“Not physically, though I feel like I need a shower.” She shivered with disgust.
“I will take care of this chinless wonder from here. Would you like me to escort you to your chamber first?”
“I’m fine,” she said, “as long as there aren’t any other Sir Johns lurking upstairs.”
“Colonel Andrews is harmless, so I believe your way is safe.”
She stepped closer to Mr. Nobley and whispered, “Are you going to out me to Mrs. Wattlesbrook for the servants’ quarters lurking?”
“I think,” he said, nudging the prostrate and still-groaning Sir John with his foot, “that you have suffered enough.”
Mr. Nobley smiled at her, the first time she had seen his real smile. His lips were closed, but his eyes brightened and the corners of his mouth definitely turned up, creating pleasing little cheek wrinkles on either side as though the smile were in parentheses. It bothered her in a way she couldn’t explain, like feeling itchy but not knowing exactly where to scratch. He was not particularly amused, she saw, but smiled to reassure her. Wait, who wanted to reassure her? Mr. Nobley or the actual man, Actor X?
“Thanks. Good night, Mr. Nobley.”
“Good night, Miss Erstwhile.”
She hesitated, then left, Sir John’s groans following her up the stairs. On the second floor, Aunt Saffronia was emerging from her room, clutching a white shawl over her nightgown.
“What was that noise? Is everything all right?”
“Yes. It was . . . your husband. He was being inappropriate.”
Aunt Saffronia blinked. “Inebriated?”
“Yes. He propositioned me, grabbed my hand, pressed me again the wall, and would not release me until I kneed him.”
She nodded slowly. “I’m sorry, Jane. I’m so sorry.”
Jane wasn’t sure if Aunt Saffronia was speaking to Jane the niece or Jane the client. It didn’t matter; both Janes felt exactly the same.
“I will sort it,” said Aunt Saffronia. “You won’t have to see him again.”
“Mr. Nobley is down there with him now,” said Jane.
Aunt Saffronia’s shoulders relaxed and she exhaled audibly, as if she couldn’t imagine anyone better to trust to the matter.
Jane went to her room and purposefully didn’t lock the door behind her, to prove to herself that she wasn’t afraid. She thought she might feel traumatized, but when she plopped herself down on her bed and put her face in her pillow, what came out first was a laugh. She laughed even harder, because it felt good.
“What a joke,” she said, sounding to herself like the movie incarnation of Lydia Bennet. “I come for Mr. Darcy, fall for the gardener, and am assaulted by the drunk husband.”
Eh, screw him. She trusted Aunt Saffronia and Mr. Nobley to take care of it, and Jane refused to waste one more precious second even thinking about that enlarged-livered lecherous louse.
Tomorrow would be different. She had spent her life in training, and now she would play the all-or-nothing game. And while she was at it, she’d have a staggering good time and kick the nasty Darcy habit for good.
She fell asleep with the ticklish thought of Mr. Nobley’s smile.
Boyfriend #7
Josh Lake, age twenty
They met when two large groups of friends bumped and merged at the college carnival fundraiser, “Fifty Acres of Fun!” Somehow Jane got strapped together with perfect-stranger Josh and semi-acquaintance Britney in the “Drop ‘n’ Swing,” only the “drop” function malfunctioned, and the three of them hung facedown, harnessed to the tip of the twelve-story steel tower for fifteen minutes. Britney went nuts, cussing at the scrambling carnival workers, red-faced, spit falling 150 feet. When Jane told her to take it easy, Britney’s angry fear knew no bounds. She unleashed her longshoreman’s vocabulary on Jane and Josh, which made them laugh so hard that when the sudden, stomach-prying drop finally occurred, they had no breath to scream.
So potent was the bond formed at 150 feet, it took Jane three months of inept kisses and conversations poking atsubjects of minimal philosophical depth (“But really, Jane, think about it—if the arts are taught in school, then they are inherently polluted with institutional malaise. I mean, think about it!”) to finally say, “We should probably just break up.” He shrugged. “Yeah, okay.” Way to put up a fight, Josh.
Day 6
Jane took the morning slowly, as all Regency and recently scorned women must. She lay on her stomach in bed, sticking her feet in the air with pointed toes, taking some comfort in feeling girly, and played with her phone. With that device in her hand, she felt an uncanny thrill of power, a time traveler gifted with secret future technology. It was a weapon, and she had questions to attack. Still, phoning Molly felt too scandalous, too rule-breaking, and shewasdetermined to drown herself completely in Austenland. But who could deny her a brief text to her journalist friend.
