VICTORIA CONNELLY

A Weekend with Mr Darcy

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers in 2010

This ebook edition published by HarperCollins Publishers in 2017

Copyright © Victoria Connelly 2010

Victoria Connelly asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9781847562258

Ebook Edition © August 2010 ISBN: 9780007373352

Version: 2017-06-08

Dedication

To my dear friend, Bridget, who discovered

Pride and Prejudice with me all those years ago!

Epigraph

‘She was the sun of my life, the gilder of every pleasure, the soother of every sorrow.’

Cassandra Austen of her sister, Jane.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Acknowledgements

The Perfect Hero

About the Author

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Dr Katherine Roberts couldn’t help thinking that a university lecturer in possession of a pile of paperwork must be in want of a holiday.

She leant back in her chair and surveyed her desk. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Outside, the October sunshine was golden and glorious and she was shut up in her book-lined tomb of an office.

Removing her glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose, she looked at the leaflet that was lying beside a half-eaten salad sandwich which had wilted hours before. The heading was in a beautiful bold script that looked like old-fashioned handwriting.

Purley Hall, Church Stinton, Hampshire, it read.

Set in thirty-five acres of glorious parkland, this early eighteenth-century house is the perfect place in which to enjoy your Jane Austen weekend. Join a host of special guest speakers and find out more about England’s favourite novelist.

Katherine looked at the photograph of the handsome red-bricked Georgian mansion taken from the famous herbaceous borders. With its long sweep of lawn and large sash windows, it was the quintessential English country house and it was very easy to imagine a whole host of Jane Austen characters walking through its rooms and gardens.

‘And I will be too,’ Katherine said to herself. It was the third year she’d been invited to speak at the Jane Austen weekend and rumour had it that the novelist, Lorna Warwick, was going to make an appearance too. Katherine bit her lip. Lorna Warwick was her favourite author - after Jane Austen, of course. She was a huge bestseller, famous for her risqué Regency romances of which she published one perfect book a year. Katherine had read them all from the very first - Marriage and Magic - to the latest - A Bride for Lord Burford - published a few months ago and which Katherine had devoured in one evening at the expense of a pile of essays she should have been marking.

She thought of the secret bookshelves in her study at home and how they groaned deliciously under the weight of Miss Warwick’s work. How her colleagues would frown and fret at such horrors as popular fiction! How quickly would she be marched from her Oxford office and escorted from St Bridget’s College if they knew of her wicked passion?

‘Dr Roberts,’ Professor Compton would say, his hairy eyebrows lowered over his beady eyes, ‘you really do surprise me.’

‘Why, because I choose to read some novels purely for entertainment?’ Katherine would say to him, remembering Jane Austen’s own defence of the pleasures of novels in Northanger Abbey. ‘Professor Compton, you really are a dreadful snob!’

But it couldn’t be helped. Lorna Warwick’s fiction was Katherine’s secret vice and, if her stuffy colleagues ever found out, she would be banished from Oxford before you could say Sense and Sensibility.

To Katherine’s mind, it wasn’t right that something which could give as much pleasure as a novel could be so reviled. Lorna Warwick had confessed to being on the receiving end of such condescension too and had been sent some very snobby letters in her time. Perhaps that was why Katherine’s own letter had caught the eye of the author.

It had been about a year ago when Katherine had done something she’d never ever done before - she’d written a fan letter and posted it care of Miss Warwick’s publisher. It was a silly letter really, full of gushings and admiration and Katherine had never expected a reply. Nevertheless, within a fortnight, a beautiful cream envelope had dropped onto her doormat containing a letter from the famous writer.

How lovely to receive your letter. You have no idea what it means to me to be told how much you enjoy my novels. I often get some very strange letters from readers telling me that they always read my novels but that they are complete trash!

Katherine had laughed and their bond had been sealed. After that, she couldn’t stop. Every moment that wasn’t spent reading a Lorna Warwick novel was spent writing to the woman herself and each letter was answered. They talked about all sorts of things - not just books. They talked about films, past relationships, their work, fashion, Jane Austen, and if men had changed since Austen’s times and if one could really expect to find a Mr Darcy outside the pages of a novel.

Then Katherine had dared to ask Lorna if she was attending the conference at Purley Hall and it had gone quiet. For over two weeks. Had Katherine overstepped the boundaries? Had she pushed things too far? Maybe it was one thing exchanging letters with a fan but quite another to meet them in the flesh.

But - just as Katherine had given up all hope - a letter had arrived.

Dear Katherine,

I’m so sorry not to have replied sooner but I’ve been away and I still can’t answer your question as to whether or not I’ll be at Purley. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Yours truly, Lorna.

It seemed a very odd sort of reply, Katherine thought. If Lorna Warwick was going to be at Purley, surely the organizers would want to know as she’d be the biggest name and the main pull because she was famously reclusive. In comparison to the bestselling novelist, Katherine was just a dusty fusty old lecturer. Well, young lecturer actually; she was in her early thirties. But she knew that people would come and listen to her talks only because they were true Janeites. At these conferences, anyone speaking about Jane Austen was instantly adored and held in great esteem. In fact, any sort of activity with even the slightest connection to Austen was pursued and enjoyed from Jane Austen Scrabble to Murder in the Dark which, one year, ended in uproar as it was discovered that Anne Elliot had somehow managed to murder Captain Wentworth.

Katherine smiled as she remembered. Then, trying to put thoughts of Purley out of her mind, she made a start on the pile of papers to her left which was threatening to spill onto the floor. It was mostly rubbish that had accumulated as the term had progressed. It was what she called her ‘tomorrow pile’ only she’d run out of tomorrows now.

With fingers as dextrous as a concert pianist’s, she filed, threw away and recycled until she could see the glorious wood of her desk again.

She was just about to pick up her handbag and briefcase when there was a knock on the door.

‘Come in,’ she said, wondering who was calling so late in the day without an appointment.

The door opened and a tousled head popped round.

‘Stewie,’ she said, sighing inwardly as one of her students stumbled into the room. Stewie Harper was in his first term studying English literature and he’d spent most of that time banging on her office door.

‘Dr Roberts,’ he said. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’

‘No,’ she said, resigning herself to helping him out of whatever literary conundrum he now found himself in. ‘Come in.’

Stewie looked at the chair opposite Katherine’s and she motioned for him to sit down.

‘It’s the reading list,’ he said, producing it from his pocket. ‘It says we’re to read as many of these titles as possible during the term.’

‘Well, as many as you have time for,’ Katherine said. ‘We don’t expect you to spend all your time with your head in a book.’

‘Yes but I couldn’t help noticing that your book isn’t on here.’

Katherine’s eyes widened. ‘My book?’

‘Yes. The Art of Jane Austen.’

Katherine smiled. ‘I’m afraid we can’t fit all the books on the list.’

‘But it’s your book, Dr Roberts. It should’ve been on the top of the list.’

Katherine couldn’t help but be flattered. ‘Well, that’s very sweet of you, Stewie.’

‘Are you writing any more books, Dr Roberts?’

‘Not at the moment,’ she said.

‘But you’ll sign my copy, won’t you?’

‘Your copy?’

‘Of your book,’ he said, scraping around in an old carrier bag. ‘I bought it in town. I had to order a copy.’

‘You shouldn’t have gone to all that trouble,’ Katherine said, knowing that the hardback was expensive, especially on a student’s budget.

‘It wasn’t any trouble,’ Stewie said, handing it across the desk to her.

Katherine opened it to the title page and picked up her favourite pen, aware that Stewie’s eyes were upon her as she signed.

‘There you are,’ she said, smiling at him as she handed the book back.

He turned eagerly to the page, his eyes bright. ‘Oh,’ he said, his smile slipping from his face. ‘Best wishes,’ he read.

Katherine nodded. ‘My very best wishes,’ she said.

‘You don’t want to add a kiss?’

‘No, Stewie,’ she said, ‘because we both know that wouldn’t be appropriate, don’t we?’ Katherine stood up. Stewie took the hint and stood up too.

‘Dr Roberts,’ he said as they left her office together, ‘I was thinking that I might need some extra tuition. You know - over the weekends - with you.’

Katherine eyed him over her glasses, trying to make herself look as old and unattractive as possible. It wasn’t an easy look to pull off because she was strikingly attractive with porcelain-pale skin and long dark hair which waved over her shoulders. Her mouth was a problem too. It was bee-stung-beautiful and could be a terrible distraction in class when she was trying to engage her students in her poetry readings. ‘Stewie,’ she said, ‘you don’t really need my help.’

‘I don’t?’

‘No, you don’t. Your grades are consistently good and you’ve proven yourself to be an independent, free-thinking student.’

Stewie looked pleased by this but then dismay filled his face. ‘But surely you can’t do enough studying.’

‘You absolutely can,’ Katherine assured him. ‘Everybody needs a break - that’s what weekends are for. Go and have an adventure. Go bungee jumping or parachuting or something.’

‘I’d rather be studying with you.’

‘Well, I’m going away,’ she told him.

‘Where?’

‘Hampshire.’

‘Doesn’t sound very exotic,’ he said.

‘Maybe not but it’s a little piece of perfect England. Goodbye, Stewie,’ she said, picking up her pace and lengthening her stride.

‘Goodbye, Dr Roberts,’ Stewie called after her.

She didn’t look round but she had the feeling that his eyes were watching the progress of her legs down the entire length of the corridor.

Allowing herself a sigh of relief as she reached the car park, she thought of her small but perfect garden at home where she could kick off her shoes and sink her bare feet into the silky green coolness of her lawn, a glass of white wine in her hand as she toasted the completion of another week of academia. And she’d almost made it to her car and to freedom when a voice cried out.

‘Katherine!’

She stopped. It was the last voice - the very last voice - she wanted to hear.

‘What is it, David?’ she asked a moment later as a fair-haired man with an anxious face joined her by her car.

‘That’s not very friendly. You were the one smiling at me across the car park.’

‘I wasn’t smiling at you - I was squinting at the sun.’

‘Oh,’ he said, looking crestfallen.

‘I’m in a rush,’ she said, opening her car door.

His hand instantly reached out and grabbed it, preventing her from closing it.

‘David—’

‘Talk to me, Kitty.’

‘Don’t call me that. Nobody calls me that.’

‘Oh, come on, Catkin,’ he said, his voice low. ‘We haven’t talked properly since - well, you know.’

‘Since I left you because I found out you’d got married? You’re the one who wasn’t returning my calls, David. You’re the one who disappeared off the face of the planet to marry some ex-student. Nobody knew where you were! I was worried sick.’

‘I was going to tell you.’

‘When? At the christening of your first-born?’

‘You’re not being fair.’

‘I’m not being fair? I’m not the one who has a wife tucked away in the attic somewhere,’ Katherine cried.

‘Oh, don’t be so melodramatic. This isn’t some nineteenth-century novel,’ he said. ‘That’s the problem with you. You can’t exist in the real world. You have your head constantly immersed in fiction and you just can’t handle reality any more.’

Katherine’s mouth dropped open. ‘That is not true!’

‘No?’ he said. ‘So where are you heading now, eh? Purley bloody Hall, I bet.’

‘That’s my work,’ Katherine said in defence of herself.

‘Work? It’s your whole life. You don’t do anything but work. Your entire existence revolves around a set of people who’ve been made up by other people who’ve been dead for at least a century. It’s not healthy.’

Katherine was on the verge of defending herself again but had the good sense to bite her tongue realizing - reluctantly - that he was probably right. She knew what her life was like; she knew how many early nights together had been rejected in favour of the latest Jane Austen adaptation on the TV and how often she had burned a much-anticipated candlelit dinner at home because she’d had her head buried in a book. It bothered her when she stopped to think about it long enough because she knew that she was in love with a fictional world. Mr Darcy, Captain Wentworth and Henry Tilney were all creations of a female mind. They didn’t exist. But perhaps her obsession with such heroes was because there were so few real heroes and she was standing looking at a real-life non-hero right now.

‘Go home to your wife, David,’ she said, getting into her car.

‘You know I’d rather go home with you.’

Katherine sighed. ‘You should have thought about that before you lied to me,’ she said, closing her door and driving off.

Honestly, any man that wasn’t safely tucked between the covers of a book was a liability. You couldn’t trust any of them. Was it any wonder that Katherine turned to fiction time and time again? Ever since her father had left home when she was seven, she’d hidden away from the world around her, nose-diving into the safety of a friendly paperback. Books had always rescued her and had remained the one constant in her life.

Before she’d been dating David, she’d had a long-term relationship with an architect called Callum. She’d thought he was perfect and that they’d be together forever like Elizabeth and Darcy but then she’d arrived home early from work to find him in bed with his ex-girlfriend. It was a betrayal that had almost broken Katherine and one she hadn’t seen coming at all. It had been an act to rival the very worst of fictional villains.

And that’s real men for you,’ Katherine said to herself as she took the road out of Oxford that led to her village. She thought again about David’s words to her. He was so unfair. It wasn’t as if her whole life revolved around Jane Austen. It was just - well - most of it. But she had other interests. There was her yoga class which kept her in such good shape and her weekend jogging with her best friend, Chrissie. And she had lots of other friends who weren’t fictional and she was forever attending dinner parties and little get-togethers. It was just that she preferred to spend her free time with her head in a book. She wouldn’t be the respected academic she was if she hadn’t worked as hard as she had and, as far as she could see, there was no harm in that, was there? She’d made a very good career out of books for one thing and, as far as she knew, she wasn’t doing anyone any harm.

Unlike David.

Yes, Katherine might very well be guilty of living a life that was more fiction than reality but at least she didn’t lie to anyone. If there was one thing in the world Katherine hated more than anything else, it was a lie.

Chapter Two

Lorna Warwick was just putting the finishing touches to a rather amusing chapter involving a very naughty duke when the phone rang.

‘Hello, darling!’ a voice chimed. ‘Not a bad moment, is it?’

‘No, not at all,’ Lorna said, saving the chapter and switching the computer off for the day.

‘Good, good. Look, I’ve had a word with the organizer at Purley Hall and they’ve said not to worry - it’s your call.’

‘Thanks, Nadia. I appreciate that.’

‘So, what are you going to do?’

Lorna sighed. ‘I’m not sure yet but I’d like to give the writer a break for a while and just be me.’

‘You sure that’s wise? You’ll be letting down a lot of fans, you know.’

‘Yes, but I’d be letting down a lot of fans if they knew who I really was, wouldn’t I?’

‘You must be kidding! They’d go mad if they knew the truth,’ Nadia said.

Lorna smiled. ‘Well, I don’t think I’m quite ready to face

that.’

‘All right, babes. It’s your decision.’

‘You coming then?’

‘Maybe for the Sunday evening dance.’

‘Any excuse to buy a new pair of shoes,’ Lorna said.

‘How well do you know your agent?’

‘As well as she knows me.’

Nadia laughed. ‘I’ll see you at Purley, babes.’

‘Okay.’

Lorna stood up and walked across to the window of the study which looked out over the garden. It had needed attention for some time. There were dandelions yellowing the lawn, grasses had sprouted up in the borders and there were brambles tumbling over the wall from the fields beyond. The house needed attention too because Lorna had fired the cleaner two weeks ago after she’d been caught pocketing pages of the latest manuscript. Now the desk was covered in a fine layer of dust and a pot plant was wilting quietly in the corner.

It was always the same when a book was going well. Boring old jobs like housework and food preparation got neglected. The only thing that mattered was the flow of the story and - at the moment - the story was flowing well. Nadia was going to love this latest one and no doubt Lorna’s editor would too. Tansy Newman of Parnaby and Fox was Lorna’s biggest fan and couldn’t wait to get her hands on the latest manuscripts. Edits were usually minimal and Lorna was in the lucky position to be consulted about everything from jacket design to publication date - hardbacks were released just before Christmas and paperbacks in time for the summer holidays. Lorna was lucky; her advances were legendary and her royalties substantial. Not all writers were in such a position.

For a moment, Lorna looked at the bookshelves that lined the study walls. They were filled to capacity with hardback editions, paperbacks, large print, audio books, and foreign editions ranging from German to Spanish and Japanese to Russian. It was an impressive collection considering that the first novel hadn’t been received at all well in the press.

‘Lorna Warwick is attempting to cash in on the fact that Jane Austen’s Regency is a perennial favourite,’ one critic wrote. ‘But what we have here is a cheap imitation. It’s soft porn dressed in a little fine muslin.’

The words had stung bitterly until the book had become a bestseller in the US and was now seen as the forerunner in a very popular genre of Austenesque literature which included sequels, updates on the six classic novels, and the sort of sexy books that Lorna wrote. It was a huge and much-loved industry.

Lorna’s fingers brushed the spines of the UK editions. Each featured a sumptuously-clad heroine. ‘All breasts and bonnets,’ another critic had declared, after which sales had rocketed. The public couldn’t get enough of the feisty young heroines and devilishly handsome heroes and, of course, the happy endings.

Lorna loved writing. Nothing could beat the day-to-day weaving of a new story or getting to know characters that you hoped would captivate the readers’ imagination as strongly as they did their creator. But there was more to being a writer than writing and Lorna was under increased pressure to do publicity. Hence the phone call from the agent about the conference. Year to year, Lorna’s publisher had tried to persuade their favourite writer that it would be a great idea to attend.

‘Incognito if you must,’ they’d said, but Lorna hadn’t been at all sure about it. The public face of publication had never appealed. Writing was a private thing, wasn’t it? One didn’t need to be endlessly signing copies and giving talks. What was there to say, anyway? Surely the books spoke for themselves? But Lorna’s publisher had often spoken of how writers were now seen as celebrities.

‘The public has to be able to see you.’

‘Oh, no,’ Lorna had said. ‘I don’t want anybody to see me.’

So what was to be done about Purley Hall? There was a part of Lorna that was desperate to go. Being a writer was a lonely job and it would be good to get out and actually talk to real live people for once. That would be fun, wouldn’t it - to get away from the study and meet people?

‘Katherine,’ Lorna suddenly said. Katherine was going to be there. Her letter had made it very clear that she’d love to meet her favourite author and there was a part of Lorna that wanted that very much too. Over the months, they’d become very close, sharing secrets and talking about their hopes for the future. Maybe it was the fact that they were writing letters - beautifully old-fashioned, handwritten letters that one savoured and kept. It wasn’t like receiving an e-mail which one reads and deletes. These were proper letters on quality paper which the writers took time to fill. They had crossings out and notes in the margins and funny P.S.s too. They were to be reread and treasured just like in the time of Jane Austen when letters were a vital means of staying in touch with loved ones.

If there was one good reason for Lorna to attend the conference, it was Katherine.

Suddenly, Lorna ran upstairs to the bedroom where a wardrobe door was quickly opened and clothes were pulled out and flung onto the bed. What to take? What should Lorna Warwick take to the Jane Austen conference? That was a question that was easy to answer because, although Lorna gave very few interviews and never gave out author photographs, it was obvious how the public perceived their beloved author. Nothing but velvets and satins would do in rich jewel colours with sequins and embroidery. Old-fashioned but with a quirky twist. A fascinator wouldn’t be completely out of place or a sparkling brooch in the shape of a peacock. Shawls, scarves, a pair of evening gloves, perhaps even a shapely hat. Shoes which were elegant but discreet. That was the kind of thing people would expect.

But Lorna wasn’t going to wear any of these things. Velvets and satins were instantly rejected and shawls were totally inappropriate and the reason was simple. Lorna Warwick was a man.

Chapter Three

It would have been very unfortunate if Robyn Love had turned out to be anything other than a romantic. As it was, she fitted her name perfectly - choosing to read nothing but romances, wearing only feminine dresses and renouncing any film that didn’t have a happy ending.

Life for her was never as good as it was in fiction. A good story beautifully told was always preferable to reality. For Robyn, nothing came close to the highs she got when reading. Her job on reception at a small college in North Yorkshire only tickled the surface for her and she could never wait to get home and stick her head in a favourite book. And, for her, the very pinnacle of literary perfection was Jane Austen.

Some took their pleasures in the spin-offs and Regency romances told by modern authors but Robyn was a true Janeite who preferred her Austen undiluted.

‘If only she’d written more,’ Robyn would often say with a sigh. The big six just weren’t enough. There were the shorter stories too, of course, but they weren’t the same as the big novels, and the letters and endless biographies just didn’t give the same satisfaction; they were takeaways rather than a three-course meal - they might fill a gap but they would leave you feeling unsatisfied and wanting more.

There was never enough. No matter how many versions of Pride and Prejudice or Persuasion there were - whether for the cinema, TV or theatre, she would devour them. Each one was different, shedding some new light onto Austen’s world and her characters. Whether it was Pride and Prejudice or Bride and Prejudice, Emma or Clueless, Robyn would unplug the house phone, turn off her mobile and tune in for her allotted slot of pure happiness.

There were favourites, of course. Who could forget Colin Firth’s brooding Mr Darcy from the 1995 BBC version? But equally, Matthew Macfadyen striding across the meadow at dawn could be the recipe for many a happy sleepless night. There was Jennifer Ehle’s witty and intelligent Elizabeth and Keira Knightley’s youthful exuberance. How could one possibly choose? It entirely depended on what mood you were in. One thing was for sure, though: there could never be enough. Robyn had often wondered what it was about Austen that inspired such devotion. In these modern times of CDs, DVDs, computer games, iPods and the Internet, there were still people who would prefer to sit down in a quiet corner and read a Jane Austen novel.

Perhaps it was that irresistible blend of wit, warmth and romance that did it. Robyn had never stopped to analyse what it was that gave her such a buzz. She only knew that, when her mind was immersed in the Regency period, her twenty-first-century problems evaporated. Well, most of them.

It was late afternoon before the Jane Austen conference in Hampshire and Robyn was standing in her back garden behind the row of friendly Yorkshire terraces which overlooked fields and allotments. She had shed her work clothes which had consisted of a white shirt and navy skirt and was now wearing a knee-length dress in a floaty floral fabric. Her long hair was unpinned and was blowing around her face in a tangle of curls and her bare feet had been thrust into a pair of sparkly sandals.

Her garden was quite unlike all the others in the terrace. They were mostly given over to neat lawns lined with bedding plants or patios housing tubs of begonias but Robyn’s was home to her chickens. And her obsession with Jane Austen extended to her feathered friends. There was Mr Darcy - only it wasn’t a terribly fitting name as he had soon turned into something more approaching a villain and Robyn had had to rethink his name, eventually coming up with Wickham - the villain of Pride and Prejudice. The trouble was, Robyn liked sandals and bare feet and Wickham had a fascination with her toes, pecking at their painted extremes with great vigour.

So he was now Wickham the Chicken and his ladies were also named after characters from Pride and Prejudice. There was Lizzie, the bright young thing who was so aware of her surroundings and always the first to raise an alarm. There was the tiny chestnut called Lydia because she was always running away. The supercilious lavender grey was called Lady Catherine. The speckled hen was Mrs Bennet as she was always fussing around the others like your typical mother hen, and the pale gold was Miss Bingley because she had such an air about her and Robyn was convinced that she looked down her beak at everyone else.

Robyn looked at them all now, pecking around the garden in the sunshine. She loved watching them and could spend many a happy hour reading in her deckchair, listening to the funny little noises they made.

‘You ready, then?’ a friendly voice called over the low fence.

‘Hi, Judith,’ Robyn said, smiling at her elderly neighbour who kept an eye on the chickens when Robyn was at work and whenever she went away. ‘You sure this isn’t going to be too much bother?’ Robyn asked.

Judith put her hands on her hips. ‘I’ve brought up four sons single-handedly. I think I can manage a few Bantams!’

Robyn laughed. ‘I can’t thank you enough. It’s a real weight off my mind. You’re like an aunty to these chickens.’

Aunty Judith shook her head, obviously not approving. ‘You just enjoy your weekend. You work too hard, you do. You need to get out more.’

‘That’s what Jace is always saying.’

Judith’s mouth straightened into a line. ‘You’re still with him, then?’

Robyn blushed. She knew how her neighbour felt about her errant boyfriend. He’d never managed to endear himself to the old woman - not since the time when he’d woken her up with his drunken singing at three in the morning and then vomited over her prize roses.

‘I thought you were going to break up with him.’

‘I will,’ Robyn said.

‘You’ve been saying that since that young Lydia was an egg.’

Robyn sighed. It was true. She’d been meaning to sort things out with Jace for some time now. Indeed, she’d been on the verge of saying something only last week but he’d obviously picked up on things and decided to safeguard his position by suddenly being nice to her and buying her the biggest box of chocolates she’d ever seen. So he’d eaten most of them himself but it was the thought that counted, wasn’t it?

She’d been going out with Jason Collins, or ‘Jace’ as he preferred to be known, since school and it was more of a routine now rather than a romance. For years, he’d insisted that his pals called him ‘Ace’ but it had never taken, which didn’t surprise Robyn in the least. For one thing, he still lived with his mother in a house on the edge of Skipton. It was a lovely property with three large bedrooms and a garden that Robyn’s chickens would adore but a young man of twenty-five shouldn’t still be living with his mother, having all his laundry done and meals cooked by her. It just wasn’t natural. Not that Robyn had ever felt the urge to live with him - oh, no! But if she was ever going to live with somebody then it would be someone who was a little bit more independent than Jace.

And I could never marry him, anyway, Robyn suddenly thought. For one thing, I’d be Mrs Collins! She grinned naughtily as she thought of the ridiculous character of Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice - one of literature’s worst sycophants. Robyn Collins. It would never work; it was just another one of the tragedies about their relationship. But the biggest tragedy of all was the fact that she didn’t love him any more.

She tried desperately to think about their early, heady days together when they’d been at secondary school. The holding hands under the table during lessons, the secret kisses in the corridor on the way to class and the little love notes that were constantly being confiscated by infuriated teachers. Where had all that love gone? Had it not been strong enough to leap the gulf between adolescence and adulthood? Had it been left behind along with homework, teenage mood swings and compulsory PE?

‘I’d better get moving,’ Robyn told Judith, shaking the images of the past from her mind. ‘Jace will be here in an hour and I want to get packed before then.’

‘Well, don’t you go worrying about this lot,’ Judith said, nodding towards the chickens. ‘They’ll be fine.’

‘Thanks,’ Robyn said with a smile before heading indoors.

The terraced cottage was cool and dark after the brightness of the garden and Robyn headed upstairs to her bedroom at the front of the house. Packing was simple - as many dresses and books as she could fit in her suitcase. She never liked to go anywhere without a copy of one of Jane Austen’s big six. Persuasion was usually a favourite because it was so slim and easily slipped into a handbag but Pride and Prejudice was her preferred choice if room permitted because it never failed to raise a smile whether one happened to be waiting for a train that was over an hour late or sitting in the dentist’s knowing that the drill was awaiting you.

She sighed with pleasure as she placed a copy of each of the novels in her case. Well, you couldn’t go to a Jane Austen conference without one of each, could you? She’d chosen her oldest versions that didn’t mind being beaten up a bit in transit. There was the copy of Sense and Sensibility with the coffee stain over the scene where Willoughby scoops Marianne up in his arms, and the edition of Emma that had taken a tumble into the bath and was now the size of an accordion.

Her newer copies of the books were downstairs, their covers shiny and pristine and the spines only faintly cracked. There was nothing more perfect to Robyn than a brand-new copy of an Austen novel.

‘Rob!’ a voice called from downstairs.

‘Jace?’ Robyn said in surprise.

‘Well, of course it’s Jace!’

Robyn’s mouth screwed up in frustration. He was early.

Leaving her packing, she ventured downstairs and was surprised to see that Jace had been doing some packing of his own.

‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘A suitcase, dopey,’ he said, dropping it to the floor and ruffling her hair before grazing her cheek with a stubbly kiss. ‘I’m coming with you.’

‘What?’ she asked, following him through to the living room as he settled himself on the sofa, kicking off his shoes and putting his feet up on the coffee table.

‘I’m coming with you,’ he said, giving a loud sniff. ‘Going to drive you down to Hereford.’

‘Hampshire,’ Robyn said.

‘Can’t have you getting the train on your own, can I?’

‘But I’ve got my ticket.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said.

‘But Jace - it’s such a long way and it sounds as if you don’t even know where Hampshire is.’

‘I’m making a weekend of it. Booked a B&B just down the road from your Parley Hall place.’

‘Purley Hall.’

‘That’s it!’

Robyn frowned. This was the last thing she’d expected and the very last thing she wanted. The Jane Austen weekend was her own special sanctuary and Jace was the last person she wanted to share it with.

‘It’s really not your sort of thing at all,’ she told him. ‘And I doubt there’s room for you at the conference. All the places are booked.’

‘I’m not coming to the conference, silly! No way!’

‘Then what are you going to do?’

He shrugged as he picked up the remote control and switched on the TV. ‘Just hang out,’ he said.

‘Hang out where?’

‘Wherever you want me to,’ he said, giving a lascivious wink. ‘Although I have heard there’s a beer festival on at a nearby pub. That sounds right up my street. Anyway, we don’t spend enough time together. I thought it would be nice to have a weekend away.’

‘But we won’t be together, Jace. I’ll be at the conference - all weekend.’

‘There’ll still be time to see each other, won’t there?’

Robyn stared at him. What was this? Jace had never been the sort to suggest a weekend away together before. Maybe he’d got wind of her wanting to break up with him. Maybe this was his way of trying to smooth things over.

‘Got a beer?’ he asked.

Robyn walked through to the kitchen and retrieved a can of beer from the fridge. What on earth was she going to do? The thought of Jace ‘hanging out’ anywhere near Jane Austen country was just frightful.

‘Any crisps?’ he asked as she entered the room with the beer.

She shook her head.

‘Nuts?’

She returned to the kitchen and came back with a bag of fruit and nuts.

Jace grimaced. ‘No salty ones?’

‘No,’ she said, wincing as he placed his beer can on her newest copy of Pride and Prejudice. He saw where she was looking.

‘Oh, sorry, babes,’ he said, picking it up. Robyn saw the dark circle embossed on Elizabeth Bennet’s face and couldn’t help noticing that Jace’s feet, which were now sockless, were dangerously close to the BBC DVD of Persuasion - a personal favourite of hers.

With such atrocities as these before her, she thought it best that she left the room.

Chapter Four

Warwick Lawton picked up the last letter he’d received from Katherine Roberts and read it again. The smile didn’t leave his face until the very end when he gave a weary sigh and scratched his chin. She didn’t know, did she? She had absolutely no idea that Lorna Warwick was a man. But why should she? The biography in the front of his novels was as fictional as the novels themselves and nobody but his agent and publisher knew the truth because, as far as his professional life went, he was a recluse, shunning the media and turning his back on book signings. Even his close friends didn’t know the truth. They were only aware that Warwick wrote ‘some drivel or other’ and never pushed him for any more information and that was just the way that Warwick liked it. Not that he was ashamed of what he wrote -certainly not. He loved his books. After all, if he wasn’t passionate about his characters and their fates, how could he expect his readers to love them?

It was his late mother, Lara Lawton, who’d taught him the pleasure of reading and writing. She’d been an actress although she’d never risen to the great heights that her name and beauty had always suggested to the young Warwick. Lara Lawton. It should have been a name that had been emblazoned across a thousand theatres, a name that dominated the cinema screen and was splashed across magazine covers. Instead, she’d swum in the shallows of the world of film and television - taking bit roles here and background roles there.

And always a book in her hands, Warwick remembered. There was so much time hanging around sets and his mother had been a passionate reader, telling him the plots of all the novels she read and encouraging him when he sat down one day, determined to rewrite the story of Wuthering Heights and give it a happy ending that had more to do with Hollywood than Bronte. His mother had been delighted with the result and persuaded him to write some of his own stories. At first, he’d done it to please her but he’d soon found that it also pleased him and that had been the beginning of his writing career.

The fact that he’d chosen to write historical romances still amazed him and he often wondered if he should turn his attention to thrillers or crime or something a bit more masculine, but his mother’s early influence had been too powerful and all those evenings together spent watching Jane Austen and Daphne Du Maurier adaptations and films like Dragonwyck and Gone With the Wind had left their mark.

Now he was sailing high in the bestseller lists and leading a double life as a woman. For a moment, he wondered what his mother would make of it all. What would she say if she knew her little boy was now known by the majority of the population as Lorna? She’d probably laugh - that lovely silvery laugh of hers that had always made him laugh too.

His friends would laugh as well. He dreaded to think how much they’d laugh if they ever found out. Warwick Lawton writing as a woman! The same six foot two Warwick Lawton who went rock climbing and abseiling with his mates at weekends swapping his keyboard for the feel of a bit of Peak District gritstone under his fingers? Surely not! But, if he was honest, he rather liked the duality of his nature. It was like playing a game. One minute, he was Warwick, speeding up the motorway in his latest fast car with a tangle of ropes and harnesses in his boot; the next he was Lorna researching ladies’ undergarments in the early nineteenth century.

Of course, the charade would be even funnier if he could share it with somebody and he often wondered if the day would come when he could tell Katherine about it.

‘And therein lies the problem,’ he said to himself. What was he going to do about his little secret?

His bags were packed for Purley Hall and his agent had sorted out a last-minute room for him and he was leaving in less than an hour, but he still hadn’t made up his mind what to do about Katherine.

For a moment, he sat absolutely still, listening to the gentle tick of the grandfather clock in the hall. It was the heartbeat of the house and always made him feel calm and in control of things which wasn’t how he was feeling right now.

‘Oh, God!’ he suddenly exclaimed. Could it be that he was a little bit in love?

He let the thought somersault around his brain before dismissing it. How could he possibly be in love? He’d never even met the woman although he had to confess to having Googled her, discovering a photograph of her outside St Bridget’s College, Oxford with a bunch of very stuffy-looking men in tweeds. And she was beautiful. He closed his eyes for a moment as he remembered the long chocolate-coloured wavy hair, the dark eyes in a pale face, and a rosebud mouth that was smiling at the camera. Very heroine-like, he thought, instantly casting her as his next vibrant leading lady and saving the photograph to his hard drive.

He’d sat down to read through all her letters again last night and one thing had struck him: she was a remarkable woman and he wanted to get to know her better. The way she wrote about books, the way she spoke about - well, everything - stirred him. She was so passionate about things and wasn’t afraid to express those feelings, unlike so many of the women in his past who’d never really had much to say at all. Take Fiona, the shopaholic: all she ever talked about was her nails and her shoes. Or Lindsay the interior designer. Warwick had learned more about cushions and pelmets in the four months they’d been together than he’d had any desire to know.

No, Katherine wasn’t like any other woman he’d met. She was sweet and smart and had a rapier wit that tickled him pink, and they’d shared such secrets. She trusted him.

She trusted Lorna! Warwick thought. You aren’t the person she thinks you are. Would she tell you all these secrets if she knew you were a man? Would she divulge such feelings if she realized that you were a male with a string of hopeless relationships behind him?

And that was the problem he had with the weekend that lay ahead. What was he going to do about Katherine?

He sat down in his office chair and surveyed the letters before him.

‘I love getting your letters. It’s so wonderful to know that there’s somebody out there who understands,’ he read from one of them.

‘I really feel that I can trust you,’ he read from another. ‘You’re a really good friend, Lorna, and that’s just what I need at the moment.’

‘I can tell you everything and that’s a real comfort. That means so much to me’ she’d written in another.

Things had soon become intimate between the two of them and Warwick had spent mornings pacing up and down for the post to arrive when he should have been working.

‘My first big love was my next door neighbour - how clichéd is that?’ Katherine had written just over a month ago. ‘I let him kiss me on our first date and it was horrible. It nearly put me off for life! But I didn’t give in until I was at university. I fell madly in love with a third year student who seduced me in the library when he was meant to be locking up! I’ll never forget looking up at all those books and hoping that the spirits of Thomas Hardy and Emily Bronte weren’t glowering down at me. Gosh! I’ve never told anyone about that before!’

Warwick smiled as he remembered the confession - it had been the first of many.

He had to admit that the letters had had a strange effect on him. They’d gone from the letters of a fan to the letters of a friend in a very short space of time. But they were more than that now. Even though he’d never met her, he felt incredibly close to Katherine and he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.

Warwick swallowed hard. This wasn’t going to be easy. However he played it, the fact remained that he’d been replying to Katherine’s letters under false pretences and had led her to believe that he was a woman. His string of terrible girlfriends had become boyfriends. Fiona’s obsession with fashion had morphed into Tony’s obsession with motorbikes, and Lindsay’s cushions had become Lennie’s cushions (Lorna had been horrified to discover that Lennie was gay). Katherine had been sympathetic and supportive of Lorna’s hapless love life, offering advice when appropriate. ‘Lennie’s cushions sound like the perfect Christmas present for that awkward aunt of yours,’ Katherine had written. She’d put her trust in him completely, hadn’t she?

Warwick let out a long, weary breath as he thought about the strange situation he’d managed to get himself into. It was like something from one of his books, he thought. Actually, the idea of a woman writing to a man but thinking she’s a woman was a pretty good idea for a book, he thought with a grin. But then he felt guilty for even thinking about using his dear friend for the basis of his art. Still, he jotted it down in a notepad before he forgot it. A writer should never turn a good idea away just because it might offend somebody.

Chapter Five

To be stuck in a car with a loved one for over two hundred miles would be a challenge at the best of times but being stuck with the most impatient driver in the world when what you most wanted to do was break up with him was an impossible situation.

‘I told you I should’ve got the train!’ Robyn said, as Jace honked the driver in front of him for not moving away fast enough at a set of lights.

‘What are you complaining about? We’re making good time!’

Robyn sighed and did her best to relax. They’d left North Yorkshire just after ten in the morning and registration for the conference was at five o’clock followed by tea and an official welcome by Dame Pamela Harcourt which Robyn didn’t want to miss under any circumstances.

She was also hoping that they’d have time for a slight detour to Steventon so she could see the church where Jane Austen had been baptized and spent her former years, but she wasn’t sure how Jace would respond to such a proposal. Poking around churches with literary connections wasn’t his sort of thing at all. He’d much sooner check into his bed and breakfast and head for the nearest pub to sink a few pints, then have an evening belching in front of the TV.

Robyn opened her handbag and pulled out the information sheets about the conference. After the tea and welcome, there was a chance to mingle before dinner and then there was a choice of watching either Emma Thompson’s Sense and Sensibility or Simon Burke’s version of Persuasion.

‘Ooooo!’ Robyn sighed.

‘What’s up?’ Jace asked. ‘You don’t need the loo again?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Just choices to be made for tonight.’ She didn’t bother to go into details. He wouldn’t understand. How could a woman choose between Hugh Grant’s bumbling Edward Ferrars and Rupert Penry-Jones’s smouldering Captain Wentworth? That was the trouble with Austen - there were too many wonderful heroes. It was hard enough deciding which book to read next and which hero to fall in love with again but it also made real life hard too for no man could live up to Austen’s heroes, could they? Where was a girl going to find a man as patient as Colonel Brandon or as witty as Henry Tilney? And could one ever truly hope to find that most elusive of all men - Mr Darcy?

Robyn smiled to herself. If the truth were known, she rather preferred Mr Bingley to Mr Darcy. He was - in Jane Austen’s own words - amiable; there was nothing complicated about him and Robyn liked that. You didn’t have to do any emotional wrestling with Bingley. He liked dancing. He smiled a lot. He didn’t go around insulting anyone and making a hash at proposing to a woman. In short, he was just the sort of man Robyn was looking for.

But you have a man, a little voice inside her suddenly said.

But I don’t want him, she replied.

Then you should tell him.

I’ve tried!

Then you haven’t made a very good job of it, have you?

Robyn took a sideways glance at Jace. His eyes were narrowed into angry slits as he focused on the road ahead and then gesticulated at a car that was overtaking them. Mr Bingley would never gesticulate, Robyn couldn’t help thinking. He was far more likely to articulate.

‘Upon my honour!’ he might declare. ‘I have never met with so many unpleasant drivers in my life.’ He would shake his head and think nothing more of it, probably declaring that a ball was in order and that he’d make the arrangements forthwith.

Yes, Robyn thought, Bingley was - as Jane Bennet had told Elizabeth - ‘just what a young man ought to be’.

Slowly coming out of a daydream in which she was wearing a white empire-line dress and dancing with Bingley, Robyn saw the sign announcing that they had crossed into Hampshire. At long last, she’d arrived in Jane Austen country.

Turning round to retrieve the road atlas from the backseat, she flipped to the right page and made a study of the area. Almost at once, she found Chawton - perhaps because she’d circled it in bright red pen. There was already a planned trip to Chawton from Purley Hall on Saturday and Robyn was so excited about it that she felt sure she’d burst with joy but she longed to see the church at Steventon too.

‘Jace?’ she said, her voice gentle.

‘What?’ he snapped back.

‘I’ve got an idea.’

‘What sort of an idea?’ he asked. ‘A naughty idea?’

‘No!’ Robyn said. ‘A detour idea.’

Jace frowned. ‘I don’t like detours. I like going from A to B, and A to B today has been one hell of a drive.’

‘I know it has,’ Robyn said sweetly, ‘and you’ve been brilliant but this is such a tiny detour, you’d never even notice it.’

Jace’s frown didn’t budge but he tutted and sighed. ‘All right, then. Where do you want me to go?’

Robyn was tempted to answer something rude to that particular question but said, ‘Take the next right,’ instead, and it wasn’t long before they were driving through the narrow lanes of Hampshire with tall hedgerows and sunny fields on either side of them. The landscape was far less dramatic than Robyn’s limestone valleys of the Yorkshire Dales but she loved its gentleness. With its pretty village pubs, cute cottages and stone churches, it was perfect and just what tourists thought of when they imagined Jane Austen’s England.

As they passed an old wooden stile to the side of the road, Robyn could easily imagine Elizabeth Bennet hopping over it on her way to visit her sister, Jane, at Netherfield. For a moment, she wondered whether she dared ask Jace to stop the car so that she could walk across a couple of fields until her eyes shone like her favourite heroine’s but one look at Jace changed her mind. He wouldn’t understand and she’d better not push her luck after getting him to agree to the detour to Steventon.

It only took ten minutes to reach the little church and Robyn gasped as Jace stopped the car.

‘Oh, look!’ she said, her eyes wide with instant adoration.

‘It’s a church,’ Jace said.

Robyn did her best to ignore his sarcastic tone. She was determined that nothing was going to spoil this moment.

‘Aren’t you coming in?’ she asked as she opened her door.

‘Nah. I’ll wait here. Churches creep me out.’

Robyn sighed but she was secretly glad that he wasn’t coming with her. He’d only complain and spoil things.

Getting out of the car, Robyn stretched her arms and took in a great lungful of warm October air. Theirs was the only car in the dead-end lane and everything was perfectly still and quiet.

Entering the churchyard, she looked at the modest little building before her. St Nicholas’s didn’t shout about its presence in the landscape but it was very pretty with a tiny crenellated tower in a warm beige stone and a small silver spire. There were three arched windows above a fine wooden door either side of which were two carved faces gazing out over the pathway.

A great yew tree cast a cobwebby shadow across the front of the church and Robyn thought of how Jane Austen must have walked by it so many times and that made her smile.

Opening the church door and walking inside, she marvelled at the coolness of the building after the warm sunshine and gazed at the beautiful white arches under which delicate flowers had been painted.

A bright brass plaque on the wall to the left announced that Jane Austen had worshipped here. Robyn looked around at the neat wooden pews and walked up the aisle and sat down. Where would Jane have sat? she wondered, sitting in both the front row pews and sliding along them just to cover all the options. And would she have been paying attention to her father’s sermon or dreaming of handsome men on horseback? Was it in this very church that she’d created Elizabeth and Darcy, Elinor and Marianne and Catherine and Tilney? Were their adventures of the heart conceived in this hushed and humbling place?

Robyn let a few peaceful moments pass.

‘Only two hundred or so years separate us,’ she said with a smile. It felt strange to finally be sitting in a place that her idol had once inhabited. Other than reading the novels, this was as close as she was ever going to get, wasn’t it? To walk in the same steps and to sit in the same seats.

At last, Robyn got up and looked around the rest of the church, noting the memorial to Jane’s brother, James, who’d succeeded his father as rector. There was also a moving memorial to three young girls, Mary Agnes, Cecilia and Augusta, who had all died of scarlet fever in 1848.

‘Great-nieces of Jane’s,’ Robyn whispered into the silence. ‘Whom she never lived to see.’

And that was one of the great tragedies about the writer - that she’d led so short a life, dying at the age of forty-one. How many other wonderful novels might have been written if she’d lived longer? That was the question everyone asked. It was, truly, one of the greatest losses to literature and, although Robyn wasn’t particularly religious, she couldn’t help but send a little prayer up for Jane.

As she walked back down the aisle, she noticed four beautiful kneelers in sky blue featuring silhouettes of Regency ladies. Everyone, it seemed, was proud of the Austen connection.

Opening the great wooden door and stepping back outside, Robyn spotted a baby rabbit hopping amongst the graves. She walked around the back of the church which opened onto fields and then thought she’d better make her way back to Jace.

It was as she left the churchyard and entered the lane that she heard the sound of horse’s hooves on the road and, turning round, saw a great chestnut stallion trotting down the lane, its mane and tail streaming out behind him. But that wasn’t what had captivated Robyn for sitting astride the horse was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.

A handsome man on horseback, Robyn thought. Hadn’t she been thinking of just that inside the church? It was as if she’d conjured him from wishful thinking - as if the magical world of Jane Austen had come to life before her very eyes.

She gazed up at the man as he rode by. His hair was a dark coppery gold underneath his riding hat and his arms were bare and tanned. Robyn could tell he was tall and he sat proudly and confidently on the chestnut stallion. It really was a sight to behold and, as he passed her by, he turned, nodded and smiled and Robyn could feel the most wonderful blush colouring her face.

‘The man’s a lunatic!’ Jace yelled as the horse and rider picked up speed and shot across an adjacent field. ‘Did you see how close he was to my car?’

‘He wasn’t anywhere near your car.’

‘That horse could have kicked out and done all sorts of damage. He’s totally out of control.’

‘He’s totally beautiful,’ Robyn said, and then wondered if they were still talking about the horse.

Chapter Six

Katherine had just delivered her two beloved cats to a friend in the village and now had the unenviable task of saying goodbye.

‘My darling boys,’ she said, bending down to fondle them both.

Marion, her friend, shook her head. ‘Freddie and Fitz,’ she said. ‘They’re unusual names for cats.’

‘They’re my two favourite heroes,’ Katherine said. ‘Darcy and Wentworth.’

‘Oh, I should’ve guessed. If they were named after my favourite heroes, they’d be Johnny and Brad.’

Katherine smiled. ‘Make sure you feed them that new food I’ve left. They don’t like that old one any more.’

‘You spoil them rotten,’ Marion said.

‘Of course,’ Katherine said. ‘That’s exactly what they’re for.’

‘And no doubt I’ll spoil them rotten too so don’t you go worrying about them,’ Marion said. ‘Just enjoy your weekend and let’s get together for dinner when you’re back. I want to hear all about it.’

It was always hard to leave her boys behind but Katherine had to do just that if she was to get down to Hampshire on time so, saying her goodbyes, she took one last look at her beloved cats and left.

Katherine was getting the train down to Hampshire and being picked up from the station by someone from Purley Hall. She’d already packed and was looking forward to relaxing on the train. She had always loved travelling by train. It was rather like being suspended in time - you were neither in one place nor another and it was the perfect time to dip your nose into a good book. So which book was she going to choose this particular journey? Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were the obvious handbag choices because of the slimness but Emma was her favourite and it was always fun to dip in and out of it, rereading much-loved scenes. But there was a naughty twinkle in Katherine’s eyes as she organized her train reading. She knew she should be getting herself in the right frame of mind for her lecture at the conference by swotting up on some last-minute Austen but the temptation to take a Lorna Warwick novel instead was just too much and so, packing the Jane Austen six into her suitcase, she placed a much-beloved Lorna Warwick in her handbag: The Notorious Lady Fenton.

It was always hard to choose her favourite book but there was something rather special about The Notorious Lady Fenton. It was kind of like a reversed Pride and Prejudice where Lady Fenton clashes with a spirited but poor gentleman before realizing that she’s madly in love with him, defying family and friends to marry him. Isabella Fenton had to be one of Lorna Warwick’s best creations. She was selfish yet sparkling, proud yet passionate and she got the happy ending that all great heroines deserve.

Once Katherine had found her seat on the train, she took the beloved book out of her bag and turned to chapter one, hoping that she wouldn’t be spotted by any of her colleagues or students as she indulged herself in the most decadent of fiction.

Living in West Sussex and having neither chickens nor cats to worry about, Warwick didn’t have to leave his home until the afternoon, driving his black Jaguar through the country lanes at a sedate speed. The car had been his little treat to himself once the US sales for his novels had really begun to take off.

He loved living in Sussex. After several years in a noisy street in North London, escaping to the countryside had been a dream come true. He was close enough to the coast to enjoy a bracing swim when the weather was good - or even when it was bad as Warwick didn’t seem to feel the cold - and yet he was just a short train ride from the capital for those literary lunches with his agent. And his house was his pride and joy. It had been bought at auction and had been described as being ‘a project’ but it had been a project Warwick had thrown himself into with gusto. He’d involved himself in everything from repairing the roof to laying new floorboards. He loved DIY and using his hands. For one thing, it was a good excuse to get away from the keyboard and there was something immensely pleasurable about doing a job yourself. And now he had his dream home to show for all his hard work.

As he hit the A3, he wondered what time Katherine would arrive and how quickly he would recognize her. How was he going to introduce himself? Would she even like him as a man? And was he going to use his real name, Warwick Lawton? Was the Warwick not a bit of a giveaway? And what profession should he now have?

All sorts of questions flew around his mind. He hadn’t felt this nervous since dating at university. He felt out of practice at this sort of thing and wasn’t sure if he could pull it off. His string of broken relationships over the past few years was surely the evidence that he was meant to be alone. Maybe that was one of the reasons he was a writer: he was far more successful in his own company. But there was something about Katherine that made him want to forget his past failures and try again. She could be worth gambling embarrassment, humiliation and rejection for.

If only he had the confidence that he gave to his heroes in his novels, he thought. Then, he would stride into a room, quickly surveying all before him, drawing all eyes towards him, before singling out the woman of his choice who would, of course, be palpitating with desire by then. He would make his approach, bow, silently admire her décolletage as she curtsied before him, say something immeasurably witty and then take her hand and lead the first dance.

How easy it was back then, he thought. Men and women had clear-cut roles and were happy to play them. Today, everything was so muddled. Women didn’t want to be bowed to or to be told that they were charming creatures and have their eyes admired.

Or did they?

For a moment, Warwick wondered.

The women who were attending the Jane Austen conference might be different. They might actually want a gentleman who admired the clothes they wore, asked about the books they read, and pestered them to play the piano forte. They’d want a Jane Austen or Lorna Warwick hero, wouldn’t they? Wasn’t that why they read the books? Wasn’t that precisely why there were so many adaptations of Austen’s novels - because the female population couldn’t get enough?

Warwick grinned at this most amazing discovery. Now he knew exactly how he was going to play things with Katherine.

Chapter Seven

Robyn would never forget her first glimpse of Purley Hall. They’d rounded corner after corner of twisting country lane, when suddenly, there it was; red-gold and glorious across the rolling fields. It sat in symmetrical perfection, its aspect cushioned by the countryside around it, with honey-coloured fields stretching out in front of it and deep green woods behind it.

‘Look!’ she exclaimed, pointing out of the window like an excited toddler.

Jace looked. ‘What?’

‘Purley!’

‘Where?’

‘Where?’ Robyn echoed. ‘There!’

‘That? I thought it would be bigger.’

‘It’s perfect,’ Robyn said, counting its three visible storeys and its seven sash windows across. ‘Twenty-one,’ she said.

‘Twenty-one what?’

‘Twenty-one windows. Or rather twenty. I expect one’s a door.’

Jace grimaced. Windows and doors didn’t interest him. They took another bend in the road and entered the tiny village of Purley. There was a row of picture perfect cottages with dark thatched roofs, a pub called the Dog and Boot and a pale gold church with a modest steeple.

‘Oh, I love it!’ Robyn said. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’

‘’S’all right if you like that sort of thing,’ Jace mumbled.

Robyn bristled. Well, she did like that sort of thing and it was hard to enjoy it all with Jace as her companion. When, she wondered, was she going to manage to get rid of him?

‘Where are we going, anyway?’ he asked impatiently.

It was then that Robyn saw a discreet wooden sign pointing right. ‘Purley Hall’ it read, and there was a handwritten sheet of A4 paper tacked on underneath. ‘Janeites this way!’

They turned into a driveway which could easily have stretched the length of Robyn’s whole village back in Yorkshire. There were fields on either side and it was lined with mature trees.

Robyn was almost on the edge of her seat as the driveway opened and the grand front of Purley Hall greeted them.

‘Oh!’

‘What’s wrong?’ Jace asked.

‘Nothing! Nothing at all,’ Robyn said.

Jace tutted and brought the car to a screeching halt, its tyres firing up a shower of gravel as he parked - almost parallel but not quite - next to a black Jaguar.

‘Someone’s got some money,’ he said.

‘Yes. Apparently, some people have,’ Robyn said, wondering what that must be like.

Robyn got out of the car and looked up at the house. The front was in shade now and there was a great cedar tree to the left, shading tennis courts and casting its shadow across an immaculate lawn, its branches sprawling out like dinosaur limbs. A set of croquet hoops had been left out on the lawn and, beyond that, Robyn spied a bright blue swimming pool.

She looked up at the house once more, awestruck by the size of its windows - which were just as large as the great door - and the triangular pediment at the top which soared into the blue sky above.

‘Right,’ Jace said, interrupting her thoughts, ‘I’m off to the pub.’

Robyn did her best to hide her relief. ‘What are you going to do with yourself this weekend?’

He shrugged. ‘Come and see you.’

‘Oh, but you can’t!’ Robyn said. ‘I mean, there are activities all day and you’d be bored stupid by them.’

‘All right, all right, I get the message. I’ll call you, okay? You’ve got your mobile, haven’t you?’

Robyn nodded.

Jace leant in to kiss her and gave her bottom an affectionate squeeze. Robyn blushed. It wasn’t seemly to have one’s bottom pinched at a Jane Austen conference.

Jace hauled her suitcase out of the boot of the car and handed it to her. ‘I won’t come in,’ he said.

‘Best not,’ Robyn said.

‘I’ll give you a call.’

‘Okay,’ Robyn said, watching as he got in the car, did a boy racer manoeuvre on the immaculate driveway, and disappeared. As soon as he was out of view, she took her mobile out of her handbag and switched it off.

Warwick had arrived a little earlier than predicted but had been welcomed by one of the event organizers and shown to a very nice room upstairs which looked out over the gardens to the river and fields beyond. Nadia had worked wonders at getting him a room in the house at the last minute and he marvelled at the beauty of it. There was an enormous bed in a rich dark wood, with a pretty yellow bedspread. Four fabulously plump pillows caught his eye and promised a sweet slumber that night.

He looked around the room and a mahogany dressing stand inset with a porcelain bowl in blue and white caught his eye. He admired the workmanship and knew that such a piece of furniture would have been very common in a Regency gentleman’s bedroom - it was just the sort of room one of his heroes would inhabit although he was also glad that he had a modern en-suite with power shower - a luxury denied to his characters. Jugs and bowls just didn’t cut it in the hygiene stakes any more.

A crystal vase of yellow and white roses stood on the deep windowsill and scented the room with their delicate fragrance. The walls were painted in a shade Warwick recognized as verdigris - a willowy green that was in keeping with the period of the house and gave the room a wonderfully fresh feel. It was a beautiful room.

But Warwick wasn’t at Purley Hall to stand admiring his bedroom. He had to register and see if Katherine had arrived yet so, quickly changing his shirt, he checked his reflection in the mirror - more out of fear that something might be out of place than for vanity - and headed down the grand staircase to where a table had been set for registration.

‘The dreaded name badges,’ Warwick said to himself. He wouldn’t have time to create yet another pseudonym for himself now, he thought. He was to be Warwick Lawton this weekend. His fate was sealed.

There were about a dozen people around the registration table and more were arriving by the minute. Warwick stood back at a respectable distance and watched the goings on. As a writer, he was used to observing and his height gave him the advantage of being able to see everything. There was an elderly lady by the table and the young girl on reception was quizzing her about her name badge.

‘Norris?’ the girl said.

‘Yes,’ the lady with cloudy white hair said. ‘Like in Mansfield Park.’

‘Doris Norris?’

‘Yes,’ the lady said with a cheery smile. ‘I know what you’re thinking. It’s not very likely, is it? But I wasn’t always a Norris, you see. I was Doris Webster. Perfectly normal. But then I met Henry Norris and had the misfortune to fall in love with him. So here I am - Doris Norris.’

The young girl grinned and Warwick could see that she was doing her very best not to laugh. He watched for a moment as Doris Norris pinned her name badge onto her pink cardigan but then a young woman by the door caught his attention. She had long blonde hair which corkscrewed down to her waist. Her face was pale with perfect features set into a slightly anxious expression as if she was asking herself, what do I do now? She was wearing a pretty white dress dotted with daisies and her feet were encased in a pair of silver sandals. Warwick watched her as she looked around the hall, tiny white teeth biting her lower lip, and there was a part of him that wanted to go and help her -to take her bag and say, come this way, but the writer in him stayed perfectly still and watched.

That was one of the things about being a writer - one always stood slightly apart, listening and watching. It was hard to tell, sometimes, if one were really alive, for life seemed to be happening to everybody else and yet the writer’s lot seemed to be one of permanent stillness. Had Jane Austen felt like that? he wondered. With neither husband nor children of her own, had she felt that her role had been to watch others? And had that made her happy? Her books made other people happy, that was unquestionable, but had they made her happy?

Warwick shook his head. He might well be at a Jane Austen conference but he wasn’t ready to get all philosophical just yet. He wanted to have some fun. He wanted to see Katherine. He could feel his pulse accelerate at the thought of seeing her for the first time. She wouldn’t know who he was so he couldn’t call out to her across the room. He would have the chance to watch her. Wasn’t that his favourite role? He could get to know a little bit about her before he said hello.

He smiled. He certainly had the advantage in this relationship, he thought.

‘My wheels seem to be jammed,’ a voice suddenly boomed across the hallway.

Warwick’s eyes fixed on the sort of woman who could only be described as a battleaxe. She had an enormous bosom which was thrust out before her indignantly and a face which seemed to be carved out of angry granite. Warwick watched as she struggled with her suitcase and decided that he’d better do the gentlemanly thing and offer some assistance. He was in training for a hero, after all, wasn’t he?

Chapter Eight

Once Katherine climbed the steps and entered Purley, the naughty novels of Lorna Warwick would have to be forgotten as the weekend promised wall to wall Jane Austen. There was no room here for the imitators, the pastiches or the sequels - however good they might be. This was Purley Hall and nothing but the original Jane Austen was accepted.

Katherine wondered if Lorna was going to be there and dearly hoped she would be. She felt quite sure she’d enjoy the experience. They’d talked so much about Austen’s novels in their letters to each other and Katherine knew that Lorna’s presence would have made the weekend an absolute treat. How much they would have to talk about. They would probably be like a couple of naughty students, chatting and giggling at the back of the lecture rooms, swapping comments and anecdotes.

I wonder what she looks like? Katherine thought as she entered the grand hall of Purley, marvelling at the double staircase and smelling the intoxicating lilies that sat in their vases like marble sculptures above the fireplace. It didn’t really matter what she looked like - Katherine knew that and yet she’d still Googled the name, only to come up with innumerable images of Lorna Warwick novels from around the world. There were no photographs of the writer - not even on her website.

Anyway, she wasn’t going to be here so what did it matter? Looking around the room, one thing was certain - Katherine might not have any idea of what Lorna looked like but she knew that, were she attending the conference, she was sure to recognize her immediately. It would be like old friends meeting up after years of separation.

She made her way towards the crowded reception desk and waited her turn and, once she’d been given her key, she dared to ask if Lorna Warwick had arrived.

‘Let me see,’ the girl on reception said. ‘No, there’s no Lorna Warwick here this weekend.’

Katherine sighed and left the desk.

It was then that she heard a voice that chilled her spine. Oh, no, she thought as she turned round and saw the woman she’d dreaded seeing: Mrs Soames. They’d crossed paths before and Katherine remembered all too well the woman who could cloud over the loveliest day just by entering a room. She was the kind of woman who found something to complain about in even the simplest of tasks. Nothing was beyond reproach whether it was a day’s excursion or a cup of tea. Mrs Soames was bound to find something in it that was worth complaining about.

Katherine did her best to sneak by her as she was shouting some orders at a man who seemed to be crawling underneath her suitcase. She could just make out a pair of long legs ending in smart brown leather shoes poking out from one side of the enormous suitcase and the top of a tousled head of hair at the other end.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Mrs Soames said. ‘That’s not going to do any good!’

‘I think I can loosen it here,’ the man’s voice said. ‘Yes, that ought to do the trick.’

Katherine watched as the dark-haired man stood back up to full height, pushing the suitcase in her direction as he did so.

‘Ouch!’ Katherine screamed. ‘My foot!’

‘Oh my God! I’m so sorry,’ the man said, turning round to look at her. ‘Are you okay?’

‘No, I’m not okay. You’ve run over my foot with a two-tonne suitcase!’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Mrs Soames said. ‘Oh, it’s you, Dr Roberts.’ There was no trace of concern in her voice for Katherine’s poor foot.

Katherine bent down to rub her bruised toes.

‘Can I help you?’ the man asked, his bright eyes filled with concern.

‘You’re meant to be helping me!’ Mrs Soames said, her mouth set in a firm line.

‘Of course,’ the man said. ‘Look, I’m so sorry. If there’s anything I can do—’

‘Just leave me alone,’ Katherine said, wincing as she hobbled away with her own suitcase.

Robyn took a deep breath and approached the young girl at the desk.

‘Hello. I’m here for the conference.’

‘What’s your name?’ the girl asked.

‘Robyn. Robyn Love.’

‘Oh! What a gorgeous name!’

Robyn gave a shy smile. ‘I’m usually told how strange it is.’

‘I’ve met stranger,’ the girl said with a giggle and Robyn wondered what she meant. ‘You’ve got a welcome pack?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

The girl looked down at her register. ‘You’re in the Cedar Room. Up the stairs and turn right. It’s at the end of the corridor.’

The Cedar Room, Robyn said to herself. She liked the sound of that.

‘Mark will help you with your bags.’

Robyn turned and came face to face with a young man who immediately took her suitcase from her.

‘Oh, just a minute, Mark,’ the young girl said. ‘Here’s Dr Roberts. She’s just opposite in the Lake Room.’

Robyn turned to see a beautiful woman with dark hair swept up in a rather severe bun. She was wearing a crisp white shirt and a knee-length black skirt that was pencil-thin over her shapely legs.

‘Hello,’ Dr Roberts said to the girl who handed her a badge. She then turned to smile at Robyn. ‘Please, call me Katherine,’ she said but then she winced.

‘Are you okay?’ Robyn asked.

Katherine nodded. ‘Some idiot just wheeled a suitcase right over my foot. I fear I’ll be hobbling for the rest of today.’

‘Oh, dear!’ Robyn said. ‘We’ll have to find a handsome Willoughby to carry you up the stairs.’

Katherine laughed. ‘I think I can make it up myself.’

Mark picked up Katherine’s suitcase and led the two women up the stairs.

‘Have you travelled far?’ Katherine asked Robyn.

‘North Yorkshire.’

‘A bit further than me then. I’ve only come from Oxford.’

‘You’re the lecturer, aren’t you?’ Robyn said excitedly. ‘I’ve read your book!’

‘For pleasure?’

‘Oh, yes!’ Robyn enthused.

Katherine laughed. ‘I’m forgetting that everyone here enjoys Austen. I lecture at St Bridget’s in Oxford and I’m afraid the students there aren’t all as enthusiastic about our Jane.’

‘It must be a hard job,’ Robyn said, full of admiration for her new friend.

‘Some of the time,’ she said. ‘But I’m teaching the subject I love and, of course, we get to come to events like this.’

Robyn nodded. ‘I wish I’d had the chance to go to university. I would have loved it. It’s one of the reasons I like coming to things like this. I feel I learn so much.’

Katherine smiled. ‘Learning is a lifelong pleasure.’

The two women climbed the left-hand staircase which joined the right one in the middle and led them up to the first floor where the bedrooms were.

‘This is such an amazing house,’ Robyn said, gazing back down the stairs to the hall below, her feet making no sound on the plush red carpet.

‘This is called the Imperial Staircase,’ Katherine told her. ‘One of the finest in the country.’

Robyn suddenly stopped.

‘What is it?’ Katherine asked.

‘That man,’ Robyn said, nodding to a dark-haired gentleman at the bottom of the stairs. ‘He’s been watching us. Do you know him?’

Katherine’s eyes followed Robyn’s. ‘Oh! It’s that dreadful man who attacked me with a suitcase.’

Robyn watched as the man turned away. ‘He’s rather good-looking,’ she said.

‘Well, if you like that obvious tall, dark and handsome look,’ Katherine said.

‘Tolerable but not handsome enough to tempt you?’ Robyn said with a grin.

Katherine’s eyes met hers. ‘Something like that.’

They walked on, reaching the top of the stairs and turning right down a corridor lined with portraits.

‘We’re at the end,’ Mark said, leading on and stopping outside two bedroom doors. ‘Dr Roberts here,’ he said, opening the door on the right. ‘Miss Love here,’ he said, opening the door to the left. ‘Enjoy your stay at Purley.’

Robyn smiled, confident that she was going to do just that.

Warwick was mortified. Of all the people to run over with a suitcase, he had to go and pick Katherine. What a way to finally meet her. He’d recognized her instantly, of course, but the memory of the look she’d given him was enough to make him give up and go home right now.

He’d helped Mrs Soames to her room with her suitcase and had quickly returned to the hall, hoping to apologize to Katherine again and make some sort of amends but she’d been on her way up the stairs by then with the young woman in the silver sandals.

He’d stood and watched, getting his first proper look at Katherine, and what he saw surprised him. What had happened to the long luxurious hair that he’d seen in the photograph of her online? Instead of cascading over her shoulders, it had been tugged into a tight bun, flattened and lifeless at the back of her head. He took in the business-smart outfit too in black and white and the author in him wanted to rewrite her - dressing her in a vibrant colour and unpinning her dark hair.

He watched as she talked to the girl with the corkscrew curls and followed their progress up the stairs. He hadn’t meant to stare. That wasn’t the heroic stance he’d planned at all and he’d felt such a fool when he’d been spotted.

First impressions were so important, he thought, thinking of the disastrous one that had befallen Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy, and Austen herself had realized the role they played when she’d given Pride and Prejudice the original title of First Impressions. Warwick groaned. He’d completely missed his opportunity to make a good one - twice. Still, he was an author and was quite used to rewriting plots that didn’t work. He’d just have to wait for another opportunity and make sure he got it right next time.

Chapter Nine

The Cedar Room was absolutely perfect and Robyn fell immediately in love with it, rushing over to the great sash window in excitement and sighing like a lovelorn heroine at the view that greeted her. The perfect emerald lawn stretched away before her and the cedar tree stood sentinellike to her right.

She looked at the double bed and couldn’t help feeling guilty that it was for her and her alone and that Jace would be sleeping on his own but that certainly wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t asked him to chauffeur her to and from the conference, had she? It was his fault if he was going to be stuck in a bed and breakfast, bored out of his mind for the next few days. Robyn was quite determined that he wasn’t going to ruin her weekend. She’d looked forward to it for so long.

Flinging open her suitcase and finding her hairbrush, she entered the bathroom and did a quick repair job on her travel-worn tresses. She’d worn her hair long all her life and couldn’t imagine it being any other way. It was much admired and Jace loved it but it did take some upkeep and Robyn often wondered what life would be like with a nice neat bob.

Emptying her handbag of everything she didn’t need -which included two paperbacks and a bumper packet of mint humbugs, she left her room.

She was halfway down the grand staircase when she caught the eye of Katherine in the hall.

‘Robyn!’ she called. ‘Come and sit with me.’

Robyn joined her in the hall and Katherine linked her arm through hers.

‘Now, we’re just like a pair of Austen heroines, aren’t we?’ she said.

Robyn smiled and the two of them walked into the room at the back of the house known as the Yellow Drawing Room. It was filled with mellow afternoon light and the windows looked out over the gardens down to the lake.

‘I have this view from my window,’ Katherine boasted.

‘It’s so beautiful here,’ Robyn said. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever want to leave.’

‘I know,’ Katherine said. ‘I always feel like that too. It’s part of the magic of the conference. They know you’ll be back year after year. It gets a hold of you and never lets you go.’

There were three enormous sofas in the room and lots of armchairs in brilliant colours and, filling in the gaps, some wooden chairs had been placed in order to accommodate all the guests.

‘How many people are here?’ Robyn asked.

‘There’s usually twenty to thirty but not everyone stays in the hall. There are only enough rooms for about eighteen. Everyone else stays in nearby B&Bs.’

Robyn swallowed as she thought of Jace again. She wished she could stop doing that.

‘Let’s get a cup of tea,’ Katherine said, bringing Robyn back into the Austensian world of Purley that was filled with china tea cups rather than the Jace world which was filled with beer cans.

Taking a cup of tea and a piece of sugary shortbread, they sat on a big squashy sofa the colour of lemons.

‘Hey, there’s that man again,’ Robyn said, nodding towards the door as the dark-haired gentleman walked in.

‘Oh,’ Katherine said.

‘He is very handsome, don’t you think?’

‘He’s very clumsy,’ Katherine replied, turning away.

Robyn smiled. She could feel a romance coming on, she was quite sure of it. ‘He’s so fit-looking,’ she persisted. ‘But not in that awful I-spend-all-my-time-in-a-gym way. He looks more like an athlete or something. Nice shirt too, don’t you think?’

‘I’m doing my best not to think about him,’ Katherine said.

It was just as Robyn was contemplating an Austen-style declaration of love from the dark-haired gentleman to her new friend when a gentleman in a scarlet waistcoat entered the room, standing in front of the window and clearing his throat and instantly hushing the room.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Purley Hall and to the Jane Austen conference. Please put your hands together to welcome your hostess, Dame Pamela Harcourt!’

A wondrous expectant hush befell the room which was quickly followed by a riotous round of applause as all eyes turned to the door as the actress made her entrance.

Robyn felt a strange fluttery feeling in her chest. She was actually rather nervous. She’d been a fan of Dame Pamela’s for years. In her youth, she had played an enchanting Elizabeth Bennet and a dazzlingly wild Marianne in TV adaptations, and now she struck terror into the heart of viewers with her portrayals of Fanny Ferrars Dashwood and Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

Robyn’s head swivelled towards the door and her mouth dropped open as Dame Pamela made her entrance in a sweep of lilac. Her silvery hair had been swept up in a full meringuelike style that was pure theatre and her smile radiated warmth and pleasure at being the centre of attention.

‘My dears!’ she announced, her hands raised and sparkly with diamond rings. ‘My wonderful guests! Welcome to my home which, for this all-too-brief space of time, is your home too. I can’t tell you how much I look forward to this weekend every year, and each year is invariably better than the last so welcome to the best ever Jane Austen conference yet!’

There was another round of applause and Dame Pamela smiled and began to mingle.

Warwick didn’t stay for the mingling.

Idiot! Imbecile! Stupid, stupid man!

He didn’t spare the curses as he left the Yellow Drawing Room. What had got into him? Hadn’t he been going to recreate the role of hero and stride across the room to introduce himself to Katherine? So what had happened? Well, once he’d caught sight of her again, he’d frozen. For ages, he’d gazed at the beautiful curve of her neck which, as her hair was still swept up into a bun, had been left exposed for the express purpose of tormenting men. Then she’d turned round and caught him staring.

Like a ridiculous schoolboy! he said to himself, leaving the scene of his crime and flying up the stairs as fast as he could. What must she think of me? She must think I’m a prat to be avoided at all costs and I’ve not even spoken to her yet.

Reaching his room, he slammed the door behind him. What was he going to do? What would a hero do? he thought. What would Darcy do? Write a letter, probably, but he couldn’t do that. For one thing, Katherine would recognize his handwriting. Anyway, there wasn’t time.

He could try explaining himself but what was there to explain? That he was some sort of neck pervert? She’d have him arrested. No, there was only one way to deal with this and that was to pretend that the whole staring thing hadn’t happened at all. Rather like Mrs Bennet’s sudden memory lapse at the bad behaviour of Lydia once she found out that her daughter was married.

Yes, he thought, the new improved Warwick would banish any bad memories of the old one.

Chapter Ten

Dinner at Purley Hall was always something to look forward to and Robyn’s first experience was sending her spinning with excitement as she rushed from suitcase to wardrobe in search of the dress she was going to wear. It was a plain sky-blue dress with only a hint of bugle beads along the neckline and it was rather short for Robyn - just skimming the knees instead of covering her ankles.

She felt rather on show as she made her way down the stairs, very aware of the bareness of her legs, but then she saw the familiar face of Katherine and her nod of approval put her mind at rest. Katherine was wearing a pretty dress in burgundy. Her hair had been unpinned and fell over her shoulders in dark waves.

‘You look lovely,’ Robyn said.

‘So do you!’

‘I don’t often get the chance to dress up at home,’ Robyn said. ‘This is rather special.’

‘It’s one of the things to look forward to here.’

Robyn noticed that the dining room door was open but people were chatting in groups in the hall before entering.

‘We’re waiting for the dame,’ Katherine told her.

Sure enough, a moment later, a hush descended and all eyes turned upwards towards the cantilevered staircase. It really was the staircase of an actress, Robyn thought, and an actress who knew how to make an entrance for, as the grandfather clock in the hall struck the half hour, a vision in violet greeted them.

Dame Pamela was a sight to behold at the best of times but tonight she was part superstar, part royalty, in a dress of deepest purple which wafted dreamily behind her and a diamond necklace which encrusted the whole of her neck so that it seemed to be made more of diamonds than of skin.

As was becoming the practice whenever Dame Pamela made an appearance, everybody burst into applause which had the effect of lighting up her face like the most enchanting of queens. She took the arm of a gentleman wearing a suit of midnight blue, and the two of them led the way into the dining room.

As Robyn entered, her eyes lit up - the room was a delight of chandeliers and candles. To be as authentic as possible to Jane Austen, electricity had been shunned and the result was greeted by appreciative gasps from the guests as they entered. It was a room that seemed to stretch forever and Robyn felt that she needed at least three pairs of eyes in her head to take it all in. The walls were cream with ornate gold plasterwork around the ceiling which glimmered in the light from the candles. There was an impressive fireplace which hadn’t been lit owing to the continued warmth of the season but which Robyn could imagine being the very heart of the house when it was alive and roaring, filling the room with the unmistakable smell of home.

Several grand portraits lined the walls, the pale faces gazing down at the guests with the passivity that is so particular to the painted form. Robyn wondered who they were and how long they had been staring down from these walls. Were they ancestors of Dame Pamela or had she bought them as part of the house when she’d moved to Purley?

With a dozen questions swimming around her head, seats were taken and Robyn’s gaze fell to the beautiful table settings, the flower displays and the silverware. It certainly beat beans on toast on the sofa in front of the television in her little terrace, she thought, as she gazed at the vases of pink and white roses which lined the table.

White plates and bowls sat in front of the guests and two beautiful crystal glasses waited to be filled. It was all so sumptuous that Robyn was almost afraid to touch anything. She was so used to her old scratched dinner plates and her sturdy pottery mug.

‘I wonder if we’ll see our friend,’ Robyn said, eyeing up the other guests up and down the length of the great table.

‘Who’s that?’

‘The gentleman who likes staring at you so much,’ Robyn said.

‘I don’t think you can call such a man a gentleman,’ Katherine said. ‘If you looked up the word gentleman in the dictionary there’d be a picture of him - with a great red cross through it.’

Robyn laughed.

‘And, if you really want to know where he is, he’s over there.’

Robyn looked at the end of the table and saw the dark-haired man. ‘I wonder why he hasn’t introduced himself yet.’

‘I’m hoping he’s too embarrassed,’ Katherine said. ‘I can quite do without such complications, anyway.’

Robyn’s eyes widened at this declaration and she waited, hoping that she might say more but she didn’t and the moment passed as the starters were served.

It was when they were halfway through dinner that things began to get interesting. Robyn was just finishing her last mouthful of pavlova when a gentleman entered the room and quietly made his way to the head of the table. He was tall and his coppery blond hair flopped over his face in the kind of manner that suggested he wasn’t a part of the conference. He was wearing a loose shirt, dirt-encrusted trousers and a pair of boots, and Robyn recognized him at once. It was the handsome man on horseback she’d seen in the lane at Steventon. She watched as he approached Dame Pamela and whispered something in her ear. She made to get up out of her seat but the man placed a tanned hand on her shoulder and shook his head.

What was that about? Robyn wondered. Did the man work at Purley for Dame Pamela or maybe he was her latest toy boy? It was a well-known fact that the dame liked her men a lot younger than herself and he was certainly handsome. Nobody could blame her if this was the latest handsome young man she’d chosen to help her learn her lines.

Robyn watched as the man made to leave the room, his coppery hair catching the light of the candles and giving it the look of a halo.

She tutted at herself. Honestly, what was she thinking of and why was she looking at his bottom? What would Jane Austen have made of such brazenness? She’d probably have laughed her head off and then written everything down so as not to forget anything, Robyn thought, quite sure that the author would have eyed up enough men’s bottoms in her time, the same as any other red-blooded woman. Especially in the fashions of her time. It was absolutely wicked but great fun to imagine the young author dreaming of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Captain Wentworth and what they might look like in their breeches. Wasn’t that a big part of why the film and television adaptations were so successful - because of the fine display of men’s bottoms?

Robyn felt herself blushing and cursed her girlishness. She knew her whole face had a tendency to flame scarlet rather than colour her cheeks a subtle shade of pink and it was most embarrassing. She looked down at her lap for a moment, feeling the colour ebbing away before she dared to look up at the handsome young man again. She loved the way he walked the length of the room with such easy strides. He had that wonderful grace that comes from riding a horse well.

But Robyn was soon distracted from her quiet admiration because, when he opened the door to leave, it almost crashed into his face as a second man stumbled into the room.

‘Oh my God!’ Robyn said, her mouth dropping open in horror. It was Jace.

A sudden hush fell over the dining room as thirty pairs of eyes swivelled in the direction of the door as the dishevelled man crashed into a chair, sending its occupant sprawling across the table.

Robyn’s blush returned with a vengeance as she watched the scene unfolding.

‘Where’s my gal?’ Jace announced, looking up and tripping over his own feet as he tried to move forward.

‘Excuse me!’ a voice boomed. It was the man in the scarlet waistcoat whom Robyn thought of as the master of ceremonies.

‘What?’ Jace said, standing back up to full height and swaying like a reed in the wind.

‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’

‘Jace, mate. Who the hell are you?’

There was a collective gasp of horror from around the table at this rude interruption and Robyn wanted to slide quietly under it until it was all over but it was too late to do anything because Jace had spotted her.

‘There’s my darlin’! There’s my Robbie!’

‘Robyn?’ Katherine asked. ‘Is he yours?’

‘No,’ Robyn said. ‘I mean yes. Kind of.’

Katherine looked confused and Robyn swallowed hard as she realized that the whole room was now looking at her.

‘Really!’ the master of ceremonies said. ‘I must ask you to leave. This is a private function.’

‘Get your hands off me. I’m here to see my gal.’ Jace stumbled and swayed across the room, catching hold of the table in front of him as he reached Robyn. ‘Babes!’ he said. ‘I was worried about you. Your phone must be broken.’

‘It’s not broken, Jace,’ Robyn said in a whisper, hoping he’d lower his voice to match her own.

‘I had to come and see you - make sure you were all right.’

Robyn stood up. ‘You shouldn’t be here!’

‘I was bored!’ he whined. ‘I’m stuck in that bloody B&B by myself.’

Again, there were more gasps and mutterings from the guests at the intruder’s ripe language.

‘I told you not to come.’

‘Aw, babes!’ he said, making an attempt to hug her but she swerved out of the way. ‘Don’t be like that.’

‘You should have stayed at home!’ Robyn said, anger raising her voice. ‘This isn’t the place for you.’

‘Come with me,’ he said, grabbing her wrist.

‘You’re hurting me.’

‘What do you want to be with all these stiffs for when you could be having fun with me?’

‘Jace!’

‘Hey! Leave her alone.’ Somebody had stepped in between them and calmly but firmly pushed Jace away from Robyn. It was the handsome man on horseback. ‘I think you’d better leave. That’s your taxi outside, right?’

Jace’s face had turned purple with rage. ‘You’re that toff whose horse kicked my car!’

Robyn shook her head. ‘It didn’t kick your car, Jace.’

‘You are, aren’t you? Is that why you’re here?’ Jace asked, peering round the man to look at Robyn and almost toppling over in the process.

‘What are you talking about?’ Robyn said.

‘I know you women - you don’t care who the man is as long as he’s on a bloody horse. Put Jabba the bloody Hutt on a horse and you’d all be swooning over him!’

‘Jace, you need to lie down.’

‘Let’s get you into that taxi,’ the man said.

‘But I want to stay!’ Jace cried, shaking the man’s hand off him.

‘No, you don’t. We’ll be watching a film later,’ Robyn said. ‘You’ll be bored out of your mind if you stay.’

‘What - a film with one of those infernal dance scenes?’

‘Exactly,’ Robyn said.

Jace seemed to be considering this for a moment and, finally, he saw sense. ‘When will I see you?’

‘I’ll give you a call in the morning, okay?’

Jace nodded. He looked like he was about to fall asleep or maybe just fall.

‘Let’s get you into that taxi,’ the man said again.

‘Waitwaitwait,’ Jace said, bending forward and grabbing hold of Robyn, placing a slobbery kiss on her mouth before leaving the room.

Robyn sank back down in her chair.

‘You okay?’ Katherine asked as everyone around the table started whispering to one another, desperately trying to find out what was going on.

‘That was terrible,’ Robyn said. ‘Everyone’s looking at me.’

‘No they’re not.’

‘I think I’d like to leave.’

Katherine nodded. ‘I’ll come with you.’

The two of them left the dining room and Robyn breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Thanks for not asking too many questions,’ she said.

Katherine smiled. ‘If you want to talk about it, I’m here. If not, no problem.’

‘I appreciate that.’

They walked up the stairs together.

‘If only life were more like fiction,’ Robyn said as they reached the top of the stairs.

‘I’m always thinking exactly the same thing,’ Katherine said. ‘It’s the curse of the voracious reader that reality never quite matches up to the fiction we read.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Robyn said. ‘Jane Austen has a lot to answer for, doesn’t she?’

Katherine nodded. ‘But that doesn’t mean we can’t live in hope of a happy ending of our own.’

Robyn sighed. ‘It’s just that it sometimes seems a very long time in getting here.’

They reached their bedroom doors and Katherine smiled at Robyn. ‘You’ll come back downstairs for the film, won’t you?’ Robyn looked lost in thought for a moment, as if she couldn’t quite place where she was or who was speaking to her. Finally, she nodded.

‘Good,’ Katherine said, checking her watch. ‘Shall I knock for you?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Robyn said. ‘I’ll see you down there.’

‘I must say, I was tempted to watch Sense and Sensibility for the hundredth time but I’ve decided to wallow in Persuasion’ Katherine said. ‘What about you?’

Since the upset with Jace, Robyn hadn’t had time to think of the evening ahead. Although she preferred Persuasion as a story, she really couldn’t cope with it tonight. The scene when Anne Elliot realizes that she and her onetime lover, Frederick, are like strangers - worse than strangers because they can never now become acquainted - always brought tears to Robyn’s eyes and would be just enough to tip her over the edge in front of everybody.

‘It was perpetual estrangement.’ That line always got Robyn. That was the lump-in-the-throat moment and, if she was ever watching the film in company, a sly finger would dab at the tear ducts and a long soft sniff would try to hide the sadness in her heart.

Perpetual estrangement, Robyn thought. Wasn’t that exactly what she wanted from Jace?

Chapter Eleven

Katherine didn’t see Robyn before the film began and wasn’t even sure that she hadn’t shut herself away in her room for the rest of the evening. And who could blame her? After the awful scene in the dining room, it would be a wonder if Robyn showed her face again at all that weekend. Poor Robyn. It wasn’t her fault. As Katherine chose a seat in the library, she couldn’t help wondering what Robyn’s story was. The man she’d called Jace didn’t seem at all suited to her and it puzzled Katherine why she was with somebody like that. But then, who can know what goes on in the heart of another person and what may attract one to another? Katherine had enough problems working out the complexities of her own heart and wondering what it was she was looking for and if it truly existed or not.

Ever since she could remember, she’d been searching for a hero who could sweep her away. Before she’d discovered Jane Austen, there’d been Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. As a doctor of literature at Oxford, she should surely frown upon such portrayals of women but she couldn’t help herself. She wanted a hero. Didn’t every woman? Even the tight-lipped Professor Ann Marlowe whom she’d worked alongside for years with her severe haircut and her feminist ways - surely even she wouldn’t turn down Captain Wentworth or Colonel Brandon if they came riding across the quad at St Bridget’s College, professing undying love for her?

Katherine sighed. The human heart was so complex and a love of romantic fiction just confused things even more.

Just as the lights were being switched off, Katherine became aware of a presence by her side and looked up into the face of the suitcase-wielding gentleman only, luckily for her, he was now without his weapon of choice.

‘Is this seat taken?’ he asked, his voice low, almost shy.

Katherine shook her head, not wanting to add any words of encouragement or to maintain eye-contact despite the fact that he was rather handsome. She hadn’t noticed that when he’d been running her over with Mrs Soames’s suitcase but his dark hair and bright eyes were very attractive and he had a very cute smile too.

‘I couldn’t make my mind up which film to see,’ the man said.

Katherine’s eyes remained fixed on the television as the sad yet serene face of Sally Hawkins looked out at the audience with clear, all-seeing eyes.

‘I mean, Persuasion is excellent but Sense and Sensibility is such a great film too.’ Katherine shifted in her chair.

‘A wonderful script,’ he said. ‘One of the best adaptations of a book ever.’

‘Shush!’ a woman said from a chair behind them.

‘And the young Kate Winslet, of course,’ he added.

‘Young man!’ the woman from behind them protested. ‘Will you stop talking?’

‘Sorry,’ the man said.

Katherine allowed herself a very small smile. A young Kate Winslet indeed!

It was strange but, no matter how many times Katherine read the novel or saw the adaptations, Anne and Wentworth’s story of young love rediscovered never failed to move her. It was, perhaps, Austen’s slowest story in terms of action but there was a beauty about its simple structure and its sublimely gentle narration. Anne was one of the most sympathetic heroines in literature because she had made a mistake when young that had almost cost her her life’s happiness.

Perhaps that’s why Austen’s books were so popular, Katherine mused - because her heroines made the most terrible mistakes: they either fell for the bad boys or turned the good ones away. They were real, flawed but forgivable girls who had a lot of growing up to do and readers loved them because they were them.

Which one of us hasn’t made a hash of our lives at one time or other? Katherine thought, daring to think about her own doomed relationship with David. The only difference was, Katherine wasn’t a fictional character in a novel and Jane Austen wasn’t around to ensure her a happy ending.

‘Ah, a happy ending,’ the man next to her said.

Katherine jolted out of her private daydream, irrationally thinking that the dark-haired man had somehow read her thoughts.

‘There’s nothing quite like a happy ending, don’t you think?’ he said.

‘Exactly,’ Katherine said, getting up from her chair. ‘It leaves one feeling so…’ She paused.

‘Satisfied?’ the man suggested.

‘Inadequate,’ Katherine said.

The man looked bemused a moment but then, getting up from his chair as the lights were switched on, he held out his hand to shake hers. ‘I’m Warwick,’ he said. ‘And I can personally guarantee a happy ending if you befriend me.’

It was Katherine’s turn to look bemused and she did it beautifully, raising a dark eyebrow whilst fixing him with a stern look.

‘Really?’

‘Absolutely,’ he said with a smile that was really quite attractive.

Katherine looked at him for a moment, his hand still extended towards her. He was, she had to admit, rather handsome. He had thick dark hair, clear hazel eyes and a smile that was part charm and part dare. What the heck? Katherine thought. What harm can there be befriending him? After all, it was only for the space of the weekend. If he was completely mad - and she hadn’t ruled that out yet - she need never see him or hear from him again. So, she extended her hand, placed it in his and shook.

‘Warwick?’ she said.

‘You’re called Warwick too?’ he said with a grin.

She smiled. ‘I’m Katherine. Katherine Roberts.’

‘And you’re speaking on Sunday?’

‘I am.’

‘And I’m looking forward to it,’ he said.

They walked slowly towards the library door together and then, reaching it, stopped.

‘Well, it was very nice to meet you, Warwick,’ Katherine said, giving him a brief smile before heading towards the stairs before he had the chance to say another word.

Warwick was totally stunned. She’d just walked away -casually and coolly walked away from him - as if he was of no further use to her.

But look on the bright side, he told himself. He’d made contact. He now officially knew her name and she knew his. They’d even exchanged a few words.

But that was it, he said to himself. What had gone wrong this time? Was she just totally unimpressed by him and didn’t want to engage in further conversation? Had she found him so dull and unamusing?

Warwick sighed. How odd it had been to sit in the dark with her for the entire length of the film. It had been a strange sort of agony because he knew this woman and yet he couldn’t talk to her. And he so wanted to talk to her! They got on. If only she knew it and gave him a chance but she hadn’t. She’d dismissed him as an uninteresting nobody.

So what was he going to do now? He couldn’t let her slip away from him so easily, could he? He had to give this another go.

For a moment, he stood in the hallway, wondering what his next move was going to be, and then he remembered something - something he could use to his advantage.

The letters.

Katherine’s letters were the key to unlocking her. She’d written things in them that revealed the very centre of her personality and he could use that knowledge to get to know her better now.

It was a low-down, sneaky, dishonourable thing to do but it would probably work a treat.

Chapter Twelve

Katherine drew back the heavy bedroom curtains and looked out over the view that she’d quickly come to think of as her own. The sun was shining and the lake was looking particularly blue today with diamond droplets of light dancing on its surface.

There was a moorhen tearing across the lawn at a tremendous speed, its neck lengthened to cartoonish proportions as it made for the thick clumps of reed by the lake. If she hadn’t been asked there as a paid guest, she knew the price of the long weekend was worth it for this view alone.

Turning back to the room with the realization that she couldn’t spend the entire break gazing out of the window, she knew how lucky she was and how very precious moments like these were. To be absolutely still and just take time to look at the world was something Katherine didn’t do very often. She needed this at the moment.

Last night, she’d given in to the emotions she’d been bottling up for so many weeks and had a jolly good cry. David’s announcement that he was married had come at a particularly busy time of term and Katherine had chosen to bury herself in her work and ignore the fact that her heart was broken. The only acknowledgement she’d made had been a slight overdose on her DVD collection of costume dramas - in particular her Austen titles.

The restorative powers of Jane Austen never failed. It was the one thing in life that a girl could rely on like a good bottle of wine or an expensive box of chocolates. David had dropped his bombshell on a Friday and Katherine had spent the entire weekend on the sofa watching the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice - all six hour-long episodes back to back, laughing and crying her way through the trials of the Bennet sisters. However, judging by last night, she obviously hadn’t cried herself out over her broken relationship that weekend.

‘But I have now,’ she said, examining her pale face in the bathroom mirror. It was always the same when she was upset - all the colour drained out of her leaving her looking like a ghost. She’d have to do a good repair job with the make-up this morning unless she wanted to terrify everyone at breakfast. She couldn’t help wondering what the dark-haired gentleman would think if he saw her now. Would he be as keen to talk to her if he saw Katherine Roberts, the damaged version?

For a moment, she thought about the man who seemed so intent on getting to know her.

‘Warwick,’ she said to her reflection. It was an unusual name. She’d never heard of it as a first name before - only as a surname.

‘Like Lorna Warwick!’ she suddenly said and then laughed. Not that he would have heard of Lorna Warwick. He was probably one of those Jane Austen snobs who ridiculed any other novel that wasn’t written by the grande dame herself. So that was the end of their friendship, then. They would have absolutely nothing to talk about if he was a literary snob and couldn’t bear to indulge in a bit of Regency fun every now and then. Not that she had been planning on talking to him because she hadn’t. The last thing she was looking for was another relationship. Her past relationships with David the Liar and Callum the Cheat were enough to put any woman off for life. She needed a break from men. Well, real ones anyway. Fictional men were fine: they knew their place. You could just pick up a book, flick through to the right page, take your fill of your favourite hero and then return them to the shelf. Job done.

But real men were something to be avoided for the foreseeable future. Look but don’t touch, she thought. No, even looking could be fraught with danger. All romantic interludes began with a pair of gullible eyes and there was no telling where things might lead. Just look at Marianne Dashwood and Willoughby, and Elizabeth Bennet and Wickham. Hadn’t Willoughby and Wickham been the most dashing, romantic of heroes? Hadn’t they been charming and totally above suspicion? And yet they had proved to be the most dangerous of men.

Like David, Katherine thought. Only he hadn’t been quite as dashing. He was a middle-aged university lecturer whose hair was receding a little and who could have benefited from a couple of sessions a week at the gym. Katherine hadn’t minded any of that, though. It was his wit and charm that had bowled her over - his unashamed flattery and the old-fashioned way he had courted her. He would post love letters under her office door, hand her books of poetry with his favourites marked by a rose. He would take her out to the very best restaurants and buy her little gifts beautifully wrapped.

‘But he didn’t tell you about his wife,’ she said aloud. That was it with men, wasn’t it? There was always some hidden horror; some terrible secret that just happened to slip their minds as they kissed you to within an inch of your senses.

‘Well, never again,’ Katherine said. She would never make the mistake of being taken in by a man again.

She smiled with satisfaction at this promise. She’d certainly have lots to tell her dear friend Lorna about once she was home. Her fingers were almost itching to start the letter right now. Lorna would laugh heartily when Katherine told her about Warwick and how cool she’d been in her response.

‘And quite right you were too!’ Lorna would surely tell her. ‘These men must be put in their place.’

Katherine sighed. If only Lorna was here, she thought to herself. What fun they would have together.

Just across the hall from Katherine’s room, Robyn was waking up, stretching full length under the warm duvet and staring up at the beautiful plasterwork above the light on the ceiling. It was a far cry from her own bedroom so many miles away in Yorkshire with the strange damp patch that glowered down at her each morning. How lovely it must be to live in such elegance, she thought. Getting out of bed the wrong side would be impossible when one had sash windows on one side and exquisite pieces of furniture on the other. Come to think of it, it would be hard to get out of bed at all when you owned one as beautiful as the one Robyn was occupying. Did she really want to leave its warm comfort when she could spend the day in bed with Mr Darcy? Or even a whole weekend with Mr Darcy? Now, there was a thought and, if a girl couldn’t get away with that at a Jane Austen weekend then where could she?

Robyn sat up and pushed her hair out of her face. It was always a bit tangly and springy first thing in the morning and she’d need to tame it before breakfast.

Getting out of bed and taking a shower, she tried not to think about the night before. After Jace’s appearance, she’d hidden herself away in her room for over an hour and then got angry that she was letting him ruin her weekend. So she’d ventured downstairs and quietly joined the film group, just in time to see Colonel Brandon carrying a broken Marianne in his arms. It was one of her favourite scenes and she always adored the moment when, after her fever has passed, Marianne notices Colonel Brandon in the doorway of her bedroom - seeing him as if for the first time, and thanks him.

As ever, in times of trouble Jane Austen was - in the words her sister Cassandra used to describe her - ‘the soother of every sorrow’ and Robyn was able to put all non-heroes out of her mind.

Having washed and dressed, Robyn swapped the beauty of her bedroom for the splendour of the dining room, shyly entering and noticing that she was one of the last down.

‘Oh, my dear!’ a voice suddenly accosted her. ‘We were all so worried about you.’

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