Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

She sauntered over to the four-poster bed, vaulted onto the mattress, and swung around one of the bedposts. A song popped into her head. She hadn’t heard anything other than the pianoforte and harp in a while now, but she started singing and swinging her hips to the thumping bass in her head. Soon she was swirling around the bedpost in her corset and stockings, pul ing white gloves past her elbows, dipping her head back and letting her hair sway, tickling her legs with her quil pen, cavorting around like a pole dancer, when outside her window, down in the semicircular drive—something moved. She squinted. It was Sebastian! He was in his top hat, gazing up at her with his binoculars.

“Oh God.” She froze for a moment, her stocking leg wrapped around the bedpost.

She heard something trickling—water. The cat was peeing near her evening shoes!

Sebastian stepped forward and back, adjusting the focus on his binoculars. She unwrapped herself from the post, slipped off the bed, and whipped the velvet curtains closed, like a bad puppet show. A pole dance wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind. Something just slightly more ladylike was on the agenda, like flirting from the open window with her hair down, because she looked good with her hair down, much better than the Regency updo Sebastian had associated her with, and she wanted Sebastian to see her that way. Final y, she opened the curtains to say, “It’s huge in America, you know, pole-dance exercise classes.”

He smirked. “I can see why. Please, don’t stop on my account. I find it most—diverting. Carry on.”

Chloe just laughed. “I have to get ready for the archery competition now.”

“You are on my list, Miss Parker. I wil be cal ing on you and you’d best be at home when I arrive!” He bowed and left.

Chloe sank down on the mahogany chaise, putting her head in her hands. Hard to be a lady when the lady was a tramp!

Someone knocked on her door. She snatched her chocolate-colored archery gown from the bed and held it up against herself as if she were sizing it up.

It was Fiona, and Chloe breathed a sigh of relief.

“Time to dress for the archery competition,” her maid said, then gasped at the sight of Chloe’s hair. “Why did you take your hair down, Miss Parker? You know ful wel it wil be half an hour to pin it up again.”

F iona pinned up Chloe’s hair so quickly and so badly that, right in the middle of the archery competition, when Chloe was already down several points and trying to focus on the red bul ’s-eye in the middle of the target, she felt the updo going down.

She kept dwel ing on the pole dance. A section of hair fel on the nape of her neck. It startled her into releasing the bowstring sooner than she wanted, and just like that, another arrow bounced off the outer edge of the target and fel to the grass. No doubt the fifteen Accomplishment Points would be going to Grace or Julia at this rate.

“Concentrate!” Mrs. Crescent mouthed to her from a wooden chair on the grassy sideline. And then she mouthed something else, but Chloe never could read lips. Sebastian, Henry, and the chaperones sat under the shade of an old beech tree, watching Grace, Julia, and Chloe face off.

Fifi and two greyhounds were asleep under the wooden table where Fiona and some of the other servants were pouring lemonade and stacking Bath buns.

Chloe propped up her lancewood bow, almost as tal as she was, next to her, while she avoided eye contact with Sebastian. She tightened the laces on her brown suede archery gloves. A servant gathered up her misfired arrows and handed them to her like so many broken dreams.

Grace readied her bow.

“Ladies . . .” The butler stepped in front of the camera. “May I interrupt for a moment?”

Grace sighed, relaxed her stance, and scratched her col arbone.

Sunburn, Chloe thought. Soon it would be peeling!

“I’d like to remind you,” he said, looking first at Chloe, then at Grace. “This is the final round of our archery competition today—”

A mosquito buzzed around Chloe’s eyes. She snapped her eyelids closed for a minute, brushed it away, and when she opened them again, she accidental y looked straight at Sebastian, who winked and smiled. At least, it looked like he winked. Anyway, he was smiling—at her. He had this way, even with the gorgeous Grace and al uring Julia around, of making her feel as if she were the one. The only one. She swung her lancewood bow at her side.

“Ahem . . .” The butler cleared his throat. “The winner of today’s competition wil not only earn fifteen Accomplishment Points, but wil also win an exclusive outing with Mr. Wrightman. Let the games begin.” He raised his arm for the competition to continue.

Chloe’s hands shook.

Grace flashed her white teeth in a fake smile, and Chloe noticed that her teeth somehow seemed whiter than they’d been yesterday. “Another excursion with Mr. Wrightman? I’l shoot for that.” Grace pul ed her bowstring back, and with a snap she nailed it, another bul ’s-eye.

Chloe’s hands began to sweat in her suede gloves.