A Weekend with Mr Darcy: The perfect summer read for Austen addicts!. Victoria Connelly

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ