Jane Austen Made Me Do It (22 page)

Okay, he could be a complete weirdo. Or a serial killer. Or maybe just someone a little too into that strange role-playing or LARPing or whatever it was called. But he reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty-pound note, which he held out to me.

“Um, thanks.” My accent slipped as I accepted the money and dropped it into the small basket I carried over my arm. What could I do but play along? I rummaged for change, but he put a hand over mine.

“It's not necessary.”

“But—” I looked up at him and tried to decide if he was too good to be true.

“Honestly.” He flashed that crooked smile. “I'm sure it will be well worth it.”

I was twenty-three. Too old to blush like I was in junior high and the cutest boy in school had just confessed to liking me.

“Thank you.” I hitched the basket higher on my arm, cleared my throat, and began.

“Jane Austen was born in 1775 in Hampshire, about sixty
miles southwest of London.…” I'd memorized my facts so well that I said them automatically, filling him in on her family, her early years, and her preference for country life. “Jane had mixed feelings about the city, but she did enjoy the theaters and the shops when she came to London.”

He nodded. “I often feel the same way.” Then he smiled again. Slightly crooked but totally charming.

Oh, dear.

“When Jane visited London as a girl,” I continued, “she stayed with her aunt and cousin. Later, when she was an adult, she stayed with her brother, Henry.”

I started to move along the front of the building, and as I did, my erstwhile Mr. Darcy held out his arm, offering me his escort. I froze, uncertain whether to play along, but then I looked up at him and our gazes met.

I had learned over the course of the past year to read a lot in people's eyes. I'd seen the grief and sorrow in my father's after the financial markets had tumbled into oblivion. I'd seen the frustration in my mother's gaze when my father walked out, unable to deal with his failure. And I'd seen the scorn in the eyes of some of my British classmates who'd lumped me in the category of rich American whose Daddy paid her credit card bills. What I saw in my Mr. Darcy's eyes at that moment told me a lot. Maybe I should have hesitated more, but I didn't. I reached up to curl my free hand around his offered arm. Beneath my fingertips, he felt solid. Strong. Dependable. Real.

“If we turn right just ahead,” I said, “we'll see the premises of John Murray, one of Jane Austen's publishers.”

He nodded without saying anything and we moved along the pavement under the shelter of the building's enormous portico.

“Jane dreamed of finding success as an author, but her first
effort at publication was a disaster. With her brother's help, she sold the rights to an early novel for ten pounds, but the publisher never produced the work. When her brother pressed the man, he demanded the same amount to return the manuscript. I'm sure Jane must have been heartbroken. But she then sold
Sense and Sensibility
and it was published first in 1811, followed by
Pride and Prejudice
two years later. With the help of her brother, she arranged for the publication of
Emma
by John Murray, whose offices were just here.”

We came to a stop in the middle of a row of Palladian townhouses. The steps and doorway were like all the others. “We could almost imagine Jane and her brother pulling up just here, in a carriage”—I waved toward the road where a black cab whizzed by—“to pay a call on Mr. Murray to discuss business or make corrections to a manuscript.”

My Mr. Darcy nodded. “She must have enjoyed the wealth that her writing brought her.”

I shook my head. “Oh, no. She really earned very little on her novels. It was one of the great disappointments of her life.”

We exchanged rueful smiles and my heart beat a little faster in my chest. For Mr. Darcy, he might not be terribly informed about the woman who had created him, but he was certainly sympathetic to her plight.

I would never have imagined that my two-hour tour could go so quickly. We made our way through the back streets of Mayfair, pausing here and there at a blue plaque or a pub important in Austen's day. We stopped in front of a Regency townhouse that was almost unaltered from its original state, and I gave him the complete rundown on life in the city. I had been chattering on for a while when I looked up at my companion. His eyes had glazed over.

“If you'll follow me, we'll see the only plaque in London commemorating Jane Austen.” I stepped toward the curb, but he reached out to grab my arm.

“What about a cup of tea instead? There's a place just around the corner.”

“But the tour—”

“We can continue it. Just a short break.”

I looked up at him and hesitated. My professionalism was at stake here. Well, not that I was an actual professional guide or anything. But it was the principle of the thing.

Then he smiled. My knees went all warm and liquid, much like that cup of tea he was suggesting.

“Maybe just for a minute.”

And that was how I found myself being hustled into a fancy tea shop while dressed in full Jane Austen regalia. Heads turned, of course, but we got as many admiring looks as we did headshakes. Well, my Mr. Darcy did anyway.

He settled us into an out-of-the-way corner, and I untied the ribbons of my bonnet and lifted it off with a sigh of relief. I don't know how women in Jane Austen's day managed to tolerate those torture devices.

“You have beautiful hair,” Mr. Darcy said. “It's not brown, but it's not black either.”

“My mother calls it ‘nondescript.' ” My response was automatic, but the moment I said it, I wished I hadn't. I shrugged. “She's blonde.”

“It's the color of coffee,” he said, and he lifted a hand, as if he were about to reach out and touch one of the ringlets I'd left on either side of my face.

“Dingy brown, then.” I decided to keep my fake accent going. He might be charming. He might be handsome. He might even
claim to be Mr. Darcy. But he was still a paying customer, not a suitor.

He paused and looked at me for a long moment. I fought the urge to squirm in my chair. I wasn't used to such close scrutiny. I'd kept to myself for the most part since I'd arrived in England. Classes. A sandwich and a cup of tea—Earl Gray, two sugars—in the student center every day. My few hours in the bookstore, and then there was the laundromat, of course. But as far as a social life … Well, I'd had too much on my mind. Too many regrets to ponder. Too many ways to devise for pinching pennies and stretching pounds.

“You look sad.” This time when he reached out, he did touch me, gently, with a fingertip that barely grazed my jaw. “A damsel in distress.”

I hadn't told anyone how much distress. Or was it that there hadn't been anyone to tell? My mom had all but ordered me to stay home. She'd assured me she wouldn't give me a penny to go running off to England. She thought she was teaching me the value of a dollar. I thought that she just wanted me to share her misery.

“Fine. Go, then,” she'd said. “But find yourself a rich Brit. Like that Mr. Darcy. Only make sure he can hang on to his money. Make sure he's not like your father.” My father had retreated to his hunting cabin in North Carolina. He hadn't even called to say good-bye before I'd left.

“I'm perfectly fine,” I said to Mr. Darcy—a little briskly, so I softened the words with a smile. “Really.”

He shook his head. “You are a heroine in need of a hero.”

I laughed, and even though we were hidden in the corner, my laugh drew attention. It was a cross between a hen's cackle and a donkey's bray and had been the bane of my existence as long as I
could remember. I quickly swallowed the sound and sipped my tea.

“What gives you that idea?”

“The worry lines. Here.” He raised his hand and ran his thumb lightly across my forehead. “And the frown lines, here.” He dabbed each side of my mouth.

“Gee, thanks.” I abandoned the pretense of the accent altogether. “I'm too young for Botox.”

He sipped his tea in a way that was well mannered without being uptight. “Perhaps I can help.”

Now I wasn't sure if he was hitting on me or just being nice, but really, how was I supposed to judge, given the fact that we were sitting in a fancy London patisserie wearing Regency costumes as if it were the most ordinary thing ever?

“Not unless you really are Mr. Darcy. I could use a few of your twenty thousand pounds a year.”

When I looked at him, he was smiling again. He really needed to stop doing that. Before it had made my knees weak. Now it caused my heart to thump in my chest at an alarming rate.

I glanced at the clock on the wall. “We should move on,” I said. The tea hadn't soothed my nerves. “Covent Garden awaits.”

“Of course.” He nodded, reached in his pocket, and settled the bill with another twenty-pound note. Then he stood up.

“Don't you want to wait for your change?” I asked. I couldn't help but do the mental math. I knew exactly how many loads of laundry a tip that size could do.

He bowed again. “I wouldn't dream of imposing upon your time.” He waved a hand toward the door and I led him out of the tea shop.

We finished our tour on Henrietta Street, outside the building where Jane Austen's brother had lived. Since she'd never been an official resident of London, she didn't have a blue
plaque, but there was a green one here, put up by the City of Westminster.

“And that's all, I'm afraid,” I said as I finished telling him how Jane Austen had died tragically young. It didn't make for a very peppy ending to the tour, but real life wasn't as conducive as a novel to a happy ending. At least, that's what I'd learned over the course of the previous few months.

“You're very well informed,” he said with a wry smile. “And very charming.”

“Thank you. Listen, I'm sorry about sharing my personal life with you. You were very kind to buy me a cup of tea. I didn't mean to dump on you.”

He reached out and took my hand in his. “No apologies necessary. It was my pleasure.”

I wanted to ask him who he really was. Why he'd turned up in that outfit. What he really wanted. But even more, I didn't want to break the spell. The afternoon had been an episode out of time. It was a memory I would always cherish. That magical day when Mr. Darcy had shown up, at least for a little while, and made the awful things in my life a little more bearable.

“Good-bye,” he said. He bowed over my hand once more.

“Good-bye.”

I had left little flyers about my tour all over London for the last three weeks. He could have found one anywhere. Or he might simply have stumbled over my homemade website. However he had found me, I could only be grateful. Still, as I turned toward the Tube station, my heart felt as heavy as my feet.

If only real life could be like one of Jane Austen's novels.

Class on Monday morning lacked its usual luster. Normally I would have been transported out of my worries by the vigorous discussion of Austen's use of irony in her novels. After my experience
the day before, though, I wasn't quite so easily engaged. Or pleased. A dry, academic discussion wasn't enough. Not when I'd spent two hours the day before with the living, breathing embodiment of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.

Why had I let him get away? I could have gone after him, when we'd parted there at the edge of Covent Garden. Instead, I'd watched him disappear into the crowd and done nothing.

Because I'd been afraid. It was so much easier to be brave in a fantasy than to be brave in real life.

Despite the costume and the role-playing, my Mr. Darcy hadn't seemed like a nutcase. No, he'd been charming and kind. Familiar, somehow, although I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Maybe he'd been an actor, preparing for a part in some “bonnet and bustle” production, as they called them over here.

Whoever he was, he was gone now.

You could show up again next Sunday
, a voice whispered in my head.
He might turn up again, too
.

But if he'd wanted to see me again, he would have asked for my number. Or, if he wanted to stay in character, my address. Instead, he hadn't even asked my last name.

I found myself at the door to the student café and followed the crowd inside. Maybe a cup of tea. Or a cup of coffee.
Like my hair
. I hadn't been sure at the time that it was a compliment. Now, surrounded by the comforting smell of roasting beans, I decided that it was.

The café was comprised of several stations—hot food, sandwiches, and of course, the tea and coffee bar. I joined the queue, searching the bottom of my purse for spare change. My fingers closed around the crumpled twenty-pound note. I'd shoved it in my purse on my mad dash out the door that morning. I hadn't meant to spend it. It was a keepsake.

Who was I trying to fool? There was no Mr. Darcy in real life.
I had tuition to scrape together. Rent to pay. If I couldn't find another part-time job, I'd be walking across London every day because I couldn't come up with bus fare.

I couldn't afford to be sentimental anymore. I unfolded the note just as the customer in front of me stepped aside.

I looked across the counter. The tea and coffee guy was tall. Brown hair, brown eyes. His nose was a little hooked, but not as crooked as his smile.

“Earl Grey?” he asked. “Two sugars?”

“But—” I'd stopped here every day for weeks after class. How many times had he handed me a paper cup full of my favorite beverage?

I glanced at his nametag.
Ian
.

The guy behind me groaned. “C'mon, love. We haven't got all day.”

Ian grinned. “That will be one pound fifty.”

I held out the twenty-pound note without thinking. He took it, then smoothed it between his fingers. “You haven't got anything smaller?” he asked.