Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

Cook smiled. “It’s Lady Anne. I’m Henry and Sebastian’s aunt.”

It crossed Chloe’s mind that this was a show, after al .

“Oh! I’m so sorry.” Embarrassed, she started to sweat. She fanned herself frantical y. “I just assumed you were, uh—”

“Not titled? It’s understandable. I’ve spent the past month or so in the basement kitchen.” Lady Anne laughed.

Chloe tried to reconcile this Lady Anne with the woman she knew as Cook.

“Don’t worry, you were always very kind to me—and al the servants, for that matter. And I real y put you to the test! But you’d best be careful with how you manage your fan.” She looked at Chloe’s fan. “With that kind of fluttering, you’re sending a message to al the men that you’re engaged.”

Chloe snapped up her fan and held it in her left hand, at the angle that meant “desirous of acquaintance.” Lady Anne nodded in approval.

It hit Chloe like a ton of stale Bath buns that not only was she sitting next to the aunt of the two men in her life, but that the room was swarming with beautiful women in gowns with plunging necklines, and neither Sebastian nor Henry was anywhere to be seen.

The orchestra, discreetly hidden behind topiaries and shrubbery, struck up and everyone stood.

“Lady Anne.” Chloe had to raise her voice loudly so that her companion could hear her over the music. She practical y shouted. Unfortunately, though, at the very moment that she yel ed, “Who are al these women?!,” the orchestra took the liberty of stopping.

Al the faces in the crowd turned toward Chloe, who fumbled with her fan and unwittingly sent al kinds of mixed messages around the room, from

“kiss me” to “I hate you” to “you are too wil ing.” She couldn’t breathe.

“Play on!” Henry said from the top of the bal room, and the orchestra started up again. And she breathed again. But she stil couldn’t see Henry.

The crowd circled the dance floor, and Chloe and Lady Anne nudged their way to the front, where Grace and Sebastian, as the couple of the highest status, opened the bal with a perfectly danced minuet.

Grace lived up to her name on the dance floor, and the minuet seemed to last forever.

Final y, the dance ended and Chloe craned her neck to see over and around everyone, and wished she was wearing a pair of heels instead of flats. Heels have their purpose, after al , just like so many things from the modern world that she missed. She managed to get a glimpse of the archway, but Henry wasn’t there either.

“May I have the pleasure of this dance?” Sebastian bowed as he stared into her cleavage. Wel , the pleasure was hers, real y. On the bal room floor, the women lined up on one side and the men on the other. For Chloe, one of the most elegant and joyous parts of the dance was this, the beginning, the anticipation, when the line of women faced the line of men and bowed and curtsied simultaneously.

Chloe looked forward to talking with Sebastian. Regency dancing offered a rare opportunity for a couple to speak privately.

Sebastian’s black jacket was so beautiful y tailored that Chloe did al she could do to keep herself from hanging on to his coattails. But she had to keep her hands to her sides now and during most of the dance. As with al Regency dancing, touching was minimal.

The orchestra struck up the first chords of “Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot,” the very song that Mr. Darcy and Miss Elizabeth Bennet danced to in the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. They turned by right hands, touching for the second time, their hands low, each of their eyes locked into the other’s. They turned by left hands and she felt the heat surge between them, but then again it was a summer night, there was no air-conditioning, and there had to be sixty some dancers on the floor. Despite the heat, it was a fantasy of hers come to life. She was dancing to “Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot” in a gown, in a bal room, in England, with the most attractive, most mysterious, and richest man in the room! She talked about the dance, but he didn’t reply. She wondered if he was in one of his brooding moods, which she found both sexy and exasperating.

She smirked. “It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Wrightman. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.”

He smiled. They came together and they parted, and doubt crackled through her. She almost forgot to cross and cast down the line. Had he real y caught the Austen reference she’d just made? She wasn’t sure.

When they met again, she watched him as if he were a science experiment about to bubble over. He seemed to be concentrating on the figures, counting his steps. He looked so preoccupied that Chloe began to doubt that he’d even heard her Austen reference.

Toward the end of the dance, at the point where they faced, met, and led up, Chloe final y broke the silence. “I want to thank you for the apology you left about our outing, but real y, I’m the one that should apologize.”