Definitely Not Mr. Darcy (42 page)

Down at the bottom of the mound, wooden double doors stood tucked into the earth, each with great iron hinges pointy as daggers. She pressed up against the doors and buried her face in her arm. The wood felt cool against her shaky hands.

Back home it was seven hours earlier, and it was the Fourth of July. Abigail would be in the bicycle parade and everybody was playing badminton and croquet and packing the lemonade and buttermilk-fried chicken in picnic baskets for the fireworks. Here—there were no fireworks to speak of. Not even a spark.

Something crunched on the forest floor behind her.

“Miss Parker, is that you?”

The lantern almost slipped from her hand. Henry swooped down from his horse as if out of nowhere. “I didn't mean to startle you. What are you doing here?”

“That's a very good question. Good question!” She sniffled. “I suppose I might ask you what you're doing here! Anytime I'm where I shouldn't be, you show up.”

He smiled. “The footman at Dartworth informed me you'd taken one of my horses to Bridesbridge. When I got to Bridesbridge, Mrs. Crescent told me you thought she was having her baby, and stormed out. I saw the lantern light from the road.”

He guided her over to an old tree stump and she sat down, unable to talk. In the flickering light of the two lanterns, he looked concerned. Worried, even. “Are you quite all right?”

“Not really.” Chloe looked down at her ripped gown, collapsed in the middle like a popover that didn't pop. The tips of her boots pointed in at each other. She clasped her hands between her knees and squeezed her fingers against her knuckles as if that would stop the tears. She and Henry shouldn't be here together unchaperoned in the dark, but nobody else seemed to be playing by the rules, why should she?

“Well, for one thing, I'm a little homesick. Today is—” She bit her lip and looked up at the stars. Red, white, and blue stars.

“Your Independence Day.”

Another chunk of hair fell from her updo. “Ha!
My
Independence Day. Hardly.” A white star shone brighter than the rest. “I hardly feel independent.”

Henry gathered stones into a circle and marked the beginnings of a fire. “I disagree.”

“Please.” Chloe stood up and picked up sticks for the fire. “I'm in a gown I didn't even put on myself, chasing around some guy I thought I knew, thinking he's going to be my happy ending and solve all my problems. When am I going to learn?” She tossed the sticks into the stone circle.

He lit a fallen branch with the flame from Chloe's lantern. The dry branch sputtered and sparked. “I think you're quite independent. Here you are halfway around the world. On your own. In another culture—and navigating another time really.” With the flame on the stick, he lit the fire in the stone circle and flames danced up all at once. “All this during a national holiday that marks your country's break from ours. It's got to be difficult.”

“It's not difficult.” She poked at the fire with a stick. The aroma of a campfire brought back memories of all those summers at camp out on the East Coast. She lifted her stick from the fire and watched a flame flicker around the end of it. “I never liked hot dogs. Or baseball. I liked my grandmother's crumpets. She was from England, you know. I liked the song ‘God Save the Queen.' As for fireworks—well—”

Henry tossed a small log into the fire and it crackled and snapped.

“I love them. You can never have enough fireworks.”

“It must be a little conflicting to be an American and an Anglophile all at the same time. Is that why you're here at the ice-house at this hour?”

Chloe's legs turned to white soup. She stood up and leaned against the wooden doors of what she thought was a smokehouse. “Ice-house?”

Henry kicked mud on the fire to put it out. “Yes. Whatever are you doing here? I didn't even get a chance to dance with you.”

The fire dwindled under clumps of mud. Chloe looked behind her at the hinged wooden doors. Her torn ball gown and muddied boots flashed in the last flickers of firelight. Sebastian might show up any minute. “This is the ice-house?”

“Yes. Yes. Now, why not go back to the ball?”

Chloe stepped back from the wooden doors and picked up her lantern. Limestone blocks surrounded the wooden doors.

She caught her breath. “I thought this was a smokehouse.”

Henry lifted his lantern and splashed the ice-house doors with light. The doors shone a lacquered red that Chloe hadn't noticed until now. He pulled a ring of keys from his coat pocket, unlocked the doors, kicked them open, and a wave of cool, earthy air spilled out and over Chloe. What was he doing with the ice-house keys, anyway?

“Come and see,” Henry said, his voice echoing.

She looked over her shoulder into the forest, but Henry's words lured her in.

“Look, they built the inside with laced brickwork more than a foot thick.” He held the lantern up to the ceiling and Chloe could suddenly see him, years from now, decades even. He'd point out things like the friezes at the Parthenon or baguettes in a Parisian bakery window to his wife, somewhere in the fuzzy future.

As Chloe ventured into the domed, beehivelike cove, the sad smell of melting snow enveloped her.

Henry tipped his lantern toward great, huge blocks of ice covered in straw. A trickle of water went down a drain somewhere within. The cool floor penetrated her calfskin boots and her legs grew cold.

Henry nudged the wooden doors nearly closed. “You would think they'd have used the ice-house to keep their meat and fish, but they didn't. They would cut ice from the ponds in the winter, cover it in straw, and then use it to make ice creams, cool drinks, and syllabubs during the summer. If a house could offer such luxuries during the summer, it raised the owner's social status—”

And this little history lesson would've been interesting if Chloe weren't wondering when Sebastian would show up. She pushed the wooden doors back open and Henry dropped his arm, his lantern falling to his side.

He cleared his throat. “Sorry to bore you—”

“No—no—you're not boring me. Not at all! It's just—”

“Allow me to escort you back to Bridesbridge.” He held the doors open for her, then locked them behind her and slipped the keys back in his greatcoat pocket. He untied his horse and walked him over to her. “Let me help you up on the horse.” He bent down and laced his fingers together, offering her a step up. The horse bent his head down, and his mane flopped into his eyes, as if he, too, agreed she should go back.

But Chloe didn't step up. “No! I mean—no, thank you.” She curled her fingers around the lantern handle.

She thought she heard the sound of hooves in the distance. The fire barely glowed now. Henry bent to pick up his lantern and held it up to the dark forest. He heard a horse, too. He mounted his horse and looked down on Chloe. “You're meeting Sebastian here, aren't you?”

A breeze rippled around her. She looked into the orange-and-black embers of the fire. She had to think of Abigail and William.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

The hooves sounded close now. A lantern bounced behind the trees.

Henry yanked the reins on his horse, turned him, and looked back over his shoulder, bowing his head, his eyes looking past her, at the ice-house. “I bid you farewell.”

She licked her lips to speak, but his horse spun, its tail swished as if Chloe were a fly that needed brushing away, and the horse carved up clods of mud as he galloped off. Henry was gone—
poof
—into the blue moonlit darkness.

Much as she wanted Henry, she couldn't have him! She was meant to have Sebastian.

She pressed her back against the cool wooden ice-house doors and goose bumps raced up and down her arms. In one fell swoop, Sebastian entered her circle of flickering lantern light, dismounted, tied up his horse, approached her fast and sure. He cupped her face in his warm hands, but she turned away.

“What is it?”

It was only everything. But she did have something to hang her bonnet on. “It's Fiona. Is there something going on between you and Fiona?”

Sebastian laughed. “She's only a kid. I think she has a little crush on me. I just danced with her. That's all.”

“That's not all.”

“So I flirt with her a little bit every now and then. I could say the same—or more—about you and Henry.”

Touché
. She didn't want to blow this chance with him, and a squiggly smile skirted across her lips.

“I'm so glad you joined me here.” He kissed her, and kept one hand on her neck while another hand expertly reached down—into his pocket for keys.

His mouth tasted like hard liquor. A flickering of tongue, a clinking of keys, and she practically fell backward into the ice-house. Her reticule and fan fell to the brick floor.

He ringed her waist, steadied her, and set her down so gently, so gallantly—on an ice block covered in straw. A chill penetrated her thin silk pelisse and gown and her butt went numb.

“This is so hot,” Sebastian whispered into her ear as he dug in his pocket for something. “Isn't this hot?”

Chloe nodded, feeling rather chilled. How naive of her to think he would propose. She looked up at the laced brickwork, remembering Henry's strong fingers laced together. Mostly she remembered the look on his face when he realized she wouldn't be going back to the ball with him. She winced.

Sebastian's fingers glided down her stocking and he slid her gown up to her thighs. And it would've been hot if it weren't so damn cold! His other hand slipped out of his pocket, and in the faint lantern light, Chloe caught a glint of silver, heard a click, and a knife blade flashed dreadfully near her neck.

She sprang up and catapulted toward the doors. He beat her to them, barricading them with his wide shoulders.

She froze. She already was frozen, but she froze some more.

He smiled. “It's just my penknife.” He held the knife in the palm of his hand and it did look small, now.

Chloe stepped back until her calves hit the block of ice. She grabbed her elbows, pulling her pelisse in around her.

“Relax.” He spoke and his voice was as soothing as cough drops. “I have a great idea. You're going to love it.”

She leaned on the ice block, clenched her fists, and wondered how far this would go. No matter how attractive Sebastian was, and how he held everything she wanted and needed in the palm of his hand, she felt as if she were forcing herself. Danger, too, rippled through the air.

Sebastian edged in next to her and massaged her neck with one hand. She had to admit, it felt good. He chipped off a piece of ice with the knife in his other hand. He flung the knife to the door, where it stuck like a dart.

“Bull's-eye!” He looked at her with smiling dark eyes and she could see the little boy in him. Playful, but playing with things he shouldn't have been, like knives.

“Now, where were we?” He turned her face toward him with a brush of his finger along her cheek. The piece of ice dripped in his hand.

What was she so afraid of?

He traced her jawline down to her neck with the ice. He licked his lower lip, glided the ice along the crescent moons of her breasts, which peered out from her bodice. Her nipples hardened and she began to grow warm.

He kissed away the melted ice in her cleavage. He slipped off her pelisse. Puh-lease. He was smooth, she had to grant him that.

She melted. She combed his tussled hair with her fingers. With every lick of his lips, her breath grew shorter, shallower.

He was adept at unbuttoning her gown, unlacing her stays.

She untied his cravat, unbuttoned his waistcoat, and feverishly untied his breeches.

The drop-front pants took her by surprise. She didn't realize Regency men didn't wear underwear.

She was horizontal on the ice block.
Drip, drip, drip . . .
the melting ice trickled down a drain somewhere in the darkness.

Her shoulder blades stung from the ice. She propped herself up on her elbows.

“Wait a minute.” She pressed her hands into his muslin shirt and felt the throbbing of his heart, or at least the bulging of his pecs.

“I have protection,” he said.

“I hope it's not made of sheep's gut.”

He looked confused. Very confused.

“You knew Regency condoms were made out of sheep gut or fish membrane, didn't you?”

He shook his head. “No. I really don't care—” He slid her gown higher up.

The bricks. The straw. The ice! What kind of a sadist would've picked a place like this for a tryst, anyway?

“This just isn't right. I can't do this. A Regency lady would never find herself in this position.” She looked him straight in the eye.

His hands gave up on her back laces and he looked hurt. “What position?”

“The horizontal one.” She pulled herself up to sitting and straightened her stays. “In an ice-house. Like a common trollop.”

He tenderly leaned over and devoured her with a kiss that could make a trollop forget everything—almost everything.

He whispered just under her earlobe. “You're so excited you've got gooseflesh.”

“They're goose
bumps
. And I've got them because I'm freezing. Now stop!” She pressed her hands against his shoulders and stood up. The laced brickwork closed in on her. It smelled like dank dog. “This is not how it's supposed to go.” She picked up the lantern.

He yanked his shirt down over his rapidly shrinking shaft. Still, he managed to look somehow manly in his long white shirt, bare legs, and riding boots. “How what's supposed to go?”