Mrs. Crescent waved them in at the front door. “Miss Parker! Another gown soaked? It’ll need to hang for at least two days now.”

The footmen closed the doors behind them and Chloe and Imogene stood dripping in the foyer until Fiona and Imogene’s maidservant arrived with linens to dry them.

Mrs. Crescent put her hands on her hips. Fifi stood by her side. “And must you use that charcoal? Look at your hands. If you get that on your gown, the scullery maid will never be able to get it out.”

Imogene cracked a smile at Chloe.

Mrs. Crescent picked up Fifi. “Why you can’t amuse yourself with playing cards like the other girls is beyond me.”


That night, in the candlelight, as Chloe stooped over her washbowl and sprinkled tooth powder on her toothbrush made with swine’s-hair bristles, she stopped and looked at herself in the mirror hanging above her washstand.

She wondered if Abigail missed her. She wanted nothing more right now than to be brushing her teeth next to Abigail, then sitting on Abigail’s bed, reading to her, breathing in the aroma of her hair and neck, and kissing her good night. She missed the good-night kisses most of all. And when would a letter arrive from her, Emma, or her lawyer? Her impatience surprised her. The days seemed infinitely longer without the phone, e-mail, and the Internet. She couldn’t believe it was only Tuesday night. In just two days so much had happened.

She poured water over the tooth powder, making it into a kind of paste. Cringing, she stuck the brush in her mouth. The powder felt like chalk dust and tasted worse than baking soda. No wonder everyone’s breath smelled horrible except for Henry, who no doubt carried mint leaves with him everywhere. Chloe made a mental note to pick some from the kitchen garden before her outing with Sebastian tomorrow.

Certainly the Jane Austen Society would be impressed by the historical accuracy of this project, but they would look askance at the reality-show gimmicks. Female contestants hidden behind locked doors, Invitation Ceremonies, Accomplishment Points, ancient vendettas. What could possibly be next? Girls in gowns dueling at dawn over Mr. Wrightman and his vast estate?

She spit into a bowl on the side. Still, despite everything she missed from home, she felt like she belonged here.

She carried the candlestick to her bedside table, climbed into her lumpy bed, and blew out the candle. Smoke and grease permeated the air. Grace had beeswax candles that smelled much better and burned much slower than the cheap tallow candles Chloe had been given. She found out the tallow candles were made from mutton fat. No wonder they reeked, and spattered, too. Still, she wasn’t a scullery maid scrubbing the floors and the servants’ chamber pots. She wasn’t at the bottom of the rung, but she wasn’t at the top either. Her place was somewhere in the middle.

The problem was she needed to be number one.


The next morning, Chloe wanted to have Fiona wash her hair before the excursion with Sebastian, but Mrs. Crescent insisted that it wouldn’t dry in time. This was life before blow-dryers. She’d have to wait until the afternoon, before the dinner at Dartworth.

So for once, the must-wear-bonnets-outside rule worked in her favor. Mint leaves in her reticule and dressed in her blue day gown, she waited with Mrs. Crescent in the parlor while the other girls were busy getting ready for tonight’s dinner. Grace was having her hair washed.

“I wonder,” Grace had said to Chloe, “if you’ll have enough time to prepare for tonight. It simply takes forever to dress for a formal gathering.”

“I’m willing to take that risk.” Chloe smiled.

When at last the sound of hooves clomped on the gravel circular drive and the landau came into view, Chloe’s heart throbbed as if she were in high school all over again. One cameraman preceded her to the door and another cameraman followed.

Sebastian wore buckskin breeches, brown boots, white shirt, ruffled cravat, and a black riding jacket. He took off his black riding hat and bowed, sending dark hair cascading onto his forehead. His eyes sparkled with what looked like mischief.

“Mr. Sebastian Wrightman,” Mrs. Crescent piped up from behind. “I’d like you to meet my charge, Miss Chloe Parker.”

Chloe curtsied.

“She comes from a very well-to-do family in America.” What Mrs. Crescent neglected to say was that Chloe’s family made their fortune from trade, and that put her in a distinctly lower class, the nouveau riche, as opposed to inherited wealth. Regardless, the family fortune had been lost.

“Pleased to meet you at last,” Sebastian said.

“And you. I was beginning to wonder if you truly existed.”

Sebastian smiled, but Mrs. Crescent nudged her from behind.

“Shall we?” He extended his arm and she linked her arm in his. When he handed her into the landau, he took her hand in his, and even though she had gloves on, never had a touch been so deliberate, so meaningful to her, and it rendered her speechless. Was it just her competitive streak? She really hardly knew the man. No, it was the opportunity that this afforded her—to live her dream, to win the money—and to consider the man.

The cameras were on her, Mrs. Crescent was next to her with Fifi, and she had to curb her tendency to lead a conversation, as this was frowned upon. Not that it mattered, as not one witticism came to her.

Sebastian sprawled in the carriage seat across from them, with his arm stretched across the top of the seat. He was the silent type.

Finally, she couldn’t restrain herself any longer. “This must be quite a summer for you.”

Lady Crescent elbowed her.

His eyes laughed. She’d hooked him.

“It is exciting, yes, I have to admit.” And then he began to say how he had looked forward to this excursion. He asked how she liked England. Were the lodgings to her liking? Was there anything missing, or anything that needed remedying?

“Everything is perfect,” Chloe said. “Better than I could’ve imagined.”

Just when she thought things couldn’t get any better, the carriage rounded a bend and above them, atop a kelly-green hill, stood the ruins of a red-brick wall with three massive Gothic windows. Sun streamed through the arched frames where glass once might have been. It was the most picturesque date she had ever been on and she felt a tinge of Austen’s Mr. Henry Tilney wrapped up in a Mr. Darcy package for a fleeting moment.

“Here we are,” Sebastian announced. “The ruins of Dartworth Castle. Mrs. Crescent. Will you be joining us as I escort Miss Parker up to the castle keep? Or would you rather stay in the comfort of the carriage?”

Mrs. Crescent eyed them both. “I will stay here, Mr. Wrightman. But you must both remain in my line of sight at all times.”

Sebastian handed Chloe out of the carriage. “Not to worry,” he said.

It wasn’t as if they would be alone, what with the two cameramen on them.

Chloe had never seen anything like the castle ruin before, but Sebastian had grown up with it, and might’ve even played here as a boy. Chloe drank it in. Here was ground more ancient than Bridesbridge, and the crumbled walls looked more than five feet thick.

“Amazing,” Chloe gushed.

Sebastian looked smug. “Why, thank you.”

“I’m referring to the castle, Mr. Wrightman. I’ve only just met you! When was it built?”

“The earliest pieces of it date from about the year 1130, I think, but it was added onto sometime in the thirteenth century, and then again later.”

As they passed under the remains of the archway in the gate-house, Chloe could imagine the noble families that must’ve passed through this spot all those centuries ago, with their flowing robes, thick gold jewelry, and royal headdresses.

But Sebastian was asking her a question. “How are you getting along with the rest of the women at Bridesbridge?”

Chloe had to stop and think of something, anything, witty or even interesting to say. It was hard to conjure anything amid such enchanting surroundings.

“I’m getting along with them,” she said. “But not all of them are getting along with me.” She stepped away from the cameraman, and stepped up onto what must’ve been an old wall partition. Could this have been the great hall? Grass grew in what would’ve been the stone floor.

“It must be difficult,” Sebastian said. He walked the perimeter of a crumbled wall until it ascended and he stood in one of the Gothic window openings. Chloe would not soon forget the image of him with his black coattails against the blue sky as he took off his hat to wave it toward Mrs. Crescent. He looked like he was born to wear breeches and boots. He smiled down at Chloe, who steadied herself near a freestanding fireplace with a partial chimney.

He stepped down from the window and leaned against the chimney. “Is there anyone in particular causing you trouble? Do tell.”

“Lady Grace,” Chloe said. She smiled at the cameras. “Seems rather preoccupied with making me miserable.”

Sebastian laughed. “Does she, now?” Under his breath, he added, “I do find her rather tedious myself.”

That was to his credit. She had to wonder, then, why he didn’t send her home.

As if he read her mind, he leaned into her as he whispered. “I’m supposed to humor her because of this land issue. Very touchy, that.”

Chloe was shocked that he knew about the land thing, and even more shocked that he confided in her about it with the cameras rolling. “You know about the land?”

“Know about it? Well, her family’s been trying to claim a portion of our land as theirs for almost two hundred years.”