Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

“Miss Parker.” Her eyes widened and she wrapped her gloved hand around Chloe’s arm. “Mrs. Crescent has gone into labor and she’s absolutely begging for you to come to her side!”

Chloe’s heart skipped. “Wh-what?” she stuttered.

“Mrs. Crescent wants you—now—it’s time!”

Chloe’s arm, the one she almost wrapped around Sebastian’s shoulder, went limp. Her bare shoulders slumped.

Sebastian squeezed his fist, then relaxed his arm. The dancers twirled around them, a blur of color. Chloe felt the cameraman zoom in on her face—not one of her best cinematic moments, she was sure of that. Her mouth felt funny, like after a shot of Novocain.

“Hurry!” Fiona shouted above the music.

Chloe turned to go, but Sebastian reached out and squeezed her arm, pul ing her back.

She shook her arm loose. “I have to go. Fiona—is that where Henry is?”

“Yes—that’s where he is,” Fiona said.

It made sense.

Sebastian retracted his arm and bowed.

“Tel Lady Anne!” Chloe shouted over her shoulder to Sebastian as she dodged as many waltzing couples as she could, like a pinbal on the dance floor. She col ided right into the London doctor, who sneered and stil smel ed of Chanel.

At the edge of the dance floor Chloe took a deep breath, and drank in the room and the waltz music as if to sustain her. That was when she saw Fiona and Sebastian waltzing.

But instead of throwing a fit or even feeling jealous, Chloe felt—nothing. Sometimes, though, as she knew ful wel , in moments of great shock, numbness set in, to protect a fragile heart.

She did feel the camera on her face as it panned from her to Sebastian and Fiona dancing, and back again. She spun on her heel-less slippers and hightailed it through Dartworth Hal . At least this time she wasn’t dressed as a footman! She cut through the library, thinking it would lead to the gal ery, but this wasn’t the library. It had a bed in it . . . this had to be the biggest bedroom she’d ever seen. The room, lit on either end by two dwindling fires, seemed wal papered with books. Two butterfly nets stood propped up against a writing desk. She turned around and a cameraman was right behind her. Without thinking, she asked him, “Where are we?”

The cameraman didn’t answer. But she knew.

A sword and mesh fencing mask lay on the writing desk, along with a W wax stamper. A pile of handkerchiefs stood on the washstand. HW was embroidered in the corner. This was Henry’s room. And was that a jockstrap hanging from the chair? It seemed rather—large. Ladies didn’t lurk in gentlemen’s bedrooms, examining their protective gear, especial y not while their chaperones were in the throes of childbirth. Her face flushed.

She hurried out the same door she came in, retraced her steps, and final y found her way back to the portrait gal ery.

She lifted her gown, scurried down the marble stairway, grabbed her pelisse from the cloakroom, and scampered out the front doors into the night. At the bottom of the palatial steps she saw the footman.

“I need a carriage and a driver!” She was out of breath. “Mrs. Crescent’s having her baby!” She pul ed her pelisse on.

The footman looked out toward the stables where the carriages were parked. “It’l take half an hour to ready a carriage.”

Chloe paced on the bottom step. “Half an hour! I can’t wait that long—”

“Here.” The footman untied a horse from a horse post. “Take a horse. It’l be much faster.”

She took a step backward.

The footman took her gloved hand with her fan and reticule hanging from the wrist and he lifted it. “I know it’s saddled westernstyle, and not for a lady, but I’l help you up. You should be al right.”

“No! No, thank you.” Chloe pul ed her hand back. “I’l sprint over there.” And she sprang off the bottom step right into the pasty mud, where her bal room slipper promptly got stuck. When she tried to lift her foot out of the glop, the lace almost broke again. She looked up at the footman, who smiled and extended his hand to help her out of the mud.

Okay, okay, so she missed cars, and taxis, and buses, and maybe even Harleys.

Chapter 19

T he footman flirted with her. The guy couldn’t be a day over eighteen and might even be jailbait. But Chloe didn’t want to waste a minute, no matter how flattering the situation.

Final y he slid her muddied pink bal room slipper into the stirrup.

Shaking, Chloe hoisted her gown up to her knees and flashed her silk stockings at the footman as she swung her leg over the horse.

The cameraman came closer to her, and she knew she was breaking every rule in the book by riding western style in her bal gown, but—Mrs.

Crescent was having her baby! Her gown had ripped, but she clenched the reins and squinted, barely able to make out the torchlights in front of Bridesbridge. She brought the horse to a gal op as she hunched down low, near the horse’s warm neck.