Victoria Connelly - A Weekend with Mr Darcy - The perfect summer read for Austen addicts!

Warwick swallowed hard. This wasn’t going to be easy. However he played it, the fact remained that he’d been replying to Katherine’s letters under false pretences and had led her to believe that he was a woman. His string of terrible girlfriends had become boyfriends. Fiona’s obsession with fashion had morphed into Tony’s obsession with motorbikes, and Lindsay’s cushions had become Lennie’s cushions (Lorna had been horrified to discover that Lennie was gay). Katherine had been sympathetic and supportive of Lorna’s hapless love life, offering advice when appropriate. ‘Lennie’s cushions sound like the perfect Christmas present for that awkward aunt of yours,’ Katherine had written. She’d put her trust in him completely, hadn’t she?

Warwick let out a long, weary breath as he thought about the strange situation he’d managed to get himself into. It was like something from one of his books, he thought. Actually, the idea of a woman writing to a man but thinking she’s a woman was a pretty good idea for a book, he thought with a grin. But then he felt guilty for even thinking about using his dear friend for the basis of his art. Still, he jotted it down in a notepad before he forgot it. A writer should never turn a good idea away just because it might offend somebody.

To be stuck in a car with a loved one for over two hundred miles would be a challenge at the best of times but being stuck with the most impatient driver in the world when what you most wanted to do was break up with him was an impossible situation.

‘I told you I should’ve got the train!’ Robyn said, as Jace honked the driver in front of him for not moving away fast enough at a set of lights.

‘What are you complaining about? We’re making good time!’

Robyn sighed and did her best to relax. They’d left North Yorkshire just after ten in the morning and registration for the conference was at five o’clock followed by tea and an official welcome by Dame Pamela Harcourt which Robyn didn’t want to miss under any circumstances.

She was also hoping that they’d have time for a slight detour to Steventon so she could see the church where Jane Austen had been baptized and spent her former years, but she wasn’t sure how Jace would respond to such a proposal. Poking around churches with literary connections wasn’t his sort of thing at all. He’d much sooner check into his bed and breakfast and head for the nearest pub to sink a few pints, then have an evening belching in front of the TV.

Robyn opened her handbag and pulled out the information sheets about the conference. After the tea and welcome, there was a chance to mingle before dinner and then there was a choice of watching either Emma Thompson’s Sense and Sensibility or Simon Burke’s version of Persuasion.

‘Ooooo!’ Robyn sighed.

‘What’s up?’ Jace asked. ‘You don’t need the loo again?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Just choices to be made for tonight.’ She didn’t bother to go into details. He wouldn’t understand. How could a woman choose between Hugh Grant’s bumbling Edward Ferrars and Rupert Penry-Jones’s smouldering Captain Wentworth? That was the trouble with Austen - there were too many wonderful heroes. It was hard enough deciding which book to read next and which hero to fall in love with again but it also made real life hard too for no man could live up to Austen’s heroes, could they? Where was a girl going to find a man as patient as Colonel Brandon or as witty as Henry Tilney? And could one ever truly hope to find that most elusive of all men - Mr Darcy?

Robyn smiled to herself. If the truth were known, she rather preferred Mr Bingley to Mr Darcy. He was - in Jane Austen’s own words - amiable; there was nothing complicated about him and Robyn liked that. You didn’t have to do any emotional wrestling with Bingley. He liked dancing. He smiled a lot. He didn’t go around insulting anyone and making a hash at proposing to a woman. In short, he was just the sort of man Robyn was looking for.

But you have a man , a little voice inside her suddenly said.

But I don’t want him, she replied.

Then you should tell him.

I’ve tried!

Then you haven’t made a very good job of it, have you?

Robyn took a sideways glance at Jace. His eyes were narrowed into angry slits as he focused on the road ahead and then gesticulated at a car that was overtaking them. Mr Bingley would never gesticulate , Robyn couldn’t help thinking. He was far more likely to articulate.

‘Upon my honour!’ he might declare. ‘I have never met with so many unpleasant drivers in my life.’ He would shake his head and think nothing more of it, probably declaring that a ball was in order and that he’d make the arrangements forthwith.

Yes , Robyn thought, Bingley was - as Jane Bennet had told Elizabeth - ‘just what a young man ought to be’.

Slowly coming out of a daydream in which she was wearing a white empire-line dress and dancing with Bingley, Robyn saw the sign announcing that they had crossed into Hampshire. At long last, she’d arrived in Jane Austen country.

Turning round to retrieve the road atlas from the backseat, she flipped to the right page and made a study of the area. Almost at once, she found Chawton - perhaps because she’d circled it in bright red pen. There was already a planned trip to Chawton from Purley Hall on Saturday and Robyn was so excited about it that she felt sure she’d burst with joy but she longed to see the church at Steventon too.

‘Jace?’ she said, her voice gentle.

‘What?’ he snapped back.

‘I’ve got an idea.’

‘What sort of an idea?’ he asked. ‘A naughty idea?’

‘No!’ Robyn said. ‘A detour idea.’

Jace frowned. ‘I don’t like detours. I like going from A to B, and A to B today has been one hell of a drive.’

‘I know it has,’ Robyn said sweetly, ‘and you’ve been brilliant but this is such a tiny detour, you’d never even notice it.’

Jace’s frown didn’t budge but he tutted and sighed. ‘All right, then. Where do you want me to go?’

Robyn was tempted to answer something rude to that particular question but said, ‘Take the next right,’ instead, and it wasn’t long before they were driving through the narrow lanes of Hampshire with tall hedgerows and sunny fields on either side of them. The landscape was far less dramatic than Robyn’s limestone valleys of the Yorkshire Dales but she loved its gentleness. With its pretty village pubs, cute cottages and stone churches, it was perfect and just what tourists thought of when they imagined Jane Austen’s England.

As they passed an old wooden stile to the side of the road, Robyn could easily imagine Elizabeth Bennet hopping over it on her way to visit her sister, Jane, at Netherfield. For a moment, she wondered whether she dared ask Jace to stop the car so that she could walk across a couple of fields until her eyes shone like her favourite heroine’s but one look at Jace changed her mind. He wouldn’t understand and she’d better not push her luck after getting him to agree to the detour to Steventon.

It only took ten minutes to reach the little church and Robyn gasped as Jace stopped the car.

‘Oh, look!’ she said, her eyes wide with instant adoration.

‘It’s a church,’ Jace said.

Robyn did her best to ignore his sarcastic tone. She was determined that nothing was going to spoil this moment.

‘Aren’t you coming in?’ she asked as she opened her door.

‘Nah. I’ll wait here. Churches creep me out.’

Robyn sighed but she was secretly glad that he wasn’t coming with her. He’d only complain and spoil things.