Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

“Kil ed you? With this sil y thing?” Lady Grace leaned over and whispered in Chloe’s ear, turning her back to the camera: “You Chicago people.

Think everyone’s Al Capone. That’s where you’re from? Chicago?” Stil , she didn’t look at Chloe, but past her, at the cameras. “Did you smuggle in any cigarettes? A mobile phone?”

Chloe opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Suddenly everything went dark around the edges, like the end of a silent movie, where the circle closes in on itself.

Chapter 4

C hloe opened her eyes. A light grew brighter and brighter, taking a rectangle shape while a piano played downstairs, something Baroque.

“Mr. Wrightman? She’s awake,” Fiona said.

The rectangle became a floor-to-ceiling window draped in yel ow silk and tassels. Fiona’s face came into focus, then a video camera. Chloe tried to sit up, but didn’t have the strength. One of her biceps hurt, so she tried to look at it, but stopped to focus on the two faces staring at her. One was Fiona and the other—the light from the window shaded his face. She col apsed back again.

Chloe felt for Fiona’s hand and touched an embroidered cover. She must be in a bed. A lumpy bed that crunched. “Mr. Wrightman? Mr.

Wrightman’s here?”

Fiona patted Chloe’s hand. “Yes, yes, he carried you in. Quite endearing, that was, miss.”

Chloe sighed, and an image of herself, in her white gown, draped over Mr. Wrightman’s strong arms, her head against his broad shoulders, his dark wavy hair grazing her bonnet, popped into her head. He had been forced to do the forbidden and touch her—carry her in. She’d have to wait til it came out on DVD. She squinted at the light and struggled to move.

“Mr. Wrightman’s been tending to you the entire time,” Fiona said.

“Miss Parker,” said a deep voice in an English accent.

Chloe melted just a bit. His voice was enough to make a girl forget she’d been shot at.

“Can you see clearly?”

“Yes, I can,” she lied. The blur of a man looking down at her so intently, with so much concern, came through clearly, even if his features didn’t.

“My arm hurts. Did a bul et graze me or something?”

Fiona stifled a giggle.

“You fainted,” said Mr. Wrightman. “I’m going to put some smel ing salts under your nose now. It wil smel rancid and sting a bit, I’m afraid—”

“Ooooo! What the—” Chloe snorted and sneezed simultaneously, and she sprayed droplets into Mr. Wrightman’s face. “Excuse me,” she said, trying to regain composure.

The first thing she real y saw was Mr. Wrightman’s lips curving into a smile, a very sexy smile, as he handed her his handkerchief. He wore a brown cutaway coat with tails, an upturned white col ar tied with a ruffled cravat, a waistcoat, and cream-colored breeches tucked into buckskin boots. Stil , he didn’t look like the guy in the bathtub or out in the field. Instead of dark wavy hair, he had dirty-blond straight hair, with a couple strands fal ing into light brown eyes. He was pale with round wire-rimmed glasses. Despite his seductive smile, he looked more like a librarian than the local Mr. Darcy.

“The smel ing salts real y clear the senses after a fainting spel ,” he said. With a large but gentle hand he pressed a cool cloth on her forehead.

The cloth felt great, but what if it smeared her elderberry-painted eyebrows? “Fainting spel ? I don’t faint.”

“Of course you don’t.” He stepped back and let Fiona hold the cloth to Chloe’s forehead.

She wasn’t the fainting type. But this was England, after al , and people fainted in England. She handed the handkerchief back to him, but he didn’t take it. Her thumb grazed the blue embroidered HW in the corner. “Wel , I’ve never fainted before.”

“I suppose it fol ows that if one has never fainted before, one never wil . When a lady doesn’t faint, as you clearly haven’t, I recommend a brief rest in her boudoir.”

Chloe’s head spun. She thought sarcasm wasn’t al owed. The nerve of him to spar with a person who’d supposedly just fainted. But—boudoir?

“Did you say ‘boudoir’?” Chloe dropped the handkerchief in the folds of the bedspread and looked around from under the cool cloth at the floral molding, yel ow wal s with painted-grapevine border, Empire writing desk, high marble fireplace topped with a gilded mirror, and the mahogany four-poster bed she’d been propped up in. Boudoir. Bridesbridge Place! She couldn’t wait to explore it, so she sat up, the cloth slid off her forehead, the room spun, and Mr. Wrightman, with a firm hand, settled her shoulders back against the bumpy pil ows.

“Fiona,” Mr. Wrightman said. “Please fetch Miss Parker a cordial water.”

“How cordial of you,” Chloe said. She looked forward to something that smacked of alcohol.

“Standard protocol for a woman who has fainted,” he replied.