Austenland (Austenland 1)

“I’m so bored. This isn’t what Mrs. Wattlesbrook promised me yesterday.”

“We could play whist,” Jane said. “Whist in the morning, whist in the evening, ain’t we got fun?”

The wallpaper hadn’t changed. Jane kept an eye on it all the same.

“I mean, is this what you expected?” asked Miss Charming.

Jane glanced at the lamp, wondering if Mrs. Wattlesbrook had it bugged. “I am Jane Erstwhile, niece of Lady Templeton, visiting from America,” she said robotically.

“Well, I can’t take another minute. I’m going to go find that Miss Heartwreck and see what she thinks.”

Jane’s gaze jumped from wall to window, and she watched for hints of the men out in the fields, wondering if Captain East thought her pretty, if Colonel Andrews liked her better than Miss Charming.

Stop it, she told herself.

And then she thought about Mr. Nobley last night, his odd outburst, his insistence on dancing with her, and then his abrupt withdrawal after one dance. He truly was exasperating. But, she considered, he irritated in a very useful way. The dream of Mr. Darcy was tangling in the unpleasant reality of Mr. Nobley. As she gave herself pause to breathe in that idea, the truth felt as obliterating as her no Santa Claus discovery at age eight. There is no Mr. Darcy. Or more likely, Mr. Darcy would actually be a boring, pompous pinhead.

Wait a minute, why was she always so worried about the Austen gentlemen, anyway? What about the Austen heroine? Even poor Fanny Price leaned back, held her ground, and waited for her Edmond to come eventually to her. And Elizabeth Bennet—wonderful Elizabeth! Remember how quickly she learned her lesson after Wickham and laughed it off? Remember how easily she let the disappointment of Colonel Fitzwilliam slip off her shoulders? Jane was shocked to recognize in her old self more of the anxious, marriage-obsessed Mrs. Bennet than the lively Elizabeth. With her father’s estate entailed away, marriage was not a convenience for Elizabeth—it was life and death. And even so, she managed to laugh and spin and wait to fall really in love. So. Jane couldn’t give up men. Martin had proved that. But she could fling off her binding intensity, live out the dream now, and return to the world whole and Darcy-free.

She was ready to start right now. The morning room clock ticked. Nothing moved outside the window. She scratched her neck and sighed.

Chased by restlessness and anxious for action of any kind, Jane ran up to her bedroom to check her e-mail on her cell phone. Matilda barged in to clean, so Jane tucked her phone into her bodice and stole down to the library. From a seat near a window in the corner, she was hidden from the rest of the room and the sight line of the corridor. Stealth was her name, contraband electronic messages her game. It took her just a moment to scan her in-box for the one she wanted. Molly hadn’t let her down.

Jane,

Couldn’t turn up a thing on Martin Jasper of Sheffield, at least of our generation. Sorry. Clean living, maybe? Did search on Henry Jenkins of Brighton. No priors, no dependents. Studied theater and history at Cambridge. I read through transcripts of his divorce proceedings from four years ago—whoa, baby! Talk about melodrama. So, this Henry seems like a real rock, didn’t let himself get baited by the barrister, but the stuff he recounts—his wife slept with the neighbor, he forgave her, she sold his car to pay for an impetuous weekend in Monaco, he forgave her, but when she shish-kebabbed his pet fish because he said he’d like to have children, he finally called it quits. Said stuff like he still loved the woman he married and always would. Then her testimony—she’s the heartbroken, cast-off woman, but as soon as the other side starts in, she cracks, screaming like a banshee, and gets thrown out of court. Who is this guy that he stayed married to her for five years? You’ll have to give me the scoop.

I miss you. I think it’s great that you’re there, I think you’re very brave. Let’s hit the coast after you get back. I’ll lose Phil and the twins for the weekend, girls only. And if you run into Mr. Darcy, tell him I want my black nightie back.

xxxo,

Molls.

Jane was reading it for the fifth time when she heard voices on the other side of the bookcase. Her hands trembled as she turned off the phone, stashing it down her cleavage. When she calmed herself enough to listen, a man and woman’s conversation echoed dully off the books.

“Miss Charming, I . . . I . . . that is—”

“Yes, Colonel Andrews?”

“Miss Charming, forgive my impudence, but I must speak with you alone or go mad. I have been wrestling with my feelings for some time and . . .”

Sounds of pacing.

“Yes, yes, go on.”

“It is not easy, being the son of an earl. So much is expected of me, of the way I behave. I am known in town as a rake, a rogue, a rascal . . .”

Jane shook her head. Austen, she was sure, would not have written such dialogue.

“Is that so, Colonel Andrews?”

“Well, perhaps I was once, but I’ve grown tired of the act. I feel—deeply. I long to have someone who knows the true me, who I can be alone with and share my thoughts. And I have come to feel, with no uncertainty of the heart, that you are that someone. That someone is you, Miss Charming.”

“Oh, Colonel Andrews!”

“My dear, dear Lizzy.”

Giggling, sounds of smooching and whispers.