Jane was hurrying back toward the house and the hopes of a bath before the promised call from Pembrook Cottage that afternoon. She turned a bend and knocked right into Mr. Nobley and Colonel Andrews coming from the other direction.
“Excuse me!” she said, backing away. She was afraid she smelled like sweat after her surreptitious speed walk, but perhaps the exercise had also reddened her cheeks and brightened her eyes. One can hope.
“Pardon indeed,” said the colonel. “I was just telling Nobley here, I think that divine Miss Erstwhile sneaked off into the grounds alone. Let’s see if we cannot find her out.”
“Oh.” Jane felt herself sway. That encounter with a real person had roused her up inside more than she’d realized. Her dress hung on her shoulders like a potato sack, her bonnet felt like a vise, the sunlight scratched at her skin.
“I don’t think I can do this,” she whispered, too low for anyone to hear.
“I say, Miss Erstwhile, you are tongue-tied today,” Colonel Andrews said. “What secrets is your mouth trying to hold back? I must know!”
“Stop it, Andrews,” Mr. Nobley said, coming up beside her to take her arm. “Can’t you see that she is unwell? Go fetch some water.”
The colonel’s face was suddenly serious. “Apologies, Miss Erstwhile. Do sit down. I will return swiftly.” He set off at once toward the house.
Mr. Nobley put an arm behind her back, guiding her to a nearby boulder, helping her to sit as though she would break if breathed upon. No matter how she protested, he would not let her go.
“If you permit me,” he said, crouching beside her, “I will carry you inside.”
She laughed. “Wow, that sounds like fun, but really I’m fine. I don’t feel sick, I just feel like a schmuck, and that’s not a malady you can throw water at.”
“You are homesick?”
Jane sighed, wishing for Molly, but all she had was this strange, sideburned man who was generally as boring as gray and dull as oatmeal. But at least he was listening. She leaned forward, whispering, in case Mrs. Wattlesbrook installed microphones in the shrubbery. “I don’t know if I can do this.” She shook the skirt of her dress. “I don’t know if I can pretend.”
He stared at her, unblinking, for long enough to make Jane uncomfortable.
“You are being serious,” he said at last. “Miss Erstwhile, why are you here?”
“You’d laugh at me if I told you,” she whispered. “No, wait, you wouldn’t, it’s not in your character.”
He blinked as though she’d flicked water at his face.
“Did that sound rude? I didn’t mean to. Ugh, I feel so tired. I just want to lie down and sleep until I’m myself again, but I’ve only been half myself lately, and I thought coming here would let me work this part out of me so I could be me again. L just said ‘me’ a lot, didn’t I?”
He smiled briefly. She noticed that his eyes were dark, a warm brown, and noticing made him a fraction more real to her, not so much set dressing but a person she could actually know.
“Tell me, Mr. Nobley, or whoever you are, how do you do it? How do you pretend?”
Her question seemed to stagger him so profoundly, he he1d his breath. It surprised Jane that she would notice his breath at all, then she realized how close their faces were, how far she had leaned in to whisper.
“Miss Erstwhile,” he said flatly, not moving, “play your little charade, but do not try to trap me. I will not sing for you.”
He stood up, glaring, until he turned his back to her and took three steps away.
She sat still on the rock, her insides buzzing like a beehive shaken and tossed away. She almost apologized, but then stopped herself.
Apologize for what? she thought. He’s a mean, unpleasant, loathsome man. There’s no Darcy in him. And I don’t need him to get me through this. I can do this; I want to do this.
She prickled with anger at that jacketed back, and the fury helped her burn away her flimsiness. She looked down and breathed.
Be the dress, she told herself. Be the bonnet, Jane. Stage fright, that’s all this is. I’m just afraid of looking like a fool. So stop it. Admit that you are a fool already and do this so you can let it go.
She smoothed the stomach of her dress. She closed her eyes and tried to catch the feel of Austen dialogue—it was like trying to hum one song while listening to another. When she opened her eyes again, Colonel Andrews was sprinting across the lawn, a cup of water sloshing over his hand.
“I have it! I have the water! Never fear.” He bowed as he gave it to her, smiling the smile of a rake. She took it and drank. The water tasted of minerals and was deepearth cold, as though it had been drawn from a well. It hummed in her belly. She could do this.
“Well, gentlemen.” She took a breath and smiled at the colonel. “Now that you’ve found me and watered me, what will you do with me?”
“What a marvelous question! How shall I answer?” Colonel Andrews chuckled low in his throat, mischievous. “No, I will be a good boy. So, what adventure were you on before we bumped into you? Keeping a tryst with a clandestine lover or following a map to hidden treasure?”
“I’ll never tell,” she said.
Nobley’s face was impassive, and when he spoke, his voice was traced with formal boredom. “It was my intent to go riding and leave you be, if you wished so much to walk alone.”
“But I will not have it,” Colonel Andrews said. “After all that rain, it is far too mucky to go hunting, and I need amusement, so you must go riding with us now that we have caught you. You are my butterfly and I refuse to turn you loose.”
She took the colonel’s arm as they walked to the stables, turning toward his bewitchingly smooth voice. He asked Jane question after question, hanging on her answers and utterly absorbed in her conversation as though she were a novel he could not bear to put down, his interest pulling her back into character as Miss Erstwhile.
Mr. Nobley walked beside her, then rode beside her, and never said another word. She tried to enjoy riding her pathetically docile mount, but Mr. Nobley’s silence felt like a slap. Hadn’t he seemed human for a moment, before he got all nasty and turned his back? Hadn’t the fake world tumbled away? No, it was a mistake, her own dratted hopefulness building castles again where there was only mud. She’d been wrong to try to lower the Regency curtain with that man. He was an actor. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.