“She’s also way drunk,” Artemis added analytically.

“That’s true, Artie.” Harv turned to address the big doctor. “But the really good tantrums only ever take off that way. Otherwise Faith sticks pretty much to biting sarcasm.”

Darcy, meanwhile, had moved closer to the blonde socialite and was regarding the mess of shattered crystal underfoot. “Okay, Faith,” he began softly, “what’s this all about? Those are very old family pieces you’re destroying.”

“I’m sorry, Fitz,” she said, as if they were discussing where to place another flower arrangement, “but if I can’t have these heirlooms, then nobody will.” Faith stuck out her lower lip and her casual, matter-of-fact tone turned suddenly poisonous. “Certainly not some uncultured, frizzle-haired Yankee upstart.”

She pointed an accusing finger, tipped with a blood-red nail, toward the little group hovering in the shadows near the doors. “I want you to order her off the place this minute,” she demanded.

Harv grinned and affectionately squeezed Eliza’s shoulder. “It appears you’ve won a permanent place in her heart,” he said.

Darcy took another tentative step closer to the distraught woman. “Now you’re just being silly, Faith,” he said soothingly. “Eliza is my guest and you are embarrassing me in front of her.”

He reached for the cup in Faith’s hand but she swiftly eluded his grasp, raised her arm and flung it across the room. “It’s not fair, Fitz!” she cried as the crystal burst into a cloud of sparkling shards that clattered like diamonds to the polished hardwood floor. “You were supposed to marry me,” she declared. “Your mother and mine planned it when I was five.”

Before she could grab another piece of crystal, Darcy deftly stepped forward and wrapped his arms tightly around her, pinning both of her flailing arms to her sides. The fight suddenly gone out of her, Faith collapsed sobbing against him.

“Now we’ve discussed all of this before, Faith,” he told her in his soothing Southern accent. “You will always be my dear friend,” he assured her, “but we don’t love one other, either one of us. You know that.”

Faith stubbornly tossed her head from side to side, loosening her fine hair, which shone like spun gold as it swung free in the candlelight. “It’s just not fair!” she wailed.

With a nod Darcy signaled Jenny and Artemis. They both went out onto the ballroom floor and, each taking one of her arms, led Faith back toward the doors.

“Come on, honey,” Jenny crooned in a motherly tone. “Artie and I will tuck you in.”

Faith meekly allowed them to lead her off the floor, but she suddenly pulled free and jerked to a halt in front of Eliza. “I could kill you!” she hissed at the startled artist.

Artemis frowned. “Hush now,” he told her. “You know you don’t mean that nasty talk.”

Faith smiled up at him like a doting child and willingly took the arm he held out. “Oh, but I do, Artie,” she assured him as they walked away. “I really do.”

Darcy watched as Faith was escorted from the room. He supposed this was just one more of the ways he would pay for his indiscretions in England. Heaving a sigh of regret for the weakness of a moment, he returned to Eliza, who was still standing with Harv. “I’m terribly sorry,” Darcy told her. “I hate it when she gets this way. Are you all right?”

Eliza managed a weak smile. “Well, I guess so. Although except for my credit card companies and the occasional cab driver I don’t get that many death threats in New York.”

“Don’t be silly, Eliza, my sister wouldn’t really kill you,” Harv happily assured her. “Not without an ironclad alibi at any rate.”

Darcy shot him a withering glance. “Harv,” he suggested without much diplomacy, “perhaps you should go to bed now.”

Taking the hint, Harv stepped away from them and went toward the ballroom doors. “I think I will, Fitz.”

“Sweet dreams!” he said, grinning at Eliza.

“Thanks,” she said grimly. “You, too.”

“Come on,” Darcy said, taking her arm. “I’ll walk you to your room.”

Eliza was disappointed. “Does this mean I don’t get to hear the rest of your story tonight?”

He arched his eyebrows in surprise. “I didn’t think you’d want to after all of this. It’s very late. Sure you’re up for it?”

Eliza managed a nervous laugh. “Something tells me I’m not going to fall asleep that easily anyway, what with your homicidal guest roaming the corridors.”

Darcy shook his head ruefully, “I’m afraid poor Faith never knows when to stop, especially when she’s been drinking. But I guarantee you she won’t remember a thing in the morning.” He suddenly frowned and looked at Eliza with concern. “I do hope you didn’t take anything she said too seriously.”

“No, I guess not,” Eliza reluctantly admitted. “But I wouldn’t turn my back on her on a subway platform either.”

Darcy laughed. “I can assure you that for all her theatrics Faith is perfectly harmless,” he said. “It’s just that she was raised with the unfortunate belief that she should always get her own way. The rest of us have been watching her pitch these tantrums since she was a toddler.”

They walked holding hands up the spectacular main staircase.

“Did your mothers really plan on you two marrying?” Eliza asked.

Darcy nodded. “Yes, they did,” he said with a smile. “But they also figured on Harv becoming president.”


When they reached the Rose Bedroom Eliza paused before opening the door, unsure if he meant to come in or whether she should invite him. She considered for half a second how Jane Austen would have handled such a potentially awkward situation.

That was then, this is now, Eliza concluded. Grinning inwardly, she pushed open the door and stepped into the bedroom. Darcy followed her without hesitation, so she assumed she had made the right choice.

But to her surprise, instead of following her to the small suite of chairs and table near the bed, he walked over to examine the low-cut Regency ball gown that hung on the open wardrobe door. He pinched the heavy emerald green fabric between his thumb and forefinger, held it up to the light. “You’re wearing this tomorrow night?” he asked, turning to her.

“Yes,” she admitted. “Jenny more or less insisted. Do you think it’s too terribly…Oscarish? I seem to remember you saying at the library that Jane would never have worn anything like this.”

“You’re not Jane,” Darcy replied, dropping the fabric.

“Good point,” Eliza agreed, unwilling to follow that reasoning to its logical conclusion.

Crossing to the bed, Darcy picked up her sketch pad and carefully examined her drawing of Rose Darcy. “This is beautifully done,” he said, glancing up at the life-size matriarchal portrait in the alcove.

“Thank you.” Eliza followed his gaze to the painting of the enchantingly beautiful Rose in her silken gown. “Now that’s a dress I could picture Jane Austen having approved of,” she ventured. “Though it’s actually more revealing than the one that Jenny picked for me, it’s also very classy, don’t you think?”

Darcy nodded thoughtfully. Then he settled himself in an armchair covered with brocaded vines of wild rose.

Sensing that he was tired of conversation and anxious to resume his narrative, Eliza kicked off her shoes and sat cross-legged on the bed to listen.

“I told you about my encounter with Captain Austen in the stables,” Darcy began. “Fortunately, he did not come looking for me again and I finally fell asleep.”

Chapter 29

Despite the extraordinary tensions of his first day outside the secure confines of Jane’s bedroom at Chawton Cottage and the unavailability of so much as an aspirin tablet to soothe his throbbing head, the exhausted Darcy had fallen almost immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep upon returning to his luxurious room at Chawton Great House.

He awoke seven hours later to the rumble of heavy wheels on the drive below his window.

As he had every morning since arriving in 1810 Hampshire, Darcy spent his first several minutes of wakefulness with his eyes tightly shut. When he opened them, he tried to convince himself he would discover that he was back in the Cliftons’s rented Edwardian mansion in his own time and his vivid memories of the last four days would turn out to have been nothing more than an interesting dream.

Listening closely to the morning sounds of the household, he strained to pick up the familiar whine of a vacuum cleaner and sniffed the air for the scent of exhaust fumes from the old green Range Rover his friend Clifton kept parked in the drive.

He heard instead the clop of hooves on the drive and the impatient snorting of a horse. The sounds were inconclusive, he told himself, for the horse might have been Lord Nelson out for a morning exercise with his trainer, or one of the handful of gentle saddle nags that the property owners kept on the place for their renters to ride.

Still, he did not have much hope that he had returned.

Opening his eyes at last, Darcy blinked at a bright shaft of sunshine pouring in through the open window. He clambered stiffly out of bed and walked over to peer down onto the drive. A heavy black traveling coach pulled by a team of four horses was just disappearing beyond the gates of Chawton Great House.

It was still 1810.

He had just spent half of the previous night with a beautiful woman named Jane Austen, and part of the remainder with her murderous brother.