Free Mr. Darcy Forever by Victoria Connelly

done to Mia’s dress.’ She pulled Mia’s shawl down to reveal the offending mark.
    ‘ Oh, dear,’ Gabe said but there was the beginnings of a smile playing around his lips and Mia couldn’t help but smile too. ‘Shall I give him a walk?’
    ‘ Oh, would you?’
    ‘ It would be my pleasure.’
    ‘ He’s always such a darling for you. I can never handle him properly.’
    ‘ That’s because he knows he can get away with things with you. You've got to be firmer with him, Shelley.’
    ‘ I know but it's so hard.’
    ‘ I’ll get him now, shall I?’
    Shelley smiled and nodded, watching as Gabe entered the house. ‘Honestly, I don't know what I'd do without Gabe. He really is marvellous. You should get to know him.’
    Before Mia could protest, Shelley was shouting again.
    ‘ PIE! Oh, where is he? How very provoking he can be. Honestly, he wouldn’t get a job as a taxi driver.’
    Mia grinned as Pie emerged from the house. His hair was in disarray as usual and he wasn't smiling.
    ‘ If only Pie could be more like Gabe,’ Shelley whispered.
    They followed Pie out into the road and Mia couldn’t help smiling when she saw the vehicle that was to take them into Bath. It was a small white van. Well, it had once been white but was now more of a dingy beige owing to the layers of dirt that had accumulated over goodness only knew how long. It wasn’t exactly the finest of vehicles on the road but it looked functional enough and it certainly beat the long walk into town in their fancy gowns and delicate shoes.
    ‘ What is it, exactly, that Pie does?’ Mia whispered, looking around the van as they squashed into the back seat together.
    ‘ I’m not sure,’ Shelley whispered back.
    ‘ Didn’t you ask? I mean, when he came to rent your room?’
    Shelley shook her head. ‘He just handed me these two references and a wad of fifty-pound notes and I said thank you. I’m sure he did try to tell me but I couldn’t understand what he was saying.’
    ‘ Is he foreign, do you think?’
    Shelley shrugged.
    Mia thought it very mysterious and she wasn’t at all sure she’d want to be sharing a house with somebody she knew so little about but there was also something a little romantic about it. It turned Pie into a sort of Heathcliff-type character where one could imagine all sorts about his background. Maybe he was a prince from for a faraway country or ... or maybe not. She couldn’t imagine it herself.
    Putting all thoughts of Pie’s romantic past out of her mind, Mia looked out of the window as the van descended the steep hill into town. It was this side of town around which Jane Austen and her sister used to walk. Lyncombe Hill, wasn’t it? Mia tried to imagine the sisters making the ascent in the restricting fashions of the day. It wouldn’t do for Mia. As much as she adored her muslin dress and dainty shoes, she still liked to be able to stride out in a pair of jeans and sturdy boots.
    Pie dropped them at the back of the abbey and they got out of the van, straightening their dresses and adjusting their bonnets.
    ‘ I’m so excited,’ Mia said. ‘It feels like decades since I was last here.’
    Shelley linked arms with her like a true heroine and they rounded the abbey together and were soon lost in a sea of costumes.
    ‘ It’s the busiest ever!’ Shelley said. ‘I’ve never seen so many people before. This must be a world record!’
    The crowd seemed to hum with excitement and Mia watched in delight as people posed in front of the great abbey doors and the Pump Room, all eager to have their photograph taken for posterity.
    Mia had truly never seen quite so many people in costume in one place. But there was something rather surreal about it too for these heroes and heroines were definitely from the twenty-first century even though the clothes they wore begged to differ. Mia noticed that a number of them were pushing baby strollers and holding mobile phones, and there was even a Mrs Jenkins lookalike who