Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

Chloe’s shoulders slumped and the shawl slid behind her. “Chaperone—?” She knew chaperones were de rigueur, but not for someone her age, surely. “Aren’t I too old for a chaperone?”

“Thirty-nine is not as old as you think, Miss Parker, you are a single woman, and it would be unseemly to have you go alone. Your chaperone is a few years your senior, and it’s your duty to treat her with respect. Read your rule book along the way. It’s nearly a four-mile drive through the deer park.”

He pushed his sunglasses back down and he looked—good. He rested his hand on the carriage. “Good luck.”

The bonnet shaded her eyes from the sun. “Thank you, George, for everything. Real y.”

“You’l see me out there with the camera crew. But they’re strictly forbidden to interact with the participants. Good day, Miss Parker.” He bowed and slapped his hand on the carriage door. He shouted to the driver: “Drive on. To Bridesbridge Place! Good luck, Miss Parker!”

Surely she would be better behaved than some American heiresses are wont to be. The carriage lumbered forward, crushing the mike on the smal of her back into the velour. She eyed the camera on the ATV beside the carriage and, with her gloved hand, gave George the royal wave and a clipped smile. He gave her the royal wave back. She’d miss him—the cad. Something about him intrigued her.

The horse hooves clomped and gunned her forward. She felt as if she were leaving something behind, something important, like her cel , for one thing. She looked away from the camera with a feigned disinterest as any heiress would. Ancient and storied trees laced into an archway overhead.

The sky seemed bluer in England, the sun brighter. Of course, she didn’t have sunglasses on because they hadn’t been invented yet.

Sunlight dappled in a clearing far from the road, and when Chloe squinted her eyes she saw two men, one dark-haired in a white shirt open to his chest, in breeches and boots, jogging with two logs atop his shoulders, and the other brawny and bald, who clapped and cheered and yel ed. The dark-haired man hurled the logs onto a cart, then ran back for two more. The bald man put his hands on his hips and shouted at the guy. Chloe looked back at the footman behind her on the coach, wanting to ask, knowing it would be improper.

The footman spared her. “Training.” That was al he said.

Chloe nodded. It was the Regency term for working out. Was it Mr. Wrightman? Only a gentleman would be able to afford a trainer. Whoever it was, she admired the fact that this guy was so into the Regency that he even stepped up his workout to a nineteenth-century routine.

He flung two more logs onto the cart and she heard the impact al the way out on the road. He turned his head toward her carriage and shielded his eyes to see her.

She wanted to wave, but didn’t, especial y when she thought she saw him smile. The trainer turned his head toward the carriage, then pointed toward the logs and shouted until the dark-haired man lifted four logs.

It was her first real glimpse of Regency life here on the estate, not to mention her first glimpse of a man in an unbuttoned shirt and snug pants in a while. He looked as if he had just burst from the cover of a Regency romance novel and it took serious wil power not to turn and stare long after the carriage had passed. If the rest of the people on the show were as gung ho as that guy, this could be “cool,” as Abigail would say. Real y cool.

She cracked open the rule book in her lap and ran her fingers along the thick pages that had been hand-cut. She brought the book up to her nose to breathe in the smel of paper pulp and ink. Then she settled back to read.

Miss Chloe Parker, you are thirty-nine years old, an American heiress who may be without a fortune due to unforeseencircumstances in your family’s business. You have one foot in the States and another one firmly planted in your mother’s nativeEngland. A projected income of five thousand pounds a year is yours, provided you land Mr. Wrightman, a husband of theEnglish gentry, thus securing your family’s social status. Your parents and your younger sister, Abigail . . .

Chloe stopped there. Abigail. She squeezed her eyelids shut for a moment.