Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

Chloe looked at the decapitated bunnies and tried not to gag at the sight of their bloodied blue neck bones. “I want to help him. I have someone the money can help, too.”

“You need to be pursuing Sebastian.” Cook put her finger to her lips. “Shh. Someone’s coming.” She pushed Chloe toward the dead-bunny table and stuck the butcher knife in her hand. She flung two decapitated, plucked chickens on the table. At least they looked like chickens. “If it’s a cameraman, you’re going to chop the feet off. Right? That’s the plan. Just fol ow my lead.”

It was a camerawoman. Chloe touched a rubbery yel ow foot. She much preferred to see poultry and meat wrapped in cel ophane on Styrofoam trays, another perk of modern living. One of her silk stockings fel to her ankle. Why couldn’t it have been a potato or an onion? Why was Cook helping her, anyway? And why did the room keep spinning?

Wham! Chloe brought down the butcher knife on the chicken’s feet, but she missed and chopped part of the legs off, too. Blood spattered onto her gown. The camerawoman got it al on film.

“Miss Parker!” Cook yel ed from the other end of the kitchen, near the second stone fireplace. She ran past the camera and pul ed the knife from Chloe’s sweaty hand. “You’re doing it al wrong. Now you’ve gone and chopped the legs!” Her blue eyes rol ed from the camera lens to Chloe. “And spoiled your gown. How many times do I have to tel you to get out of my kitchen? I have maids for this work.” She waved the butcher knife around like a flyswatter. “Run along now. You belong upstairs!” She shooed Chloe away, but Chloe could barely walk for thinking that she just chopped the feet off a—bird.

Stil , Cook’s plan worked, and the camerawoman fol owed her up the kitchen steps to the breakfast room, where the maids were stacking the sideboard with sandwiches and cakes.

Julia sat at the table, tipping her chair back on two legs. Her chaperone tapped her shoulder to quit. “Miss Parker, where have you been? I was hoping we could go for a walk.”

Mrs. Crescent clasped her hands together when she saw Chloe. “I had the servants looking al over for you. You had a cal er.” She handed Chloe a creamy cal ing card with the upper-right corner folded down. Mr. Sebastian Wrightman was letterpressed into the card in a distinctive, but not overly ornamental font. The folded corner indicated that he had come in person, and the fact that he came “cal ing” at al pointed to a new level of intimacy in their relationship. Chloe held her palm against the wal . To think she had missed Sebastian al because of Henry!

Mrs. Crescent stood back to inspect Chloe’s gown. “My, you look a fright.”

Grace waltzed in, making even a check print look sexy with its scoop neck and her bare arms. She gave Chloe a sidelong glance. “You realize you look like an absolute serial kil er. Honestly.” She turned her blond sausage-curled head to the sideboard.

And, just as a joke for the camera, Chloe pretended she had a knife in her hands, Norman Bates style, and she acted as if she were stabbing Grace repeatedly in the back. The camerawoman did her best not to laugh.

Grace stood at the sideboard, hands on her hips. “Ah. Cold mutton and cow’s tongue. My favorites.”

Chloe remembered Sebastian’s cal ing card fluttering to the floorboards, but she didn’t remember fainting. Real y.

Chapter 15

C hloe was hoping that the top half of Grace’s boobs would get good and sunburned, because of course, sunblock didn’t exist in 1812.

Her bonnet trimmed and five Accomplishment Points garnered, Chloe pretended to do her embroidery as she spied on Sebastian and Grace through the casement window in the drawing room at Bridesbridge Place. The couple bobbed up and down in the rowboat on the reflecting pond.

Since Chloe had been MIA while out bird-watching with Henry, and Grace had finished embroidering her fireplace screen and had more than enough points for another outing, she was granted the time with Sebastian. Julia, too, had finished her screen and was slated for an outing with him before the archery competition that afternoon.

Julia had fifty Accomplishment Points, but Grace and Chloe only had forty.

“Lady Grace isn’t using her parasol,” Chloe reported to Mrs. Crescent. “And where’s her chaperone, anyway?” She pricked her index finger with the needle. “Ouch!” A drop of blood bubbled up. She flung the needlework to the table and sucked on her fingertip.

Mrs. Crescent was lounging on the settee with Fifi at her side and a leather-bound book in her hands. “You have less than two days to finish that fireplace screen.” She closed the book. “You won’t get any Accomplishment Points for it and you’l get another, worse task, like mending stockings and stays.”

Chloe stomped over to the pianoforte, where she banged out a few notes. Then she trudged over to the globe, lifted it from its wooden stand, and turned it. She found England, traced the outline of the tiny country with her pricked finger, and set the globe back in the stand.

Mrs. Crescent rubbed her bel y. “What you need is to win the archery competition this afternoon. Then we’l al be on our way.”

“Oh, I’l win al right. I have to!” She needed more time alone with Sebastian.

“That’s the spirit. Now finish up the screen.”

Chloe pressed her nose against the window. “They’re supposed to be bird-watching. Why aren’t they bird-watching?” She picked up her needlework. She set it back down.

Mrs. Crescent stood and rubbed the smal of her back. “Lady Grace has no interest in birds. You know that as wel as I do.”

Chloe cut a deck of historical y accurate oversized cards at the game table, which was draped in a maroon silk tablecloth.

Mrs. Crescent picked up Fifi. “I’m just glad to see you’re back ful force. We need to stay focused.”