Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

A maid came and whisked away Grace’s wet fur capelet, guiding her to a sofa by the hal fireplace to unstrap her pattens. The white ostrich feather in her headdress drooped. More maids appeared, taking everyone’s wet outerwear and helping the women with their pattens. Chloe admired the massive oil painting above the fireplace, wondering if it was a scene from Dartworth grounds. The foyer and hal struck her as elegant and rich, but not overdone.

She stood under a life-sized portrait of a man and boy that hung across from the fireplace. Judging by the man’s ponytailed white wig and the boy’s trifold hat, the portrait had been done in the late 1700s. The boy’s dark eyes mesmerized her.

Imogene joined her. “Isn’t he adorable? He’s the Wrightmans’ great-et-cetera-grandfather. One of the maids told me he was wel known in this part of the country for being very generous and upstanding.”

Chloe sucked in her bottom lip, because this wasn’t just a game, just a chance for her to win money and flirt around. Sebastian came from a long line of aristocratic ancestors, a heritage that seemed to have little to do with a letterpress printer from Chicago.

Lightning flashed in the semicircular fanlight window above the great doors in the foyer.

“The gentlemen await your arrival in the south parlor,” the butler announced.

This time, Chloe al owed Grace to lead the procession along with one of the cameramen. A camerawoman stayed in back of the group, filming Chloe. The butler guided them through the hal , past a library so vast that Chloe had to stop and stare.

It was a bibliophile’s dream. Floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookcases loaded with leather-bound books covered al wal s. A wooden globe in a stand, an antiquated drafting table, and a book stand that held an open birding book with color il ustrations stood at various spots around the room.

On the walnut secretary, a stick of red sealing wax and a quil knife anchored a pile of paper, and a quil held upright in a silver stand attached to the inkwel made it seem as if Mr. Wrightman had only just written to someone. A book of Cowper’s poems lay open. Could it be possible that by seeing a man’s office, or in this case, his library, you could fal for the man himself?

The firelight flickered on the gold lettering of the hardbound books, and in an instant, Chloe remembered the law library, in col ege, when she was dating a law student. She hadn’t thought about him in years. Decades, even. They had been flirting and studying al night when he chal enged her to look something up, and there, in the back of the stacks, he closed the book in her hands, slipped it back in the bookcase nearest her hip, and pressed himself against her, opening her mouth with his. Her back pressed up against the bookcase as he slid her skirt up slowly to her waist and a thril zigzagged through her. Maybe it was the excitement of doing something il icit. Maybe it was the books. She remembered unzipping his jeans

—

“You real y are such a bluestocking, aren’t you?” Grace asked.

“Oh yes, al I ever think about are books.”

What had stirred to life within her?

“We have an eight-course dinner and a gorgeous man awaiting us, but you’re gushing over the library.”

“You’re right. Nothing interesting ever happens in a library.”

Imogene laughed.

“Come along, dear,” Mrs. Crescent said.

Chloe shook off the memories. It was like seeing a cut from a movie you had watched but forgotten al about.

“Look at this solarium,” Mrs. Crescent said. It soared to two stories high with palm trees, singing canaries in wooden cages, and unpainted wicker furniture, but Chloe couldn’t blot the library from her brain. They reached another domed hal . The butler stood in front of twin mahogany-paneled doors, each flanked by a footman, and the camerawoman came closer to Chloe.

“Ladies, take a moment,” said the butler. “As soon as we pass through these doors, we wil be in the crimson drawing room. A carriage awaits outside. Five of you wil be offered invitations to dinner. Three of you wil not be invited. Those three wil be asked to leave Bridesbridge.

For once, Chloe didn’t have a wisecracking thought in her swirling brain. She didn’t want to go—and not just because of the money either.

Beyond just lusting for Sebastian, she actual y wanted—no, needed to be with him, to talk with him and learn more about him.

The footmen opened the mahogany doors. “Ladies.” It was George, dressed in a butler’s coat, his auburn hair coiffed to Regency perfection, with a curl tumbling down his forehead and into his eye. He was a player. Why hadn’t Chloe seen it? She leaned in toward him, hoping for a message from home, but there wasn’t one. The footmen shut the mahogany doors behind George.