Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

She could go over to Dartworth, legal y—dressed as a man! She hoisted the basket to her hip, balancing it and her candelabra, then leaped up the steps and clicked her door shut in a most ladylike way.

After she stirred the fire to warm up her room, the air of which felt brisk even on this summer night, she lifted a pair of footman’s knee breeches from the laundry basket and held them up against her waist. She wouldn’t real y be breaking the rules if she were a “man.” The trick was to bend the rules and not get caught, just as Grace did with drinking her nightly wine, shagging the good-looking footmen, and God only knew what else.

Maybe it was the vodka talking, but after she pul ed on the footman’s white stockings, snug-fitting breeches, and brass-buttoned jacket and tucked her hair into the footman’s black hat, she cocked her head in the floor mirror and decided she looked like quite a hot little footman. After days of wearing dresses, the pants felt liberating, sexy even. Chloe smiled in the mirror. If Grace could have closed-door interludes with footmen at the drop of a tricornered hat, then Chloe could go for a walk after eleven o’clock disguised as a man.

She stuffed her bed with pil ows, pul ed the velvet coverlet over them, and snuffed out the candles. By the light of the fireplace she opened her window to the thick darkness outside. “This is crazy. I came here to win the money and I’m losing my heart to two men.” She said it out loud. There.

She’d admitted it. It had to come to this for her to realize.

Outside there were no streetlights, no lights on the front of the house—no wonder a girl wasn’t al owed to roam at this hour. A few torches, though, burned in front of the main door. Opting not to break a leg, she decided not to jump out the second-story window. Instead she waited for al the women’s doors to click shut, and stocking-footed, shoes in hand, she sneaked down the servants’ staircase al the way to the basement kitchen.

Cook’s eyeglasses, she noticed, were lying on the pine table. Chloe put them on in hopes of bettering her disguise. For a moment the glasses blurred her vision, but then the fuzziness cleared. She slipped out the kitchen door without anyone noticing. Once she was outside, the cool evening air sobered her, but only for a minute. She pul ed on her shoes and groped her way toward the torches.

As she fol owed the stone wal of Bridesbridge Place, feeling her way toward the light, she saw a candle appear in a window on the second floor, then the window opened, and whoosh—a chambermaid dumped a washbasin of water out the window. Chloe jumped back, but it splashed on her calfskin walking shoes. Dots of mud sprayed onto her white tights. The window slammed shut.

“Damn!” Chloe whispered to herself. “Talk about getting cold feet.” She stepped around what she’d bet was the cold water Grace had just washed her face in. “Forget this.” So much for bending the rules. She decided to shelve this idea.

“Who’s there?” A night watchman raised his torch, pacing atop the steps of the main entry.

Too late to go back now.

Chloe lowered her voice. “Hul o! Just a footman out for a walk.” She yanked on one of the torches, and final y, like the sword in the stone, the thing came out of the ground. It was tal er than she was, and heavier than she thought. She almost fel over.

“Here now!” the watchman cal ed out, squinting his eyes to see her better. “Since you’re out, you may as wel deliver this to Mr. Sebastian Wrightman.” He handed her a letter and a lantern, and took the torch. Now she had a mission and she considered this to be a sign.

As the watchman came closer, he screwed up his mouth and squinted at her. “Promise me you’l bring it directly, no stopping for a thimbleful of drink along the way?”

“Promise.” Chloe spun around, wanting to say as little as possible, and headed toward Dartworth before the watchman had a chance to question her further.

Her shoes sank into the mud as she pointed herself toward the flickering torches in front of Dartworth Hal far off in the distance. Her shoes made a slight squishing sound in the mud. Despite her nerves and her shaking hand, she tried to enjoy her newfound freedom without a chaperone. And she was out after dark. She hoisted the lantern high, but it didn’t feel right. She wasn’t like Grace. She couldn’t break rules any more easily than she could break hearts.