Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

“Ostentatious? No. No, not at al .” She tried to remember the last time a man spoke to her using polysyl abic words like ostentatious. “I find it elegant.”

“Al ow me to escort you to your chair,” he said.

Nobody had ever said that to her before. She took his arm. “Thank you.” He was so nice she actual y felt guilty for thinking maybe getting in good with Henry would help her score points with Sebastian.

Henry pul ed out her chair and pushed her in next to him. Sebastian sat on the other end of the table, at the head, with Julia on his left and Grace on his right. He caught Chloe’s attention and then rol ed his eyes when Grace wasn’t looking. Chloe shrugged. Next to Grace and Julia were Gil ian and Kate, then Chloe and Henry, and al the chaperones.

“It appears that American heiresses don’t pul much rank at the dinner table,” Chloe said to Henry.

“Do you seek to improve your rank in this world, Miss Parker?”

“Oh no! I’m mainly here for the white soup.”

Henry smiled. “Ah. You may not care about rank, but you do have expensive tastes.”

Chloe had no idea that white soup was expensive.

“I’m sorry to say you’re in for a disappointment. White soup isn’t on the menu tonight.”

Chloe eyed her empty wineglass. “Not to worry. The wine wil more than make up for it.”

Henry laughed as the footmen poured the claret. Chloe didn’t think it was that funny—she hadn’t had wine in days. Ladies didn’t drink wine on their own unless they were “unwel ,” a stunt Grace had pul ed every night since Chloe arrived.

“I propose—” Sebastian said, raising his glass, looking at Chloe.

Chloe raised her wine goblet, which was no bigger than a bud vase. A proposal already?

“I propose a toast to our new guest at Bridesbridge Court, who comes al the way from America. Miss Chloe Parker.” He lowered his voice.

“Welcome to Dartworth.”

What class. What manners. What—luscious lips. Enthral ed with watching him bring his wineglass to his mouth, she almost forgot to respond.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m thril ed to be here.”

“May you find what you’re looking for,” Henry said.

Grace looked at Sebastian from behind her wineglass. “I’ve found what I’m looking for.”

Thank goodness for the wine, because Chloe needed a drink. And with just a hint of oak and fruity notes, it went down smoothly. Henry looked at Chloe’s empty wineglass, and almost as quickly, he emptied his.

The footman offered soup from a china tureen, and Chloe accepted two ladlefuls before she realized it was fish soup or bouil abaisse. No matter what kind of spin you put on it, she didn’t like fish soup and neither did her stomach. She also didn’t like the fact that she wasn’t al owed to talk to the footmen and servants, that she had to forget they were real people. Even worse, the servants had actual y faded into the background for her over the past couple days, and she, too, was beginning to treat them like the furniture, except for Fiona, whom she did her best to coddle. She stared at the cut-up fish flesh floating in the broth, stirring with her soup spoon. It didn’t matter. She hadn’t been hungry since the outing with Sebastian this morning.

Kate, who sat next to Chloe, scratched her bare arms. Under her caplet sleeves Chloe detected another outbreak of hives.

“Miss Harrington,” Chloe asked Kate, “have you tried Gowland’s Lotion? I’ve heard it’s quite good.”

Kate didn’t get the obscure reference to the lotion mentioned in Jane Austen’s Persuasion.

“Sir Walter highly recommends it,” Henry said, completing the reference.

Henry—a Jane Austen fan? Just like his brother, as it had said in Sebastian’s bio? Chloe did a double take. But then she remembered that it had been Henry who made the wet-shirt comment at the pond.

Kate tapped Chloe on the hand, her eyes already puffy. “Do you think there are any shel fish in this soup? I mustn’t eat shel fish, or I’l blow up like a hot-air bal oon.”

“I can assure you there are no shel fish,” Henry said. “Miss Parker. I hear you explored the old castle ruins today. Did you know it was built around the year 1130? Additions were made to it in the thirteenth century. Did you notice the herringbone pattern of stonework on the outer wal s?”

“No. I’m afraid I didn’t notice—that.”

“It’s too bad my brother didn’t point it out to you. It’s very rare to find that pattern of brickwork in a twelfth-century wal .”

Sebastian had pointed—other things out to her.

Stil , for a fleeting moment Chloe felt as if she had missed out on something. She could always go back to the ruins, couldn’t she? “I did notice, though, that the archer holes were square and not narrow slits. That was unexpected.”

Henry nodded in agreement and started to say something about how the castle was destroyed by cannonbal s during the English Civil War, but Chloe turned away from him to make eye contact with Sebastian. She caught Grace’s eye instead.