Page 48 of The Austen Escape
When she flipped on the light, I gasped. “I wish we could’ve stayed here. I love this room.”
It was slightly smaller than ours, with blue toile wallpaper and matching curtains. Not frilly curtains, straight ones with clean lines and right angles. The area rug was bright blue woven with navy. It was thick and chunky as if made from the ropes that rigged ships. It was a man’s room, a sailor’s room, clean, neat, and comfortable. An imposing wood-framed bed sat in the center of the interior wall, a wardrobe filled one corner, and an armchair and ottoman another.
“I’m glad you like it. It was my brother Geoffrey’s room. The Green Room was mine.”
“It’s so comfortable. Not that ours isn’t exquisite, it’s just that... I have three brothers. I guess I’m more used to this.” I ran my fingers down the drapery, then remembered Isabel’sadmonishment:Do not weigh the draperies. “Do the rooms look like they did when you were a child?”
Gertrude scoffed. “Back then the wallpaper was peeling, the paint around the windows disintegrating. The lead frames had warped at least a century earlier, and right up in that corner there was a leak that dripped nine months of the year. Geoffrey used my blue sand pail to catch it until we were teenagers. Then he mounted a catching system made from a canvas tarp and garden tubing. It was all a mess. I don’t remember a time it wasn’t... Wait here.”
She returned moments later with a rolling portable wardrobe. She unzipped the canvas side and began withdrawing coats.
“Not that one.” I scrunched my nose at the coat she laid on the bed. “I promise you it’s too large. He’s more narrow, and taller. Do you have anything slimmer?”
She looked like she wanted to laugh, but instead she pulled out three more coats.
“These two.” I laid aside a dark green and a bright blue.
She then pulled out shirts, neckties, and three pairs of breeches. “Too small? Too big?”
I shrugged. “How would I know?”
“I have no idea.” That time she did laugh.
... A company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation.
The line fromPersuasioncame to me on a shaft of morning sunlight. I recalled the enchantment of the previous evening, thenlet it drift away as I watched the sunbeams strike our room’s many shades of green.
I stretched and glanced to Isabel’s bed. She was gone—again. I took a deep breath. Day two. I reached for my phone to send a quick text to Dr. Milton when another thought hit me.
Nathan. I calculated the time. Five hours.
I pulled a dress from my wardrobe, this time a rich cream one with blue detailing. The fabric was sumptuous, a soft thin wool, and it fit. It dropped long enough to reach my toes, and the front pleats made me look like I had cleavage. I twisted my ponytail into a bun and secured it with the stretch of electrical wire I’d used on Isabel’s hair the night before. I even dabbed on blush and mascara.
Showtime.
I stepped into the gallery. Then I felt it—a shock of pure energy. It was noiseless. There was no change in pressure or sound. It simply felt like a charge reverberating through and around me, like when the guys in the lab set off experiments to see if my hair stood on end when I walked in the door.
I looked down the stairs and there he was, right below me, looking around but not up. Four hours early.
I closed my eyes, thankful for a moment to allow the heat in my face to cool. I shifted my weight to step back when a chuckle reached me.
“Look at you.” The words were soft, almost flirtatious. I backed away further.
I took a deep breath and stepped forward. “You’re early.”
“There was a seat on an earlier flight out of Dallas.”
I leaned over the railing. “Stop grinning like that. Wait till you see what you have to wear.”
Nathan looked good. He always did. That perfect mix of hipster prep—jeans and Chacos, thin oxford-cut shirts and worn belts, and a touch of Texan thrown in—hair cowboy messy. It was cut short, allowing for only minor ruffling, and, like now for instance, he was often five o’clock scruffy. Thin and fit, lanky and mobile—his body moved with the same facile energy that moved his mind. And he was good at his job. That appealed to me—competence always did.
I stopped cataloguing him as he climbed the stairs; my litany of his attributes felt like a good-bye. He was dating Isabel. And as he neared, her descriptors filled my mind.TCG.A little boring, but really nice...Does something financial for work...Quiet...Hair you want to run your fingers through, if it was a little longer...
Okay, that last one fit.
“So you’re TCG.”
Nathan’s step hitched. He stepped up the final stair and stood facing me. He’d walked the entire way in silence. “I take it you’ve heard of me.”
