Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

be Sunday.”

“Ugh,” Chloe blurted out.

“What was that, miss?”

“Might I have more soap and water, then?”

“The soap bal needs to last you two weeks when the Irish soap monger wil be coming by again. I’l have a footman fetch fresh water.” She bowed her head and took the pot away. Where? Chloe wondered. The cameraman fol owed the chambermaid. Apparently Chloe’s chamber pot was more interesting than Chloe herself.

Chloe fixed her eyes again on the water that was glistening in the distance. She paced in front of the yel ow draperies, trying to put a positive spin on this. So there wasn’t any plumbing. There would be time to paint, there would be a bal , and candlelight dinners in Dartworth Hal .

She stopped and buried her head in her hands. Come on, she was almost forty and a mom. Why couldn’t she grow up and give up the fairy tale?

No bath til Sunday. Chamber pots. No phone to cal Abigail. Bul ets. Leeches. Psycho-housemate Grace. Ready-to-pop-a-baby chaperone. And a Mr. Wrightman who foiled her expectations. She imagined him as dark- haired and brooding, or at least standoffish, and was taken aback that he seemed approachable and caring, if a bit left-brained for her taste. Stil , how could she win over any man without being able to bathe for six days? If she wanted to win this thing, she had to be proactive, and she had to, at the very least, smel good.

Something wet nuzzled against Chloe’s leg.

Fifi was nudging his way under her gown, sniffing and licking. Chloe pul ed on her walking half boots, snatched the soap bal , a linen towel, and had gotten as far as the hal way when she remembered her bonnet. Bonnet, parasol, and gloves retrieved, she scampered down the servants’

staircase, almost missing a step in the darkness.

Chapter 5

H er white stockings hung from a nearby branch and swayed in the breeze while she waded in the pond. She had rol ed up her pantalets, lifted her gown to her knees, and washed her legs and arms with the soap bal when what she real y wanted to do was just pul off her gown and dive in. Not only would that have been inappropriate, but she wouldn’t want anyone to see her stark naked unless they’d had a few drinks and she was il uminated by candles. Candlelight was one of the perks of nineteenth- century living for an aging spinster like her.

The water around her ankles cooled her entire body, and even though it wasn’t a shower, she felt cleaner. She convinced herself that any lady worth her salt would do the same for the sake of personal hygiene, and after al , she did leave word with a servant to tel Mrs. Crescent that she would be right back. According to the rule book, as long as she didn’t leave Bridesbridge property unchaperoned, she should be okay.

She looked back toward Bridesbridge, but couldn’t see it through the trees. Something, probably a deer, moved among the greenery. She’d better get going. Mrs. Crescent would be waking from her nap soon. Chloe forced herself to head back toward the bank.

Atop a hil , in the distance, stood a Grecian temple with a green dome and six columns. Just above the dome, an airplane sliced through the sky and the rumble of the airplane engine cut through her.

Chamber pots and weekly baths aside, she real y didn’t want to go back to the modern world. She had gone in worse places than a chamber pot in her lifetime. Porta-Potties. A parking lot once or twice during the col ege years. In a plastic cup at the OB when she was pregnant. Then there was Mrs. Crescent’s poor son Wil iam, who seemed to have some kind of medical condition. And Abigail, who looked up to her mom and expected her to succeed. Mr. Wrightman may not have looked like her vision of a Mr. Darcy, but her second impression, after the leech incident had been cleared up, was good. Certainly Grace and Mrs. Crescent considered him a paragon.

She’d better get back to the drawing room—pronto.

A horse whinnied on the other side of the water, she lost her soap bal in the water, and her hem fel into the pond.

“How’s the water?” The male voice was English-accented. Unfamiliar. It came from behind the chestnut tree.

Everything went numb, even her lips. The water turned icy, sunlight broke through the trees, and the water went translucent. A man in a green riding coat emerged from behind the tree. He stepped onto the embankment in black riding boots and breeches, a gloved hand holding on to the reins of a white horse. Two greyhounds flanked him.

It could’ve been a scene right out of a Jane Austen adaptation—tal , dark, and handsome hunk of man appears in forest out of nowhere—except, of course, the heroine wouldn’t be knee-deep in pond water, her stockings hung in a tree.

He lifted his hat and bowed his head of slightly unruly black hair. He had dark eyes and broad shoulders in the wel -tailored riding coat, and he had to be the man she saw working out with the logs in the field. “Pity we haven’t met formal y, Miss Parker, or we’d be free to converse. And I could, perhaps, escort you out of the water.”

How did he know her name? Her stockings floated in the breeze and her ability to speak simply floated away.

“I have been most anxiously awaiting your arrival, and now I can see why.”

She flinched.

“Not to worry. I won’t report this infraction. Not yet, anyway. Luckily, I gave my cameraman the slip for the moment. You’re on Dartworth property unchaperoned, you know. You’d be asked to leave. And I wouldn’t want that, I can tel you.” He moved toward the pond’s edge, the dogs panting at his side.

She didn’t think the pond could be on Dartworth land! She had to get out of here. Then it occurred to her that she was alone in the woods with a man she didn’t know, her stockings hanging in a nearby tree.

“Just who are you?” Chloe asked.