Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart (17 page)

“Because you were kind to an old lady, of course.”

“Yes, well, in any case, I don’t think I’m the best person to help you decide what you should do with the manuscript. If you don’t think you’re up to it, the job really should fall to Eleanor.”

Harriet snorted. “Definitely not.”

I returned my teacup and saucer to the tray.

“Would it really be a bad thing to let Eleanor have the manuscript?” I asked. “She is your daughter, after all. And if she wanted to give it to the university—”

Harriet returned her knitting to the bag at her feet. “The truth is, if Eleanor could get her hands on the manuscript, she ’d have it sold before you could say ‘Bob’s your uncle.’”

“Sell it?” My fingers tightened on the pages in my lap.

“It would fetch quite a good price, I imagine. Enough for Eleanor to give up teaching and work on her own writing.”

“But if you asked her not to…”

“Children are a tricky business, Claire. No matter how one tries to mold them, they come into the world a certain shape. It’s almost impossible to alter certain…aspects, shall we say, of their personalities.”

I thought of my sister and our complicated history. I had often wondered whether we weren’t destined from birth for our particular brand of sisterhood. “I understand. At least I think I do.”

“Eleanor’s very practical. I’m sure that must be a good thing.” Harriet’s eyes grew misty. “Sadly, her practical nature often fails to account for other people’s feelings.”

“She loves you,” I insisted. “Despite your differences.”

“Yes, yes, she does. That’s what makes it so difficult.” Harriet looked up at me, tears in her eyes. “Love complicates things terribly, you know.”

I could only sigh and nod in agreement with her statement.

After that, I helped Harriet clear away the tea things. The small kitchen at the back of the cottage boasted a fine view of the rear garden, but little in the way of modern amenities. Harriet swished the cups and teapot in the ancient sink, and I dried them with a dish towel embossed with pictures of Prince Charles and Lady Diana.

“You said Eleanor wants to sell the manuscript?”

“Yes.”

To someone like James, I realized. A publisher.

“Would that be such a bad thing?” I asked. “After all”—I
paused, wondering how to say what I needed to say in a delicate way—“you may find that the income would be helpful—”

Harriet wrung out the dishcloth and hung it over the faucet. “To pay for my care, you mean.”

I bit my lip. “Yes. Maybe the money could be put into a trust or something. To pay for whatever you need. And what’s left could be given to Jane Austen’s House Museum.” I’d read about the little cottage in Hampshire on the Internet.

“Yes, it could.” But I could see the disappointment in Harriet’s eyes. That look, more than anything else that had happened, hurt.

“If you want it to stay secret,” I said, “then just give it to Mrs. Parrot.”

Harriet rested a hand on the kitchen countertop as if to balance herself.

“The problem with owning something so valuable,” she said, “is that after a while, you become too caught up in it. You lose your perspective.” She looked at me with those piercing blue eyes. “Perhaps it is the right thing to do to let Eleanor have it. Perhaps I’ve been wrong, all these years, to keep it hidden away. That’s why I need you, Claire. To be my conscience for me.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“But do you know what to do?” She patted my arm. “That’s the more difficult bit, isn’t it?”

Her question lay between us, something tangible like a rug or a length of sofa cushion.

“No. I don’t. I don’t know what to do at all.” And not just
with regard to Harriet and her manuscript. I didn’t know what to do about James. I didn’t know what to do about Neil. I didn’t know what to do about Missy. And I certainly didn’t know what to do about me.

“Ah, then, perhaps it might help to read some more of the manuscript.”

“There’s more? I thought you said you didn’t know where the missing bits were.”

“I’m sure I can turn up something else by tomorrow.”

Tomorrow
. The word seemed somehow comforting, as if knowing that Harriet would be waiting for me made my troubles a little easier to deal with.

“Tomorrow, then,” I said as I hung the dish towel on a little hook beside the sink. I would have wanted to come back to see her in any case, manuscript notwithstanding. “About this time?”

“That would be lovely.” Harriet ushered me from the kitchen, and I went with a surprising amount of reluctance to the front door.

“Thank you again for the tea,” I said as I left the house. Harriet stood framed in the blue doorway, her smile as soft as the afternoon breeze.

“It was my pleasure,” she said, and then the door closed and I was left standing on the path that led from the door to the garden gate.

I turned and let myself out of the gate onto the sidewalk beyond, and then I paused. Back to Christ Church? Or away from it and the problems that awaited me there?

Yet one more decision that I felt ill-equipped to deal with. Denial, though, was often an excellent short-term strategy, so I turned my back toward Christ Church and set off in the opposite direction.

I hadn’t gone far before I realized that someone was following me. I turned and saw an older woman with bright orange hair and a wildly flowered dress marching along a few yards behind me.

I knew without a doubt who it was. I waited as she approached me and then came to a stop a few feet away.

“Mrs. Parrot.” I nodded. “I assume you want to speak to me?”

The older woman drew herself up to her full height, which was considerable.

“Yes, Miss Prescott, I did want a word.” She peered at me with disapproval. “I’m afraid my friend Harriet isn’t thinking very clearly. I want to make sure she doesn’t make a mistake. An enormous mistake.”

“As big a mistake as sneaking into Christ Church to leave me a note? Or as big a mistake as trashing my room, looking for the manuscript?” The best way to deal with a bully, I’d always been told, was to go on the offensive.

Mrs. Parrot’s eyebrows arched. “I hardly a think a note is a mistake. As to the other,” she said with a huff. “I never—”

“I’m sure we both want the same thing.” I steeled myself to go toe-to-toe with this woman. Yes, she was intimidating, but I was no pushover either. “We want what’s best for Harriet.”

“Of course.” She sniffed. “But the manuscript—”

“Belongs to Harriet.” I hitched my purse strap higher on my shoulder. “And it is her right to decide what will happen to it.”

Mrs. Parrot took a step toward me. “She agreed, when she joined the Formidables, to keep the existence of
First Impressions
a secret.”

“And now she may want to unagree,” I shot back.

“She’s easily influenced now.” Was that real concern in Mrs. Parrot’s eyes? “Please, Miss Prescott, help her to do the right thing.”

“You can be sure that I will.”

We stood there toe-to-toe for a long moment, our gazes locked. Finally she stepped back.

“Very well. As long as you understand what is at stake here.”

I nodded. “I’m quite aware what’s at stake. An elderly woman’s peace and comfort.”

Mrs. Parrot pursed her lips. “Quite so.”

She spun on one heel and marched away, and I let out a sigh of relief.

There was definitely a reason they called themselves the Formidables, and I was very glad to see the back of Mrs. Parrot. With a little luck, maybe I could avoid the front of her in the future as well.

O
n Thursday morning, I once again avoided the Hall at breakfast time and paid a return visit to my accommodating Starbucks barista. Much more of this, and I would make prowling Oxford early a habit. I was leaving Starbucks, mocha in hand, when I saw James leaning against a bus stop ten feet away. He was obviously waiting for me.

“Good morning.” I tried to remember to breathe and to close my mouth rather than letting my jaw sag at the stubble that framed his square jaw. He didn’t look as if he’d slept at all, which, irritatingly enough, made him look all the more attractive. “What are you doing here?”

He pushed away from the bus shelter and stepped toward me. “I followed you.”

“That’s a little spooky.” Only that wasn’t the right word for it, really.
Thrilling
would have been more appropriate. I
couldn’t look at him without remembering that kiss and its devastating effect on me. As well as the devastating effect of his rejection immediately afterward.

He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I wanted to apologize, but I couldn’t find you after class yesterday. Where were you?”

I twisted the cup of coffee in my hands and tried to play it cool. “I did some sightseeing. Just knocked around Oxford for a bit.”

In truth, after my encounter with Mrs. Parrot, I had walked several miles, not really sure of my destination and not paying that much attention to my surroundings. I had stayed close to the river so that I could find my way back. As much as I had walked, I hadn’t been able to escape my problems. Still, my solitary ramble had given me a great deal of time to think.

“You were avoiding me, weren’t you?” He took a step closer. He was wearing a button-down shirt, the cuffs rolled back to reveal an expensive gold wristwatch.

“No, no. Of course not.” Heat flooded my face, and some self-destructive impulse drove the next words out of my mouth. “Actually, yes, I was. Avoiding you, I mean.”

I stepped around him and walked down the pavement. It was all I could do not to break out into a jog. Or preferably a sprint. I couldn’t have outrun him, though, and in any case he caught up to me within thirty feet.

“Claire, wait. Please.”

I stopped, and he swung around in front of me again. “Look, I need to explain some things.”

His dark eyes were clouded with some strong emotion. That sight kept me frozen to the spot for a long moment. “Like what kind of things?” I took a drink of my mocha to cover the fact that my hand was shaking.

“About the other night—”

“It’s not a big deal. Just a little summer romance.”

I hated to even use the R word, but maybe my assertion would clear the air, the decks, my brain. If he was like most men, he would run in the other direction at the mention of romance, and I would realize how futile any hopes I’d had of him had been.

He shook his head. “It’s more than a summer fling. You know it is.”

“I think you made your feelings pretty clear the other night.” I wasn’t the kind of woman who had a lot of experience with the opposite sex, especially not with men who were “players.”

He took my free hand in his, and once again I thought I might melt at his touch. It really wasn’t fair, this immediate and devastating effect he could perpetrate simply by holding my hand.

“Claire, I admit that I panicked. I’m not used to meeting women like you.”

I couldn’t even bring myself to ask what he meant by that,
because I was pretty sure I knew. Women who weren’t sophisticated. Women who didn’t know the difference between flirtation and relationship. Women who wore their hearts pinned firmly to their sleeves.

“Like I said, it’s not a big deal. And it definitely wasn’t worth getting up early just so you could stalk me at Starbucks.”

His fingers squeezed mine. “I disagree.” He turned then, in the direction of Christ Church, but he kept my hand in his as he started walking. I had to start walking too, or risk being towed along behind him like a barge on the Thames. Thank goodness my mocha had a lid on it.

“James—”

“Just keep moving and listen,” he said.

I would like to say that I resisted. That I told him where to get off, in polite terms of course, and then returned to Christ Church on my own. But I was walking hand in hand through the streets of Oxford with a man who was probably the closest living thing to Mr. Darcy I would ever find. Resistance was futile.

“All right. Fine, then.” I tried to sound annoyed instead of thrilled.

“You were right,” he said, still striding along so that I had to walk faster than normal to keep up with him. “I behaved like a jerk the other night. But you caught me off guard.”