Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

Good day, Miss Parker.” He bowed and slapped his hand on the carriage door. He shouted to the driver: “Drive on. To Bridesbridge Place! Good luck, Miss Parker!”

Surely she would be better behaved than some American heiresses are wont to be. The carriage lumbered forward, crushing the mike on the smal of her back into the velour. She eyed the camera on the ATV beside the carriage and, with her gloved hand, gave George the royal wave and a clipped smile. He gave her the royal wave back. She’d miss him—the cad. Something about him intrigued her.

The horse hooves clomped and gunned her forward. She felt as if she were leaving something behind, something important, like her cel , for one thing. She looked away from the camera with a feigned disinterest as any heiress would. Ancient and storied trees laced into an archway overhead.

The sky seemed bluer in England, the sun brighter. Of course, she didn’t have sunglasses on because they hadn’t been invented yet.

Sunlight dappled in a clearing far from the road, and when Chloe squinted her eyes she saw two men, one dark-haired in a white shirt open to his chest, in breeches and boots, jogging with two logs atop his shoulders, and the other brawny and bald, who clapped and cheered and yel ed. The dark-haired man hurled the logs onto a cart, then ran back for two more. The bald man put his hands on his hips and shouted at the guy. Chloe looked back at the footman behind her on the coach, wanting to ask, knowing it would be improper.

The footman spared her. “Training.” That was al he said.

Chloe nodded. It was the Regency term for working out. Was it Mr. Wrightman? Only a gentleman would be able to afford a trainer. Whoever it was, she admired the fact that this guy was so into the Regency that he even stepped up his workout to a nineteenth-century routine.

He flung two more logs onto the cart and she heard the impact al the way out on the road. He turned his head toward her carriage and shielded his eyes to see her.

She wanted to wave, but didn’t, especial y when she thought she saw him smile. The trainer turned his head toward the carriage, then pointed toward the logs and shouted until the dark-haired man lifted four logs.

It was her first real glimpse of Regency life here on the estate, not to mention her first glimpse of a man in an unbuttoned shirt and snug pants in a while. He looked as if he had just burst from the cover of a Regency romance novel and it took serious wil power not to turn and stare long after the carriage had passed. If the rest of the people on the show were as gung ho as that guy, this could be “cool,” as Abigail would say. Real y cool.

She cracked open the rule book in her lap and ran her fingers along the thick pages that had been hand-cut. She brought the book up to her nose to breathe in the smel of paper pulp and ink. Then she settled back to read.

Miss Chloe Parker, you are thirty-nine years old, an American heiress who may be without a fortune due to unforeseen circumstances in your family’s business. You have one foot in the States and another one firmly planted in your mother’s native England. A projected income of five thousand pounds a year is yours, provided you land Mr. Wrightman, a husband of the English gentry, thus securing your family’s social status. Your parents and your younger sister, Abigail . . .

Chloe stopped there. Abigail. She squeezed her eyelids shut for a moment.

. . . and your younger sister, Abigail, depend upon your success. Mrs. Crescent, your chaperone, will introduce you to English society. Best of luck.

The table of contents included chapters on “Archery Rules,” “Bal room Behavior,” “Your Chaperone,” “Dinner Etiquette,” and “Sexual Protocol.”

Hmm. Chloe paged over to that very short chapter:

A lady would never engage in sexual relations with a gentleman until after marriage. So doing would compromise her reputation, her position in society, and her eligibility to marry someone her equal or above. One wrong move and a lady could be ousted from society and plunged into a life of poverty and depravity, doomed to remain an outsider. A lady may be kissed only when she is properly engaged. Before engagement, a gentleman does not touch a lady, except to hand her into a carriage, dance at a ball, or escort her on a walk in the garden with her chaperone. He may only touch her in extreme circumstances, in emergency, if the lady finds herself in trouble.

Chloe looked back, toward the inn, the trailer, and George, but she couldn’t see any of it anymore. And suddenly she felt a mil ion miles from American men, work, TVs, computers, phones—Abigail.

The rule book slid off her lap. She leaned over, struggling to pick it up despite the busk restricting her movements. The cameraman on the ATV

eased back to get a good shot of her boobs, no doubt. She wrapped the shawl tighter around her shoulders.

The carriage lurched to the top of a hil and stopped. Dust rose from the dry road and Chloe coughed, digging into her reticule for her fan.

The driver turned around, tipping his hat. “There it is, miss.”

Chloe tossed the fan aside, put her hand over the brim of her bonnet, and, awestruck, stood up. Tucked in a val ey off in the distance, rising out of the greenery, was a Queen Anne stone mansion, complete with a four-columned portico and stone urns on al four corners of the roof.

She col apsed back in the carriage seat. “Is—is that his estate? Mr. Wrightman’s?” Chloe asked.

“No, miss.” The driver laughed. “That’l be Bridesbridge Place, that. Where you’l be staying with the ladies.”

Chloe had never imagined she’d be staying in such luxury. She had pictured—a cottage. She fel back farther in her seat and fanned herself, shocked and jet-lagged al at once.

“Mr. Wrightman’s—Dartworth Hal —that’s almost a mile beyond Bridesbridge,” said the driver. “You can’t see it from here.” He snapped the reins and the carriage rol ed ahead.

The sky widened above her as the trees thinned out. The air smel ed of fresh rain and cowbel s clanged in the distance. Pastures dotted with sheep and cows yielded to glistening grasses, as pastoral as a John Constable painting. The dirt road became pea gravel as the carriage approached the ocher-colored gates of