Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

Instead of getting her beauty rest, she was agonizing over what to do next, until final y she determined to solve that damn riddle of a poem and search Grace’s room for items that she’d smuggled in. She needed proof if she was going to outwit Grace and win the money. Or was it to win over Sebastian? And maybe Henry’s good opinion?

The money. The man. The men! Would she consider stealing something from someone else’s room for money alone? She real y didn’t want to fal for Sebastian or Henry, or worst of al , for both of them. That would complicate everything, her entire win-the-money-and-run plan.

Her last lingering thought before she fel asleep was to remember to have her chambermaid add more straw to the mattress. It felt like she was sleeping on a board, which, essential y, was exactly what she was doing.

T he next morning, after Chloe once again inquired about any letters, hoping for news from Abigail, and after al the women had won five Accomplishment Points for painting a footstool, Grace was out horseback riding with Julia. So after taking her usual romp around the grounds trying to solve the impossible riddle Sebastian had given her, Chloe snuck into Grace’s very red, walnut-paneled, and humongous room, and rifled through the table in her dressing room. She wanted to find condoms and nail Grace with the evidence.

The room, with its wooden-beam ceiling and lead-paned casement windows, seemed more Gothic than Regency in style. A smal fire glowed in the fireplace, and even though it was the beginning of July, the room was cold. But she had to find proof of Grace’s cheating, because this morning, as she put extra butter on her rol , the butler announced that there would be an Invitation Ceremony that very night at Dartworth after the women displayed their musical talents.

Her hands shook as she rummaged through Grace’s drawers, because she never did this kind of thing. Real y.

When she used the bathroom in other people’s houses, she never even peeked in their medicine cabinets. She would feel guilty just opening the sink cabinet to look for toilet paper if it ran out.

She tugged at the lion’s-head pul to open the top drawer and it made a scraping noise. Her heart throbbed and she checked the door—stil closed. Grace’s dressing table, capped in Italian marble and nearly twice the size of Chloe’s, had not only a bottle of rose water on it, but lavender water and orange water, too, plus a vase of fresh cabbage roses.

As her hands felt their way around in the drawer, she found al the expected things: hair ribbons, hair combs, and a—curling iron? She pul ed it out. It wasn’t a curling iron. She pressed the “on” button. It started vibrating. It was a vibrator!

“Yuck!” She dropped it to the ground. It fel with a loud clunk, but kept vibrating right near the dressing-table leg carved into the shape of a lion’s paw. Chloe froze. Only her eyes jumped to the beaded silver doorknob. Nothing—yet.

Looking down at the flesh-colored plastic thing pulsing on the hardwood floor, she got the wil ies. How gross to know that she had turned on Grace’s vibrator!

Thank God she had her walking gloves on. She swooped down to pick the thing up and shut it off. How did Grace smuggle that in here? Chloe didn’t want to know.

With her gloved hand gripped around the vibrator, she looked in the ornate gilded mirror, about the size of a plasma TV, tilted on top of Grace’s dressing table. Henry’s spectacles, which she wore now whenever Sebastian wasn’t around, made her look like a spinster on steroids. And maybe she was. She didn’t own a vibrator. She didn’t even know how to hold it, exactly. It looked total y out of place in her hands—period clothing or not.

Her hazel eyes looked browner than ever, and under the thick glass of Henry’s spectacles, they appeared wider apart. Somehow, in the mirror in her room, as smal and oval as her face, the glasses seemed okay. The poke bonnet with a straw crown and ruffled white trim completed the old-maid look. She frowned. Grace had already gotten a good laugh out of the glasses, and now Chloe could see why. She pul ed the bonnet from her head, held it upside down, peeled back the ruffled cotton liner, and tucked the vibrator in. The poke bonnet had an extended crown, almost like a stovepipe, and quite a bit could fit into it. She opened the other two side drawers and found half a pack of cigarettes, teeth-whitening strips . . .

eureka! The condoms! She tossed it al into the bonnet and eyed the doorknob.

Of course, the dressing table was way too obvious. Was there more? She peeked behind the tilted mirror, and something silver caught her eye.

Reaching behind the mirror with her arm, she pul ed out a foil packet of pil s. Xanax? Weren’t those antianxiety pil s? What could a beautiful, titled lady possibly have had anxiety attacks about? Please. She put them back, not wanting to see Grace off her meds. Sheesh!