“Habibti, there you are!” My landlady burst out of her flat in a cloud of velour and Chanel No. 5. “I want a word about your damn cat, who’s been pissing all over my—”
She stopped when she saw the man—Darcy, as I was now begrudgingly thinking of him—standing behind me.
“Ohh, a gentleman caller!” she said, her heavily penciled eyebrows shooting up in excitement.
Shit, I’d really hoped to avoid this. Mrs. Atallah’s third-favorite topic of conversation, after her arthritis and reality TV, was my dismal dating life. She’d spent much of the past two years trying to set me up with her great-nephew, Bilal, a GP from Staines.
“And who do we have here?” she boomed. For a small woman—Mrs. Atallah was barely five-foot-two—she had an extremely powerful voice.
Mr. Darcy opened his mouth to answer, but I grabbed him by the arm and began to pull him toward the stairs.
“Sorry, Mrs. Atallah, we’re in a bit of a hurry.”
“You don’t want to go too quickly,” she yelled after me. “I know you’ve not done this for a while, but slower is usually better!”
I winced, hoping Darcy wouldn’t realize what she was referring to.
“What an impertinent maid you have,” he said as he came up the stairs behind me. “Do you routinely allow her to disrespect you in such a manner?”
“She’s not a maid, she’s my landlady.”
On the top floor, I unlocked my door and stood aside to allow Darcy in. He surveyed the cramped room with a disdainful expression, and I saw him take in the small dining table with its solitary chair, the desk in the corner that I’d bought years ago to write my novels on but now just held my towering TBR pile, and my knickers drying on the radiator. I hurried past him and snatched them up, stuffing them into a drawer.
“Are these the servants’ quarters?” he asked.
“No, this is my flat.”
“And you reside here with whom, your husband or relatives?”
“I live here alone. My parents aren’t around anymore, and the only men I’m interested in are the ones in books.” It was only when the words were out of my mouth that I realized their irony, given who I was talking to.
Darcy’s eyebrows shot up. “But that is… An unmarried woman living alone? I must leave at once, were I to risk irreparably damaging your reputation.”
I swallowed, wondering if it was time to start explaining what was going on. “This is 2026, Mr. Darcy. The world is very different nowadays to what you’re used to.”
“Two thousand and twenty-six!” He staggered as if he’d been hit. “Then are you to tell me that I have somehow traveled forth in time? But that is surely against all known laws of science and religion!”
I paused again. Should I go further and explain that he was actually a character who’d somehow been ripped from the pages of an early-nineteenth-century novel? But the Mr. Darcy I knew fromPride and Prejudicewas so proud that I suspected he’d be furious if I even suggested he was fictional. No, for now, it was safest if I stuck to the time-travel explanation, which, as shocking as it clearly was to him, was presumably more palatable than the fact that he wasn’t even real.
“I don’t know how it happened, but I think you have traveled forward in time,” I said.
“Good God!” Darcy gasped. “Do your people regularly pluck unsuspecting gentlemen out of their evening repose and transport them hither? Tell me, is this some heathen witchcraft that has been cast over me?”
“No! I swear, we don’t practice witchcraft, and I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before.”
“But then, how is this possible? And more pertinently, how can we reverse this fiendish devilry and return me whence I came?”
“I’m afraid I have no idea.” As I said this, the bookseller’s brooding face flashed into my mind. If Darcy’s appearance was somehow connected to the stolen copy ofPride and Prejudice, then maybe he could explain what was going on? Ugh, but that meant I was going to have to talk to that aggravating man again. “Actually, there is one person I can think of who might be able to help.”
“Well then, what are you waiting for? Make haste and summon this gentleman so that I may be relieved of this existential agony.”
I glanced at my watch: It was past six, which meant BaskervilleBooks would already be closed. “I can’t talk to him tonight, but I’ll go and speak with him first thing tomorrow.”
Mr. Darcy let out an anguished sigh and collapsed onto my sofa, then promptly jumped up again when the cushion let out an angry howl.
“What in the devil’s name is that?” he cried.
“Don’t worry, it’s just Mr. Wickham. He likes to sleep under—” I stopped when I saw Darcy’s cheeks flush red.
