When they entered the West Tower and left Hero Con behind in the East Tower, a wash of familiarity and, yes, warmth came over her. The conference check-in area looked more elegant than she’d imagined, with white-tablecloth-covered check-in tables; lavish floral arrangements with pink cabbage roses; cellophane-wrapped raffle baskets filled with tea, quill pens, and books; and silver trays of frosted cookies in the shape of teapots and Austen’s silhouette.
She peeked into the “Emporium,” nothing more than a conference room but abuzz with vendors of all sorts selling everything from bonnets to tea to antique books. Everything seemed in order and going as planned, just the way she liked things to go.
A group of professors pulled Julian aside and Vanessa spotted a sprightly, petite woman who had fallen behind her flock of Janeites to read her conference program. She looked fantastic in her Regency gown and gloves. The nearly sheer white fabric begged to be touched, the low, square-cut neckline proved the opposite of matronly, and the tiny off-the-shoulder cap sleeves suggested a certain state of—undress. The blue ribbon drew attention to the woman’s bust while tight gray leather gloves accentuated her arms and culminated in loose bunching at her biceps. The effect proved mesmerizing.
Vanessa had never associated anything Austen with anything—sexy. She couldn’t help but stop and stare at this gown. What had gotten into her? She hadn’t seen anything so fetching in a long time, it seemed.
Fetching? Since when did she use the word “fetching”?
She just had to ask. “Your gown is gorgeous. Where did you get it?”
The woman smiled. “I had it made by the mantua maker, who is right there in the Emporium. It’s muslin.”
“Muslin” didn’t mean anything to Vanessa, and neither did “mantua maker.”
The woman began to rifle through her little silk-tasseled bag.
“What’s a mantua maker?” Vanessa asked.
“A dressmaker. This one is superb.” The woman pulled something out of her little bag. “Here’s her card. The secret is the corset. They were called ‘stays’ during the Regency era. One must wear stays. Do remember that.”
“Okay. Thank you.” She didn’t think she’d need stays or a mantua maker, but she slipped the card into her wallet anyway. Everywhere Vanessa turned, attendees with their conference badges smiled and hugged one another, some costumed, some not, but they all seemed to be one big Regency family.
Julian inched his way through the conference-goers, so many of them stopping him, congratulating him on his book, wanting a picture with him.
“He’s a rock star here, isn’t he?” she said to Kai.
“I guess,” Kai said.
Vanessa posted:
Mr. Darcy will reveal all very soon . . . #JASNAagm #UndressingMrDarcy
Finally she led him toward the stage and introduced him to Paul, Aunt Ella’s friend, who had volunteered to act as valet during his Undressing act.
“Ella’s in her element hosting you, Julian,” Paul said. “We all wish you great success. I have heard that several regional societies have pooled funds to donate to your cause, and you can thank Vanessa for that.”
Julian tipped his hat to her. “She is a most brilliant promoter. And she has done it all without compensation. Most kind. And she’s lovely as well.”
Vanessa took it in stride. Clients complimented her all the time, didn’t they?
“Where’s Aunt Ella?” she asked Paul.
“Here she comes with her entourage through the doors now.” He nodded toward the opposite side of the huge room. “And after I’m done onstage, I’ll be by her side for the duration.”
“Thank you, Paul.” She turned to Julian. “Break a—booted leg, then, gentlemen.”
Julian went backstage while she and Paul helped Aunt Ella and her friends get settled.
Her aunt took a seat and quickly grasped Vanessa’s hands. Aunt Ella’s forehead was creased with worry. “Ladies”—she turned to her friends—“I’m sure you all know my Vanessa. What would I do without her?”
Vanessa knew all of them. “Welcome to the big day, everyone. I hope you enjoy the conference.”
The ladies nodded and smiled.
“Darling, everyone agrees we must have Julian open the ball tomorrow night. But who shall be his opening dance partner? I can’t believe I forgot this ever-so-important detail. It’s so unlike me!”
Paul didn’t skip a beat. “He should open with Vanessa. Who else? They’d make such a stunning couple.” He cocked his head at Vanessa. “You even look a little Miss Elizabeth Bennet–ish, if I do say so myself. ‘Fine eyes’ and all that.”
“Oh, it can’t be her, unfortunately.” Aunt Ella let Vanessa’s hands drop and snapped open the antique fan she’d bought in England on her last visit. “I’m afraid Vanessa merely tolerates all this for my sake.”
“Auntie E, I think this whole conference is just delightful, really. I’m actually enjoying it!”
“It hasn’t even started, dear.”
Vanessa smiled. “We’ve been working on it for months now and I’m so glad to see it come together so beautifully.”
“I really think you and Julian would be perfect,” Paul said.
“She doesn’t even have a gown, Paul,” Aunt Ella said as she fanned herself.
Vanessa pulled out her phone. “Not to worry. I’ll send out a post and in no time we’ll have enough takers to fill his dance card for the entire evening. It’ll be sort of a . . . contest . . . and help generate more buzz for him and his book.”
“Are you suggesting we leave his opening dance partner to chance?” Aunt Ella closed her fan and tapped it in her palm nervously.
“Who in this room wouldn’t be worthy? A room full of Janeites is a room full of fascinating, quality women, is it not? Anyway, I’ll screen the top three just to be sure.” She winked.
Aunt Ella sighed with a bit of relief. “Once again you’ve won me over. Or worn me down. I’m not sure which!”
“Leave it to me, Aunt Ella; it’s a win-win. Don’t give it another thought. Now, please excuse me, everyone. I have to set up the cameras with Kai.”
Once the cameras were set up, she sent out the post:
Mr. Darcy needs a dance partner to open the ball tomorrow night. Any takers? #JASNAagm #UndressingMrDarcy #onlyMissBennetsneedapply
Within seconds she had a handful of replies.
Almost seven hundred people had filled the room by this point, chatting around her as she volleyed back some e-mails and texts to her clients. The congeniality and camaraderie that surrounded her could practically be poured into a teapot, it was so palpable.
“Well, you know,” she overheard a woman behind her say, “it’s just like Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy.”
“It is?” was the female reply.
“Yes. A handsome stranger comes into town, and the local girl falls in love.”
Vanessa tried to concentrate on an e-mail from one of her clients, but instead she followed the entire conversation behind her.
“Do you believe Austen and Lefroy were in love?”
“I want to believe that Jane had, at least once in her life, experienced love, yes. But she was so young when they met, both of them twenty, it’s hard to tell what it was.”
“And it ended so quickly—prematurely—they knew each other only very briefly.”
“They flirted quite famously, though. Quite a statement in those days. As she said in a letter to Cassandra, ‘I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together.’”
“Yes, yes, good for her. I like to think of our Jane as ‘shocking.’”
“I’ve always thought of her that way.”
Jane Austen? Shocking? Vanessa was the one who was shocked. For some reason she’d always thought of Austen as prim and proper. A titan of literature, yes, but never “shocking.”
She wanted to know how the Jane Auste
n–Tom Lefroy story played out, but the women had moved on to a discussion about a manuscript that Austen never tried to get published titled Lady Susan.
“When you talk about Lady Susan, her adulterous heroine—”
Austen wrote about an adulterous heroine?
“—it reminds me of a lecture Professor Gibbs gave about how Lady Susan fits all the modern-day criteria for a sociopath. It was fascinating.”
Adultery? Sociopaths? Did Vanessa really know Jane Austen at all? She might have to download this Lady Susan.
She put her phone on vibrate while the current Chicago group president welcomed everyone and introduced the opening speaker, Dr. Cornel West.
Dr. West commanded the stage . . . and Vanessa’s attention. Who knew that a man, a progressive, modern, activist, African American professor of philosophy at Princeton—and a Harvard grad—idolized Jane Austen?
With passion and fervor, he leaned over his podium in his hipster glasses. “Jane Austen didn’t go to Oxford,” he said to the crowd, who nodded and smiled. “But two Oxfords went through her.”
The crowd clapped, and more than one woman in a gown gave a wolf whistle.
“Austen will teach you how to live,” he said more than once.
“Jane Austen is on fire,” he said to the crowd, who rose to a standing ovation.
Vanessa watched in amazement as he brought down the manor house, so to speak. She stood and clapped with everyone. Her aunt turned, spotted her, and smiled.
It felt as if some of his Austen quotes were speaking directly to her at times, and it occurred to her that it might be time that she gave the author another chance.
Perhaps her aunt had been on to something all these years. Was there something beyond the happily-ever-after stories and the demure portrait of a woman in a white ruffled cap that popped into Vanessa’s head every time “Jane Austen” was mentioned?
Julian was up next. Time for another post:
Get your photo with Mr. Darcy in loosened cravat & unbuttoned waistcoat after the #UndressingMrDarcy show—stage left. #JASNAagm #smileforthecamera
This was just one of Vanessa’s ideas for Julian that had taken some persuading via handwritten letter, but the donations already garnered from the photography session had proven sizable.
She turned on her video cam and panned the crowd. She zoomed in on a woman in a blue Regency gown, her hair up in a bun and her gloves pinned at her side with one elbow, texting. Another woman, also dressed in a gown, had a fake stuffed pug dog in her lap.
Men came to these conferences, too. Some in the crowd had dressed in Regency regimental red, while others wore coats and cravats. None, though, looked as convincing as Julian.
She did a final pan of the crowd with the camera, then swiveled it toward the stage, where Paul began to rally the room in anticipation of Mr. Darcy.
Someone, meanwhile, lifted Vanessa’s video bag from the chair next to her and set it on the ground.
“I needed to get closer for this one,” a voice said. The curvy woman, probably in her early thirties, with rosy cheeks and chewing bubble gum, wore gym shoes, white pants, and a white T-shirt. The IMr. Darcy on her shirt in huge black letters with a gigantic red heart really popped. She didn’t fit the usual Janeite profile.
She leaned in toward Vanessa and whispered as Paul spoke. “Mr. Darcy saved my life, you know.” She nodded, raising her eyebrows high.
Vanessa couldn’t help but notice her suspenders and conference badge, studded with flair. Buttons galore glared at Vanessa with Mr. Darcyisms such as How ardently I admire and love you and Every savage can dance. Then there were the buttons and stickers proclaiming things such as Mrs. Darcy and Married to Darcy. She even had Darcy earrings, and Vanessa could see why she must’ve pulled her thick black hair back into a ponytail. It was punctuated with a button: Darcy’s Baby Mama.
Seven hundred intelligent people in the room, and Vanessa got saddled with the resident superfan. But maybe she could use a young insider’s perspective.
“I was on the verge of suicide I was so depressed,” she said. “But then, walking home from work one day, on the sidewalk, there it was: a beat-up, paperback version of Pride and Prejudice. I took it as a sign, picked it up, went home, read it, and fell in love with Mr. Darcy. He saved my life.” She sighed and held out her hand. “I’m Sherry, a.k.a. Mrs. D.”
Of course she was! Vanessa shook.
“Or do you like one of Austen’s other heroes better?”
Vanessa smiled. “No, no. I like Darcy.” She couldn’t believe she just said that.
“What a smorgasbord of activities for us, huh?” Sherry asked as she leafed through the conference brochure. “I’ve been looking forward to this all year. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet for people like us, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Vanessa chuckled. She liked Sherry. She liked how she just assumed Vanessa was one of them.
Sherry was right, too, about the conference program. The program committee had painstakingly selected the lecture and workshop topics to appeal to a broad range of fans—from scholars to the moviegoers who had never even read Austen. Even a person as indifferent to Austen as Vanessa could find several of the workshop and lecture topics intriguing. Beyond the lectures about Austen and the novels, you could learn about everything from snuff to Regency dance to “fallen women” of the Regency—mistresses, courtesans, and prostitutes.
Vanessa checked to be sure the video cam was focused on Paul. He was such an adorable and entertaining man, just a little younger than Aunt Ella, but healthier. His antiques auction house kept him busy and traveling. Vanessa wanted to listen to what he was saying, but Sherry interrupted.
“So”—Sherry nodded toward the video cam—“you know this Mr. Darcy? You have—access?”
Vanessa laughed and whispered back. “Access to Mr. Darcy? Yes, I have access.”
She figured she had a live one, so she handed Sherry a postcard with all Julian’s upcoming appearances, even though she’d already made sure that all the conference attendees had the information in their tote bags. She’d designed and printed hundreds of these “invitations” from Mr. Darcy that looked very much like an invitation to a ball, but really just listed his appearances, and Aunt Ella and the hospitality committee found the invitations to be “very clever indeed.”
Sherry gave a toothy grin and her cheeks turned redder as she read the card and then stuck it in her tote bag, which she had decorated with more Mr. Darcy buttons. Snapping her gum, she said, “I’m sticking with you, girl.”
Vanessa heard Paul say, “Without further ado, I introduce to you the master of Pemberley, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.”
The crowd clapped enthusiastically as Julian sauntered out.
Sherry pointed her finger at Vanessa and mouthed, “Sticking with you, girl,” again because by now the crowd was clapping even louder for Julian, who stood center stage.
“Wow, he is h-o-t,” Sherry said as she fanned herself with her conference program. “You know what I mean? Smokin’. Best damn Darcy I’ve seen yet, don’t you think?”
Vanessa nodded yes, even though she had never seen any Darcys other than the ones on film, inadvertently, at her aunt’s.
As she made sure the video cam was focused on Julian and Paul, the “valet,” Sherry kept fanning herself.
“Mmm-mmm,” Sherry said until the bonneted woman in front of them turned around.
Vanessa looked at Sherry and, with a smile, put her fingers on her lips to shush her, and then pointed to the video cam. She got the message.
When Vanessa pulled out her camera to take still shots for posting later, Sherry started taking pictures with her phone, and Julian’s deep voice dominated the room.
“Welcome. Welcome everyone,” Julian said.
He wore a black top hat pulled low over his forehead, just above his black eyebrows, really accentuating his dark brown eyes. His shoulders looked even broader in an outer coat with a shoulder cape. His white cravat had been lavishl
y tied and jutted out just enough from his tailcoat to draw attention to his neck and face. He wore flesh-colored breeches, black boots, and leather gloves and sported a walking stick, flicking it back and forth as he crossed the stage.
Even Vanessa had to admit he pretty much rocked this look like nobody else could. He played the rooster in the henhouse very well.
He shot the audience a serious look, rubbed his jaw, paused, and then smiled as he said, “Welcome . . . to Mr. Darcy’s dressing room.”
The audience went aflutter. Sherry pumped her fist and mouthed, “Woot! Woot!” to Vanessa, who realized she needed to be tweeting during the performance, too. She picked up her phone and set it in her lap. She’d received several more replies to the opening dance contest.
“My valet, Nelson, is here to do the honors of assisting me today.”
Julian pronounced “valet” with a hard t at the end. Even though Vanessa spoke French and knew the French word required a silent t, she suddenly took a liking to the English way of saying it. Va-let.
Julian made a flourish with his hand. “Nelson?”
Paul took a bow and everyone clapped.
Julian began to pace the floor in his sexy boots and Vanessa had to scramble just to keep the video camera on him.
“Now. No doubt many of you are concentrating on my—ahem—” He paused to great effect, giving his coat a swoosh and the audience a flash of his breeches. The audience laughed. “My—hat.”
He tipped his hat to the assembly, and Nelson readied to take it from him, but Julian was bluffing, garnering yet another laugh from the audience.
He was a master at working the crowd!
“The beaver hat is a staple in the gentleman’s wardrobe, and a gentleman certainly wouldn’t be seen riding a steed without one.”
Vanessa didn’t want to visualize him riding a horse, but there it was, stuck in her head now, thanks to him.
“Hat production is integral to the British economy, and it employs many workers, from carders who comb the fibers to highly skilled journeymen and master milliners. Hats are made for all manner of occasion, from fashion to the front lines.”
Undressing Mr. Darcy Page 4
