Prada and Prejudice Page 5

  Even though he's pretty hot, he also kinda looks like he's one of the Village People. I snicker to myself and that's when he turns around and looks up. There's no way he could have heard me, but I feel as if I've been caught red-handed, and I recoil so quickly I fall backward off the window seat. There's a rug on the ground next to the seat, but even so, I land with a hard thud that knocks the wind out of me. Even though I'm trying hard to be Rebecca, I just pulled another Callie classic. For a long moment I just lie there, staring at the ceiling, catching my breath and wondering if he knew I was watching him. He knows which room I'm in, right? Even if he hadn't seen my face, he'd know it was me. My skirts are fanned out around me, and I twist them in my fingers while I try to decide if I should be embarrassed.

  I crawl back toward the seat and peek out over it, but I realize with some degree of disappointment he's gone. The expansive lawn is empty. Is it pathetic if I wanted to check him out some more? He might be a jerk, but at least he's good eye-candy.

  I get up and walk back over to my bed, plopping down on it with a heavy sigh.

  I'm smart, right? I should be able to come up with a solid plan as to how I can get back to the twenty-first century.

  The trouble is I'm lost without Wikipedia and Google. I know all sorts of things, of course, but none of it is useful: the periodic table of elements, how to factor a math equation with four different variables, the symbiotic relationship between the great white shark and the remora fish. Completely useless, random information.

  Even a year of advanced chemistry isn't going to do me any good; it's not like there's a chapter in there about time travel.

  I get up off the bed and creep to the door and peek out. No one is around.

  I'll just explore the house. Maybe there really is a phone hidden somewhere that will prove Emily is lying about 1815. Or maybe I'll find a servant in some Old Navy jeans.

  My room is on the second floor of the west wing, at the end of the hall, so all I can do is go toward the front entry. There are doors on both sides of the hall, so I walk toward the first one and press my ear to it. Silence.

  I ease the doorknob around and push it inward, cringing as the hinges creak. It's just another bedroom, slightly smaller than mine. This one has hideous red wallpaper with flowers swirling up and down in vertical stripes, and carpet in the exact same shade of crimson.

  Ugh. This is definitely not going to help me.

  I exit the room and continue down the hall. I poke my head in a couple of rooms and see more beds. How many bedrooms does one house need? I haven't even seen Emily, Victoria, or Alex's rooms. That makes at least seven or eight bedrooms . .. and that's without seeing the other 90 percent of this place.

  I get that he's a duke, but isn't this kind of overkill?

  I skip the next couple of doors, figuring they're all bedrooms. Toward the front of the hall is a set of double doors, which must mean the room is something different. I see a servant walking up the stairs, so I act like I'm just casually fixing my hair until she disappears into a bedroom.

  I ease open one of the two doors and poke my head in.

  A library. I can't help the grin that spreads across my face. There's got to be something here I can use. Maybe there will be modern books. Or even just old ones that might hold some useful information I could glean from their pages.

  I inhale the scent of paper and books as I shut the door behind me and step inside.

  There are dozens of shelves — rows and rows of them. They tower over my head. There's even one of those old ladders attached to the wall.

  I run my fingers over the spines and walk down the rows, looking at the titles. Utopia. The Miser. Robinson Crusoe. Katie would go all geeky if she were here with me right now...

  She loves literature, especially anything in first edition. She collects books like she collects MySpace friends.

  The books are all leather, and the titles are old. I pause at a collection of Shakespeare. Othello. Romeo and Juliet. A Midsummer Night's Dream. I pull Hamlet out and look at it, but then set it back down on the shelf.

  I pass a row of books on philosophy, and another on astrology. Up and down I go, pausing now and then, but not pulling any books out. I'm not sure what I expected to find.

  The Idiot's Guide to Time Travel?

  Whatever it is, it's not here.

  I round the last shelf and go over to the sofa and plop down on it. This is all so... tiring. I want to be home. In my bed. I want to wake up and watch Saturday morning cartoons with a bowl of cereal. I lie back on a pillow, my dress draped over my legs and hanging over the edge of the cushions, toward the floor.

  Oh, what am I doing? Hanging out in this library isn't going to do me any good. I've got to keep searching.

  I sit up and stare down at my shoes. Maybe if I were wearing something more comfortable, walking around the house wouldn't suck so much. I reach down to adjust the buckle, loosening it one notch. As I go to adjust the other shoe, I see something. It's a stack of papers, shoved between the small table and the leg of the couch. I reach down and slide them out. There's a ribbon around them, so that the bundle is a few inches thick. They're letters. The wax seals are broken, so it's clear they've been read. I slip the ribbon off.

  That's when I hear the door click open. What do I do? Hide? Oh God, I'm probably not supposed to be digging around in here, picking up letters that are not mine. And what if this room is supposed to be off-limits?

  Panicked, I duck behind the sofa, the stack of papers still in my hand. It's elevated off the floor with four spindly legs, so I can make out the shoes of the person stepping inside.

  I recognize the leather riding boots of Alex. The duke.

  Crap. Why am I hiding? Doesn't this look suspicious? The letters practically burn in my hands. What if these are his? Maybe I should have just sat there, all casual. But now what do I do? Pretend like I lost a contact?

  Oh, right. They don't have contacts yet.

  God, this is so stupid!

  I try to keep my breathing steady, even though I am terrifyingly close to panting like a dog. He walks up and down the room for what seems like an hour but is probably ten minutes. I can hear him sliding books in and out of the shelves. I will him to just pick up a book and leave with it. If he's looking for these letters, he's not going to find them without finding me.

  My knees are starting to ache from kneeling on the thin carpet. Haven't they ever heard of carpet pad?

  When he gets to the Shakespeare section near the far window, he pauses. What did I do with that Hamlet book? Did I put it back, or did I just set it down on the edge of the shelf?

  And then he starts walking toward me. I cover my mouth with my hand to keep from freaking out. Part of me wants to pop to my feet and yell, Boo! like it was just a little joke, but somehow I don't think he'll find it funny. Plus, he's probably still pretty mad about the whole breakfast thing earlier today.

  I watch his boots pivot slightly, and then he stops moving. What's he looking for?

  What's he waiting for?

  But then he turns on his heel and walks out, just in time to keep my lungs from exploding. I heave a big sigh, and then breathe deeply for the first time in ten minutes. My heartbeat returns to normal. My palms are sweaty where I've been gripping the papers.

  These letters must be what Alex was after.

  I sit up and look around to make sure no one else is in the room.

  I'll just take a teensy little peek...

  Chapter 9

  I flip over the first folded note. The Duke of Harksbury is all it says on the outside. It's written in a feminine scrawl, little curlicues and elegant loops all over the place.

  I know I shouldn't be reading this. It's probably a bunch of love letters. I should just shove it back between the couch and the table and forget about it.

  But I got stuck here somehow, and I need to discover everything I can about where I'm staying. There's no telling what kind of clues I could come across if I pay attentio
n. Clues that could lead me back to the twenty-first century.

  And okay, I'm a teensy bit curious as to whether he has a girlfriend.

  I take a deep breath and slide my finger under the fold and open the letter. The same cute penmanship greets me.

  Your Grace,

  I am certain my previous correspondence has been lost, for I have written you with each passing month, and yet still I receive no reply. Is it so easy to forget all of your whispered promises?

  Your daughter was born two months ago.

  I jerk backward and the letter flutters from my hand. Alex has a daughter? He's freaking nineteen and he has a daughter?

  The world swims as I scramble to put together the pieces. He's not married, is he? Even if he were, this lady is definitely not living here. I mean, I would have seen her by now.

  Not to mention a two-month-old little baby.

  I shake my head. Maybe I shouldn't jump to conclusions....

  It pains me to ask for money, hut I have no choice. The daughter of a duke should not go hungry, and I fear that is in her future. Please, I will not shame your family or utter a word of this to a soul. There will be no scandal, for no one will know, hut I beg of you to help me. I amunable to find work —

  I snap the letter shut, suddenly feeling nauseated.

  He has a daughter and he abandoned her. And she and her mother are poor? He's living in this giant mansion with servants at his beck and call, and his own daughter has nothing?

  This is disgusting. Did he sleep with a maid or something and then send her away?

  Oh God, he's so much worse than I could have possibly imagined. He's not just an arrogant jerk... He's an absolute wretched human being!

  I gather up the letters and tie the ribbon back around them, wishing I'd never found them at all. I'll read the rest of the letters later and figure out what to do.

  I jump up and swiftly leave the room. I'll deposit the letters somewhere in my bedroom and then finish exploring.

  An hour later, I've figured out the layout of Harksbury, but I haven't found a single item to prove my theory of make-believe.

  I mean, these people don't even have indoor plumbing. There are chamber pots in most of the bedrooms. For real. And I think I found the laundry room, except they sure don't use washing machines. Forget about the kitchen. It was sweltering in there from actual fires for cooking with, and the servants looked at me with such shocked expressions I backpedaled and fled before they could yell at me for being there.

  God, 1815 really stinks. In my century, a girl gets child support if a guy like Alex does something like this. Or a big college fund, in my case, though I would have preferred an actual dad. One who didn't up and move to the East Coast and start a whole new family three years ago, and then invite me out, like that wouldn't be the most awkward summer of my life.

  I shake my head and hope it sends the memories flying to the back of my mind, where they belong. At least my dad calls twice a week and pays child support on time.

  Alex is such a schmuck, to live like this and have a kid on the side. What a rotten person. And seriously, he's nineteen. That's just wrong.

  I reach the bottom of the steps and head down the east wing.

  Harksbury seems to be made up in sort of a rectangular fashion, around the courtyard I'd seen earlier. The two main wings come together at the big foyer and grand staircase, and then go off in opposite directions, a good couple hundred feet or more, each hall lined with door after door after door. It'll take me days to open them all, hut I don't think I'm going to try because nothing I've found so far has been useful.

  Downstairs are a bunch of sitting rooms and dining halls and a few smaller bedrooms.

  Upstairs are the library and more bedrooms, but those are bigger, some with whole sitting rooms attached to them.

  Only parts of the house have hardwood. The rest is carpeted. Everything is bigger than normal, stately and grand. The doors would accommodate a seven-foot guy and the ceilings are so high I could stand on a chair and leap into the air and not be able to touch them.

  But it's all sort of cold in its grandiosity. Three people do not need a house this size. Especially since the servants seem to keep to the lower level, except when cleaning.

  Which they do a lot of. They're everywhere, dusting and sweeping and beating rugs.

  Every time I find another room, another fancy painting, and another oversized piece of furniture, I think about the letters stuffed under my mattress. How could he live like this while his own daughter is living God knows where?

  I despise him. I abhor him. I hate him.

  I'm mumbling to myself as I exit the house and wander through the gardens. They could still have that private jet back here, right?

  I slow as I approach the barns. There's some kind of rhythmic beat coming from inside. It's almost musical.

  When I round the corner, I see a man with an overturned bucket tapping away on it with two sticks, like a drummer. Two boys who look barely thirteen are doing the absolute funniest Riverdance I have ever seen, jumping around like happy little leprechauns, their elbows jutting out and their toes barely touching the ground.

  I can't stop the laugh that bubbles out of me. I clamp a hand over my mouth but it's too late; they've heard it. One of the boys stops so quickly he falls over and promptly turns beet red.

  And now I feel really guilty, because I know precisely how the burn in his cheeks feels.

  The last thing I should be doing is laughing at other people.

  "I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh. I've just, uh, never seen dancing like that before."

  The younger boy, a redhead, picks himself up off the ground with a wide-eyed look.

  "You are American," he says, as if I'm a mythical creature.

  I nod. "Yes. And, uh, we have different dances where I come from."

  "Can you show us one?" The second boy, a dark-haired kid, steps forward, looking intrigued.

  I stifle a laugh. "Oh, uh, no. I'm a horrible dancer."

  "Please?" the redheaded boy asks. "I have never seen an American dance."

  I just laughed at them thirty seconds ago. Wouldn't that make me mean if I just blow them off now?

  "I doubt you'd want to see these dances," I say, stalling. I feel kind of bad. But I really can't dance. I'll make a fool of myself.

  "Oh, but I do. Most certainly."

  "Oh." Well, then.

  I could try, right? Just some tiny little thing?

  But what do I share? MC Hammer? The Running Man? The Electric Slide? A little Macarena?

  "Uh," I say, stepping forward. "How about, um, the Robot?"

  "The Robot?" the two boys ask in unison.

  Did the word robot even exist in 1815?

  "Yeah. You, uh, hold your arms out like this," I say, demonstrating the proper way to stand like a scarecrow. I can't believe I'm doing this. "And then relax your elbows and let your hands swing. Like this."

  I'm really not doing it well, but by the way their eyes widen, you'd think I just did a full-on pop-and-lock routine with Justin Timberlake. They mimic my maneuver, making it look effortless.

  The drummer guy stands up and gets in on the action, swinging his arms freely. The guy's better than me after a two-second demo. Figures.

  "Okay, then, uh, you sort of walk and you try to make everything look stiff and, uh, unnatural. Like this." I show him my best robotic walk, my arms mechanical in their movements.

  The two boys and the drummer immediately copy me, and by the time they've taken four or five steps, they seriously look like robots.

  In no time they're improvising, and their laughter trickles up toward the rafters of the barn.

  Yeah. That's my cue to leave before inspiration strikes and I try to show them how to break-dance but only succeed in breaking my neck.

  I slip out of the barn unnoticed, grinning to myself as I walk the gravel path back toward the house, my skirts brushing the dirt.

  At least somewhere, I'm not Callie th
e Klutz. Even if it's just some smelly old barn.

  There's hope for me after all.

  Chapter 10

  Once back in my room, I lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling.

  I know I should read the letters stuffed under my mattress, but I can't bring myself to dig them out.

  They hit too close to home.

  That poor little girl is going to grow up without her dad. At least she won't know what she's missing. Me, I had a father for twelve years. And he wasn't such a bad father, either. A little busy most of the time, but not bad.

  And then, out of the blue, he left my mom. It's been the two of us ever since. I'm pretty sure she let me go on the London trip because it gave me a convenient excuse for turning down my dad and summer in the Hamptons. I don't have the opportunity to think much more on the subject before the maid comes in, the hardwood floors creaking under her steps.

  "I've come te help ye change fer dinner."

  I sit up and look at my clothing. It's still clean and relatively wrinkle-free, which is an accomplishment for me. I'm forever dropping food on my clothes. "I'm sure this is fine," I say.

  Her mouth tightens like she's fighting a smile. "A mornin' dress is no' suitable fer a dinner party."

  "A dinner party?" I don't like the sound of that.

  She nods as she pulls me over to the stool near the wardrobe. "Yes. 'Er Ladyship invited our neighbors te dine te celebrate yer arrival. Ye could hardly go in such casual wear."

  Casual? This is casual? Compared to her basic black dress, I'm ready for a night on the town.

  She's throwing clothing in my direction and I don't know what I'm supposed to do, so I just catch it and stand there, my arms filling. And when I see the last item, I freeze, holding it between two hands and staring as if it's a typhoid-infested blanket.

  In fact, it's worse. It's a corset.

  She's seriously going to put me in a corset.

  "I'm under strict order by the lady o' the house te make ye presentable. Ye'r a guest o' Harksbury and as such, ye must be properly attired." The maid tucks an errant strand of her dark hair behind her ear, as if she's suddenly aware of her own appearance.