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

White plates and bowls sat in front of the guests and two beautiful crystal glasses waited to be filled. It was all so sumptuous that Robyn was almost afraid to touch anything. She was so used to her old scratched dinner plates and her sturdy pottery mug.

‘I wonder if we’ll see our friend,’ Robyn said, eyeing up the other guests up and down the length of the great table.

‘Who’s that?’

‘The gentleman who likes staring at you so much,’ Robyn said.

‘I don’t think you can call such a man a gentleman,’ Katherine said. ‘If you looked up the word gentleman in the dictionary there’d be a picture of him - with a great red cross through it.’

Robyn laughed.

‘And, if you really want to know where he is, he’s over there.’

Robyn looked at the end of the table and saw the dark-haired man. ‘I wonder why he hasn’t introduced himself yet.’

‘I’m hoping he’s too embarrassed,’ Katherine said. ‘I can quite do without such complications, anyway.’

Robyn’s eyes widened at this declaration and she waited, hoping that she might say more but she didn’t and the moment passed as the starters were served.

It was when they were halfway through dinner that things began to get interesting. Robyn was just finishing her last mouthful of pavlova when a gentleman entered the room and quietly made his way to the head of the table. He was tall and his coppery blond hair flopped over his face in the kind of manner that suggested he wasn’t a part of the conference. He was wearing a loose shirt, dirt-encrusted trousers and a pair of boots, and Robyn recognized him at once. It was the handsome man on horseback she’d seen in the lane at Steventon. She watched as he approached Dame Pamela and whispered something in her ear. She made to get up out of her seat but the man placed a tanned hand on her shoulder and shook his head.

What was that about? Robyn wondered. Did the man work at Purley for Dame Pamela or maybe he was her latest toy boy? It was a well-known fact that the dame liked her men a lot younger than herself and he was certainly handsome. Nobody could blame her if this was the latest handsome young man she’d chosen to help her learn her lines.

Robyn watched as the man made to leave the room, his coppery hair catching the light of the candles and giving it the look of a halo.

She tutted at herself. Honestly, what was she thinking of and why was she looking at his bottom? What would Jane Austen have made of such brazenness? She’d probably have laughed her head off and then written everything down so as not to forget anything, Robyn thought, quite sure that the author would have eyed up enough men’s bottoms in her time, the same as any other red-blooded woman. Especially in the fashions of her time. It was absolutely wicked but great fun to imagine the young author dreaming of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Captain Wentworth and what they might look like in their breeches. Wasn’t that a big part of why the film and television adaptations were so successful - because of the fine display of men’s bottoms?

Robyn felt herself blushing and cursed her girlishness. She knew her whole face had a tendency to flame scarlet rather than colour her cheeks a subtle shade of pink and it was most embarrassing. She looked down at her lap for a moment, feeling the colour ebbing away before she dared to look up at the handsome young man again. She loved the way he walked the length of the room with such easy strides. He had that wonderful grace that comes from riding a horse well.

But Robyn was soon distracted from her quiet admiration because, when he opened the door to leave, it almost crashed into his face as a second man stumbled into the room.

‘Oh my God!’ Robyn said, her mouth dropping open in horror. It was Jace.

A sudden hush fell over the dining room as thirty pairs of eyes swivelled in the direction of the door as the dishevelled man crashed into a chair, sending its occupant sprawling across the table.

Robyn’s blush returned with a vengeance as she watched the scene unfolding.

‘Where’s my gal?’ Jace announced, looking up and tripping over his own feet as he tried to move forward.

‘Excuse me!’ a voice boomed. It was the man in the scarlet waistcoat whom Robyn thought of as the master of ceremonies.

‘What?’ Jace said, standing back up to full height and swaying like a reed in the wind.

‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’

‘Jace, mate. Who the hell are you?’

There was a collective gasp of horror from around the table at this rude interruption and Robyn wanted to slide quietly under it until it was all over but it was too late to do anything because Jace had spotted her.

‘There’s my darlin’! There’s my Robbie!’

‘Robyn?’ Katherine asked. ‘Is he yours?’

‘No,’ Robyn said. ‘I mean yes. Kind of.’

Katherine looked confused and Robyn swallowed hard as she realized that the whole room was now looking at her.

‘Really!’ the master of ceremonies said. ‘I must ask you to leave. This is a private function.’

‘Get your hands off me. I’m here to see my gal.’ Jace stumbled and swayed across the room, catching hold of the table in front of him as he reached Robyn. ‘Babes!’ he said. ‘I was worried about you. Your phone must be broken.’

‘It’s not broken, Jace,’ Robyn said in a whisper, hoping he’d lower his voice to match her own.

‘I had to come and see you - make sure you were all right.’

Robyn stood up. ‘You shouldn’t be here!’

‘I was bored!’ he whined. ‘I’m stuck in that bloody B&B by myself.’

Again, there were more gasps and mutterings from the guests at the intruder’s ripe language.

‘I told you not to come.’

‘Aw, babes!’ he said, making an attempt to hug her but she swerved out of the way. ‘Don’t be like that.’

‘You should have stayed at home!’ Robyn said, anger raising her voice. ‘This isn’t the place for you.’

‘Come with me,’ he said, grabbing her wrist.

‘You’re hurting me.’

‘What do you want to be with all these stiffs for when you could be having fun with me?’

‘Jace!’

‘Hey! Leave her alone.’ Somebody had stepped in between them and calmly but firmly pushed Jace away from Robyn. It was the handsome man on horseback. ‘I think you’d better leave. That’s your taxi outside, right?’

Jace’s face had turned purple with rage. ‘You’re that toff whose horse kicked my car!’

Robyn shook her head. ‘It didn’t kick your car, Jace.’

‘You are, aren’t you? Is that why you’re here?’ Jace asked, peering round the man to look at Robyn and almost toppling over in the process.

‘What are you talking about?’ Robyn said.

‘I know you women - you don’t care who the man is as long as he’s on a bloody horse. Put Jabba the bloody Hutt on a horse and you’d all be swooning over him!’

‘Jace, you need to lie down.’

‘Let’s get you into that taxi,’ the man said.

‘But I want to stay!’ Jace cried, shaking the man’s hand off him.

‘No, you don’t. We’ll be watching a film later,’ Robyn said. ‘You’ll be bored out of your mind if you stay.’

‘What - a film with one of those infernal dance scenes?’

‘Exactly,’ Robyn said.

Jace seemed to be considering this for a moment and, finally, he saw sense. ‘When will I see you?’

‘I’ll give you a call in the morning, okay?’

Jace nodded. He looked like he was about to fall asleep or maybe just fall.

‘Let’s get you into that taxi,’ the man said again.

‘Waitwaitwait,’ Jace said, bending forward and grabbing hold of Robyn, placing a slobbery kiss on her mouth before leaving the room.

Robyn sank back down in her chair.

‘You okay?’ Katherine asked as everyone around the table started whispering to one another, desperately trying to find out what was going on.

‘That was terrible,’ Robyn said. ‘Everyone’s looking at me.’

‘No they’re not.’

‘I think I’d like to leave.’

Katherine nodded. ‘I’ll come with you.’

The two of them left the dining room and Robyn breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Thanks for not asking too many questions,’ she said.

Katherine smiled. ‘If you want to talk about it, I’m here. If not, no problem.’

‘I appreciate that.’

They walked up the stairs together.

‘If only life were more like fiction,’ Robyn said as they reached the top of the stairs.

‘I’m always thinking exactly the same thing,’ Katherine said. ‘It’s the curse of the voracious reader that reality never quite matches up to the fiction we read.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Robyn said. ‘Jane Austen has a lot to answer for, doesn’t she?’

Katherine nodded. ‘But that doesn’t mean we can’t live in hope of a happy ending of our own.’

Robyn sighed. ‘It’s just that it sometimes seems a very long time in getting here.’

They reached their bedroom doors and Katherine smiled at Robyn. ‘You’ll come back downstairs for the film, won’t you?’ Robyn looked lost in thought for a moment, as if she couldn’t quite place where she was or who was speaking to her. Finally, she nodded.

‘Good,’ Katherine said, checking her watch. ‘Shall I knock for you?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Robyn said. ‘I’ll see you down there.’

‘I must say, I was tempted to watch Sense and Sensibility for the hundredth time but I’ve decided to wallow in Persuasion’ Katherine said. ‘What about you?’

Since the upset with Jace, Robyn hadn’t had time to think of the evening ahead. Although she preferred Persuasion as a story, she really couldn’t cope with it tonight. The scene when Anne Elliot realizes that she and her onetime lover, Frederick, are like strangers - worse than strangers because they can never now become acquainted - always brought tears to Robyn’s eyes and would be just enough to tip her over the edge in front of everybody.

‘It was perpetual estrangement.’ That line always got Robyn. That was the lump-in-the-throat moment and, if she was ever watching the film in company, a sly finger would dab at the tear ducts and a long soft sniff would try to hide the sadness in her heart.

Perpetual estrangement, Robyn thought. Wasn’t that exactly what she wanted from Jace?

Chapter Eleven

Katherine didn’t see Robyn before the film began and wasn’t even sure that she hadn’t shut herself away in her room for the rest of the evening. And who could blame her? After the awful scene in the dining room, it would be a wonder if Robyn showed her face again at all that weekend. Poor Robyn. It wasn’t her fault. As Katherine chose a seat in the library, she couldn’t help wondering what Robyn’s story was. The man she’d called Jace didn’t seem at all suited to her and it puzzled Katherine why she was with somebody like that. But then, who can know what goes on in the heart of another person and what may attract one to another? Katherine had enough problems working out the complexities of her own heart and wondering what it was she was looking for and if it truly existed or not.

Ever since she could remember, she’d been searching for a hero who could sweep her away. Before she’d discovered Jane Austen, there’d been Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. As a doctor of literature at Oxford, she should surely frown upon such portrayals of women but she couldn’t help herself. She wanted a hero. Didn’t every woman? Even the tight-lipped Professor Ann Marlowe whom she’d worked alongside for years with her severe haircut and her feminist ways - surely even she wouldn’t turn down Captain Wentworth or Colonel Brandon if they came riding across the quad at St Bridget’s College, professing undying love for her?

Katherine sighed. The human heart was so complex and a love of romantic fiction just confused things even more.

Just as the lights were being switched off, Katherine became aware of a presence by her side and looked up into the face of the suitcase-wielding gentleman only, luckily for her, he was now without his weapon of choice.

‘Is this seat taken?’ he asked, his voice low, almost shy.

Katherine shook her head, not wanting to add any words of encouragement or to maintain eye-contact despite the fact that he was rather handsome. She hadn’t noticed that when he’d been running her over with Mrs Soames’s suitcase but his dark hair and bright eyes were very attractive and he had a very cute smile too.

‘I couldn’t make my mind up which film to see,’ the man said.

Katherine’s eyes remained fixed on the television as the sad yet serene face of Sally Hawkins looked out at the audience with clear, all-seeing eyes.

‘I mean, Persuasion is excellent but Sense and Sensibility is such a great film too.’ Katherine shifted in her chair.

‘A wonderful script,’ he said. ‘One of the best adaptations of a book ever.’

‘Shush!’ a woman said from a chair behind them.

‘And the young Kate Winslet, of course,’ he added.

‘Young man!’ the woman from behind them protested. ‘Will you stop talking?’

‘Sorry,’ the man said.

Katherine allowed herself a very small smile. A young Kate Winslet indeed!

It was strange but, no matter how many times Katherine read the novel or saw the adaptations, Anne and Wentworth’s story of young love rediscovered never failed to move her. It was, perhaps, Austen’s slowest story in terms of action but there was a beauty about its simple structure and its sublimely gentle narration. Anne was one of the most sympathetic heroines in literature because she had made a mistake when young that had almost cost her her life’s happiness.

Perhaps that’s why Austen’s books were so popular, Katherine mused - because her heroines made the most terrible mistakes: they either fell for the bad boys or turned the good ones away. They were real, flawed but forgivable girls who had a lot of growing up to do and readers loved them because they were them.

Which one of us hasn’t made a hash of our lives at one time or other? Katherine thought, daring to think about her own doomed relationship with David. The only difference was, Katherine wasn’t a fictional character in a novel and Jane Austen wasn’t around to ensure her a happy ending.

‘Ah, a happy ending,’ the man next to her said.

Katherine jolted out of her private daydream, irrationally thinking that the dark-haired man had somehow read her thoughts.

‘There’s nothing quite like a happy ending, don’t you think?’ he said.

‘Exactly,’ Katherine said, getting up from her chair. ‘It leaves one feeling so…’ She paused.

‘Satisfied?’ the man suggested.

‘Inadequate,’ Katherine said.

The man looked bemused a moment but then, getting up from his chair as the lights were switched on, he held out his hand to shake hers. ‘I’m Warwick,’ he said. ‘And I can personally guarantee a happy ending if you befriend me.’

It was Katherine’s turn to look bemused and she did it beautifully, raising a dark eyebrow whilst fixing him with a stern look.

‘Really?’

‘Absolutely,’ he said with a smile that was really quite attractive.

Katherine looked at him for a moment, his hand still extended towards her. He was, she had to admit, rather handsome. He had thick dark hair, clear hazel eyes and a smile that was part charm and part dare. What the heck? Katherine thought. What harm can there be befriending him? After all, it was only for the space of the weekend. If he was completely mad - and she hadn’t ruled that out yet - she need never see him or hear from him again. So, she extended her hand, placed it in his and shook.

‘Warwick?’ she said.

‘You’re called Warwick too?’ he said with a grin.

She smiled. ‘I’m Katherine. Katherine Roberts.’

‘And you’re speaking on Sunday?’

‘I am.’

‘And I’m looking forward to it,’ he said.

They walked slowly towards the library door together and then, reaching it, stopped.

‘Well, it was very nice to meet you, Warwick,’ Katherine said, giving him a brief smile before heading towards the stairs before he had the chance to say another word.

Warwick was totally stunned. She’d just walked away -casually and coolly walked away from him - as if he was of no further use to her.

But look on the bright side, he told himself. He’d made contact. He now officially knew her name and she knew his. They’d even exchanged a few words.

But that was it, he said to himself. What had gone wrong this time? Was she just totally unimpressed by him and didn’t want to engage in further conversation? Had she found him so dull and unamusing?

Warwick sighed. How odd it had been to sit in the dark with her for the entire length of the film. It had been a strange sort of agony because he knew this woman and yet he couldn’t talk to her. And he so wanted to talk to her! They got on. If only she knew it and gave him a chance but she hadn’t. She’d dismissed him as an uninteresting nobody.

So what was he going to do now? He couldn’t let her slip away from him so easily, could he? He had to give this another go.

For a moment, he stood in the hallway, wondering what his next move was going to be, and then he remembered something - something he could use to his advantage.

The letters.

Katherine’s letters were the key to unlocking her. She’d written things in them that revealed the very centre of her personality and he could use that knowledge to get to know her better now.

It was a low-down, sneaky, dishonourable thing to do but it would probably work a treat.

Chapter Twelve

Katherine drew back the heavy bedroom curtains and looked out over the view that she’d quickly come to think of as her own. The sun was shining and the lake was looking particularly blue today with diamond droplets of light dancing on its surface.

There was a moorhen tearing across the lawn at a tremendous speed, its neck lengthened to cartoonish proportions as it made for the thick clumps of reed by the lake. If she hadn’t been asked there as a paid guest, she knew the price of the long weekend was worth it for this view alone.

Turning back to the room with the realization that she couldn’t spend the entire break gazing out of the window, she knew how lucky she was and how very precious moments like these were. To be absolutely still and just take time to look at the world was something Katherine didn’t do very often. She needed this at the moment.

Last night, she’d given in to the emotions she’d been bottling up for so many weeks and had a jolly good cry. David’s announcement that he was married had come at a particularly busy time of term and Katherine had chosen to bury herself in her work and ignore the fact that her heart was broken. The only acknowledgement she’d made had been a slight overdose on her DVD collection of costume dramas - in particular her Austen titles.

The restorative powers of Jane Austen never failed. It was the one thing in life that a girl could rely on like a good bottle of wine or an expensive box of chocolates. David had dropped his bombshell on a Friday and Katherine had spent the entire weekend on the sofa watching the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice - all six hour-long episodes back to back, laughing and crying her way through the trials of the Bennet sisters. However, judging by last night, she obviously hadn’t cried herself out over her broken relationship that weekend.

‘But I have now,’ she said, examining her pale face in the bathroom mirror. It was always the same when she was upset - all the colour drained out of her leaving her looking like a ghost. She’d have to do a good repair job with the make-up this morning unless she wanted to terrify everyone at breakfast. She couldn’t help wondering what the dark-haired gentleman would think if he saw her now. Would he be as keen to talk to her if he saw Katherine Roberts, the damaged version?

For a moment, she thought about the man who seemed so intent on getting to know her.

‘Warwick,’ she said to her reflection. It was an unusual name. She’d never heard of it as a first name before - only as a surname.

‘Like Lorna Warwick!’ she suddenly said and then laughed. Not that he would have heard of Lorna Warwick. He was probably one of those Jane Austen snobs who ridiculed any other novel that wasn’t written by the grande dame herself. So that was the end of their friendship, then. They would have absolutely nothing to talk about if he was a literary snob and couldn’t bear to indulge in a bit of Regency fun every now and then. Not that she had been planning on talking to him because she hadn’t. The last thing she was looking for was another relationship. Her past relationships with David the Liar and Callum the Cheat were enough to put any woman off for life. She needed a break from men. Well, real ones anyway. Fictional men were fine: they knew their place. You could just pick up a book, flick through to the right page, take your fill of your favourite hero and then return them to the shelf. Job done.

But real men were something to be avoided for the foreseeable future. Look but don’t touch, she thought. No, even looking could be fraught with danger. All romantic interludes began with a pair of gullible eyes and there was no telling where things might lead. Just look at Marianne Dashwood and Willoughby, and Elizabeth Bennet and Wickham. Hadn’t Willoughby and Wickham been the most dashing, romantic of heroes? Hadn’t they been charming and totally above suspicion? And yet they had proved to be the most dangerous of men.

Like David, Katherine thought. Only he hadn’t been quite as dashing. He was a middle-aged university lecturer whose hair was receding a little and who could have benefited from a couple of sessions a week at the gym. Katherine hadn’t minded any of that, though. It was his wit and charm that had bowled her over - his unashamed flattery and the old-fashioned way he had courted her. He would post love letters under her office door, hand her books of poetry with his favourites marked by a rose. He would take her out to the very best restaurants and buy her little gifts beautifully wrapped.

‘But he didn’t tell you about his wife,’ she said aloud. That was it with men, wasn’t it? There was always some hidden horror; some terrible secret that just happened to slip their minds as they kissed you to within an inch of your senses.

‘Well, never again,’ Katherine said. She would never make the mistake of being taken in by a man again.

She smiled with satisfaction at this promise. She’d certainly have lots to tell her dear friend Lorna about once she was home. Her fingers were almost itching to start the letter right now. Lorna would laugh heartily when Katherine told her about Warwick and how cool she’d been in her response.

‘And quite right you were too!’ Lorna would surely tell her. ‘These men must be put in their place.’

Katherine sighed. If only Lorna was here, she thought to herself. What fun they would have together.

Just across the hall from Katherine’s room, Robyn was waking up, stretching full length under the warm duvet and staring up at the beautiful plasterwork above the light on the ceiling. It was a far cry from her own bedroom so many miles away in Yorkshire with the strange damp patch that glowered down at her each morning. How lovely it must be to live in such elegance, she thought. Getting out of bed the wrong side would be impossible when one had sash windows on one side and exquisite pieces of furniture on the other. Come to think of it, it would be hard to get out of bed at all when you owned one as beautiful as the one Robyn was occupying. Did she really want to leave its warm comfort when she could spend the day in bed with Mr Darcy? Or even a whole weekend with Mr Darcy? Now, there was a thought and, if a girl couldn’t get away with that at a Jane Austen weekend then where could she?