Definitely Not Mr. Darcy Read online

  Definitely Not Mr. Darcy

  Karen Doornebos

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2011 by Karen Doornebos

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley trade paperback edition / September 2011

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Doornebos, Karen.

  Definitely not Mr. Darcy / Karen Doornebos.

  p. cm.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-55110-3

  1. Divorced mothers—Fiction. 2. Austen, Jane, 1775–1817—Influence—Fiction. 3. Dating shows (Television programs)—Fiction. 4. Americans—England—Fiction. 5. Chick lit. I. Title.

  PS3604.O67D44 2011

  813’.6—dc22

  2010054197

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Jane Austen, may you rest in peace.

  Acknowledgments

  Warning: this wil not be brief; writing may be a solitary pursuit, but I’ve had a lot of support. The good news is you don’t have to read this, you can just skip to chapter one.

  Before I acknowledge my fabulous agent, Paige Wheeler of Folio Literary Management, and my very cool editors, Leis Pederson and Cindy Hwang at the Berkley Publishing Group, I’d like to thank my incredibly supportive husband, Jacques, without whom this book wouldn’t be possible, and my two children, Remy and Samantha, who have been a little neglected of late. In so doing, I hope I’ve thanked you al equal y!

  Thanks to my artist parents, Judie, and the late Bil Anderson, for the creative upbringing. Thanks to Barry Kritzberg, the ultimate English teacher, for the early encouragement, and Laurel Yourke, faculty associate emeritus at University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Continuing Studies in Writing, who went out of her way to pul me aside to say I had “something.”

  My beta readers, who read the entire book when it perhaps shouldn’t have been seen by anyone include: Kim Delich, Susan Havel, Jen Kovar, Barry Kritzberg, Kim Lutes, Alice Peck, and Katie (Meenan, at the time) Walsh.

  Two critique groups helped with this manuscript, and I need to thank the first: Pat Dunnigan, Stephanie El iot, and Elyce Rembos; and my current critique group: M. J. Bressler, Rita Chhablani, Chris Foutris, Barbara Harrison, Fredericka Meiners (writing as Ann Macela), Jan Moretti, and Sherry Weddle.

  Thanks go to author and fabulous teacher Christine DeSmet; Ariel e Eckstut, author of Pride and Promiscuity; and agent Daniel e Egan-Mil er, author Syrie James, Erin Nuimata of Folio Literary Management; Abigail Reynolds, prolific Austenesque author; and Maggie Sul ivan of Austenblog and There Must Be Murder fame.

  Hugs to those who put together “Young Author Outrage,” a hilarious scrapbook that kept me going over the years: Michel e Burton, Liz Calby, Linda Dunbar, Gloria Gyssler, DeAnn Gruber, Anne Kodama, Audrey Korsland, Linda LaBel e, Bianca Loftus, Karen Maher, Ingrid Nolan, Kate Pennington, Jennifer Pol ock, Mary Jo Robling, and Jane Wilhelm.

  Other stalwart supporters include: Robin Benoy, Janan Cain, Marilyn Groble, Anne Huston, Janice Fisher, Bridget Lesniak, Cathy Louthen, Ingrid Lulich, Michel e Mendoza, Linda Roberto, Cyndi Robinson, Dorie Skiest, Cindy Vitek, and Trish Wil inger. Carole and Mike Fortman, thank you for entertaining and, at times, feeding Samantha. Thank you, Jamie Anderson, for your design capabilities and Web advice, and Joost Doornebos and Laurie Gruber for believing.

  Those who read pages include: Linda Dunbar, Angela Gordon, Janet Katish, Michel e Marconi, and Anne Kodama, who stopped reading because the book made her forget to pick up her child from piano, or something.

  I need to thank the BBC for producing the Regency House Party, because, little did I know until I’d written most of the book that they had actual y done a Regency reality show that is available both on YouTube and DVD. I recommend it! A tip of the hat to The Bachelor TV series, too.

  I must come clean that my daughter named her American Girl Dol “Chloe,” and when I looked up the etymology of the name, decided to change my main character’s name from “Zoe” to “Chloe.” There. I said it, Samantha!

  Thanks to: the Jane Austen Society of North America, Chicago chapter, and especial y Wil iam Philips. Thanks as wel to Romance Writers of America, especial y the Windy City chapter. Barnes and Noble, Borders, the Newberry Library, Riverside Library, and Starbucks—al fueled the effort. Thanks to fel ow Chicagoan, Oprah, for helping to make reading hip—I’ve watched you for years now, if you want to go out for coffee, just cal .

  Thanks as wel to one of my first and favorite bosses, Tim Roberts in England, and my English friends Tim and Al i Moxon.

  The 1995 A&E version of Pride and Prejudice, and everyone involved in that production, deserves gratitude. Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth brought a certain coolness to al things Austen and forced Janeites worldwide out of the closet. Colin Firth was consequential y typecast for the next fifteen years, but such is the price for playing Mr. Darcy a little too wel .

  Chapter 1

  S he gave up pink drinks and took up tea long ago.

  Chloe Parker, even after her divorce, stil dreamed of a more romantic era. An age when a lady, in her gown and gloves, would, for sheer amusement, banter with a gentleman in his tight breeches and
riding boots, smoldering in a corner of the drawing room.

  So now that she stood deep in the English countryside, loaded down with her suitcases, at the registration desk of a Tudor-style inn, she felt as if she’d been drinking something much stronger than tea. Was she woozy from the jet lag of the eight-hour flight from Chicago to London, or enthral ed with the antique furniture and aroma of scones?

  A young woman in a long blue frock, apron, and ruffled cap approached and curtsied. “I’l be your maidservant during your stay, Miss Parker,” she said in a monotone voice with a slight Cockney twang. “My name’s Fiona.”

  Chloe had a maidservant? Who cal ed her, at thirty-nine years old, a “miss” and curtsied? As Chloe’s eight-year-old daughter, Abigail, would say,

  “This rocks.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Chloe said instead.

  Fiona would be beautiful, were it not for the pierced hole in her pouty lower lip where her lip ring would be.

  “Welcome to the set, Miss Parker,” she said without a glimmer of a smile. “To Jane Austen’s England. Or should I say Mr. Darcy’s Derbyshire?”

  Chloe would be happy to be welcomed to Mr. Darcy’s pigpen, but that was beside the point.

  Fiona looked Chloe over. “It looks as if you’re almost dressed for the part.”

  Chloe wore lace-up boots, a long pencil skirt, and a poet blouse. She shopped at vintage and secondhand stores and most people noticed her quirky outfits.

  Fiona took a skeleton key from behind the check-in desk. “Are you excited to join in our little charade?”

  “This documentary’s a dream come true for me! A chance to live in the year 1812 for three weeks? No computers, just gowns, bal s, and tea parties. This is my Vegas, my—Brighton.”

  The ice between mistress and maidservant had been broken for a moment, because Fiona managed a half smile.

  You wouldn’t have to have read Pride and Prejudice like Chloe did at eleven years old to appreciate the magnitude of the moment. Mr. Darcy was her first love, although other Austen heroes soon fol owed, but Mr. Darcy loomed large in her heart for twenty-eight years—the longest relationship she’d ever had with any man, fictional or real.

  She’d also never been abroad, and never to England, even though English blue blood ran thick on her mother’s side and she surrounded herself with al things Austen and al things English, from BBC costume dramas to Cadbury chocolates. She had even named her daughter Abigail so she could cal her “Abby” after the famed English abbeys.

  Abigail, though, didn’t like to be cal ed “Abby.” She took hip-hop dance classes, programmed her own apps, shot her own YouTube videos, and even filmed and uploaded Chloe’s audition video for this Regency documentary.

  “With al the social networking, Twittering, e-mailing, and texting I’m supposed to be doing, I’m twenty-first-century weary and twenty-first-century chal enged,” Chloe told Fiona. “I can’t wait to escape to the 1800s and slow things down for a while.”

  “Right.” Fiona held out her waiflike arms toward Chloe’s suitcases. “It’s time to go upstairs and get dressed for your carriage ride to Bridesbridge Place, where you’l be staying. Might I take your baggage?” Her outstretched arm revealed a Celtic ring tattoo around her wrist.

  It occurred to Chloe that Fiona might be a little miffed that she had been cast as a servant forced to wait on the likes of her. “No thanks, I have them.”

  “As you wish. Fol ow me, please.” Fiona spun around and led Chloe to a narrow wooden staircase with steps smoothed from hundreds of years of wear, and Chloe couldn’t help but imagine the people who must’ve walked the same path over time. It was fitting that her journey would start at an inn, as inns were the crossroads of early 1800s society, where rich and poor intermingled, horses were switched out, ladies could lunch in public, and trysts in various rooms changed destinies.

  Chloe tried not to bang the plaster wal s with her heavy bags.

  She had baggage, that was for sure. An ex-husband, a stack of overdue bil s, and a house facing foreclosure, al because her antique letterpress business was tanking. Nobody paid for their wedding invitations or anything to be letterpressed and handcrafted on one hundred percent cotton-rag paper anymore.

  Letterpress was a dying art, another casualty of the digital age. The bank sent her threatening letters run off on cheap paper and laser-printed in Helvetica, the font she despised the most, because it was sans serif, overused, and, to her, it heralded the reign of the impersonal.

  With Chloe’s failing business, Abigail’s entire world was in jeopardy. That brought Chloe here, first and foremost, to compete in this documentary, to put her knowledge of Austen novels to the test and win the $100,000 prize. How else could she ral y that kind of cash so quickly and generate PR for her business at the same time? Perhaps, though, even more than the cash, the documentary offered her one last chance at—

  everything.

  Fiona looked down on Chloe from the top of the stairs. “How ever did you find out about our film project al the way from America?”

  “Oh! The president of the Jane Austen Society of North America sent me the casting-cal information. I’m a lifelong member and win so many of the Austen trivia contests, she thought of me right away. Once I won the audition, wel , how could a lady refuse?”

  Chloe might have been born two centuries too late, and in the wrong country no less, but now that she was in her ancestral England, everything was going to work out.

  “Do you think you have what it takes to win the prize money?”

  “Absolutely. Al things Austen are a passion of mine, and that’s why I decided to do this.” If there was one thing she knew, it was Austen novels.

  “What exactly do you intend to do with the money if you win?”

  Chloe stopped on the stairs for a moment. “What do you mean ‘if’?”

  Fiona tapped her finger on her cheek and smirked.

  “I ful y intend to give as much of it as I can to charity.” There. She made it to the second floor, where several closed wooden doors radiated from the landing. “But only after I set aside enough money to secure my daughter’s future.”

  Fiona stepped back. “Daughter? Are you married, Miss Parker?”

  “Divorced. Four years ago.”

  Fiona raised an eyebrow and made a flourish toward a door that, once unlocked and opened, revealed, in a corner of the room, a white floor-length Regency gown hanging from a large three-paneled mahogany dressing screen. “Your gown.”

  “Wow.” Chloe gasped, trying to imagine herself in the straight skirting, the smal puff sleeves, and the revealing neckline. She thought they’d put her in something a little more—matronly.

  “I didn’t expect you’d have a daughter. How does she feel about her mum being so far off?”

  Chloe hadn’t worn such a low neckline in a while. “Um, she actual y made her own plea on my audition video, that’s how much she supports my being here.”

  They’d had so much fun filming, along with Chloe’s only employee, Emma. They shot Chloe in a hand-sewn Regency gown, sitting in a horse carriage on Michigan Avenue, sipping coffee from a white paper cup and bemoaning the plight of a modern Janeite.

  But somehow, Emma’s interview questions led Chloe to a rant about men who text other women while on a date or tweet breakups, who think basebal hats are fashion, and who can give a blow-by-blow account of any sporting event but are incapable of writing a love letter even if their last glimpse of the Super Bowl depended on it.

  “I remember Abby said to me, ‘You have to go, Mom. Who else owns a complete col ection of the ‘I Heart Mr. Darcy, Mr. Knightly, Mr. Tilney’ blah, blah, blah coffee mugs?’ She’s staying with my parents, and even though they’re on a fixed income, I’m sure they’l spoil her as best they can.”

  Fiona folded her arms. “What real y brought you here, Miss Parker?” She blocked the door.

  “I’m a huge Jane Austen fan, huge. But I’m here for the prize money, real y. And the
great PR this wil bring my failing business. I’m facing bankruptcy. My ex-husband only contributes minimal y, and Abigail’s an advanced student, on the gifted track. I resolved a long time ago to give her the best education I could. You have no idea what it took to get her into her school, and if we have to move—”

  Fiona didn’t seem fazed.

  “Look, I don’t fit into the modern American world, but Abigail, she has an extremely bright future ahead of her. Sometimes I feel like ‘Ma’ from Little House on the Prairie with a daughter like her who’s into al things futuristic and trendy. But I’d do anything for her. Anything.”

  “Does she know you’re here just for the money?”

  “I’m not here just for the money!”

  “Then what else are you here for?”

  “To ogle the young men in their buckskin breeches.” Chloe winked.

  Fiona smiled again.

  “I’m here for the experience, of course! Although Abigail’s under the grand delusion that I’m going to find my own Mr. So-and-So.” Chloe laughed.

  Fiona didn’t. “And what do you think?”

  The thought had crossed Chloe’s mind, but, in true Regency fashion, she had repressed the idea, even after reading a sample bio they had sent her of a cast member, a certain Mr. Wrightman, a man who seemed great—Oxford-educated, an art, architecture, and travel buff—al interesting, except for that ridiculous stage name.

  “You didn’t come here to meet a man?” Fiona asked, confirming the vibe Chloe had picked up on.

  “I think that just because a woman travels overseas, people shouldn’t assume she’s looking for romance,” Chloe said. “I came here to dress in gowns for this documentary, to live and breathe the Regency, and use my knowledge of Jane Austen novels to win.”

  “Of course.” Fiona turned to lead Chloe into the room.

  Chloe had to sign al kinds of agreements and go through a battery of interviews and medical and psychological tests for this documentary and now her own maidservant was probing about a man, too? Why was everything always about men? She was perfectly happy without one.

  Chloe stumbled, but caught her fal by grabbing onto the wooden coat tree on her way through the door.