“You name it.”
“Remember the cook.”
Like she could forget.
“And remember one more thing. I’m on your side.”
She was?
For a long time, Chloe lay in her canopied bed and tossed in her nightgown, unable to sleep. She thought she heard a mouse scuttle from the floor mirror to the writing desk, but there couldn’t possibly be mice running around her bedchamber, could there?
She wished she didn’t care about Sebastian or Henry, but it was too late for that. She moved over to her half of the bed—making room for—someone.
The next morning, she woke, unable to do anything except sit on the edge of her bed, even though it was Monday and there might be mail from Abigail. Fiona worked around her while a cameraman filmed. She must’ve been quite drunk to dress up like a footman and go to Dartworth! The very thought of it made her paralyzed with fear.
“This is how it should be, mum,” Fiona said as she brushed Chloe’s hair with a large, heavy, gleaming silver brush in front of the French bombé dressing table. “It’s much better when you just let me take care of everything like this. ’Tis my duty.”
Chloe wanted to be brushing Abigail’s hair, braiding it, getting her ready for the day.
Fiona twisted Chloe’s hair back so tightly that Chloe winced. But she always did a great updo, and when Chloe looked in the mirror, she had to admire the sexy way her hair spilled out from the knot atop her head.
“James told me to bring this up to you, miss.”
It wasn’t mail, but something wrapped in a blue silk scarf that turned out to be her shoe from last night. She sighed. It was a nice gesture on Henry’s part, and as far as that went, her mission had been accomplished.
Fiona was pulling back the draperies and sunlight was flooding into the room when suddenly Mrs. Crescent and Fifi came bounding in.
Mrs. Crescent was almost breathless. “You missed breakfast, Miss Parker. The butler announced that your outing with Mr. Wrightman has been bumped by a group competition at the hedge maze. Can you fathom why?”
“I can’t.” Chloe was shaky, and needed to eat something.
Two plump strawberries from the Dartworth hothouse waited in a mortar and pestle bowl to be crushed and made into rouge for Chloe. Red, ripe strawberries. Overcome with desire, Chloe snatched them up and ate them both at the same time. What did it matter if her cheeks had no color today? After last night, she’d surely be sent home, anyway.
Mrs. Crescent shook a finger at her. “I daresay it’s no wonder Lady Grace always looks so much more polished than you. You’ve gone and eaten your cosmetics again!”
Chapter 13
Being a corn-fed girl from the Midwest, Chloe had seen corn mazes, but never a maze sculpted from eight-foot-tall yew trees. Ever since she arrived, she’d been enticed by the prospect of the hedge maze, and now, it seemed, was her chance to see it, although it did sting that the visit to the maze had trumped her scheduled outing with Sebastian.
The women and their chaperones were gathering around the entry to the maze while Sebastian and Henry came riding toward them on their horses.
Chloe had imagined running along the narrow, pebbled paths between the high hedges, dropping red rose petals behind her, Sebastian at her heels. They would meet in the pagoda in the center to kiss, his lips finally touching hers, her fingers finally grazing his squared-off sideburns, nothing but green all around and blue sky above—
The butler interrupted her reverie. “This morning the three of you will be competing for fifteen Accomplishment Points. Mr. Wrightman will be sitting in the pagoda in the middle of the maze. You will all be sent off into the maze at the same time, and the woman to reach Mr. Wrightman first wins the points and time alone with him until the other ladies catch up.”
Chloe almost groaned out loud. This, of all the competitions so far, seemed the most demeaning. She crossed her arms and kicked the dust with her walking boots.
Just then, out of nowhere, George came zipping up in an ATV. George!? Was he here to send her packing?
Janey was sitting next to him, sipping coffee from a white cardboard cup.
Chloe had given up drinking coffee here in England. Regency coffee tasted horrid, and the weak tea proved only marginally better.
George swung his blue-jeaned legs out of the cart and pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. A Bluetooth was stuck on his ear. Chloe couldn’t stand those things; Winthrop used to wear his all the time.
“Girls.” He made guns with his fingers and aimed at Chloe and Grace. “A word?” He whipped off his Bluetooth and raked his hair. The air around him hinted of shampoo and toothpaste. His hair must’ve been loaded with product. How else could it have smelled of shampoo and looked so much like bed head?
“Over here.” When he grabbed them by the elbows, their parasols tipped to the sides. Regency men didn’t call women “girls” and they didn’t yank women around by the elbows. After weeks of Sebastian’s and Henry’s gentlemanly behavior, even Grace seemed shocked at such treatment. In addition to bowing, Sebastian and Henry always stood when a lady entered the room, and a lady could get used to such things.
George led them, faster than their calfskin boots could carry them, toward the topiary arch at the entrance of the hedge maze. Overhead, clouds were rolling in.
“No cameras,” George barked at two of the crew, and they backed off.
Moments later, Sebastian and Henry arrived and tied their horses to a tree.
Grace’s chaperone looked intent with concern and Mrs. Crescent sent Fifi on to be with Chloe.
“Listen, ladies,” George began ominously, “I can be the king of grouchy Brit reality-show judges, you know.”
Grace folded her arms just under the hem of her spencer jacket, which so nicely accentuated her boobs and tiny waist. “I don’t see what I have to do with all this.”
Chloe stooped down to pick up Fifi’s leash.
George flashed a frown and pointed his iPhone at Chloe. “Officially, Miss Parker, you’re on probation. You haven’t gotten caught on camera, and your antics are great for ratings, and those are just two reasons why I’m not getting rid of you here and now.” He paced around the soft grass, checking his phone.
Chloe picked up Fifi, who began pushing at her arm as if he wanted her to rub his neck, or what would be his neck if he had one.
“Suffice it to say that both of you are here, for the moment—with warning. Mr. Wrightman wants you both here because somehow he can picture you both as wife material, although I can’t say I agree with his judgment. Then again he doesn’t know everything I know, although I am tempted to tell him. Condoms appearing in reticules, shagging every footman in sight, going out after curfew—these are serious infractions.” He keyed something into his phone.
Chloe tipped her well-coiffed head, which, at the moment, was covered in the unfortunate poke bonnet. “Did you know that the condom was planted on me?”
“We have no proof the condom was planted on you, Miss Parker, and unless you can produce proof, the jury’s still out on that one.” George’s phone rang and they were saved by the bell.
It’d been a while since Chloe heard a phone ring and it actually sounded pleasant. For the first time in a long while, she didn’t cringe at the sound. She watched George as he talked on the phone to someone far away, to people other than this small crowd, and she marveled at it, as if she really were from 1812. She felt a sudden urge to snatch the phone from him and call Abigail, just to hear her voice.
Chloe watched George slide the phone into his back pocket. She just wanted to hold it, really. Okay—she wanted to check her e-mail! Surf the Web! Buy toilet paper online! My God, what was happening to her? She clutched Fifi.