by Teri Wilson
Safely out of the way of passersby, Elizabeth gave the dogs a little more slack on their leashes. Bliss went to work sniffing Finneus from head to toe while the Border terriers arranged themselves in a neat row. Rose and Hyacinth—in bookend positions—sat, while Violet and Daisy sank into Sphinx-like downs, with their shaggy legs stretched out straight in front of them.
Mr. Darcy raised his brows. “This is an impressive group you’ve got here. The Borders belong to Sue and Alan Barrow, I presume?”
“Yes.” Elizabeth eyed the terriers with suspicion, as though they were responsible for this surreal situation. “How do you know that?”
“The Barrows are my neighbors.” He bent to give Bliss a pat, and she flipped on her back at once, eager for his attention. Elizabeth glared at her. The traitor. “I know your opinion of me could stand some improvement, but believe it or not, I’m not all bad. At the very least, I know my neighbors’ names.”
“Your neighbors? But that’s not possible. You don’t live here.” Elizabeth glanced at the sleek black door behind him with confusion. Granted, she’d watched him emerge from it last night, take his dog for a stroll and return to it. And here he was again, standing in front of it, as if it did indeed belong to him.
But it couldn’t.
Could it?
A trickle of suspicion made its way up her spine.
She looked around, as if some sort of explanation would materialize from thin air. A sleek sports car was parked at the curb, directly in front of Mr. Darcy’s alleged house. It was gunmetal gray. An Aston Martin. Just the sort of car a filthy-rich man like him would own.
“I’m afraid it’s entirely possible. My dog, my door, my house.” Mr. Darcy stood.
She’d forgotten how tall he was. If she took a step or two closer, her head would have tucked neatly under his chin.
Where did that thought come from?
She took a preventative step backward until she bumped into the decorative iron fence with her calves.
“But I thought you lived in a grand country house somewhere.” A house with a name, she almost added. Thankfully, running into him hadn’t rattled her to such an extent that she lost complete control.
Yet.
“Chadwicke.” He nodded. Violet, Hyacinth, Daisy and Rose mirrored his nod while the Cavaliers, oblivious to all but one another, tumbled at Mr. Darcy’s feet. “You’ve heard of it?”
Great. Now he probably thought she’d been asking about him. And thinking about him. Which she had not.
Much.
“Sue mentioned it to me.”
“And yet she didn’t mention my London home, which happens to be directly across the road from hers.” The wicked gleam returned to his eyes with unprecedented intensity. “That’s odd, don’t you think?”
Suddenly everything made sense. Sue practically swooning over Mr. Darcy at the dog show. The job offer, seemingly out of nowhere. The fancy blue room at the top of the stairs that seemed wholly extravagant for an employee.
Oh, my God. Sue didn’t bring me all the way here just to be her dog nanny. She’s playing matchmaker.
Being the target of such a plan was a tad bit embarrassing. England was halfway around the world. Apparently, she couldn’t be trusted to find a man within a thousand miles or so of her own home.
Not that she wanted a man. Men were nothing but trouble. Particularly rich men. They were spoiled, arrogant and thought they could take whatever they wanted without any consideration for the consequences.
Elizabeth prayed that the smug look on Mr. Darcy’s face didn’t mean that he, too, knew what Sue was up to. The facts were humiliating enough without him being privy to them. He winked, dashing her hopes in an instant.
And damned if the wink didn’t send a zing straight through her.
Elizabeth straightened her spine and did her best to ignore the zing. It was a tall order. “I’m working for the Barrows. Just for a month. I’m a dog nanny, of sorts.”
“Are you?” He gave the Border terriers an appreciative glance. “It looks as though you’ve made quick work of whipping your charges into shape.”
“I can’t take credit for this. They’re Superdogs. As you can see by Bliss’s behavior, it’s nothing I’ve done.” Elizabeth laughed as Bliss tackled Finneus and the two dogs rolled onto Mr. Darcy’s feet.
“She’s perfect.” He bent down, scooped Bliss into his arms and aimed his gaze at Elizabeth over the top of Bliss’s head. “Then again, I’ve always been one to appreciate a feisty streak.”
His tone made it abundantly clear he wasn’t referring to the dog.
Elizabeth gulped. She had the sudden urge to flee before she did something really stupid. Like flirt back. Or, God forbid, kiss him right on the lips.
Maybe it was the jet lag. Or the fact that she was a world away from home. Seeing him in the moonlight must have done something to her because Mr. Darcy had somehow crossed the line from being pleasingly attractive to bone-meltingly desirable.
She tightened her grip on the leashes and looked around to get her bearings. Her attention was drawn to the red phone booth near the corner and remembered it led to the park where she’d been headed when she left the house. “I should be going. The Barrows aren’t paying me to stand around chatting. I’m headed toward Hyde Park.”
He kept Bliss firmly wrapped in his arms, successfully aborting Elizabeth’s escape plan. “Why don’t Finneus and I come along? You look as though you’ve got your hands full. I can help you out.”
“No.” She shook her head so hard, she wondered if she was in danger of giving herself whiplash. “That’s really not necessary. I’m the nanny. I’m being paid to walk them. It’s my job.”
“Then I’ll walk Finneus and Bliss.” He plopped Bliss down onto the sidewalk and slipped his fingers around her leash. “Surely the Barrows wouldn’t object to such an arrangement?”
He had her there. The Barrows—Sue, in particular—wouldn’t mind in the slightest. Mr. Darcy could have carried all five dogs on his back, and she would have been pleased as punch. Still, Elizabeth refused to give up her grip on Bliss’s leash.
“They wouldn’t mind, I’m sure. But...” She trailed off, hoping he wouldn’t make her say it.
“But?” He gave her an odd look, as if he hadn’t a clue where the conversation was headed.
Elizabeth didn’t buy it for a minute. She exhaled a sigh of frustration, hating that he was forcing her to spell it out. “What about Zara?”
“Zara?” He sent a backward glance over his shoulder, toward his house, as if she was somewhere behind that sleek black door.
So she lives here, too. Super.
“Yes. Zara,” Elizabeth huffed. “Come on, girls, time to go. Violet, Hyacinth, Rose...”
She gave up on commands once she realized she’d called Hyacinth by Violet’s name and Daisy by Rose’s. Or was that one Violet?
It didn’t matter. She gathered their leashes together as they rose—in unison, naturally—and began trying to get Bliss’s attention away from Finneus. She hadn’t really thought through the notion that making a hasty exit wasn’t possible with five dogs.
“Zara,” Mr. Darcy repeated, his voice sounding oddly cold all of a sudden. “You mean my sister, Zara?”
His sister?
His sister!
Elizabeth came to a halt just as the Border terriers decided to break into a trot. The jerk of their leashes lifted her clear off her feet and sent her careening toward one of the two leafy green topiaries that flanked Mr. Darcy’s door. He stepped in her path and caught her firmly by the shoulders.
“Thanks.” Elizabeth allowed herself to exhale a sigh of relief.
Once she saw the look on Mr. Darcy’s face, however, any remaining relief faded. He glared down at her, his dark eyes stony. “Zara is my si
ster. Would you like to explain why she would mind if you and I went to the park together?”
Elizabeth opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She stood there with it gaping open like a baby bird as a bike messenger whizzed past them on the sidewalk. The Cavaliers barked at him and scrambled at the ends of their leashes. The Border terriers, of course, remained stoic.
“You thought she was my lover.” He spat the word lover, as if it made him physically ill.
Elizabeth was mortified to her core.
So mortified that she didn’t give a moment’s thought to the fact that this misunderstanding, shameful as it was, meant that perhaps he was single. Okay, so maybe she thought about it for a second. Or two. But definitely no more than three.
“No, I didn’t. Of course I didn’t.” She shook her head. Maybe if she shook it hard enough, she could rattle the memories of how horribly she’d treated him and Zara at her birthday dinner. She’d jumped to conclusions. She’d been so awful.
“You did.” He narrowed his gaze at her.
She cracked under his scrutiny. “I did. I’m sorry.”
He stared at her for a full minute, not saying a word. Finally, one corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk. “You thought she was my lover.”
This time he didn’t sound so angry. In fact, he sounded amused.
Elizabeth glanced around, hoping no one was within earshot, particularly the church ladies. The only person in close proximity was a young man making his way down the sidewalk in a hoodie, with white headphones plugged in his ears. Thank goodness.
Donovan’s eyes sparked with mischief. “Just so you know, I have a butler. You may see him entering and exiting my town house. He’s not my lover, either.”
A butler. Fabulous. What kind of person had a butler? Elizabeth thought they only existed in old black-and-white movies.
“Must you tease me? I’ve already confessed. I made a mistake. You have to admit—it’s unusual for a teenage girl to live with her brother.” She cleared her throat. His newfound amusement over her assumption did nothing to lessen her embarrassment. If anything, her humiliation multiplied. Tenfold. “Besides, we can’t all be perfect.”
“Surely you’re not implying that I think I’m perfect.” He laughed. “I assure you I’m not. I have plenty of faults.”
Elizabeth thought of Chadwicke, the fancy car parked in front of Mr. Darcy’s fashionable London townhome and, last but not least—not by a long shot—his well-formed physique, visible even beneath the thick cable knit of his sweater. “Name one.”
She expected him to struggle or, at the very least, take a minute or two to think about his response. So she was surprised when he chimed in immediately.
“I can be bad-tempered at times, and I rarely give people a second chance. My good opinion once lost is lost forever.” He crossed his arms. “Everyone has faults.”
“I see. So are you telling me that yours is a propensity to hate everybody?” She couldn’t help but wonder if she were included in this generalization. They had hardly gotten off on the right foot, after all.
“As yours is to willfully misjudge them?”
Touché.
Heat settled in the vicinity of her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Mr. Darcy. Again. I’d love to forget it ever happened. Could we do that, please?”
He sat down on one of the front-porch steps and let Finneus and Bliss crawl into his lap. The peal of bells rang out from the church’s bell tower, bringing a sudden stillness to the neighborhood. Birds chirped faintly overhead. Elizabeth could even hear the soft pants of the dogs. But still Mr. Darcy said nothing.
Violet, Hyacinth, Daisy and Rose all swiveled their gazes back and forth between the two of them, finally aiming their shaggy, inquisitive brows at Mr. Darcy.
Elizabeth had to wonder if he was prolonging her agony intentionally.
Probably. Not that she could blame him, really.
At last he spoke. “Under one condition.”
A condition. Marvelous. “What sort of condition?”
“No more Mr. Darcy,” he said, his voice softening. “Call me Donovan.”
“Donovan,” Elizabeth repeated, very much liking the way it felt rolling off her tongue. “I think I can agree to that, so long as you call me Elizabeth instead of Miss Scott.”
“Agreed, Elizabeth.” He nodded and a slow, sultry smile came to his lips. “And as a further condition, I thought you might like to meet my new litter of puppies tomorrow afternoon.”
“You have puppies? Cavaliers?”
“I do.”
“Wait a minute. You said one condition. That makes two.”
“Then I suppose that makes it an invitation rather than a condition.” He looked up at her from the porch step, a thunderstorm gathering in his eyes.
A cool breeze came up the sidewalk, causing the dogs to sniff the air for its source. Donovan’s hair ruffled in the wind, and for an instant he looked so uncharacteristically untidy Elizabeth had trouble resisting the urge to smooth it down with her fingertips.
A chill ran up her spine. Clearly, she’d ventured into dangerous territory.
If she had any sense at all, she would retreat. What would possess her to even consider an invitation from Donovan Darcy? He looked as though he’d be more pleased to take a walk to the gallows than to spend another minute with her.
Curiosity got the best of her. Either that or the sight of the sooty-black lashes that framed his glowering eyes. Men weren’t supposed to have such nice eyelashes. Or such nice eyes, for that matter.
“An invitation, hmm?” She pretended to mull it over, as though she hadn’t yet made up her mind. Just when Donovan looked as though his frustration was approaching its boiling point, she aimed an innocent smile at him. “In that case, I accept.”
7
“A Border terrier’s coat should be crunchy.” Sue peered over the top of her glasses at Hyacinth, standing calmly on the grooming table.
“Crunchy,” Elizabeth repeated, reminding herself they were talking about dogs and not cereal.
Cap’n Crunch.
Sue gently gathered a fistful of Hyacinth’s coat and squeezed. “See?”
Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Elizabeth ran her fingertips over the dog’s fur. “Yes.”
Honey Nut Crunch.
Stop it!
While Sue demonstrated the proper way to hand-pluck the terrier’s coat, Elizabeth forced herself to focus. In the two days since she’d run into Mr. Darcy—ahem, Donovan—on the sidewalk, she’d found her mind wandering more than ever. At least now she was thinking about cereal rather than him. That could only be an improvement.
“Always strip in the coat in the direction the hair grows,” Sue said.
“Got it.” Elizabeth nodded and tugged a tuft of loose hair from Hyacinth’s hindquarters. “It’s rather like plucking a giant eyebrow.”
Sue blinked for a beat, then laughed. “Yes, dear. I suppose it is.”
“Is there a certain dog you’d like me to concentrate most on?”
“Why, yes—Rose. I’m really hoping to get her Championship this season. That’s one of the reasons why I was so keen to bring you here. Your job at the shows is to devote all your attention to Rose.” Sue grinned. “And Bliss, too, of course. I suppose you’re trying for her Championship, as well.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t know. It can take years to earn a Championship. Rose already has Championship points piled up. Bliss doesn’t have any.”
“Yet.” Sue held up her hand. “We’ll change that. Don’t be afraid to dream big, dear.”
“Well, if I’m dreaming big, I’d have to say the ultimate fantasy would be to win Best in Show. It’s silly, I know. People show dogs their whole lives and never have a Best in Show win. But that’s what I
dream of most, even more than a Championship.”
Winning the top prize was almost inconceivable to Elizabeth. She’d never even won Best of Breed, for goodness’ sake. But Sue had said to dream big, hadn’t she?
“That’s not a silly dream at all, dear. Lofty perhaps, but not silly.” Sue gave a resolute nod. “It’s settled, then. While you’re here, Rose will become a Champion and Bliss will win Best in Show.”
The doorbell rang, punctuating the declaration, and Sue bustled her way down the hall.
Elizabeth leaned toward Hyacinth and whispered in the dog’s ear, “See, normal people don’t have butlers. Normal people answer their own doors.”
Hyacinth’s ear twitched.
“Yes, I knew you’d agree.” Elizabeth zeroed in on another clump of dead hair near the dog’s tail and pulled.
Sue had entered all four terriers, plus Bliss, in a dog show that was being held the following day. So the way Elizabeth saw it, she had four giant eyebrows to pluck and very little time in which to do it. Not to mention the always time-consuming task of making sure Bliss’s feathering looked soft, silky and white as snow.
Elizabeth didn’t mind the workload a bit. Rather, she was grateful for it. It would take her mind off Donovan Darcy, for one thing.
She’d almost chickened out on going to see his puppies the day before. But then she decided avoiding him would be attaching too much importance to him. She told herself she was being silly, so she’d marched across the street and knocked on his perfectly polished door.
Lawrence, the butler, had answered it and informed her Donovan was away but had left instructions for him to show her Figgy’s litter. So Elizabeth had spent an hour cuddling the adorable little puppies with Donovan’s butler.
To think she’d almost convinced herself he’d meant the invitation as a date.
It was preposterous.
She’d tried not to wonder where Donovan had gone or why he wasn’t home after he’d invited her to come see the puppies. She shouldn’t care. What Donovan Darcy did was of no concern to her. He was uptight and full of himself.
