Undressing Mr. Darcy (7 page)

“Good idea,” said Chase.

“Excuse me?” the bonnet maker asked.

“You’re in good hands,” Chase reassured the woman.

“We can’t alert police yet,” Vanessa said. “Technically she’s of age, and she’s only been gone an hour. It also sounds as if she went willingly—”

“Oh, I’m sure she went willingly. She’s just like Lydia Bennet and she’ll be the death of me!”

That reference was lost on Vanessa. Her phone pinged. “It looks like she just checked in at the Millennium Park fountains.”

“She’s wearing an Empire-waist day gown,” the bonnet maker said. “She should stand out in a crowd.”

Aunt Ella and Paul broke into the tiny circle.

“So nice to see you, Chase,” Aunt Ella said.

Chase beamed and hugged her. “And you. Only not under these circumstances.”

Aunt Ella took the bonnet maker’s hand in hers. “Not to worry, Anne. We’ll have Emily back in no time.”

“Could someone please find her for me? I don’t even know my way around Chicago,” Anne said.

Aunt Ella turned to Vanessa as she rubbed her pearls between her fingers. “We’ll take care of it, Anne. She won’t get into trouble like last year.”

Vanessa e-mailed photos of Emily to Chase’s phone. “Chase, do you have time to help out with this?”

“I’m happy to help. I’ll start off at the fountains. I’ll call as soon as I know something.” He pivoted to leave.

“Wait.” Aunt Ella raised her hand to stop him. “Vanessa, I want you to go with him. It’s only proper when a teenage girl is involved.”

“But—what about Julian?” Vanessa asked.

“Julian is fine. This takes precedence. We just passed by his photo session and there are enough women in line to last at least an hour. Kai is in charge. And I see Sherry has stepped in to help you with him.”

“You know Sherry?” Vanessa asked as she stepped backward, toward the Emporium’s exit.

“I know all of the Chicago members. Sherry often does theatrical readings for us. She’s very talented that way. She’s a gem.”

Vanessa continued walking backward, checking her phone for signs of Emily. “Oh!” She brushed against something and when she turned around, she saw it happened to be a little boy dressed in gold-buckled shoes, knickers, a waistcoat, and shirt. “I’m so sorry!” The boy ran back to his mother at the Jane Austen Books stall. “Is he okay?”

“He’s fine.” His mother picked him up.

Chase tipped his tricorn hat to the boy, who giggled.

“Oh, good!” She couldn’t help but smile at this young Austen inductee, attending the national meeting
in costume
, no less.

“We’d better go,” Vanessa said to Chase as she looked back at the Emporium, a world with one ballroom-slippered foot in the Regency and one here in the twenty-first century.

It wasn’t until they got out of the cab in the searing sunshine of Millennium Park that she remembered she was with a costumed pirate.

They hustled to the Bean, a mirrorlike chrome sculpture, polished to a high shine, in the shape of a kidney bean, and nearly three stories high. Officially the sculpture was known as
Cloud Gate
.

As they passed it, she caught a glimpse of Chase behind her in the reflection, his honeyed skin as tanned as if he really were a pirate. People stopped to gape at him, but he didn’t flinch.

Vanessa leaned over the thick concrete rail and scanned the crowd on the sidewalks and then the Crown Fountain.

“I think we need to split up,” Chase said. “You start on the north side of the fountains and I’ll hit the south.”

The modern fountains, great blocks of streaming water with a wading pool between them, had attracted a throng of people who had taken their shoes off and walked barefoot in the water on this warm September day. Then she saw a blue gown with a gray bonnet hanging from the back of it, and a girl lifting her hemline as she stepped into the water.

“That’s got to be her.” Vanessa grabbed Chase’s hand just as he began to step away.

Why did she do that? She let his hand go.

“Come on! I have a plan.” Her plan included making sure this girl was Emily, because it had been a while since she’d seen her. She slid her sunglasses on and hurried to the wading pool.

Once there, she kicked off her shoes and headed right in toward the girl, who was chatting with a guy in a Batman costume, except for his bare feet.

Vanessa yanked her phone out of her bag. “Excuse me, are you two here for Hero Con and the Jane Austen Society conference?”

They looked at her askance.

“Can I take a couple of shots of you for the press? One of the Chicago papers will probably run the shot online.”

Yes, it was Emily.

“Oh, no!” Emily said, not recognizing Vanessa. “No, thank you.” She turned her back and dropped her gown and the hemline got wet. She yanked it out of the water.

Vanessa flagged Chase. Now to lure the teen in.

“Excuse me again?” she said to the young, unlikely-looking pair. “Would you take a picture of us, then? We’re here for the conferences, too.”

Emily rolled her eyes. “Okay.”

Chase splashed in next to Vanessa.

“This nice couple is going to take a picture of us, honey,” Vanessa said. She stood next to Chase and smiled, racking her brain as to how to lure the teenager back without offending her.

“Oh, good!” Chase said. “We never get enough pictures of us as a couple, do we?” Without hesitation he put his arm around her waist and pulled her close, so they stood hip to hip. Then he patted her ass!

“Dar-ling!” Vanessa said as she wriggled away from him.

“What?”

“You know what! We don’t want to embarrass ourselves.”

“Don’t be silly, sweetheart,” Chase said. “An old couple like us, embarrassed? Come on.” And he kissed her on the lips! She swore she could taste coconut.

“Listen,” he said to Emily and Batman, “why don’t you let us spring for a cab back to the hotel? It’ll save you seven bucks. The next session starts in fifteen minutes, and something tells me that Batman wouldn’t want to miss the martial arts demos, would you?”

Vanessa stepped closer to Emily and took off her sunglasses. “I think we’d better come clean. It’s me, Vanessa Roberts? My aunt is Ella Morgan?”

“Vanessa?” Emily asked. She raised her voice. “My mother sent you two after me, didn’t she? She’s always so overprotective and freaking out and stuff!”

“Well, of course she is,” Chase said. “You’re a beautiful young woman.”

Emily’s face softened. “Thank you.”

“And you’ve run off with a Dark Knight.” He smirked.

“We didn’t run off . . .” Emily’s voice trailed.

“I know, but you’d better explain that to her,” he said. “She’s worried sick about you. We’d better hustle. Let’s go introduce your mother to the Caped Crusader.” He walked toward the fountain’s edge, dried his tanned feet, and pulled on his buccaneer boots. To Vanessa’s surprise, Emily and Batman followed him. He was like the Pied Piper of renegade young adults.

Vanessa never thought she’d be in the backseat of a cab between Batman and a young Bennet sister, with a pirate riding shotgun in the front.

The three of them sat in awkward silence in the back until she complimented Emily on her ring, a familiar and beautiful, if simple, gold band with a turquoise-colored stone. Her aunt had a ring just like it.

“Thank you,” Emily said. “It’s a replica of the only Jane Austen ring that’s ever been auctioned to the public. The original had been in the family for generations, passed down from Cassandra—you know, her sister? But someone from the family offered it up for auction at Sotheby’s not too long ago. Maybe you heard about it?”

“No—what happened?”

“Kelly Clarkson won the auction and paid more than two hundred and thirty thousand dollars for the ring.”

“Kelly Clarkson the singer—is a Jane Austen fan?”

Emily furrowed her blond brows. “Lots of people are Austen fans.”

“Yes, yes, I know.”

“The sad thing was she couldn’t even take the ring out of the country, because once she bought it, Britain declared the ring a national treasure.”

“Wow, that’s too bad,” Vanessa said. She wondered why the family would have auctioned it off instead of just passing it down. Hard economic times even for the descendants of Austen?

“Do you have a gown for the ball?” Emily asked, in a non sequitur only a teenager could pull off.

Chase slid open the plastic window between the front and back seats, as if waiting for her answer.

“Well . . .” Vanessa hadn’t planned on going in costume to the ball.

“Is he going as a pirate?” She nodded toward Chase.

Chase turned around. “I
do
hope we’re going. We are, aren’t we? In our costumes? It’ll be a blast.”

Vanessa smiled and took up her phone to text Emily’s mother, letting her know they were on their way. Several e-mails had piled up, reminding her she needed to get back to
#working
and posting for Julian.

“This whole thing reminds me of the story of how Vanessa and I first met,” Chase said. “You’d never believe this, but we were just about your age.”

“You were?” Emily asked.

Vanessa sat back and folded her arms, ready to take in the show. Who
was
this guy?

“She was a senior, I was a junior, and I voted for her for student council president.”

Vanessa had to smile at his improvisation skills.

“How sweet,” Emily said.

“Go on,” Vanessa said. She wanted to see where he was going with this, although she did run for, and win, the election for student council president as a senior. “Tell her which high school we went to.”

“Lincoln.”

Her phone slid from her hands and into her lap. Then again, maybe he knew that through Paul. Or even her LinkedIn profile.

“I asked her out for a burger, but senior girls never date juniors, do they?”

Emily smiled.

That never
happened
, did it? Did they really go to high school together?

“Flash-forward a few decades later, and we meet at a party, but she’s preoccupied with a client on the phone and doesn’t even remember meeting me
or
the fact that we went to high school together.”

“Really?” Emily asked.

Even Batman sighed. “Harsh.”

She remembered the party now, and yes, she remembered him there. Handsome. Funny. But she didn’t remember him from high school. “In my defense, it was code blue for one of my clients while I was at that party,” Vanessa said.

“But, apparently, meeting for the third time was the charm. Here we are!”

“What do you mean ‘here we are’?” Vanessa asked.

“I mean we’re here, at the hotel.” Chase smirked as he paid the cabbie. “Everybody out and straight to the Emporium!”

Who was this man-pirate? She knew the conference hotel well, but which portal had she fallen into with rebellious bonnet makers’ daughters and pirates from her past? Had they really gone to high school together? When would be a good time to tell Aunt Ella about tomorrow’s doctor’s appointment? And what state of undress would Julian be in after being left improperly chaperoned with a roomful of Darcy fans?

Cha
pter 4

M
other and daughter were reunited, Batman was brought into the fold of bonnet makers, and the scandal had been averted. Vanessa made Julian her next priority despite her compulsion to check up on her aunt. She explained to Chase that no, she wouldn’t have time for lunch; she needed to find her client.

Her phone pinged with messages. “Thank you, Chase, for wrangling our wayward young Janeite back. It was very nice of you.” He seemed about to say something, but she left him with that and hurried to the main conference hall, where all that was left on the chair where Julian had been sitting was an untied cravat and a note.

She sent out a post:

MIA: Mr. Darcy. Message me with any sightings. #JASNAagm #UndressingMrDarcy #heissointrouble

When she picked up the cravat, it looked out of place in her black-manicured fingers.

And a
note
?

The note, nothing more than a thick piece of paper folded in half, had hints of his cologne, that musky, citrusy mix. Or was it coming from his cravat? She held the cravat to her nose, and yes, it came from the fabric, and the cologne hit notes of fresh lime. She began to realize that Julian was the first man in a long time that had the power to make her slow down and smell the—cravats—

“Did you find your Mr. Darcy?”

It was Chase who approached from behind her, a corner of his lip upturned in a smile, amused at catching her with her nose in Julian’s cravat! She whisked it away from her face and folded the starched thing as best she could, and the note fluttered to the floor.

Chase picked it up and handed it to her.

“No, I haven’t found him, but he left this note.”

“Seriously?”

“He doesn’t like to break his Mr. Darcy character by using a phone.”

“I see.” Chase smiled.

She could see he thought something snarky, but he didn’t say it.

“I thought you had to find Paul,” Vanessa asked.

“I do, but he’s not picking up. His phone’s probably not getting great reception in here. I figured he’s with your aunt and the Englishman. So. Where is this elusive client of yours?”

She unfolded the note.

Dearest Vanessa,

He had gorgeous penmanship. She’d never seen her name so beautifully written. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen her name handwritten in cursive by any man in a long time.

I have had the pleasure of meeting one of your friends, Lexi Stone, who has kindly invited Sherry, Kai, and me to lunch at the sushi restaurant in the building. She asked your aunt and Paul, but they declined. Please join us at your earliest convenience.

Yours,

Julian

“Is everything all right?” Chase asked.

“Yes,” Vanessa lied. It hadn’t taken Lexi long to find Julian. Then again, maybe Lexi had changed. “But Paul and my aunt aren’t with them.”

She didn’t know what to do first—try to find her aunt or hunt down Julian. She dialed Kai. “Kai? Where is everyone right now?”

“We’re in the lobby having coffee at the coffee bar. Well, Julian’s having tea. Your friend Lexi bought us lunch. Why haven’t I met her before? She’s really something.”

“She’s something, all right. Is Julian with you? And Sherry with the equipment?”

“Yeah. Speaking of which, I have to show you the footage—”

“Yes, I want to edit it and get a teaser uploaded to the sites right away. I’ll be right down.” She eyed her watch. “I’m going down to the lobby first,” she said to Chase as she took long strides toward the elevators.

“I’ll find your aunt and Paul and let you know where they are.”

“Thank you, Chase.” He was a quick thinker, and that was cool!

Once she stepped into the lobby full of creatures from Hero Con and headed for the coffee bar, she had the sense that Lexi had already done some damage.

Sherry made her way toward her through the winged, caped, and antennaed crowd, her ponytail bobbing.

“Guess what?” Sherry asked. Without waiting for an answer she said, “We’re all going to Bath! Bath, England! For the mother of all Jane Austen events: the nine-day Jane Austen Festival! Julian invited us and you’re invited, too! Your friend Lexi was already planning on going, but Julian has given us free passes! Do you have any plans for the week of September fourteenth?”

“I don’t think I’ll be . . . going to Bath,” Vanessa said as her eyes landed on Julian. Was it his height, or something more, that set him above the crowd? “I’ll be working, for one thing. But how nice of him to give everyone free passes.”

The costumed woman next to him turned around and it was none other than Lexi in the guise of Xena, Warrior Princess, complete with a black-haired wig to cover her usual severe red bob, an armored bustier, scrolled wrist guards, studded leather miniskirt, and black fringed boots.

Her costume alone could slay entire nations.

She air-kissed Vanessa.

“Vanessa. Great to see you again.” She eyed Vanessa up and down. “You look fabulous, if a little—plainly dressed for the occasion. But you never did like playing dress-up.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Listen, I’d really love for us to be friends again. Bury the hatchet? I’ve changed, thanks to you.”

It didn’t look like she had changed at all, not even her fashion sense.

Vanessa took a deep breath. “Hello, Lexi.” She had run into her a few times since their fallout but had managed to avoid any real interaction since she’d dissolved their co-owned PR boutique.

They had honed their PR chops together, but Lexi had slept with a client who happened to be a friend of Aunt Ella’s. It turned out he was not the first of their mutual clients she had slept with. Aunt Ella never found out. But all this had happened more than six years ago now, and the details had become fuzzy. Vanessa found it hard to remember exactly what happened, and the anger had long since subsided. They were, after all, just kids in their twenties, and people grow up, don’t they?

Nevertheless, Vanessa had no desire even to befriend her on social media, but she didn’t want to engage in female warrior combat, either. She just wanted to go on without Lexi in her life. A simple request, really. “I’m guessing you’re here for Hero Con and not the Jane Austen Society?”

“Both. I’m here on business for Hero Con first and foremost, though.”

Had Lex Luthor hired her to do damage control? Perhaps she had joined forces with Darth Vader. Or was she sleeping with the Joker
and
Mr. Freeze? Instead Vanessa asked, “Oh? For whom?”

“I’m doing the PR for a graphic novel publishing house promoting a series of books about Xena.”

So, she was putting the “graphic” in “graphic novel.”

“Hero Con has become so huge. Huge! But, you know, not even the young vampires of Hero Con can keep me away from Darcy.” She cast her blue eyes at Julian, who held a ceramic mug of tea from the coffee bar in one hand and a pen in another.

He had attracted a sizable crowd. Fans encircled him, asking him to sign his book, and this meant the show had been a hit.

Vanessa took a shot of him with her phone and posted:

Found: Mr. Darcy. Join the fray in the lobby near the . . . tea bar. #JASNAagm #UndressingMrDarcy

She waited for a natural break in the impromptu signing before talking to him. “I see you’ve met Lexi.”

Julian nodded. “Oh, Lexi, yes. Listen, I do hope you’ll join us all in Bath. It seems to be all settled.”

She smiled. “Thank you for the invitation. But I’m sure you understand I can’t possibly go to Bath—but, more importantly, how did the photo session go?”

“Brilliant! Just brilliant.” He turned from his posse and looked her in the eye. “You’ve done some fabulous work for me.”

“When we have a chance I’ll take you through those new ideas I had.”

“Looking forward to some time alone with you, Vanessa.”

She took a step backward. “Now, don’t let Lexi distract you from interacting with your fans. I’m just going to step aside to post some of the footage of your show. Don’t go anywhere without me, please.”

“Absolutely not.”

Lexi nudged in next to him. “Don’t worry. I won’t let him out of my sight.”

That was exactly what worried her. She had her doubts about leaving Julian with either Lexi or Xena, Warrior Princess, much less a combination of the two. She pulled Sherry aside. “Sherry? Would you be willing to chaperone Mr. Darcy while I’m editing the footage?”

Sherry cracked her bubble gum with a smile. “I am Mrs. D, after all, aren’t I?”

Aunt Ella had been right; Sherry was a gem. “I’ll have to think of some way to compensate you for your work.”

Sherry laughed. “Oh, I’m compensated! It’s hardly
work
.”

A text came in from Chase saying he was having lunch with her aunt and Paul, and all seemed fine with them. Vanessa considered herself lucky to be so suddenly surrounded by reliable, helpful people like Chase and Sherry. Certainly, when it came to men, reliability ranked right up there along with good communication skills, and Chase, so far, seemed to have both. With the whole bonnet maker’s daughter–Batman debacle he had proven himself resourceful, flexible, on time, and on task. He’d make a great business partner, but clearly Paul had already recognized that.

She found Kai at a tall table behind his laptop with headphones on, but she knew him well. Instead of working he was staring at Catwoman sipping a Bloody Mary. Vanessa slid his headphones off. “I didn’t think you liked cats.”

“Now I do.” He laughed.

“Did we get some decent footage?”

“Yeah. I also got the audience reaction, too. Pretty flippin’ awesome.”

“What do you mean the audience reaction?” Vanessa asked.

“Those women were hot for him.”

“That’s exactly what we want!”

“Lots of fans fluttering in that room. Your photo session idea really worked, too.”

“I guess it gave his donations an uptick. Did he announce his book signing and the social media handles?”

“He had Paul do that for him.”

“Okay. Good solution. At least he took my advice in some capacity.”

“Um, I just have to tell you that you and Julian really did a cool thing for your aunt today.”

“What are you talking about, Kai?”

“You weren’t there, but after his show was over, the audience was really into it, I mean, as jazzed as people get at one of these things, but he got them all to calm down, and he said you and he wanted to take a moment to recognize the founder of the Chicago Jane Austen Society, and he had your aunt stand up and said all kinds of amazing stuff about your aunt, and then he asked everyone to give her a hand, and they did, and she started tearing up, and I got that on video—you have to see it—and then the audience stood up and gave her a standing ovation, and, well, since this is going to be the last meeting in Chicago for another ten years or so, I just thought you should know. The guy’s a dude, really. A cool dude.”

“Wow. I didn’t know a thing about it. Is it cued up? I have to see it—I can’t believe I missed it—I had to take a call from the doctor’s office—” She steadied herself by setting down her phone and holding on to the table.

In the frozen frame on the laptop, Julian stood onstage with a bouquet of flowers in hand, the very same bouquet that ended up in her aunt’s arms.

Vanessa’s phone vibrated with a call and, without looking at the caller ID, she picked up.

“Vanessa? It’s Chase.”

Vanessa kept staring at Julian holding the bouquet of flowers. “Hi,” she said. She liked this shot of him holding the bouquet of cabbage roses, snapdragons, foxgloves—

“If you’re free, why don’t you join me for a swordsmanship workshop tomorrow at eleven thirty?”

Kai signaled to her that he needed to rewind a bit.

“Yes, that’s fine,” Vanessa said to Kai and, inadvertently, Chase.

“Great!” Chase said. “I’ll let you get back to work. I’ll be in touch.”

Wait. What had she just said yes to?

“Let me know if you need any help rescuing wayward bonnet makers’ daughters.”

“I—I will—”

And he hung up.

A few seconds later he sent a text:

Swords r provided btw . . .

Vanessa stared at her phone. “Oh, no.”

“Another thing to do?” Kai asked.

“Another thing to undo. I think. It was very nice of him—never mind. Let’s get rolling here.”

“Okay.” He put the headphones on her and pressed play.

On the screen, Julian put his hand over his eyes and looked out into the audience. “I will ask again, is Vanessa Roberts in the house?”

“She had to step out,” Sherry called out from the audience.

“I see. I know she wanted very much to help, as we both agreed to honor her aunt, the illustrious Ella Morgan, at this point in our program.”

Vanessa hadn’t known anything about this! Why did he mention her name?

Julian continued. “Ella Morgan, might you please stand up?”

He made his way to her with the mike, stopping briefly to pick up a bouquet of flowers from the front row.

When, where, and how did he arrange for the gorgeous flowers?

“Oh, my,” Aunt Ella said as she stood.

“Miss Morgan,” Julian said in a sincere and reverent voice, “you are solely responsible for bringing me here to this side of the pond, and I thank you, but that is the least of your many accomplishments. You are a one-of-a-kind ‘lady’ in the truest sense, because, much like the lady to the lord, you care for, and help take care of, so many people in your sphere of living. You are a benefactor to many causes, including helping to start the Chicago chapter of the Jane Austen Society in 1979 for the simple purpose of promoting study of her work. Look around you and see what you started!”