Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

Chloe figured women wore some kind of drawers under their gowns, not these things. Certainly, when she wore her Regency gown to a Jane Austen event, she wore her usual hose underneath. Austen never mentioned undergarments in her novels, and even though Chloe knew a lot about the Regency, her knowledge was by no means encyclopedic. “No drawers?”

“Drawers were newfangled, and not completely accepted until later in the Regency. Miss Austen may have done what many women did, especial y in this summer heat, and you may choose to do as wel .”

Color rose to Chloe’s cheeks. She’d never look at another period film the same way again. “I’l go with the pantalets.”

With the utmost discretion, Fiona helped Chloe into the pantalets and then her white silk stockings.

“Stockings were white,” Fiona said. “A woman of your station wouldn’t wear pink, that would be vulgar.”

Chloe began to piece together that she wasn’t to be one of the “Ton,” but she wouldn’t be a “woman of the night” either, so maybe she’d shake out as a sort of middle-class Elizabeth Bennet?

With silk ribbon garters, Fiona tied off the stockings wel above the knee, and Chloe felt suddenly sexy. Maybe, just maybe, this show could be fabulous—

Fiona plunked two lemon halves in Chloe’s hands.

“You need to rub these under your arms.”

Chloe cocked her head.

“Your deodorant. The staff was hard-pressed to find Regency recipes for deodorant, and most likely they rarely used it, so lemons wil have to do, when they’re available.”

Wincing, Chloe did as she was told. Her mind drifted to thoughts of a lemon martini as she flapped her arms to dry off.

“Now for your gown. This is the best day gown you have, and even though it’s a bit impractical to wear for travel in a carriage, it’s important to wear your best, as you’re going to a grander home than the one you came from.”

Fiona lifted the gown over Chloe’s head, buttoned up the back, and Chloe morphed into a nineteenth-century version of herself, al in white. She spun before the mirror. Abigail would’ve loved this. The high Empire waist elongated her torso, the busk kept her back straight, the neckline showed off her racked-up rack, and she felt more convinced than ever that she belonged here, in 1812, although the gown was so sheer you could see her blue ribbon garters right through it.

After Fiona slid on the shoes that had no designated left or right and resembled bal et flats, Chloe floated to the vanity, where Fiona curled and pinned her boring brown hair into a seductive Regency updo that somehow camouflaged the few gray hairs she had. Brown tendrils of hair skimmed her face.

Fiona clasped an amethyst necklace around Chloe’s neck as Chloe pursed her lips in the mirror. She knew only prostitutes would wear lipstick, but getting anyone to woo her without it would be a chal enge.

Fiona rubbed crushed strawberries on Chloe’s cheeks, but that didn’t seem to do much other than make her cheeks feel tight and sticky, kind of like her underarms with the lemon. The only suitors this might attract would be flies.

“When we have special occasions, I’l do your eyes up with candle soot,” Fiona said.

“That is something to look forward to,” said Chloe.

“But for now we have elderberry stain for your brows.”

The elderberry just seemed to bring out the dark circles under her eyes. “I don’t know if I can face a world without undereye concealer and lipstick.”

She might’ve been better off in an eighteenth-century dating show, with her face painted white like Marie Antoinette, covering up the undereye circles and fil ing in the beginnings of crow’s-feet. Of course, that white face paint proved to be ful of lead and poisonous, even fatal, to women of the time. Stil . No makeup was a bit too revealing.

Chloe padded over to her vintage bag, cameramen behind her, in search of her concealer, and came across the foil-wrapped strip of condoms Emma had slipped her at the airport.

W ith al those hot Englishmen in tights you might need II these,” Emma had said.

“They won’t be wearing tights, Emma. That would be seventeenth century.”

“Bummer.”

“Anyway, I’m not going there for the men, and sex before marriage was a real taboo in Regency England. Have you not heard of Lydia Bennet?”

Emma dangled the condoms in front of her. “They’re strawberry-margarita flavored,” she singsonged.

She handed Chloe the condoms.

Chloe pushed them away. “What do you think? I’l be having a quickie in the back of a chaise-and-four?”

“I hope so, for your sake!”

Chloe tossed her head back. Resistance was futile. Emma tucked the condoms into Chloe’s bag.

“It’s your first trip without Abigail, and I think you should be going to Key West, not repressed England. Take them just in case, okay?”

“Al right. And just for the record, I have no desire to ever go to Key West.”

S he knew she couldn’t possibly bring such contraband with her, and as if she read her mind, Fiona made it clear.