Jane and Austen (17 page)

Chapter 14

“You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.”

—Jane Austen,
Pride and Prejudice

I just wanted to make it to my room
without crying. I had only one more flight left when I heard the raised voices in the hall from where I was on the staircase. Someone had beaten me to my crying fit.

“You don’t love me!” The voice was female and hysterical.

 “Mum.” I recognized Chuck Bigley’s voice immediately. “It was all a misunderstanding. Let me take you to your room. Is this your luggage?”

“This is your fault,” she screeched. “What sort of woman are you marrying anyway? Why would she hire such a stupid bellboy? I’d fire him in an instant. In an instant!”

“Mum!” There was a note of desperation in Bigley’s voice, and I felt sorry for him. “Taylor isn’t responsible for the staff. She’s the event coordinator. She’s not even that anymore. It’s Jane. You’ve met Jane. Nice girl. She’ll make everything right. You’ll see.”

I hesitated on the stairs, wondering if I should go in and resolve the family crisis now that I was outed as the one responsible for whatever catastrophe happened while my back was turned. My hand went to the door leading to the hall. Taylor came up behind me. “I’ve got this,” she whispered and patted my stiff back. “I can handle
Mrs. Bigley, the first
.”

Gone was the insecure female fretting over her wedding. This was the Taylor that I remembered. She squared her shoulders and saved me from the confrontation by marching into the drama that she was about to call her new family.

“Louise,” she said, gushing in sympathy as soon as she came out into the hall. “Poor dear. I’ll talk to Freddy myself.”

In the time it took for the door to close between us, I saw Bigley’s look of relief and his mother’s suspicious eyes settle on Taylor. Both of them were still dressed up from dinner, but their clothes were wrinkled and sorely abused.

“That horrid bellboy of yours dropped my luggage off where Chuck’s father is staying,” Mrs. Bigley shouted. “Of all the stupid things. I walked into the room with that
woman
lounging on the bed.”

I squinted in frustration. This was exactly the mistake we had tried to avoid when we’d heard that Mrs. Bigley hadn’t dropped her married name. I thought I had warned Freddy to be extra careful not to mix up the former wife with the current one.

“I’m so sorry for the confusion, Mother.” Bigley tried to soothe her in a voice I’d heard him use on Taylor. “How can I make this up to you?”

She snorted in response. “I should’ve known it the moment I stepped inside Netherfield Bungalow. The establishment was much too nice for you to set me up in.”

“We have a much better place in mind for you,” Taylor said. I listened to the swipe of a cardkey and the ensuing beeping as she unlocked the room we had actually intended for Bigley’s mother. “It’s the Price room,” Taylor said. “The famous American actor stayed here in 1962.”

“An actor?” Bigley’s mother asked. The door squeaked open and she squawked out her complaints again. “Oh no. Unacceptable. Definitely not. This lodging is much smaller than what you gave your father. Chuck? Do I not mean as much to you? That is what this bedchamber tells me.”

“Mum, you mean the world.”

“I can hardly believe it. Is this how you prove your love to me? Who paid for your schooling when your deadbeat father decided to marry some aspiring actress who drained away his money? I ask you? Who is responsible for the life to which you’ve grown accustomed? Your honeymoon? Your tickets to Cancun? The money certainly doesn’t come from your father’s side, and this is how you repay me?”

“Mum, I love you. Keep all of your money.”

“How noble of you, when it is too late to take anything back. How do I cash in on your plane tickets or return your education? Hmm? It was all a waste anyway. You hardly applied yourself.”

“Louise,” Taylor cut in. “This bedchamber might be smaller than the bungalows, but it’s a relic of the original house and much more dear. Why must we compare diamonds to truckloads of glass? Look at the rococo carvings on the ceiling. The queen bed is a French antique Louis XV. See? This place is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. We put you in a place that is closer to management. Help is only a phone call away. No waiting.”

I grimaced, wondering if I would now be required to wait on Bigley’s mother hand and foot. “I would like some tea,” said Mrs. Bigley after a moment. She still sounded disgruntled.

“We’ll have it sent up right away,” Taylor said.

“I will take this
actor’s
room,” his mother said. “But I’m still quite angry at you, Chuck.”

“Yes, mum. I’m sorry, mum.”

The door closed, and I imagined that Bigley’s mother was safely on the other side of it because Taylor and Bigley sighed out together. The shared silence didn’t last long. “Freddy!” Taylor said in an urgent voice. I guessed she was on the phone. “You are in big trouble. Have someone bring Mrs. Bigley tea. I don’t know, something European. Be sure to send it to Bigley’s mother, not the former actress, and don’t you dare show your face to her if you value your job. I doubt your dad could do anything for you after that.”

Now that the crisis was over, I didn’t need to eavesdrop anymore. Thinking fondly of my bed, I headed up the stairs. The next step groaned under my feet.

“Jane, oh, Jane.”

I stopped, and Taylor opened the door to the staircase and motioned me out into the hall. She slid her cell phone into the waist of her tight skirt, glancing over at her poor husband-to-be. He looked haggard, his blond hair standing up like he had taken a beating in a pillow fight.

Taylor sighed at him. “Where were you tonight, Chuck? I looked everywhere for you.”

“Yes, sorry about that.” Bigley looked stressed, and I felt bad for him. He was stuck between two explosive firecrackers—his mother and his wife-to-be. “My . . . uh . . . brother wanted to tell me something of critical importance. It turned out to be a bit of nonsense about whipped cream and . . . uh . . . chocolate. Bachelor party stuff.”

Taylor sighed at the reminder.

Bigley stared at his fiancé as if seeing her for the first time. He ran a hand through his hair, which told me how his hair had reached its present state. “I need some air, Taylor.”

Taylor looked surprised. “What do you mean?”

“I just need to get out. I’ll find Dancey. I’m choking in this tie. I have to go.”

Without another word, Bigley rushed past Taylor and went down the stairs I had just vacated. Taylor’s self-confident expression turned distressed. She headed blindly the other way, and I followed her down the hall, not sure if I should.

“Taylor, are you okay?” I asked.

She nodded, then burst into tears. “Oh, no, you’re not okay.” I threw my arms around her and hugged her tight. “Come on, Taylor. Let’s get out of here.” I helped her to her bridal suite in the Bennet room. It was a quaint suite, with an old fashioned vanity set up next to the bed. Taylor threw herself onto the patchwork quilt, her shoulders heaving. I sat next to her, rubbing her back while she cried her eyes out. A niggling worry played at the back of my mind that this was my fault.

“Chuck’s father always enjoyed his life to the fullest,” Taylor sobbed into her pillow. “He’s made everyone else suffer for it.” I rolled onto the bed next to Taylor so I could hear what she was saying. She sniffed. “He’s a playboy—so, yeah, he didn’t want a nag for a wife. He claimed to fall out of love with her: they were going different directions, they had grown apart. You know, everything guys say when they’re desperate to get away. But Chuck’s mom refused to let his dad go, wouldn’t drop his last name, said that he was the one to blame when family functions were so confusing.”

Romance gone wrong. I couldn’t imagine the hurt on both sides. Nothing made me feel worse. “Maybe she’d feel better if she just let him go,” I said.

Taylor shrugged. “Oh, it’s her habit to hold on to him now, I think. She can’t possibly love him still. I don’t know if he ever loved her. You heard her—she had a lot of money and Chuck’s father had a good time with it before he got bored.”

“That would be heartless for him to do . . . even if Mrs. Bigley was hard to live with.”

Taylor nodded. “From what I’ve heard, so is the second Mrs. Bigley. Carol’s even more heartless than Chuck’s mom and dad put together. Have you met her son, Harry? He’s messed up.”

I had changed my mind about Crawley, but Taylor needed to vent, and so I let her go on. “Things got a lot worse for Chuck after his father remarried,” she said. “Mrs. Bigley can be a terror.”

“Which one? The original or the new-and-improved?”

Taylor gave a hysterical laugh. “The original, of course, but the new, improved one holds her own in a fight, too. Let’s just say that Carol makes sure that the original Mrs. Bigley knows that she is the new-and-improved, if you know what I mean? And yes, I feel sorry for Chuck’s mom, but I feel like . . . oh, Jane, please tell me that I’ll never end up like
her
!”

“You won’t. You’re nothing alike.” I gave her a side hug. “I don’t think that you should live close to the in-laws, though.”

Taylor was back to sobbing again. “They’re all in London. London! I’ll see her all the time. I love London, and now I don’t want to move there. But I love Chuck, so . . . Anyway, it’s a good thing that Mrs. Bigley approves of me. If not, then she’d never allow this wedding to take place.”

I didn’t have to ask which Mrs. Bigley she meant. Chuck’s mother had made it clear in the hall that her disapproval held consequences.

Taylor squeezed my hand. “I don’t care about money, Jane. I have enough of my own. Chuck does too, but his mother . . . she has a fortune that makes everybody kiss up to her. The money all comes from her side of the family. Though my soon-to-be-father-in-law squandered as much of it as he could, Mrs. Bigley—the original—owns the bulk of the shares in his businesses. Chuck’s too. His mom holds her money over us like a threat. She says she’ll leave it all to Chuck, but only if he doesn’t turn out to be a lowlife like his father and marry some fortune hunter.” She broke into sobs again.

Besides all the legal jargon and divorce talk, I felt like I was holding a conversation in the early 19
^th
century. Fortune hunters weren’t supposed to be an actual concern nowadays—I had thought they were a thing of the past.

“Chuck is always bending over backwards to please his mom. Sometimes,” Taylor broke into a whisper as if afraid of saying the words that played on her lips, “. . . I think he cares about the money.”

“No,” I said quickly. “He loves his mom. That’s all.”

“But what if she says something against me? And what if Chuck listens? What if—?”

I tried to ease her worries. “He loves you too much to choose his mom over you.”

Taylor gave a deep sigh and rested her chin on her pillow. “Chuck had better not think I’m anything like his mother, or I’m in trouble, Jane.”

Chapter 15

“Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.”

—Jane Austen,
Sense and Sensibility

I rummaged through the breakfast choices
on the side bar. Everyone was asleep, and it was my chance to get some peace and quiet before Thursday began. I just needed to be alone with my thoughts. Taylor had cried herself to sleep last night. I wanted to talk to Austen about it, but we had just fought. My fingers wrapped around a container of yogurt, and I sat at the one table that made up the center of the dining room.

“May I join you?”

I glanced up and winced, not sure how Dancey would act after last night. I didn’t know if I should play it cool or start where we’d left off—my feelings were all over the place. The harsh rays of daylight put such a cruel spin on reality. After Taylor’s face-off with romance and Austen’s plan to sell us off to Colin, I doubted anything too good to be true.

Dancey sat opposite of me and took my hand, playing with the ring on my finger—the crystal on it was my birthstone. His eyes didn’t leave mine, and a smile tugged on my lips. I guessed that was a sign that he meant last night. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

“Me neither—I mean, that’s normal for me though. As soon as the sunlight hits my face, my eyes just pop open . . .” My voice trailed off when he took the ring off my index finger and put it on my wedding finger. My heart almost fell out of my chest, and I managed to find the rest of my thought, “I can’t really sleep when it’s light outside.”

“I can’t sleep when I’m thinking of Jane.” He met my eyes with his beautiful blue ones. His dark lashes swept luxuriously over them. “You’re having
that
for breakfast?”

I glanced down at the yogurt forgotten in my hand. “Yeah, it reminds me of baby food. I mean,” that came out wrong, “sometimes you like what you get, sometimes not.”

“You want something more substantial?” he asked.

My hand tightened over the yogurt. “What did you have in mind?”

He gave me a wicked grin. “Anything that will get you into my car, Jane.”

I was completely flattered. Despite my worries from last night, my heart raced at the thought of some fun. I had errands to run today—Lambton Marketplace, first off. Still, it would be great to have some company, especially Dancey’s. “Well, I did want to pick up some mints for the bridal shower tonight.”

He dropped his keys in my hand and then covered them with his own, his thumb caressing the inside of my wrist. “Let’s go. I can’t take another minute cramped up in this place.”

I tried not to take that personally. His eyes on mine told me that he wanted to be with me, not that he hated the work I put into this wedding. “What about your friends?” I asked. “Won’t they miss you?”

Dancey gave a light laugh. “I’d take a bullet for them, but that doesn’t mean I want to hang out with them.”

I laughed. “I should brush my hair first.”

“I like your hair this way.” He reached out and captured an auburn tendril of my hair, rubbing it through his fingers. I knew where this was going. We’d be kissing next, and if anyone walked in on us, I’d never hear the end of it.

I smiled at him and tried not to think about how practiced Dancey was in getting past my defenses. “Okay, but we have to be quick. Taylor is expecting me in a few hours to go over some final details.”

“I’ll deliver you in time, sweet lady.”

I liked that. I nodded, and we left for his car. It wasn’t parked in the same place as we had left it. Dancey had already been out on the town. I wondered if he had taken Bigley out last night to cheer him up.

Dancey was true to his word; he let me get in the driver’s side. The leather seats felt as soft as butter, cushioning me like an overpriced beanbag. I pushed the button to get the car started, proud of my knowledge. The moment the car started, music blared through the stereos, flattening me against the seat. Dancey laughed and turned it down. I rubbed at my ears. “Do you always listen to it so loud? It’s a wonder you’re not deaf.”

“Huh?”

Okay, so that was funny. Smiling, I reversed and enjoyed the smooth feel of his car, especially now that I knew it wasn’t stolen. I went straight for the on-ramp and sped into the highway. Dancey pushed a button and the overhead window slid open, letting in a breeze that whipped my hair around my face.

“I think you’re going to need these.” He picked up some aviators from the side console, and I let him slide them over my nose, enjoying the feel of his fingers against my skin.

I had to admit it—racing down the highway in a Jaguar, wearing aviators, sitting next to Will Dancey, made me feel pretty cool. His arm draped around my shoulders wasn’t that bad either. “Where to?” he asked.

I had an hour. I needed to buy mints, and all I wanted to do was race down I-5 and forget all my troubles—Taylor’s unhappiness, Colin taking over the resort, losing Austen. I drove faster. Dancey’s hand kneaded the back of my neck.

He turned up the music to fight the wind threatening to drown it out, and I laughed, realizing how it had gotten so loud before. “This is great!” I shouted.

“You should try it with the paparazzi chasing after you.”

“One thing at a time!”

I realized that I was taking us to the beach. It would be the perfect setting for a date with Dancey. I could see the silvery waves crashing against the white sands. The sun was low in the sky, the air crisp and perfect on a pleasant San Diego morning. I decided against the heavily populated beach of La Jolla; I wanted Dancey all to myself. I swung a right and headed for the spot Austen had showed me—right off his parents’ place.

Dancey glanced over at me, and I gave him a reassuring smile. “You hungry for something real? There’s a bar and grill near here.”

He nodded and played with my hair.

We reached Brightin Beach in good time. The waves washed over everything—the water sizzled under the sun, the foam glistening. Dancey’s hand trailed down my arm, and he caught my hand before I could slide out of his Jaguar. “Jane?”

“Yeah?”

He kissed me, and for a moment I forgot why I had been in such a hurry to leave his car. I melted into him until he let me go. I sat back to gain my equilibrium.

His smile reached his eyes. “That was the first thing I wanted to do this morning.”

I couldn’t think of anything more romantic. “That must be why I love mornings,” I said.

He laughed and got out of the car, going around the front to let me out of the driver’s side. Once he had my hand, we walked companionably side by side. He guided my fingers around his waist. We traveled over the beach to Wickley’s Pub, the warm sand trickling through my flip-flops. The crowd was thick around the restaurant—it had grown more popular since the last time I had been here. We slowed as we passed a thicket of trees where a sign that said
no trespassing
was hung prominently.

“What’s in there?” Dancey asked.

“No idea,” I said.

He tugged my hand and we were suddenly in the forbidding trees. My eyes went wide. Dancey was no longer the valet, but his rebellious streak was still there. I began to wonder how well I knew Bigley’s friend. The minute I thought I had him figured out, he surprised me again. “Dancey. We can’t be in here.”

“What are they going to do if they catch us?” he asked.

“Fine us.”

He shrugged. Of course he didn’t care. It was just money, but what about a criminal record? He could get deported back to Britain. Jane Austen’s Darcy would never do this, but Dancey wasn’t as responsible as the
Pride and Prejudice
version of himself. He just needed a cause that made him truly noble; a younger sister like Georgiana to guard. “Dancey,” I said, “tell me about your family.”

“You really haven’t googled me, have you?” he teased. “My parents divorced when I was eight, and my mom moved us back to Britain where she grew up. She died five years ago, and I’m an only child.”

How sad.
“But Bigley is like a brother to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you take him out last night?”

His eyes found mine. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, Bigley said that he . . . well, his mom was being kind of overbearing. He told Taylor . . .”

Dancey nodded. “That he was going to find me?”

“Yeah.”

Dancey looked away. “Chuck’s a big boy. He doesn’t need my supervision, even if I try to play the big brother.” He laughed grimly. “I’ve been known to scare a few women away from him.”

“But you’d never do that to Taylor, right?”

He gave me a strange look. “No, I guess you could say that Taylor is the closest thing I have to a sister.”

That surprised me—he’d said some very non-brotherly things to her last night. “But Dancey, you’ve hardly talked to her since you’ve been here.”

“She doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “We didn’t exactly part on good terms when she left London.”

I squeezed his fingers. He didn’t know Taylor as well as I did. She was a fighter, but she never held a grudge. “But you know she’s still not mad, right? She couldn’t be. She wouldn’t stop talking about you before you came. Taylor thinks you’re great. She’s just really stressed out right now. That’s all.”

“Any idea why?”

I hesitated, remembering our talk last night. I shook my head. “It’s just the usual. She’ll be fine.”

He attempted a smile. “Let’s not talk about Taylor.” His hand trailed up my arm, and I laughed. Dancey was good at making me forget about everything except him. “I want to check out those cliffs,” he said.

It was beautiful in the trees, but the
no trespassing
signs were making me nervous—of course, they
did
ensure some privacy . . . until the coast guard came looking for us. We hiked to some rocks framing an outlook. The view was beautiful. Dancey stood at my back, and we stared out into the frothy ocean. He put his arms around me. I sank into him and he rested his chin on the top of my head. “Are you happy at North Abbey?” he asked.

I stiffened when he echoed Austen’s words from yesterday. “Right now I am.” But I wouldn’t be when Colin Minster took over. I’d have to plaster resumes everywhere just to escape him. With this economy, I wasn’t looking forward to it.

“Would you ever consider leaving San Diego?” Dancey asked. “Maybe you could do some of that traveling you talked about?”

“I might have to,” I said. “Are there any dives in Britain that need event coordinators?”

His fingers pressed into my stomach, sending flutters through it. “I might.”

My heart sped up. Dancey worked fast. No wonder he got his heart broken on a daily basis. “Don’t decide yet,” he said, “but when I leave San Diego, I want to take you with me. A girl like you belongs in England with me.”

That was
too
fast. I didn’t even have a passport—let alone a visa. I laughed on the off-chance that he was joking. “The government might have something to say about that, Will Dancey.”

“I’ll wait for you. I can get around my people. We won’t say that you worked for North Abbey. We’ll make up some prestigious resume for you.”

“Wait?” I asked. “What?”

He turned me so that he could devour me with his eyes and kissed me again—the fire he ignited through my lips spread through me in a happy glow. I couldn’t think—let alone make any life-altering decisions yet. Besides the fact that he had dissed my dream job, one thought lingered—Dancey didn’t want to leave me behind. Did this relationship mean more to him than I thought it did? The romantic in me screamed, “Yes!” I felt so happy, I could hug the world.

Foliage snapping behind us forced my head away from his. “Dancey?” I asked.

If that
was
the coast guard, I’d die a thousand deaths when they hauled us off to jail for trespassing. He studied my expression, and an inner gleam lit his eyes. I realized that he enjoyed the danger. He led me to a tree and pushed me down behind it to hide while he leaned against me to watch for anyone who might’ve followed us.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Shh.” His lips were close to my earlobe, and I felt his smile tickle against my skin. He must think this was hilarious. I didn’t. After a moment of awkward waiting, he squeezed my shoulder. “It’s nothing, Jane.”

A pop and a bright light startled me. Dancey groaned. “Or it could be that.”

I straightened back up and he covered me, but not before I saw the photographer past his shoulder. She was a middle-aged woman, squeezed into tight little shorts and a plaid button-up. Her hair flew behind her in the wind, as did her fingers on the camera.

Dancey glared at her, looking the wronged rock star. “Why don’t you go home, Jennings? Give me a private life.”

“Who do you have with you?” Jennings demanded in a prim British accent. Had the lady followed Dancey all the way to America from London? The weathered woman looked insanely jolly about the whole affair.

I tried to hide my face with my hands, but it was too late. How much had this lady caught with her camera? Dancey gave me an apologetic look before turning to the photographer. “Don’t publish those, Jennings. Please.”

“Are you kidding? Do you realize how much this is going to make me—the troubled bad boy from Derbyshire finding redemption in the arms of a sweet little American girl?” She winked at me. “This bit of news will interest more than London, I suspect. All America will be glued to my gossip page. This will go viral.”

My eyes went to her fancy camera, and she waggled a finger at me. “Don’t you get any ideas, little girl. I’ve dealt with feisty Americans like you before. My pictures go straight to the cloud, so I won’t be losing them this time around.”

“This time around?” I asked. “Wait, what other feisty American are you talking about?”

Jenning’s eyes crinkled up at the corners. “Don’t you love how Americans talk, Dancey? They’re so deliciously improper.”

Dancey stepped in front of me, not looking amused. “Just give us a few days, Jennings, before you publish anything.”