Free Definitely Not Mr. Darcy by Karen Doornebos

Regency parlor game in the guise of a dessert that included a real bullet and Chloe made a mental note to have it served up here sometime very soon.
    Mrs. Crescent anchored herself in a scroll-armed chair beside Chloe’s bed, hand on her belly, Fifi curled at her feet.
    â€œI’m here to make amends,” said Grace as she looked outside. “I do apologize, even though it was a misunderstanding. It seems a bullet never hit your carriage. Your wheel crashed into a rock.”
    Chloe leveraged herself out of bed and stood strong this time, smoothing her gown over her legs.
    â€œCan you manage it, dear?” Mrs. Crescent asked, and Fifi lifted his head.
    â€œYes, I’m fine.”
    She slid on her shoes.
    â€œMiss Parker, you really should have Fiona put your shoes on for you,” Grace said. “What would we do without servants after all? Life here would hardly be tolerable. Thank God for that brilliant Mr. Wrightman. Any minute that I’m not with him seems like an eternity.”
    â€œReally?” Chloe asked. Grace was catwalk stunning; she seemed a little beyond Mr. Wrightman’s league.
    â€œMr. Wrightman is an amazing man,” Mrs. Crescent said. “Charming. Why, I truly was touched when he confided in me . . .”
    Mrs. Crescent launched into an anecdote about how much Mr. Wrightman admired mothers like her and how he wanted to be a father. One of his cousins recently had a baby and named it after him, and the moment he held that baby he knew he was ready. Ready to fall in love, marry the woman of his dreams, and have children.
    Fiona stepped in carrying a tray with a Wedgwood teapot, teacups, and some sort of bread piled high and set the tray on a table near Mrs. Crescent.
    Chloe couldn’t believe a maidservant was serving her tea in her boudoir, and she leaned in to admire the teapot’s design. Both sides of it had been hand-painted with the ruins of an abbey standing in a field of yellow flowers and green grass.
    Grace sprawled in a chair Fiona had pulled up for her. “Well, there is one other thing that makes it exciting. But when you’ve been here for weeks as we have without—”
    â€œWait a minute. Did you say you’ve been here for—weeks?” Chloe pulled her own Empire chair to the table.
    â€œWe’ve been here, what, three weeks now, Mrs. Crescent?”
    Mrs. Crescent nodded. Chloe plopped down in her chair, rattling the teacups in their saucers. “Three weeks?!” She lowered her voice. “I mean—really?”
    â€œReally.” Grace took a skeleton key from her lap, unlocked a wooden box on the tea tray, and scooped tea leaves into a strainer over the teapot.
    The cameraman turned his camera on Chloe. The mike dug into her back, her stomach roiled, and her ears burned, she was so upset. The rule book said a Regency lady must never go to emotional extremes. She should never be too happy, too sad, or too angry. Suddenly she didn’t even want tea. She gaped at Mrs. Crescent, who was buttering her bread. Fifi scuttled over to the table, wagging his curl of a tail. George had warned her of surprises, but this? How many Accomplishment Points had the other women garnered in all that time? And they obviously had already gotten to know Mr. Wrightman. She felt the urge to hurl a teacup into the camera. “Mrs. Crescent, will you pass the knife, please?”
    Mrs. Crescent looked up from her plate.
    â€œThe butter knife, please. And the butter.” Chloe buttered her bread with vigor then stabbed the butter knife upright into the butter dish. Her first English tea in England—ruined. Still, she realized that she hadn’t eaten since the breakfast on the airplane. And sheer excitement had kept her from eating then. So she hadn’t eaten in more than twenty-four hours and really was starved. The bread tasted grainy, though, and too floury, which indicated that the food, too, would be historically