Teri Wilson - Unleashing Mr Darcy

Perhaps it was a good thing Elizabeth still possessed the skills she would need at Scott Bridal. Because, come next Monday morning, she’d probably be clocking in bright and early. Her head was already itching for a veil.

Dr. Thurston urged her to take advantage of her time off—to go on a vacation, enjoy some downtime. Elizabeth barely heard a word he said. She was too distraught to concentrate. Before she knew what was happening, he was finished with his speech and had steered her by the elbow out of his office, across the marble floor with the fancy school seal, directly to the big carved double doors.

She glanced up at her boss before walking through those doors for what she fully expected was the last time. At some point he’d straightened his tie.

“Goodbye, Dr. Thurston,” she whispered.

And then she was out the door, standing on the busy Manhattan sidewalk, as though the school had purged itself of her.

The sounds of honking horns and sirens wailing in the distance, ordinarily so familiar and comforting to Elizabeth, were a shock to her system after the stillness of the headmaster’s office. She stood motionless, trying to get her bearings as New Yorkers, clothed in standard black, wove around her as if she were a statue. She found it odd that no one stopped to stare at her, the teacher who’d been accused of extortion. Surely such a damning accusation was somehow visible, even to strangers. A scarlet letter of sorts, only shaped like a big fat dollar sign.

Elizabeth turned in the direction of her apartment. It took all her concentration to put one foot in front of the other. She felt faint, as if she were about to disappear. She focused on her shoes—sensible black ballet flats—and each step they took, making sure they made contact with the asphalt.

She narrowly collided with a pair of black, square-toed boots and teetered perilously close to the curb. No sooner had she managed to get back on track than she found herself toe to toe with a pair of men’s loafers—black, of course. Beside the loafers was a pair of ballet flats not unlike her own. Only these were quilted, with interlocking C’s on the toes. Elizabeth had seen those same flats on the girls at the Barclay School. Chanel.

Elizabeth paused and waited for Loafers and Chanel to sidestep so she could pass. They didn’t.

“Excuse me.” Elizabeth looked up and in a heart-stopping moment discovered that her day, which had been far from stellar thus far, had just taken a turn for the worse.

The loafers didn’t belong to some nameless, faceless New Yorker. They belonged to none other than Mr. Donovan Darcy.

He knit his perfect brows and said her name as though it were a question. “Miss Scott?”

Elizabeth panicked for a moment, as if she didn’t know the answer. She looked over at the woman standing beside him, the owner of the Chanel flats, and recognized her as his companion from the restaurant in New Jersey. Zara.

Good grief, she looks even younger than I remember.

“Hi,” Zara said and gave a little wave.

Elizabeth was struck with the nauseating thought that she didn’t look a day older than Joe Markham.

This realization brought with it a fresh wave of annoyance. How was she the one in trouble when Donovan Darcy was dating a girl barely out of high school?

“Mr. Darcy,” she spat. She turned to Zara and pasted on a smile. “Zara.”

“What are you doing here?” To Mr. Darcy’s credit, he didn’t come off as rude when he asked her this. He sounded befuddled, in an oh-so-charming-Hugh-Grant sort of way.

Elizabeth wasn’t fooled. She remembered the Hugh Grant scandal of the nineties with perfect clarity. Not pretty. “I live here.”

“In New York City? Alone?” He looked at the empty space around her own non-Chanel ballerina flats, as if he expected someone to materialize.

Alone? Who did he think he was? Her mother? “Yes, alone. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“I didn’t mean to pry.” He crossed his arms, and Elizabeth caught a glimpse of his cuff links. Silver this time, like the ones that were always on display in the windows at Tiffany’s.

As at the dog show, everything about Mr. Darcy’s appearance was resplendent. From the polished sheen of his loafers to the narrow cut of his suit. And Elizabeth couldn’t help but notice his tie was folded into the most perfect Windsor she’d ever laid eyes on. Of course.

Given the many bridegrooms Elizabeth had seen at Scott Bridal who didn’t know the top end of a cummerbund from the bottom, she’d always found men who dressed well particularly sexy.

Damn.

“Miss Scott, I think you misunderstood me. I was only wondering about your charming little dog, the Blenheim Cavalier. Bliss, right?”

Despite the warning bells going off in her head reminding her that this was Mr. Darcy of all people, she found herself softening toward him. Just a little.

How many dogs did a dog-show judge see in a weekend? Hundreds, at least. Maybe even a thousand.

And he’d remembered Bliss’s name.

She relaxed ever so slightly and gave herself permission to smile at Mr. Darcy. “She’s at home. I had to, um, run an errand.”

He smiled back. “I hope she’s doing well.”

“She is. Thank you.”

Elizabeth wasn’t sure what else to say. Her gaze flitted to Zara, who stood quietly watching their exchange. If it bothered her that Mr. Darcy had stopped dead in his tracks to carry on a conversation with another woman, she gave no indication of it. Then again, why would it bother her? She’d heard him call her tolerable. She knew Elizabeth was no threat.

At the very least, Elizabeth figured Zara would be ready to move on and away from the pedestrians who jostled their way around their little threesome. Oddly enough, she didn’t seem to care a whit about any of it.

Elizabeth glanced back at Mr. Darcy. His dark eyes were trained on her, watching her with his trademark intensity. Her first instinct was to look away, but the unexpected earnestness in those brooding eyes made her fix her gaze on his.

He looked at her for a long, silent moment before he finally spoke. “I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood a few things I’ve said.”

Something about his gaze was so tender, Elizabeth could feel it down to her toes. And she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but somehow she knew he was referring to the tolerable comment. If it were possible for a person to make amends with just a look, Donovan Darcy was giving it a go.

Elizabeth was captivated. She felt as though they were the only two people on the busy sidewalk. Impossible, of course. People swarmed all around them, not to mention the very-present Zara.

Then Elizabeth’s handbag barked, breaking the magic spell.

Zara’s baby-smooth forehead creased in apparent confusion. “Was that a bark?”

Mr. Darcy tilted his head and lifted an amused brow. “Are you sure Bliss is at home? It sounds as though she hitched a ride in your purse.”

“It’s my ringtone.” Elizabeth fished around in her bag for her barking phone. “I should probably answer this. It could be important.”

In fact, the likelihood of the call being important was slim at best. It was just something to say, a way to extricate herself from what was beginning to feel oddly like some sort of love triangle.

Love triangle. As if.

Elizabeth wanted to kick herself.

Instead, she answered the phone. “Hello?”

Mr. Darcy stood right where he was, rooted to the spot. Why wasn’t he leaving? What was he doing here, anyway? Although the collection of shopping bags dangling from Zara’s slender arms hinted at the purpose of their trip. Chanel. Gucci. And especially nauseating, Prada.

Elizabeth averted her gaze before she spotted a bag from Tiffany’s. She didn’t think she’d be able to stomach such a thing.