Karen Doornebos: Definitely Not Mr Darcy

“I’ll say! Hearts were broken! Dreams were dashed!”

“You’ve taught me. I was wrong.”

Chloe shook her head. “Another thing I don’t get: Why keep Grace? Why send Julia and Imogene home?”

Henry looked into her eyes. “George had me keep her on. For production value.”

“Is that why you kept me on?!”

“No—no, not at all.”

She didn’t believe him.

“I just wanted to find a loyal and true love, a kind of modern-day Anne Elliot, if you will. But it was a crazy idea.”

The waitress brought a Wedgwood china plate rimmed in gold.

Chloe slathered clotted cream on her scone and not even the cream at the Drake could compare. She dabbed her mouth with her napkin and calmed herself. “So. If Dartworth is yours and Sebastian’s profile is yours, then who is Sebastian?”

“A distant cousin. Who wants to break into the film industry.”

Chloe looked up from plastering another scone with two inches of clotted cream, and looked at Henry.

“He’s—an actor?”

“Well, he wants to be, but—”

“That explains his lines. He always knew exactly what to say. He’s a damn actor. No wonder he never told me what kind of an artist he was. He’s a scam artist!”

“Those lines were true—they were coming from me—Miss Parker—”

Chloe took the scone dripping with clotted cream and pushed it into his face, turning it a few times just for effect.

The tearoom went silent while Henry wiped cream from his face with his napkin.

“I deserve that, I know. But do you know that I love you? It’s not a game anymore. There’s more. I want to tell you everything. Your ‘Cook,’ Lady Anne, is my mother—”

Clotted cream covered his eyebrows and Chloe got a flash of him, decades from now, as an old man with white eyebrows.

“So she lied to me as well? Guess what? I lied, too. A lot. I’m divorced. I have a little girl at home. How’s that for a deal breaker?”

She put a hand on her hip.

He wiped the clotted cream from his eyebrows. “I know about your daughter. And your divorce. They’re not deal breakers.”

She took a long, slow sip of her coffee. “I need to go. I’ll be taking your horse.”

Henry bowed. “Of course. Because that’s what you do best. You run away.”

If her coffee didn’t taste so damn good, she’d pour the rest of it on him. Her hand quivered with the thought.

“I’m not running away. For once I’m running to something. My real life. In the real world. Where people are—real!” She stamped her calfskin pump to no effect.

Coffee in one hand, tiara in the other, she burst into the . . . sunshine? How dare the sun shine now?

Henry stood in the doorway, his greatcoat draped over his shoulders. “Despite everything—I think what we have is real. It’s a real beginning—”

In half a second she untied the horse, tied the velvet bag to the saddle horn, and mounted western style, her gown hiked up to her thighs, coffee cup still in hand. The wet saddle chafed against her legs.

“You’re no more real to me than a character in a Jane Austen novel—no—a character from a bad film adaptation. You played me. I played you. We never had anything real.”

She tossed her empty coffee cup into a trash can on the sidewalk and tossed her head. “And we never will.” If only all this could’ve been caught on camera.

Henry moved closer to her. “I’m not a character from a book. I’m a real person. Who makes real mistakes. And so are you. But look what came out of it—we’ve found each other—”

“I don’t think I found anybody—except, as the old cliché goes—myself.”

She pulled on the reins to turn the horse around. After starting up the street, she took one last peek at Henry, who was running after her in his riding boots. She brought the horse to a canter. She didn’t need Sebastian or Henry or Winthrop or any man. She was going home—home to the twenty-first century, where she would ramp up her letterpress business with Web capability. Ideas on how to bring the business into the modern world tumbled around in her.

She soon realized she was cantering up the wrong side of the road. Once on the left side of the street, she brought the horse into a brisk gallop. Cars and trucks swerved around her, some drivers honked, others stared, and still others swore, but she had her plan. She couldn’t wait to put it all into action.

Without looking back, she galloped out of the only English village she’d ever been in, without even a souvenir T-shirt for Abigail that said ENGLAND on it, without having had a pint in the local pub, and without a clue as to what she would do once she got back to Bridesbridge.

The headlights from the black English taxicab bounced up the gravel drive in front of Bridesbridge. Its rubber tires made a determined crunching noise in the dark. Chloe had called herself a cab on her dad’s BlackBerry.

George had tried to stop her. “You outed us. You found Mr. Wrightman. Henry wants to grant you the prize money. You earned it.”

She looked down on George from her high horse. The cameras were rolling. “I don’t want Henry’s money, George. Give it to Mrs. Crescent for William.”

“You have got to be kidding.”

“I’m not.”

George looked at her as if she were from another planet. And maybe she was. Clearly, George would’ve taken the money. George was all about money. He was a cad, just like the rest of them. Probably sleeping with his assistant while his wife and kids were in London.

“You can’t leave like this.”

“I can.”

“You have to take the money. Those are the rules. We’re going to have it sent to you. We can’t keep it.”

“If those are the rules, then make sure William gets the best treatment he can with the money, and I’ll consider taking what’s left over. If I end up using any of it, I’ll pay it back within the year. With interest.”

“We won’t take it.”

“Then I’ll make a donation—to the National Trust. To the Chawton House Library!” It felt so good to be free of the lure of the money, to finally see how her business could be propelled into the future without a rescue from anyone or anything but herself.

Chloe sat on the steps of Bridesbridge Place in the new blue jeans her mom brought from the States, and checked her e-mail. She had 4,623 unread e-mails. She stood when the cabbie stepped out.

“’Ello, there.” The young cabbie loaded her carry-on and suitcase into the trunk.

The double doors to Bridesbridge Place swung open behind her. “Miss Parker—Chloe—wait!” Mrs. Crescent, dressed in her real clothes now, too, looked—almost hip. Her baby slept in a carrier strapped to her chest. Chloe curtsied out of sheer instinct, then laughed and hugged Mrs. Crescent and the baby.

“I’m going to miss you—both.” Chloe kissed baby Jemma on the head.

Mrs. Crescent put her arm around Chloe. “Please don’t go. Stay just for tonight. After all, you won! You figured it all out! And you really don’t want to forfeit the prize money, do you?”

“I’m just happy that William has enough money to get his operation. As for me, I have a few irons in the fire. What I learned here, in these few weeks, is worth more than any prize. I have a real life. In the present. And there’s no time like now to start living it.”

“Please join us. We’re having a farewell party on the veranda at Dartworth Hall.” She eyed Chloe up and down. “You do look fabulous.”

“So do you.”

“I don’t think this whole thing has changed me as much as it has you. Anyway, you and your parents must come.”

Chloe took in Bridesbridge for the last time. “My parents are too busy sucking up to Lady Anne right now—”