Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

The cards fel from her hands in a spray on the floor.

Fiona knocked. “Delivery for Miss Parker.”

It looked like some sort of a picnic basket. Fiona set the basket down on the game table and gave Chloe a note, sealed with a blue wax W.

“Thank you,” Chloe said, holding the note in her hand as if it were a winning lottery ticket.

As Fiona curtsied and left, Fifi leaped out of Mrs. Crescent’s arms, jumped up on a chair at the gaming table, and began sniffing the basket. Mrs.

Crescent leaned toward the letter.

Chloe broke the seal and read aloud:

“Dear Miss Parker,

Please accept this mousetrap with my regards. I do hope it will catch the mouse in your bedchamber. Looking forward to time together again soon.

Yours,

Mr. Wrightman”

“Mousetrap?” Mrs. Crescent looked sideways at the basket. Fifi started growling.

Chloe thought she saw the basket move, but then again, it could’ve just been her excitement.

“Henry must’ve told him about the mouse.” Chloe held the note up to her nose and breathed in. She showed it to Mrs. Crescent. “Look. He signed it ‘yours.’” She hugged the note close for a moment. No mere e-mail could ever surpass a handwritten note.

Mrs. Crescent rubbed her bel y and swal owed. “He quite fancies you, doesn’t he.”

Chloe unhooked the basket lid and a young tabby cat peeked out.

“Oh!” Chloe held her arms out to the cat, but Fifi barked and the cat sprang to the writing desk, almost knocking over an ink jar. Fifi hurled himself at the desk in a barking frenzy. The cat arched his back and hissed at Fifi, who snarled and scratched at the desk leg.

Mrs. Crescent scooped up her dog. “Shush, Fifi!”

Chloe whisked the ink jars from the writing desk, but the cat snapped the quil pen in his mouth and held it there like a rose between his teeth.

Chloe had to think of Abigail, who loved cats, but never had one as a pet. Chloe missed Abigail so much she had to steady herself against the desk for a moment.

Fifi growled from Mrs. Crescent’s arms as she waddled to the door. “I’m going to rest before the archery meet this afternoon. Now, I suggest you take your mousetrap to your bedchamber, inform Fiona of the new arrival so that she can provide food and a litter box, and use this time to complete your needlework. Enough dawdling!”

Chloe rol ed her eyes. “I’m no good at needlework.”

Mrs. Crescent pointed a finger at her. “To win this competition, you need to do more than act like a lady. You need to be one.” With that, she took off.

Chloe picked up the cat and slid the quil from his teeth. She thought about sending Sebastian a thank-you note, but she couldn’t write to a man unless they were engaged. Or could she? Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility did.

She took the cat up to her bedchamber, shutting him in the room with her. She’d never had a cat before. And no man had ever given her anything with more of a pulse than a potted petunia. He must’ve real y trusted her; after al , he had no idea that an eight-year-old girl thrived under her care.

She plopped herself down on the red velvet-cushioned stool at her writing desk and ceremoniously lit a tal ow candle with a piece of kindling from the fire in her fireplace. The cat paced near the door. She took a piece of thick writing paper from the shelf and it felt almost like cloth. Seizing her bottle of rose water from the dressing table, she sprinkled a couple droplets onto the paper. Mmm—text messages never smel ed like roses!

She plucked the goose quil from the penholder, and—was it her sex-starved imagination, or was this pen total y phal ic? She touched the hand-cut nib, which was spliced up the center, and ran her hand al the way up the bare shaft to the few feather barbs left at the top. Henry had told her most quil s came from the gray goose, and “pen” derived from penna, Latin for “feather.” They were made from the stiff flight feathers on the leading edge of the bird’s wing. Henry, schmenry. The only reason why she thought about him at al was that she spent the most time with him by default, and that had to change.

She flipped the silver top off the crystal ink pot, dipped the quil into the ink, and wiped the shaft of the pen on the rim, as Mrs. Crescent had taught her. The ink permeated the nib and she’d just written the word Dear when the ink ran out and the cat jumped onto the paper. Paw prints and ink were smeared al over. At least she no longer got ink up to her elbows like the first time she tried to write with a quil . She started al over again, with fresh paper, and wrote in a most ladylike tone:

Dear Mr. Wrightman,

Thank you for the mousetrap.

It was a most thoughtful gesture and I’m hoping the cat will catch the mouse sooner rather than later.

Yours,

Miss Parker

After rol ing the blotter over her words, she folded the letter and dipped a black sealing-wax stick into the candle. Smoke uncoiled into the air. The melting wax perfumed the air with sweetness. The wax dripped slowly