What Would Lizzy Bennet Do? (27 page)

In Holly’s experience, any shop that termed itself a ‘shoppe’ usually held nothing but disappointment.

‘Are you coming?’ Lady Sarah enquired, and raised one of her perfectly groomed brows. ‘We need to move quick smart if we’re to find you a gown before the best ones are snapped up.’

Holly doubted they’d find anything in the Longbourne Dress Shoppe but gowns that even Oxfam would reject, much less a dress that anyone would want to ‘snap up’, but she nodded and shut the car door and said brightly, ‘Let’s go. Let’s find a ball gown.’

***

Hugh adjusted Thor’s girth, then thrust his booted foot in the stirrup and swung up into the saddle. It was a perfect day for a ride out to the pasture to check on the new additions to their flock. With any luck, by the time lambing season rolled around next spring, they’d have increased the flock considerably.

He tugged gently on the reins as he guided Thor out of the paddock. There were plenty of threats – predators, disease, parasites – and more sheep meant they’d need to rotate additional pastureland for grazing, provide more vaccines… and they’d need more dogs as well. The pair they had now wouldn’t be enough to keep the foxes at bay once the newborns were foaled next spring.

He could still hear Holly’s words at dinner last night echoing in his head.

I’m not remotely prepared to be the next Lady Darcy. I don’t know anything about running a stately home, or breeding sheep, or riding to hounds. I’ll make a total muck of everything.

Of course he’d reassured her, and told her she’d soon learn. And she would; he was sure of it. Holly was smart, motivated, and – most importantly – willing to make the effort to adapt to her new life at Cleremont, with all that entailed. Surely she could manage, if he helped her with the basics…

‘Hugh!’

He glanced up, his thoughts evaporating as he saw Lizzy Bennet hurrying towards him.

She wore those old Dublin boots she’d always favoured, and jeans, and a plain white T-shirt. Her face was flushed from running. She waved at him and pulled her hair, brown and gold and flying around her face, back into a messy ponytail.

‘They told me at the house you’d gone out to the pasture,’ she said breathlessly as she caught up to him. ‘I hoped I’d catch you before you left.’

‘Go back and get yourself a mount. I’m off to check on the sheep and I wouldn’t mind the company. Go on – I’ll wait.’

‘Thanks. Be right back.’ She grinned, and raced back to the stables as fast as her feet would take her.

***

‘I think the aqua chiffon suits you.’

Holly stared at herself – and Lady Darcy’s reflection just behind her – in the dress shop mirror in mute horror.

The pastel bluish green shade gave her skin a pasty, underwater cast, and the floor-length gown with its voluminous overskirt of aqua netting completely swamped her slender figure.

‘I don’t agree.’ Her words were polite, but firm. ‘This colour’s hideous on me and the dress is way too… much,’ Holly said. ‘I prefer something simpler.’

‘But it’s a
ball
, Holly, not a sixth-form disco.’

‘Yes, and I want to go to the
ball
dressed a little more like Carrie Bradshaw and a little less like Cinderella,’ she retorted. She smoothed her hands over the gown’s sparkly, netted skirts and grimaced. ‘What sort of transportation did you have in mind – a pumpkin coach?’

‘Very well,’ Lady Darcy said, and pressed her lips together as she reached for another hanger. ‘We’ll forget the aqua gown. Try this one.’

Reluctantly Holly took the peach silk dress and stalked back into the dressing room for the next round of torture.

Honestly – if she didn’t know better, she’d swear that Hugh’s mother had chosen the most godawful ball gowns she could find, in an effort to make Holly look as frumpy and old-fashioned as possible…

Her hands went still on the dress hanger. Of course… that was
exactly
what Lady Darcy was doing! She’d set out to deliberately make her son’s fiancée look like a Barbara Cartland reject so that Lizzy Bennet could waltz into the ballroom on Sunday night, looking gorgeous in an elegantly simple gown, and dazzle Hugh.

With her face set in a grim expression, Holly slid the peach silk over her head and waited as it settled around her feet. The gown made her look like the inside of a pig’s ear.

‘No,’ she said out loud. ‘No, no,
no
!’

There was a rustle just outside the dressing room door. ‘Don’t you like it?’ Lady Darcy enquired. ‘Let me see.’

Grimly Holly threw the door open. ‘I look like last night’s Peach Melba. All I need is a raspberry-coloured pashmina to complete the effect.’

‘Perhaps pastels aren’t your strong suit,’ Hugh’s mother agreed, and held out her hand for the hangers. ‘Give me those, and I’ll go and find something else.’

Holly shook her head. ‘No. This isn’t working. I saw a little shop on one of the side streets as we were coming in – I’d like to try my luck there. If you don’t mind,’ she added.

And within five minutes of entering Nadia’s Dress Shop (thankfully, with no extra ‘p’ or ‘e’), Holly found the perfect gown – a slim column of ivory silk with a plunging back and clean, simple lines.

‘What do you think?’ she asked Hugh’s mother as she turned and twirled in front of the three-way mirror just outside the dressing room.

‘To be frank,’ Lady Sarah said, ‘I think it’s rather plain. But even I have to admit that it suits you more than those gowns I picked out.’

‘I’ll take it,’ Holly told the shop assistant, her mind made up. ‘And these shoes, too.’ The cream leather pumps with the diamante straps were perfect – sexy, but still comfy enough for dancing.

‘A silver lamé clutch will do nicely, I think,’ Lady Darcy mused. ‘Don’t you agree?’

And before Holly could reply, she wandered off and returned a moment later with an envelope clutch of silver lamé and handed it to the shop girl. ‘Please put everything on my account,’ she instructed the girl.

‘Certainly, Lady Darcy.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ Holly began, ‘but it isn’t necessary. Hugh gave me his card…’

‘I know it isn’t necessary.’ Lady Sarah turned to Holly with a tight smile. ‘I want to do this for you. Think of it as a sort of pre-wedding present.’

Holly blinked. ‘That’s very kind. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome. Now,’ she added as they followed the girl to the till, ‘we’ll go to lunch, just the two of us, and get to know each another a bit better.’

As she agreed and trailed after Hugh’s mother to the till, Holly felt a mixture of nausea and terror at the prospect of making small talk over glasses of room-temperature wine and overpriced rocket salads.

Whatever you’re doing right this second, Hugh Darcy
, she thought grimly,
I only hope you’re half as miserable as
I’m
about to be…

***

‘That,’ Lizzy declared, laughing so hard she could scarcely catch her breath, ‘was brilliant.’

She flung the reins aide and joined Hugh on the grass under the shade of an oak tree.

‘Which bit?’ he asked. ‘When I won the race? Or when you nearly fell into the brambles when your saddle slid sideways? You’d have been picking thorns out of your bottom for weeks.’

‘You probably loosened the girth deliberately before we left.’

‘And why would I do that?’

‘To win the race, of course.’ She leaned back against the tree trunk. ‘You’ll do anything to win. It’s a known fact.’

‘Is that right?’ he retorted. ‘Perhaps that’s true, but I’d never resort to loosening your saddle strap. I’d hardly need to, anyway. The conclusion was foregone.’

‘What?’ She let out a gasp of mock outrage. ‘Liar! Take it back.’

‘I won’t.’

‘You will,’ she said, her expression determined as she thrust herself away from the tree. ‘I’ll see to it.’

And she reached out and began to tickle him, knowing he hated to be tickled, until she was straddling him and he was shouting and laughing as hard as she was.

‘Take it back,’ Lizzy laughed, breathless. ‘Do it.’

He twisted away, still laughing, and caught her by the wrists. ‘Stop, Lizzy,’ he ordered, his face inches from hers, ‘stop it this instant, or I swear, I’ll…’

‘What? You’ll what?’ she challenged him, her words coming in short gasps after their playful tussle.

Her gaze collided with his, and his fingers tightened around her wrists. His lips were dangerously, deliciously close. For a moment, just for a moment, Lizzy thought he might lean forward and kiss her. He wanted to, as much as she did; she saw it plainly in his eyes.

And she
did
want him to kiss her. She wanted Hugh’s mouth on hers, she wanted to wrap herself up in his arms and never, ever let go.

But instead he loosened his grip and pushed her, gently, away. ‘What about a challenge? A rematch?’

‘All right. You’re on.’ Lizzy tamped down her disappointment, so sharp and sudden and strong, and affixed a smile to her face.
We were close, so very close..
.

Her disappointment deepened into resentment. It wasn’t fair, to come so near to kissing Hugh Darcy here in the tall summer grass… to have a chance to lie beside him and hold him and make him hers, even if only for a few minutes… only to have it snatched away.

And it was all Holly’s fault.

If not for the James girl’s infuriating hold over him, Lizzy would be engaged to Hugh right now, she knew it. If he hadn’t gone to work at that bloody department store he’d never have met the blonde interloper.

Well, perhaps it was time Lizzy quit playing fair.

Perhaps it was time to dazzle Hugh Darcy – using whatever means necessary – and claim him for her own.

Chapter 33

Holly followed Lady Darcy up the steps to
Le Musette
, Longbourne’s finest – and only – French restaurant, feeling as if she were on her way, not to lunch, but to the guillotine.

Amuse bouche
? More like
passez-moi la corde.

She paused as a dark green XKE pulled up at the kerb and the driver’s window lowered.

‘Hello, ladies,’ Harry called out. ‘Fancy some company for lunch?’

Although Lady Darcy pursed her lips in pretended exasperation, it was plain to Holly that her son’s appearance pleased her nonetheless.

‘Do hurry,’ his mother called back. ‘The reservation is for twelve sharp.’

A few minutes later they were seated at a linen-draped table in a quiet corner. From the tasteful décor and potted palms to the intimidating
maître ď
, the restaurant was a textbook example of ‘fine French dining’.

Holly shot Harry a covert glance of appreciation. She couldn’t possibly have managed the daunting combination of
Le Musette
and his mother on her own.

‘What shall we have?’ Lady Sarah said as she studied the tasselled menu. ‘Will we be good and have salads, Holly, or indulge ourselves?’

‘Why don’t we have the snails?’ Harry asked with a perfectly straight face. ‘I quite fancy a snail,’ he confided in Holly. ‘Drenched in garlic butter.’

She had a sudden, disquieting vision of Julia Roberts in
Pretty Woman
, sending her snail flying across the restaurant, and shook her head firmly
.
‘No, thank you. I don’t do snails.’

‘Nor does Harry, to my knowledge,’ his mother said. She fixed him with a reproachful eye. ‘Do be serious, please, or you can leave us and go straight home.’

He grinned. ‘Sorry, Mum. Don’t know what I’d have done if Holly took me up on it. Slippery, disgusting things.’

‘I’m glad we agree,’ Holly said, and reached for her water glass. ‘I can’t understand how anyone could eat snails.’

‘Hugh does.’

She paused with the glass halfway to her lips. ‘Oh.’ She took a quick sip and set the glass aside. ‘Well, that’s hardly grounds for breaking our engagement, I suppose. Still…’ She grimaced. ‘I can’t imagine.’

‘You can’t imagine,’ Lady Sarah observed, ‘because you’ve never tried them. One must experience certain things to appreciate them.’

‘Then I’m afraid I’ll never appreciate snails.’

In the end Holly and Lady Darcy had a
salade niçoise
and Harry settled on steak and
pommes frites
, and with the subject of snails thankfully dropped, they waited as their server filled their wine glasses with Montrachet.

‘Where’s your brother?’ Lady Sarah asked Harry.

‘He went off to check on the flock and supervise the vaccinations. He said he’d be there most of the day.’

‘And what about you? What are your plans today?’ Holly asked him as she took a sip of her wine.

‘I had a date, since you ask, but she stood me up.’

‘You don’t sound bothered.’

He shrugged. ‘I’m not. Some sort of family thing came up, couldn’t be helped. We were only going out for a sail. So I decided to come down to Longbourne and take a look at the
Pemberley
, make sure she’s ready for the race Saturday.’ He popped a bite of steak in his mouth. ‘After I finish my lunch with you lovely ladies, of course.’

‘Eat your grilled aubergine,’ Lady Darcy said. ‘He never eats his vegetables,’ she informed Holly. She turned back to Harry. ‘Why don’t you take Miss James out on the yacht this afternoon?’

Harry cast his mother a quick glance. ‘I’m only going aboard to check on things, I wasn’t planning to take the
Pemberley
out.’

‘Have you sent the captain and crew home yet?’

‘No. They’re working on the rigging.’

‘Tell the captain you’ve changed your mind, and you want to take a guest out for the afternoon.’

‘I suppose I could,’ he began doubtfully.

‘You said Hugh’s gone and won’t be back until later. Surely you don’t want his fiancée sitting at home, alone and bored, do you?’

‘No…’

‘Then I suggest you both make the most of this beautiful day,’ Lady Sarah said firmly, ‘and go for a sail.’ She turned to Holly. ‘I’ll see that your things are sent up to your room when I get back.’

‘Oh. Thank you,’ Holly said, and paused. ‘That sounds good. That is, if you don’t mind, Harry…?’

He laid his napkin aside. ‘Not at all. I think it’s a great idea… if you want to go. No pressure if you don’t, or if you have other plans.’