Mark stepped forward and grabbed my elbow. “You okay? You’re looking a little wobbly there.”
“I’ll live,” I sighed as he steadied me. “I’m just, um, surprised to see you here. Like to see
you
.”
“Yeah, I seem to have woken up still here and looking even more like myself. I’d ask if you thought it was an improvement to Mr. Darcy’s looks, but I already know how you’d answer.”
I bit my lip. What was I supposed to say to that? My penchant for Mr. Darcy was widely known. I mean, all one had to do was read the magnets on the fridge in my apartment to realize the man was my ideal. Although, if he’d noticed me drooling over his arms earlier he might realize that I didn’t necessarily think all of the changes were bad ones.
“I am partial to his nose, though. What do you think? Too bad I can’t keep it when I finally get back home.” Mark dropped my elbow and turned to the side as if to model Mr. Darcy’s nose. It was kind of unsettling to see it there on his face, as if he’d had some weird plastic surgery procedure. I sniffed. I kind of liked Mark's nose bump, it gave it character and hinted at a wild and rough past. Not that I’d ever, ever admit this to him of course.
“That is if you can get back home,” I said. “I’m beginning to get a little bit concerned.”
“As am I. Really thought adding more details into your little story writing idea would work, but here I am.”
“I wonder what you’re doing wrong. Did you bring your story with you again?”
"Uh, no."
"Why not?"
“I don’t really need you to grade my life story like a teacher. It didn’t work. Maybe it worked for you, but you got into the book a different way than I did. It might just not work for me.”
I leaned back against a tree and eyed him thoughtfully. There was a slight red tinge to his skin.
"Mark Barnes, are you blushing?”
“What? No.”
“Is there something in your life story you don’t want me to read?"
The red spread across his cheeks and I realized I was right. My mind whirred with curiosity. What could he possibly have put in there that he didn’t want me to see? Something about himself when he was younger? I really wanted to think it was something that had to do with how he felt about me, but I was too scared to actually think it.
“Well, I suppose I’ll just have to take your word for it then,” I said folding my arms across my chest.
Mark leaned against an opposite tree and mirrored my pose. “I guess you will.”
I tried not to pay attention to the way the fabric of his jacket stretched across his arms, but I found myself holding my breath waiting to see if it would actually rip.
“I—It’s not like you
want
to be here. You obviously would have done everything possible to leave.”
“Obviously.”
I glared at him for a moment. He looked stared back, but his look was more considering.
“I don’t suppose anyone has commented on your appearance changing?”
“Nope. Darcy’s valet didn’t even bat an eyelash when he came in this morning to help me get dressed. I really thought he might. I mean, at this point I look nothing like the bloke. But no reaction from him or Colonel Fitzwilliam. Saw him this morning on my way out. And the clothes seem to fit right.” He pushed away from and held his arms out, inviting closer inspection of his outfit.
I was really trying to not pay attention to the way his clothes were fitting. I wonder if he knew that and was deliberately taunting me. I glared harder at him, but he was wearing an expression of benign innocence that didn’t give anything away.
“Yes, how lucky for you that your clothes are fitting correctly,” I said drily.
I had been Elizabeth for weeks, and while I’d always thought Mr. Darcy was swoon-worthy handsome I hadn’t really felt any actual physical desire for him. Barely a day in Mark's presence and I was already burning up for him. It was distracting.
I stood on tiptoe, looking up at him. My hands came forward to rest on his chest. I told myself it was to steady myself, catch my balance. It wasn’t that I wanted to feel his muscled chest through his shirt and vest. My face was inches away from his. Even though he wasn’t quite as tall as Darcy, he was still a lot taller than Elizabeth was.
He looked at me with serious eyes. The teasing light had all but gone out of those dark depths. I wanted to drown in them. It would be like drowning in espresso. I loved coffee.
The air between us felt like it was crackling with electricity. My chest was so tight, I wasn’t sure I could breathe. I felt like if he didn’t kiss me right now I was going to shatter into a million pieces and I wouldn’t ever be able to put myself back together.
I licked my lips and his eyes left mine and focused on my lips before flicking back up to my eyes.
“Kelsey,” his voice was low, almost a growl. His arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer.
“Kiss me,” I replied breathily.
“Is this a kissing book?”
Mark lowered his
head toward me but paused half-way. “Who are you kissing?” he asked. “Me or Mr. Darcy?”
“Shut up, Mark,” I reached up and put my hand at the nape of his neck, running my fingers through his soft curls. “I’m kissing you, you idiot,” I said as I pulled his head down the rest of the way. I stood on tiptoe again and captured his mouth with mine.
The warmth that shot through me was pure bliss. It felt so right to kiss him. Exciting and thrilling, but somehow comfortable at the same time.
His mouth moved over mine. I may have started the kiss, but within just a few seconds he was fully in control of it, teasing me with his tongue and nipping my bottom lip. I pressed against him, my hand still around his neck holding him as if I was afraid his lips would leave mine. Mark didn’t seem inclined to stop kissing me, though. After a moment I relaxed my hold, playing with the strands of hair curling over his collar as my other hand ran up the front of his vest and over his shirt and started loosening his cravat. It was very intricately tied. I tugged at it fruitlessly for a few seconds before he made a low sound in the back of his throat and let go of my waist long enough to reach up, push my hand out of the way, and untie his cravat.
I sighed in happiness as I ran my fingers over the strong column of his throat. Mark took advantage of my sigh to deepen the kiss and my brain came to a stuttering halt. Time ceased to exist and all I could do was hang on for dear life and kiss Mark back for all I was worth.
There was small sound to our left and we both jumped back. I stumbled over my long gown, nearly losing my balance and Mark hit his head on the tree trunk directly behind him.
“Ow!” he grunted rubbing the back of his head as we both turned to look toward the offending sound. A small fox stared at us curiously before turning and off slinking off in the direction he’d come from.
We stared at each other in silence for a long minute before I dissolved into laughter. By Regency standards I’d just been thoroughly compromised. However, I doubt the fox was going to tell anyone.
After a moment I heard Mark's rich, baritone laugh join me. I was so wound up with desire for him that the sounds sent shivers up my spine. For some reason that made me laugh even harder.
I stumbled forward to place my hand against the tree for support. I was doubled over with laughter, tears starting to form in my eyes. The action made me brush up against Mark once again—my shoulder against his chest—and I suddenly found myself being lifted almost off my feet, his large hands wrapped around my upper arms. The laughter died in my throat, replaced by roaring desire, when he kissed me firmly on the mouth.
It was a short, hard kiss. When he took his lips off mine I made a small, protesting sound and tried to recapture his mouth.
“Kelsey,” he said urgently. My eyelids fluttered open—I hadn’t even realized I’d closed them—and I looked into his serious eyes. “Tell me you want to get out of here. To go home with me.”
I swallowed, my mouth was dry and my throat suddenly felt constricted. I felt like my whole world hinged on this one answer. “Yes,” my voice cracked and I tried again. “Yes, Mark. I want to go back home with you.”
The look on his face was equal measures of pleasure and relief. I think at that point my heart may have actually stopped beating, and then restarted itself with an entirely new rhythm.
He set me down letting go of my arms. I wished he hadn’t. “What should we try next?”
I thought about it. Mark had been right, he hadn’t come into the novel the same way I had. Instead of falling asleep reading the book, he’d been effectively pulled in by me. What if I got out the same way I usually did and could somehow pull him out with me.
“Writing myself out seems to work for me,” I said. “What if I wrote myself out and tried to take you with me?”
“How would you do that?”
“Well, what if I wrote my story, fell asleep on it like I usually do, but like, we could hold hands or something while I fall asleep and then maybe you’d come with me when I go.”
Mark thought about it for a moment. “What happens if you get out, but you don’t pull me with you?”
“Then I come right back in. Right back to the drawing room at Rosings.”
“Can you do it with that much precision?” He looked impressed in spite of himself.
“I’m getting better at it. You know I’d come back for you, I wouldn’t just leave you here, right?”
He chuckled. “Of course you would come back. God forbid I stayed around screwing up the dashing Mr. Darcy.”
I frowned. “That’s not why.”
He looked down at me and gave me a half smile. “I know. I was just teasing you.”
I relaxed a little. “Well, we could try tonight. I don’t know quite how we are going to pull this off. We might cause a little bit of a drama if we are caught.”
“Would they march us off to the parson first thing in the morning? Although, I suppose you are already living at the parson’s. Convenient.”
“Usually if I mess up a scene or do something really reckless and out of character the scene resets. But we are so far off the storyline track—I mean we are almost a week past anything that was supposed to happen actually happening—so I honestly don’t know what would happen.”
“Reckless and out of character?” Mark was looking at me with a wicked gleam in his eyes. “I think I want to hear more about this. How reckless are we talking about?”
“But I don’t think we can just fall asleep together at the parsonage. That might be frowned upon,” I continued on as if I hadn’t heard him, but I felt the hot blush creeping up my face at the thought of confessing to him that I’d kissed George Wickham. Even the thought of it made me slightly ill and ashamed. Although, truth be told, what I did with Wickham couldn’t really be called kissing when compared to what I had just shared with Mark. The two experiences were not even in the same realm.
“I suppose I could sneak you into Rosings,” Mark said thoughtfully. “But if that Lady Catherine person found out she might actually kill you before we have a chance to try to jump out of the book.” He looked around the little grove of trees. “How do you feel about camping?”
I looked around in shock. “Here? Won’t it be cold?”
Mark shrugged. “I can bring blankets and stuff. Hopefully we won’t be out here long. Just however long it takes for you to fall asleep, right?”
“Um, that is the hope.” I wasn’t sure if I would be able to fall asleep very easily. Being outside was the least of my worries. Laying there holding Mark's hand was more likely going to keep me awake then a chill in the air. “So then, I just sneak out of the parsonage and meet you here?”
“No, I don’t want you walking all that way in the dark by yourself. I’ll meet you outside the parsonage tonight. Down at the end of the walk before it goes into the lane?”
I nodded.
“What time do Mr. and Mrs. Collins go to bed?”
“Not too late, Mr. Collins is a morning person. So if we aren’t at Rosings, which I don’t think we are tonight, everyone should be in bed by midnight.”
“All right, let’s meet at 12:30 then. I’ll be there earlier, just in case. But don’t worry about it if you have to make me wait.”
“Okay, will, um, will you walk me back?”
“Sure, let me try to retie this thing,” he indicated his cravat and I snorted in laughter.
“If anyone sees you with me like that, I suppose we won’t have to be worried about creating a scandal tonight. You’ll already be in hot water.”
We walked, hand in hand, as far as the small lane that led down toward the parsonage. He squeezed my hand right before I left. “Write a good story.”
“Oh, I will.”
~
I walked through the front door the parsonage, swinging my bonnet in my hand. There was a row of pegs in the front hall where we could keep bonnets and our spencers, but I preferred to take mine up to my room. It was only a few extra minutes out of the day, and I didn’t have to worry about Mr. Collins accidentally knocking them down on his way in or out.
I passed the row of pegs and then stopped dead in my tracks. I retraced my steps and examined them. I could swear that they’d been slightly above shoulder height, and now they only came up to my chest. I hung my bonnet up. I definitely didn’t have to lift my arm at all to hang it up. What the heck?
It was still a little early for breakfast so I walked into the little room where the family took their breakfast room and measured myself against the sideboard. The top of it, instead of coming up to my waist, instead bumped against my hip as I leaned against it and tried to catch my breath. I was tried not to hyperventilate.
Could I actually be growing? Returning to something closer to my normal Kelsey height? In the real world I was 5’9. Elizabeth Bennet was significantly shorter than that. There had to be a good five to six inch difference between us. Could I have made up that difference in one morning? I didn’t feel any different. I’d never changed how a character looked before, but Mark had certainly altered Mr. Darcy’s appearance. Maybe it rubbed off on me?
I nearly tripped over my own feet as I ran up the stairs and knocked on Maria's door.
"Come in," she called.
Maria was sitting in front of the mirror fixing her blonde hair in a simple style that didn’t require a maid or any help. I felt bad for not having been here this morning to assist with her hair.
“Oh there you are, Lizzy!” she said as I came through the door. “Did you enjoy another early morning walk?”
It took me a moment to realize she had spoken to me because I had caught sight of myself in the mirror. Not only was I significantly taller—the very top of my head was being cut off in my reflection—but Lizzy’s dark chestnut hair was now a soft light brown color. It had been dark brown when I’d left the house just an hour or so ago. At this rate, it would be my normal Kelsey-colored medium blonde within another few hours.
“Wh-what?” I finally asked, still not able to take my eyes off the reflection in the mirror. I didn’t look like myself the way Mark looked like himself, but I certainly was starting to not look entirely like Lizzy. I looked like I could be Lizzy’s much taller and lighter haired sister...
“Did you go for a walk? It is a lovely day.” Maria didn’t seem to notice anything different about my appearance, and she was looking right at my reflection in the mirror as she returned to fussing with her hair.
“Um, yes, I went for a walk. Maria, do you, um, do you notice anything different about me?”
Maria twisted in her seat to look directly at me. She narrowed her eyes in consideration. “Not that I can tell. You look just as you always have.”
“Just as I always have?”
“Yes. I am sorry, did you try a new hairstyle which I am not noticing?”
“No, my hairstyle is the same. Thank you Maria, I did not mean to bother you.”
“It is not a bother, Lizzy.” She turned back around and added a few finishing touches to her hair. “Do you think we shall see the gentlemen from Rosings today?”
“I should think we might,” I answered as I sat slowly down on her bed, my brain spinning. What could I have done to effect this change in Lizzy’s appearance, and why did no one but me notice it?
The only thing that I’d done drastically different this morning than I had yesterday or the days before was kiss Mark in the grove. Could that be it?
But if that had started the change and my appearance had been altering on the walk back from the grove, then wouldn’t have Mark have said something? Assuming he noticed. But as I could notice his transformation from Darcy, it stood to reason that he should be able to notice the changes in Lizzy’s appearance. Stood to reason—ha! I almost laughed out loud at the thought of reason having any place in this mess.
We did not, in fact, see the gentlemen from Rosings during the day. Neither Mark nor Colonel Fitzwilliam came to call. I could tell that Maria was disappointed. I suspected she was harboring a
tendre
for Colonel Fitzwilliam. Unfortunately for her, he needed to marry a woman of fortune. I knew this because I’d read the book, but poor Maria had no clue. She was really young: hopefully she’d have more chance at some dashing beaux. Although if she followed in Charlotte’s steps at all, someone like Mr. Collins would be the most dashing she could hope for. The thought was depressing.
I was disappointed as well. I wanted to see Mark's reaction to my transformation. If he hadn’t noticed it before it would be hard to miss now. By mid-afternoon I was most definitely blonde and my hair had lost of all Lizzy’s lovely curl, returning instead to the stick straight locks I was cursed with in real life. I still had all of Lizzy’s features. So, here I was a tall, blonde, Elizabeth Bennet waiting for everyone to go to bed so I could sneak out in the middle of the night with a muscle-bound, red-headed Mr. Darcy. Something was most definitely wrong with the world.
It seemed to take forever for everyone to settle down for the evening and the house to grow quiet. I had told Charlotte and Maria when they retired for the night that I had wanted to finish a letter to Jane and had stayed up writing in the sitting room. I hadn’t been writing to Jane, of course, but writing my life story in as much detail as I could possibly manage. I remember how hard it had been to get out of Caroline, and I figured it would be even harder to get out of Lizzy because she was such a strong character.
My pen had faltered when I got to the part about Mark. At first I just stuck with facts—our meeting, our blind date, the coffee shop, our first real date, the baseball game, telling him about the book jumping. I explained how he had shown up as Mr. Darcy—how I had pulled him in—and how he had begun to change Mr. Darcy, to remake him in his own image. About our kissing against the tree. But somehow the facts seemed to dry. I was afraid of it not working. Hadn’t I told Mark that details and feelings were important?
I am not entirely sure what I feel for Mark. I really like him. A lot. I think I am more attracted to him than I have ever been to any other guy. Which is kind of funny, because if you asked Tori or really any one of my friends, they would probably say he wasn’t my type. Honestly, though, he’s incredibly smart, and nice, and really secure in himself. I wish I could be like that. And he’s incredibly handsome. Just thinking about him makes me feel warm and tingly. I really like him and I am pretty certain he likes me. I’m too scared to say much more than that though. That fits well. Kelsey Edmundson, coward.