfacing in her mind for just a fraction of a moment.

Several seconds of silence ensued before Eliza could trust herself to speak again. “Jenny, are you saying that you think Fitz likes me?” she asked in a small, tremulous voice.

Jenny’s deep, rich laughter echoed off the richly decorated walls of the Rose Bedroom. “Likes you! Honey, you are the only woman the man has bothered to even look at for three whole years.” She lowered her voice an octave and gave Eliza a knowing wink. “And I have to tell you that I never saw him look at anyone the way he looks at you,” Jenny declared. “Hell, even dumb old Faith can see that. Why do you think she threw that incredible temper tantrum last night?”

Eliza stared at her newfound friend, wishing it could be true. But Jenny had no way of knowing that Fitz was deeply in love with someone else, someone who was dead and gone, but who would live forever in his heart.

“You’d better get dressed now,” Jenny said quietly. “I’ll be back in half an hour to see if you need any help.”

Eliza slowly nodded and watched her go out and close the door. Then she walked over to the floor-length mirror on the wardrobe and again pressed the magical gown to her body.

She returned to the bed, carefully laid out the dress and sat down. Fingering the delicate fabric, Eliza again questioned why Fitz had gone to the trouble of arranging for her to wear it. Jenny’s theory notwithstanding, was he simply trying to secure the letters for himself with a bribe? Thinking back over the two days she’d been here, he had done nothing sneaky or underhanded, which was more than she could say about herself. No, from what she could tell he was an honorable man. And in spite of his admission that Jane Austen had initially thought him arrogant, she had seen nothing of it. In fact he was very down-to-earth with no pretensions at all and except for a flare-up of temper, triggered by her own deception, he had been a perfect gentleman, in the truest sense of the word. Everything pointed to its being simply a gracious gesture on his part.

The clock in the hall chimed the quarter hour and roused her from her reverie. Glancing at the clock on the bedside table she went into the bathroom to get ready…for whatever the evening might bring.

Chapter 35

Dressed in the antique silk gown, her shining black hair arranged in a loose, flowing style that flattered her long neck and almost-bare shoulders, Eliza stood on the balcony of the Rose Bedroom, gazing down at the torch-lit drive.

From her vantage point she saw a stately procession of horse-drawn carriages, their side lamps glowing like moving jewels in the darkness, wending its way toward the front of the house where costumed attendants awaited.

Somewhere an orchestra was playing a lively tune she had never heard before, flutes and strings predominating.

As each carriage reached the steps of Pemberley House its occupants were assisted out by liveried footmen, and then guided to the entrance by a gowned hostess carrying a silver candelabrum before her.

“Pretty spectacular, wouldn’t you say?”

Eliza hadn’t heard the bedroom door opening. Now she turned to see Jenny standing at her shoulder.

“It’s breathtaking,” Eliza agreed, returning her attention to the scene below. “Do you think this was really what Pemberley looked like once upon a time?”

“Once upon a time,” Jenny replied, smiling at the timeworn phrase, “Pemberley House looked exactly like this. Thanks to Rose Darcy’s diary, which describes the very first Rose Ball down to the smallest detail, everything you see down there has been faithfully reconstructed according to her description, and then repeated every year since.”

Eliza stared at her. “They’ve been holding this ball at Pemberley Farms for more than two hundred years?”

“Except in wartime. During the Civil War the Union Army rode through here and during the Second World War they were rationing food and gas. Every other year there’s been a Rose Ball at Pemberley Farms. It’s only been a charity event since Fitz started hosting it; before that it was just a society party.” Turning back to the room, Jenny said, “We’d better get going now. Don’t want you to be late.”

Eliza laughed. “How can I be late, when I’m already here?”