Undressing Mr. Darcy (14 page)

She wanted to believe Sherry but was only too aware of the flaws in her minuet.

Sherry nudged Vanessa with her elbow. “You and Julian, eh? Looking good together!”

Vanessa shook her head. “No, no, Sherry, don’t go there.”

“What? He’s into you. Everyone around me was talking about how obvious it is.”

“He’s a client, Sherry. He lives in England. How could
I
possibly be into
him
?” Vanessa asked just as Sherry began making the “cut” sign with her hand.

Julian appeared as if out of nowhere. Had he overheard her?

He leaned in toward Vanessa and Sherry. “Do you know what Jane Austen said about dancing?”

He looked directly at Vanessa, who smiled. She said, “How do I have this feeling I’m going to hear it whether I want to or not?”

Sherry just gaped at Julian with awe. For her, this man was too good to be true.

“It was in
Northanger Abbey
that she had her hero Henry Tilney say, ‘I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage. Fidelity and complaisance are the principal duties of both.’”

That quote again! Vanessa dismissed it, but Sherry was practically orgasmic with joy over it.

“I love that scene with Henry and Catherine! Love, love
Northanger Abbey
!”

“Then you, Miss Sherry, will love Bath as well. You must climb Beechen Cliff, visit the Pump Room, and see the Assembly Rooms where Henry and Catherine danced.”

Sherry clasped her gloved hands together. “I can’t wait!”

But Vanessa’s attention was on the dance floor. She had the feeling something newsworthy was going down, and sure enough, Henry was going down on one knee in front of Chloe, on the dance floor.

“Sherry, quick. Give me your phone!”

“Miss Parker,” Henry said as he looked up at Chloe and presented a ring, “I thought it only fitting that I propose to you here. I have already asked your daughter for the permission of your hand—”

Vanessa couldn’t believe someone would propose . . . here? She began snapping pictures with Sherry’s phone.

An adorable girl dressed in a Regency gown and spit curls emerged from the crowd, smiling, and hurried to Henry’s side.

“And that permission has been granted. Thank you, Abigail. Miss Parker, will you marry me?”

The crowd collectively said, “Awww . . .”

Vanessa whispered to Sherry as she continued to get more shots. “Who are these two?”

“Henry Wrightman and Chloe Parker. She’s a Chicago Jane Austen Society life member and spent a couple weeks last year on a reality show set in England. She had to give up her phone, computer—everything—and live as if it were 1812.”

“Who would be crazy enough to do that?” Vanessa asked.

“Only just about everyone in this room,” Sherry said. “And that’s where she met Henry.”

Chloe seemed about ready to cry with joy. “Yes, Mr. Wrightman, I do believe I will marry you.”

The crowd clapped and cheered and flashbulbs flashed while Abigail grinned from ear to ear.

Just as Henry rose to kiss Chloe and Abigail hugged them both, Paul escorted Aunt Ella to the center of the dance floor.

Vanessa took a picture. What sort of announcement was Paul going to make? Would he honor her aunt just as Julian had? But then, right before her eyes, Paul bent to one knee, and he, too, held out a ring.

What the hell?! What was Paul doing? He looked over at Vanessa.

“Vanessa, I meant to ask your permission, but, well, this shouldn’t be a big surprise to you.” Vanessa couldn’t breathe. Something sliced into her chest. Sherry’s phone shook in her hands until she dropped it.

Julian picked up the phone, handed it to Vanessa, and hooked his arm in hers to steady her. “Are you quite all right?”

She couldn’t speak.

“That answers my question.”

“I’ll get her a glass of water.” Sherry turned and spun off.

Chloe, Henry, and Abigail took hands and skipped to the sidelines. Paul turned to Aunt Ella.

“For so many years,” Paul said, “I have ardently admired and loved you, Ella. Will you, could you, marry me and make me the happiest man in all the—shire?”

The crowd cheered and clapped.

Vanessa put Sherry’s phone in Julian’s hands. He knew what to do, and that was to take the pictures Vanessa couldn’t. Much to her amazement, Mr. Darcy knew his way around a cell phone camera, and he clicked away. Vanessa steadied herself against him.

“Yes!” Aunt Ella smiled. “I thought you’d never ask! I haven’t gotten any younger waiting for you!”

Everyone except Vanessa laughed.

“I was waiting for just the right moment, and this is it.” As Paul slid the ring on Aunt Ella’s finger, Vanessa felt as if she were swirling in a sink and then getting sucked down the drain.

She couldn’t lose her aunt! What would Aunt Ella do? Move in with Paul in his mansion on the north shore? What about Vanessa? Why hadn’t anyone consulted her? What the hell was she supposed to do? She hated herself for thinking it, she didn’t want to think it, but: her seventy-nine-year-old aunt would be walking down the aisle before her, too? Her mind flashed to her frozen eggs in that vault—

Suddenly the room tilted and the ballroom floor came up right under her face.

Sherry held a glass of water to Vanessa’s lips and, once she’d sipped and looked up, she found herself surrounded by Julian, Chase, the newly engaged Henry and Chloe, and the newly engaged Aunt Ella and Paul.

Chase spoke first, and she realized he was cradling her head. “Are you all right?”

Chloe smiled down on her. “You fainted. Do you faint easily?”

“I do,” Vanessa said. She’d had the odd stress-related fainting fit ever since her parents’ divorce.

Julian waved a little open tin of something under her nose. It reeked of rotten eggs and vinegar. “What the hell, Julian!” Her eyes started watering.

“They’re smelling salts. Feeling less faint now?”

“Yes, and more nauseous, too!” She tried to scramble to her feet.

“Works every time,” Julian said.

“But—thank you,” she said. She picked up Sherry’s phone.

“Of course.”

Chase and Henry helped her up to her feet. Henry had to be the nicest guy she’d ever met. He hardly knew her, after all! Whoever this Chloe was, she certainly deserved a Henry more than Vanessa did. No doubt Chloe was a golden girl herself. Vanessa could tell the real deal when she saw it.

Aunt Ella had worry all over her face, and her wrinkles and worry lines looked more visible than ever. She knew stress could only exacerbate her aunt’s dementia. She was supposed to be keeping her from stress and not causing it!

She went to hug her. “Aunt Ella, I’m so happy for you and Paul! Congrats! This is such great news. I can’t believe I fainted from happiness! So that’s what you wanted to talk to me about, right, Paul? Sorry I didn’t take the time—”

She didn’t take the time for a lot of things, she realized. She was throttling through life full speed ahead, with all systems go and all channels on, listening to nobody and stopping for nothing. If she’d just taken a moment to listen to Paul she would’ve been warned and she wouldn’t have fainted and destroyed his proposal and worried her aunt into another probable episode. Aunt Ella, more than anyone, after a lifetime of sacrifice taking care of Vanessa and righting her own baby sister’s wrongs, deserved to be happy. How could Vanessa dash all of that?

“I have to get a picture of this! Smile . . .”

Aunt Ella and Paul smiled, then they both hugged Vanessa, and just as they were all finally able to say something, the dance caller shrieked.

“Security! Security!”

A posse of women in black, with
Heathcliff
printed in white on their black T-shirts and bright red lipstick on their lips, took over the dance floor, and with their long hair loose and flowing, they turned on a boom box, blasted “Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush, and began some wild dancing, all in sync. The Janeites stood back and watched, confused and aghast.

Vanessa spun around, making sure the TV cams were on this, and they were. Kai, too, scuttled around the room, filming the crowd from various angles. She couldn’t believe it. Something was going her way! She had to find a reporter and tell them Julian would be available for interviews afterward! She had to post that this was going down!

Just then the ballroom doors burst open and a tall, tanned, and muscular man with wavy, shoulder-length, dark brown hair and dressed in a nineteenth-century caped coat and riding boots stormed straight up to Julian. He stripped off his coat, revealing his billowing shirt, unbuttoned to the chest and not secured with any cravat. His chest looked too broad and strong to be contained by the shirt, much less a cravat. He brandished a sword. It was a stage sword, but a sword nonetheless. “This is a challenge, Mr. Darcy!” he said in a fake, but pretty accurate English accent. “One that’s long overdue. A duel! A duel to the death!”

This was better than if she’d scripted it herself. A duel? “Brilliant!” as the Brits would say!

Julian stepped back. He didn’t have a sword.

“Security!” the dance caller yelled into the microphone.

But Vanessa had already alerted security, before the ball, to say that all this was anticipated and staged. She’d had the authority and she’d used it.

Julian stripped off his frock coat, untied and removed his cravat, and rolled up his sleeves, and while he did that, Chase handed him his stage sword even as he borrowed another one from a nearby redcoat.

Vanessa couldn’t believe her luck.

By now the Brontë mob was chanting, “Heath-cliff, Heath-cliff,” and the Janeites followed suit, clapping and chanting, “Dar-cy, Dar-cy!” The Janeites outnumbered the Brontë fans, and they seemed to take it in stride that this was part of tonight’s show.

Chase positioned the men in front of the quartet and readied them for the duel. The musicians backed off.

Heathcliff made the first move, and Vanessa could tell, now that she’d taken her swording class, that he was taking the offense, and all Julian could do at this point was defend himself.

Her blood pumped. Never in her professional life had anything so spontaneous played out so well; nor had she ever, on a personal level, seen anything so sexy as these two gorgeous men in their shirtsleeves, their swords flashing, their hair tumbling, and their bodies so taut, so skilled and strong as they lunged and struck.

She took as many photos as she could and posted:

Literary heroes face-off in a duel—R u on Team Darcy or Team Heathcliff? #JASNAagm #UndressingMrDarcy

To the clink of swords and the sight of Julian’s strained muscles as he proceeded to defend . . . and win the duel in Mr. Darcy’s honor, Vanessa allowed herself to think that the nineteenth century in general might’ve been a great era and Julian in particular was a man worth getting to know better.

While the Janeites, including Aunt Ella, clapped and smiled, and Heathcliff slunk away, and the flash mob disappeared as quickly as they’d arrived, and Paul took Julian’s arm and held it up in victory, Vanessa got that familiar feeling deep in her abdomen. It was a feeling she’d only had about three times in her life, a gripping, all-encompassing yearning, an ache, really, for proximity.

Julian was hot, there was no doubt about that, but it had taken this duel to bring it to Vanessa’s attention that he was more than just another sexy client. He happened to be a stand-up man, the kind of man who fought (or at least fake fought) for his principles and who valued and honored older women like her aunt, and it made her want to get to know him better.

She watched, as if it were a movie she’d written herself, as the TV cameras panned over Julian and the reporters vied for his attention, but all he could do was look across the ballroom, past the fawning women in their glittering gowns, low-cut bodices, and baubles in their updo hairstyles, and gaze at Vanessa, who smiled.

She posted:

To Mr. Darcy go the spoils. #JASNAagm #UndressingMrDarcy

The quartet struck up a lively English country dance, as if on cue to Vanessa’s heart.

“There’s no denying it.” Lexi jabbed Vanessa with her elbow. “He’s Mr. Hot-for-You. Please tell me you’re going to take advantage of this—of him.”

She didn’t say a word to Lexi because she couldn’t take her eyes off him as he nodded and answered the reporters’ questions while cameras flashed around him.

“It’s just what the doctor ordered,” Lexi said. “A minifling. He’s the perfect candidate.”

“No, he’s not. He’s a client and my aunt’s friend.”

“How about
after
the job’s over? He’s irresistible, and with this kind of tight deadline, with him leaving the country so soon, you need to act fast. If you don’t make a move, he might start going after me. Because if you can’t get the girl you want, you might as well sleep with her best friend.”

Vanessa laughed. Lexi was the crazy one—with or without cats. Why hadn’t she seen this in her twenties? “You’re hardly my best friend, Lexi.”

“Oh, but I am,” Lexi said. She pretended to look around. “You’ve invested too much time with your virtual friends. I don’t see anyone else filling the position.”

“Vanessa!” Sherry bounded up to them, her boobs jostling in her low-cut gown. “Julian’s asking for you. He says you’ve got the first dance on his dance card.”

But she had told Chase she couldn’t dance, she wouldn’t dance, and hadn’t she agreed to a drink with him after the minuet? “Sherry, you need to take that first dance. Just tell him I’m not up to it after fainting.”

Sherry smiled. “If you say so.”

“And, Sherry, I’d love it if you could join all of us for a jaunt to Louisville tomorrow night for their Jane Austen Festival. We’ll be back by Tuesday.”

“Louisville? I’ve always wanted to go to that festival! I’ll have to see if I can get off of work.” With that she headed back to the dance floor.

A crowd had been gathering around Vanessa, a costumed, friendly, female crowd that had only good things to say.

“Are you Ella Morgan’s niece? You did a wonderful job opening the ball. Can I buy you a glass of wine?”

And then the head of the Chicago society approached and said, “We’d like to bestow an honorary Chicago membership to you, for all of your work on the conference. It’s been a resounding success.”