Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart (2 page)

Whoever he was, he was the handsomest man I’d ever seen in my life. He took two steps into the room and surveyed the paltry occupants. An older gentleman, probably retired, sat by the door. A young man with floppy blond hair and white ear-buds lounged in the corner. And then there was me.

To my surprise, he crossed the room until he was standing next to my table. Clearly I was the least of the three evils in the room.

“Do you mind if I join you?” he asked.

I slid my cup and saucer over. “Sure. I mean, no. I mean…” I stopped before I could embarrass myself further.

“I’ll take that for a yes.” At first I thought he was teasing me, but he didn’t smile. He lowered himself from his considerable height into the chair next to me, and my heartbeat accelerated even more. “James Beaufort,” he said with a nod.

“I’m Claire Prescott.” I didn’t know whether to extend my hand, but since he didn’t offer me his, I gripped the handle of my cup instead.

He glanced around the room. “Not much of a crowd so far.”

“No.” Now my tongue had as many knots in it as my stomach did. Why in the world had he chosen to sit by me? I tried to think of some brilliant conversation starter. “The tea’s very good, though.” Okay, not exactly brilliant.

He glanced down at his cup. “Too strong.” He dismissed my opinion, and I cringed. He wasn’t the most pleasant man I’d ever met. A shame, given that he had the face of an angel beneath that dark, wavy hair.

“Have you been to Oxford before?” I asked. The question was the one surefire opening gambit I’d thought up on the plane.

“No, I haven’t.”

A dead end. “Me either.”

After that fruitless exchange, silence descended, snuffing out any hope of a conversational flame. I sipped my tea,
even though it burned my tongue, and wondered why in the world he didn’t get up and go find more interesting company. In desperation, I turned back to the
Joining Notes
and started to reread them.

“Where are you from?”

His voice startled me. Fortunately my cup wasn’t quite so full anymore.

“Kansas City.” Even as I answered, I knew how boring it sounded. Most people thought of my hometown as a stockyard that happened to have some houses in the vicinity, when in reality it was a lovely place, with wide, curving boulevards and elegant fountains. “What about you?”

“Manhattan.” Not New York City. Much more specific. And much more expensive.

“What do you do there?” If I glanced at the sheet on the table in front of me, I could find out for myself, but at least it gave us something to talk about.

“I’m in publishing. Family business.”

“Oh.” Ivy League, no doubt. Probably only read Nobel Prize-winning literature and biographies that could double as doorstops.

I lowered my gaze again. Just looking at him made my teeth hurt, he was so yummy. How unfair that such a beautiful man couldn’t be more pleasant.

“Which seminar are you attending?” I asked. There were six or seven occurring simultaneously during the week. I pegged him for continental philosophy. Or the ruins of Roman Britain.

“Pride and Prejudice.”
He didn’t look too happy about it. My eyebrows shot up. “Me too.”

He scanned the list of participants. “I don’t see your name here.”

“It ’s not, actually. I’m taking my sister’s place. I’m taking notes for her and presenting the paper she wrote.”

“She’s ill?” The lines around his mouth creased in concern, which made him seem a bit more human.

“Not exactly. She ’s expecting a baby. Minor complications, thank goodness, but she can’t travel anymore.”

“Are you a Darcy fanatic too, like most Austen fans?” He arched one eyebrow.

“Fanatic? Hardly.” I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. “But my sister is a true believer.” I raised my cup to my lips and took a sip. “You?”

“Darcy’s not my type.” His expression was so impassive that I couldn’t tell whether he was joking or serious. “But Jane Austen books are selling so well—we can’t afford to ignore them.”

“So you’re hoping to develop a sudden affection for all things Austen and make a fortune off of it?”

“At least an understanding of her appeal.” He swirled the tea in his cup as if considering whether it was worth his while to drink any more of it.

As suddenly as James had appeared in the doorway, another figure materialized next to my chair.

“Ms. Prescott?” The young woman from the registration desk. “There you are. Your luggage has been taken to your room, if you’d like to unpack.”

“Thank you. I would.” Salvation in the form of a perky girl with more holes in her body than anyone really needed. I turned to James. “If you’ll excuse me?”

“Of course.” He rose when I did. For a rude guy, he could exhibit decent manners when he tried. “I’ll see you later.”

I nodded and followed the young woman out of the Junior Commons, not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed at my escape. I wasn’t used to attracting notice from a man like that, and I certainly wasn’t accustomed to having that kind of spine-tingling response to a guy. James Beaufort was way out of my league, but at least the scenery at the seminar was going to be as gorgeous as the Oxfordshire countryside.

A wiser woman would have sensed at that moment that trouble was coming. A more experienced woman would have guarded her secrets—and her heart. Sadly, as I made my way up the four flights of stairs to my room, I was neither wise nor experienced.

By the end of the week I would be.

T
he Great Hall at Christ Church was straight out of a Harry Potter movie. Literally. They’d actually done some filming there. But the dining hall didn’t need digital special effects to impress and overwhelm me. I took two steps inside the door and stopped, trying to keep my jaw from hanging open.

Portraits of prime ministers, statesmen, literary giants, and other assorted famous alumni lined the wood-paneled walls. Massive fireplaces punctuated the longer walls, and above the dark paneling, huge expanses of stone supported the high arches and the mullioned windows I’d noticed when I first entered the quad. High above, the ceiling arched like a cathedral, heavily beamed and dotted with gilt ornaments. At the far end of the room, a raised dais, covered with a red carpet, held a long table and substantial chairs.

The long rows of tables in front of me were topped with snowy linen and dotted with small, elegant lamps. If I hadn’t been starving, I would have turned tail and run. Instead, I kept breathing, moving forward, until I spotted the elderly man who had been in the Junior Common Room earlier.

“May I join you?” I forced myself to say. I knew from experience that I got along very well with older people. For one thing, I would just as soon listen as talk, and they usually had lots of interesting stories to tell.

“Please do.” The man nodded to the seat across from him.

“Thank you.” I slid into the chair. “I’m Claire. Claire Prescott.”

“Martin Blakely.”

I shook his extended hand, careful to offer no more than a slight squeeze to the fingers crumpled from arthritis. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Martin smiled at me with such kindness that I was able to relax for a moment. “I noticed you in the Common Room this morning,” he said. “Which seminar are you enrolled in?”

“Pride and Prejudice
. What about you?”

“The same.” He nodded with approval. “We’ll be classmates, then.”

Thank goodness. I needed for the Jane Austen seminar to be full of safe elderly people like Martin, not arrogant, handsome distractions like James Beaufort.

“I’m afraid I’ll be the slowest one in the class,” I said in the lightest tone I could manage. “I’m new to Jane Austen.”

Martin nodded soberly, but there was a twinkle in his eye. “So you’re not hopelessly in love with Mr. Darcy yet?”

I shook my head a little too emphatically. “No. That would be my sister, not me.” But even as I said the words, I was aware of forcing the smile on my face. “Besides, I think my boyfriend might object.”

Boyfriend
is an odd word, really, for describing the romantic partner of a woman over thirty years of age, but that’s what Neil was. With the emphasis, I sometimes thought, on the
boy
half of the equation.

“He let you out of the country without him?” Martin shook his head and made a
tut-tutting
kind of noise, but I could tell he was teasing me.

“To tell the truth, I’m not sure he’ll notice that I’ve left. It’s baseball season.” I tried to maintain that same light tone, but now the strain in my voice was obvious.

“A sports nut, is he?” Martin eyed me thoughtfully, and I tried not to squirm.

“We ’re pretty casual, actually,” I said and took a big gulp from the crystal goblet in front of me. “It’s no big deal.”

How on earth had the conversation taken such a serious turn?

Martin reached across the table and patted my hand where it rested next to the goblet I’d just drained. “If he comes to his senses, Claire, then he’s the right one for you. If not…” He trailed off, looking around the room. “Well, if not, perhaps you might find your own Mr. Darcy right here in Oxford.”

I frowned. “I don’t see the appeal. He’s rude, arrogant, and unpleasant most of the time. My sister thinks he’s the ultimate romantic hero, but I just don’t get it.”

I broke off as a shadow loomed at my right hand. I looked up, and there was my nemesis himself.

“May I?” James nodded at the chair next to me.

“Sure,” I said, although I wasn’t sure at all. In fact, I would have preferred him to choose a seat at the opposite end of the massive dining hall. The mere fact of his presence had sent my pulse racing again, and my stomach twisted until I was sure I’d never have room for even the first bite of my meal.

Reluctantly I introduced him to Martin, and James took his seat beside me. The nerves on the right side of my body stood at attention, alert to his every movement. That sensitivity left me with a clenched jaw and very little to say for myself. I had never been so aware of another human being. Why did it have to be someone I didn’t even particularly like?

Shortly after that, the meal was served. Literally served by waiters. I’d never imagined anything like that in a college refectory. The handful of times I’d been to visit Missy at the University of Missouri, we’d eaten from the salad bar in her dorm’s dining hall. Now I was being served food that looked like a photograph from a cooking magazine, in the most exquisite setting I could ever have imagined.

“You didn’t tell me,” James said to me, “what you do for a living.”

I choked on the entrée and coughed for several long
moments. The blood rushed to my face, not because of physical distress, but out of pure embarrassment. What was I supposed to say in front of all of these well-educated, successful people? Certainly not the truth.

Instead, I blurted out an answer that took me by surprise. “I’m a pediatrician.” The words slipped out easy as pie, to my great shame.

“So it’s Dr. Prescott?” James said, his expression half disbelief, and I bristled.

“Yes.” I resisted the urge to offer some explanation that would only make me sound like the liar I was.

“My son is an internist,” Martin said with a disapproving glance at James. “A
single
internist,” he added with another of his smiles. “Maybe—”

“What made you go into pediatrics?” James interrupted Martin’s matchmaking.

“I guess I just love children.” It was a lame, bad beauty-pageant answer, but somehow when this man was near me, my IQ dropped a good twenty points.

Martin nodded with approval, James gave me another assessing look, and I changed the subject before either of them could ask another question about my faux career.

“Have you been walking along the river yet?” I asked Martin. “I can see part of it from my window, but I haven’t ventured out.” I refused to be intimidated by either Oxford or James Beaufort. Well, okay, perhaps
refused
wasn’t quite the right word. Both the setting and the company intimidated me.

“I arrived a few days early,” Martin said. “To do a bit of exploring.” He winked at me. “Or uncover a few secrets.”

James frowned, and I returned Martin’s smile. “That gives me something to look forward to, then. Where are the best places to uncover some of these secrets?”

Martin paused, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and then gave me a thoughtful look. “Well, along the river, certainly. And perhaps the Botanic Garden. Very beautiful and relaxing. And Blackwell’s bookstore, of course …”

“I’ll put them all on my list,” I said. One waiter appeared to remove our plates, and another set dessert in front of us—some sort of combination of cake and custard that promised to be a mother lode of sugar and fat. I sighed with pleasure.

James gave me an austere look, but Martin picked up his spoon and nodded his approval. “All manner of sweet sins fall under the category of ‘pudding.’ It’s one of my favorite things about England.”

After a few bites, I had to agree. Martin’s easy conversation, the excellent food, and the extraordinary atmosphere lulled me into a sense of peace that I hadn’t recovered since my boss called me into his office two weeks before and informed me that my services were no longer required. Apparently it was much more cost-efficient to replace me, a seasoned office manager, with a twenty-two-year-old who had just graduated from college. I took another bite of the “pudding” and pushed away thoughts of home.