George’s phone rang again. He smiled and talked as if nothing were the matter. He was the British version of Winthrop. She wondered if he, too, would make the crucial mistake of e-mailing his wife “Happy 35th Birthday” from across the country, without sending flowers, a present, or even bothering to call.

George wrapped up his conversation and set his sunglasses atop his head as the sky began to darken. “You’ve both been duly warned.”

Fifi growled and Chloe forced herself to pet him, just to calm him down.

George raked his hair. “God knows nothing can happen in a silly hedge maze, but we have an archery competition slated for tomorrow if the weather holds. Aim for the targets. If so much as an apple gets hit by a stray arrow, the game’s over and you’ll be replaced with two beautiful, smart, and eager prospects.”

“You wouldn’t!” Grace practically popped out of her spencer. “After all the time I’ve invested in this? Leaving all my clients high and dry? Really! When you know very well that all this is Miss Parker—Chloe’s doing!”

Fifi quivered in Chloe’s arms, and at first Chloe thought it was from the rain, the first drops of which had started coming down, but then he snarled at something that looked like a weasel. It was burrowing under the hedge. All of a sudden Fifi lunged from Chloe’s grip, flinging his hot little body into the gargantuan maze with his leash trailing behind him.

Chloe held out her arms, as if she somehow expected him to come bounding back. “Fifi!” she cried, clapping as the dog squeezed under the hedge. “Come back here!”

“Fifi! My Fifi!” yelled Mrs. Crescent, cradling her belly and waddling over. “He’ll get hopelessly lost in there!”

Chloe tossed aside her parasol, hiked up her gown, and sprang into the maze.

“Cameras! Get on this!” George whistled with his fingers, and the cameras rolled behind her. “That girl’s golden,” she heard him say. “Wherever she goes, drama follows.”

Grace laughed and George’s ATV spun off.

Fifi growled somewhere within the maze, but Chloe couldn’t see him. She ran toward the spot from where the growling seemed to be coming. Her walking boots were so thin she could feel the gravel under the soles of her feet.

“Fifi! Fifi! Come here!” Her bonnet fell to her shoulders. Her white shawl snagged on a yew branch.

“Miss Parker! Miss Parker!” Mrs. Crescent called from outside the hedge maze. “Save my baby Fifi! Hurry! Before he gets hurt! Oh, Mr. Wrightman—thank goodness you’re here!”

Sebastian? Great. He was supposed to be chasing her through the maze, and here she was chasing a droopy-eyed pug. She heard more growling and shuffling.

“Fifi! Fifi!” Chloe found herself bumping into dead end after dead end as larger and larger raindrops began to fall faster and faster.

“Yip! Yip!” Fifi yelped, and Chloe spun, sprinted, took a sharp turn in the hedge, and barreled right into—Mr. Wrightman—the younger, the penniless.

“I’ve been meaning to run into you,” he quipped, offering her a hand to steady her. “But not quite like this.”

That sounded like something she would say, or did say, to Sebastian.

The rain was falling even harder now.

“Listen, I’ll get the dog. You head back,” Henry said.

“Yip! Yip!” Fifi yelped again, and Henry marched off.

But Chloe couldn’t leave Fifi. She clambered behind with a broken shoelace and her flimsy boots soaked through. Deep into the maze, she finally caught up to Henry and watched him throw his jacket on a tangle of pug and weasel and somehow magically extract the dog from the pile. He tucked Fifi under his arm like a football while ribbons of blood and mud trickled down the dog’s back. Fifi was yipping and crying.

Chloe felt as if the seams of her corset were showing through her white dress. Her gown clung to her legs, revealing her garters at midthigh.

Henry’s eyes roamed from her face to her neck, her breasts, her legs—then he turned to head back. “Follow me for the way out,” he said in the pouring rain as he led the way. “If you lose sight of me, keep your left hand on the hedge. I’ve got to hurry and get the dog cleaned and bandaged before infection sets in. He’s covered in mud.”

Henry didn’t know her lace was broken. As she followed him, her cameraman followed her, rain running down her face, over her lip, and into her mouth, tasting sweet and salty at the same time. The sky flashed lightning.

In a matter of moments she lost sight of Henry and could no longer hear his boots crunching in the gravel. She placed her wet glove on the hedge to her left. Fog was rolling in among the hedgerows, and all at once the vivid green hedges seemed grayer, taller, woodier. What kind of mother would let herself get lost in a hedge maze in the middle of nowhere in England, during a thunderstorm?

“Hand on the left. Hand on the left.”

Rain dripped down from her fingertips to her elbow as if she were a human gutter. She felt as if she’d been in this very spot five minutes ago. Did she just make a big circle? It occurred to her what a brilliant invention the GPS was, and she determined that as soon as she got home and could afford it, she’d buy one, because she hated being lost and alone. But, as it turned out, she wasn’t alone.

She turned and looked right at the cameraman. “All right. How do we get out of here?”

He didn’t respond, he just kept filming.

“You don’t have to say anything. Just lead the way. I’ll follow you.”

He stayed put.

“Ugh!” Exasperated, Chloe threw her arms up.

Thunder rumbled and the hedges seemed to grow taller. Left hand. Left hand against the hedge, she reminded herself. Her gloves went translucent on her fingers. Tufts of fog blew through the hedgerows, obscuring the path. She kept bumping into the same dead end over and over. When the rain began to let up, she stopped shivering. Her hair had gone wild and windblown around her shoulders and the bottom of her white gown was brown with mud.

Finally, she saw an opening in the distance. It was the exit! She did it. She’d made it! All by herself. Something moved toward her, ran toward her in the fog. It was Sebastian come to save her, a little too late, unfortunately. She shook off the disappointment, but not the cold and rain.

“Miss Parker! Are you all right?” Sebastian called out.

“I think so, Colonel Brandon,” she replied.

He smiled at the Austen reference and opened his arms to her. Did he forget he couldn’t touch her? She was too cold and wet to care about protocol or the camera. He held out his arms to her and she had no resistance left. She buried her head in his wet, white ruffled shirt, taking in his wine-barrel, snufflike aroma. He, too, had been soaked through and his body felt chilled.

“I think we make a pretty cool couple.” She shivered and whispered in his ear, alone with him at last.

Sebastian didn’t have an umbrella or a coat to offer her, but in an instant he swooped her up in his arms.

She locked her arms around his strong neck, and he carried her toward Dartworth Hall. Now, where were all the cameras when she needed them?

“You are Colonel Brandon after all,” Chloe said.

Sebastian smiled while his Hessian boots trudged on. He seemed an enigma to her, but the scent of spongy grass filled the air and being in his arms made her feel safe and taken care of.

His dark eyes looked straight ahead at the doors of the hall, his nostrils flared slightly. The rain had stopped, but it had made him slick back his black hair, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. His cheekbones were so chiseled a girl could go rock-climbing on them. The moment was right out of a movie, until he lost his footing, slipped in the mud, and Chloe slid out of his arms and landed with her feet on the ground.

He caught her, helped her regain her footing, and their hands touched for the first time. “So sorry,” he said, with his incredible English accent.

“I’m not.” She melted faster than a chocolate molten lava cake. “Maybe you’re falling for me.”

He laughed and there they were, face-to-face. “I am—falling for you. I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re a rarity.” He moved closer as if to kiss her, and her lips parted. She resisted taking his designer-stubbled jawline in her hands.

His lips were almost pressing against hers and his arms had almost gone around her waist when they heard twigs snap behind them, reminding them that Chloe’s cameraman was still there, and now another cameraman had appeared as well.

She stepped back. She couldn’t help but notice Sebastian’s very revealing breeches, so she tried instead to focus on the wet shirt clinging to his muscled torso—and that was certainly no punishment. Their bodies quivered to be together, and for the first time, Chloe felt for Regency women who weren’t allowed to act on any of their impulses, or, if they did, they’d suffer life-altering consequences.

Chloe needed more time with Sebastian, preferably not in a thunderstorm and surrounded by cameras, and perhaps not in the nineteenth century, for that matter. She had to admit that in the modern world, they’d have slept together already! Their relationship would’ve been so much further along by this point. How could you get to know a man when you were surrounded by chaperones? When you couldn’t talk to him, be alone with him—or rip off his ruffled shirt and breeches?! Did Regency women really know who they were marrying? How could they have?

Chloe could learn more in a single weekend away at a beach cottage with him than six or even twelve more weeks of this. And, if she really wanted TMI, she could’ve done what Emma did with men she’s just met, and Google them, check out their Facebook page, follow them on Twitter. Just a few minutes of cyberstalking would’ve revealed more than she’d learned about Sebastian in two full weeks!