Dating Mr. Darcy - Kate O'Keeffe Page 0,18
in an English castle, right? Why would he need a dating show to help him find a girlfriend?”
“Maybe he’s a romantic, like me?”
I try not to scoff. Chances of that are as likely as the Pope hula-hooping in his tutu at his next public event.
“Can I join you?” Kennedy is standing in front of us, holding a plate and mug.
“Definitely,” I reply as she takes a seat opposite me.
“How are things? Survive the night?”
“Barely,” I reply as Phoebe says, “Totally.”
“We were just talking about why we think Sebastian is doing this show,” I say.
“To find his one true love, surely,” Kennedy remarks with a twinkle in her eye.
“See?” Phoebe says, missing the glint altogether. “We’re not all hardened cynics like you, Emma.”
“What’s your theory?” Kennedy asks me.
“I’ve got a couple. I think either he lost a bet, or the Mafia’s after him and he needs to hide away somewhere for a while.”
“The Mafia?” Phoebe shakes her head at me. “Emma, really?”
“Okay, so maybe hiding from the Mafia isn’t plausible, but he could have lost a bet.”
“Oh, I think you were totally right about the mafia thing,” Kennedy replies. “He looks the type to get chased around the globe by gangsters.”
I giggle. “There’s a type that’s got to hide from a gang of angry Italians?”
“Oh, yeah. Definitely.”
“Isn’t love a good enough reason?” Phoebe protests.
She’s so sweet I half expect chirping cartoon birds to fly around her head like she was Snow White.
I pull a face to show her exactly what I think of her hypothesis and slide my eyes to my comrade-in-arms. Kennedy laughs and shakes her head.
“No matter what you say, I think Sebastian is here for the right reasons, and you’ll eat your words when you see him fall in love with one of us,” Phoebe says.
“We’ll see,” I reply. Not that I have any plans to be here at the end to see him fall in love—or, more likely, not fall in love. I’m out of here just as soon as I can wrangle it.
“Keep your head down,” Kennedy says before she raises her mug and literally hides behind it.
“What? Why?” I ask.
She hooks her thumb in the direction of one of the tables, where Camille, Hayley, and Shelby are now standing.
“Which one?” I ask quietly.
Kennedy nods. “Camille. She’s a nightmare. She told me I’ve got the dress sense of a blind turkey. Whatever that means.”
I skim my eyes over Kennedy’s t-shirt and shorts combo and decide she looks perfectly normal. “How do blind turkeys dress, exactly?” I ask.
“Not in Prada or Gucci, like Camille over there. She tells anyone who’ll listen that she’s from some super rich New York family and only came on this show because she’s bored.”
I glance back over at Camille. She’s flicking her hair, and laughing prettily at something one of the girls is saying. “Nice for some.”
“I know, right? I had to give up my job and sublet my apartment to be here.”
“Me too,” Phoebe chimes in.
I think of my own current lack of funds. If Timothy doesn’t begin to show some sort of serious profit soon, Penny and I will have to quit our dream.
“What do you think of this whole Regency thing?” Phoebe asks.
“Regency?” Kennedy asks.
“The era we’ve got to dress in. It’s called Regency because the Prince Regent was ruling Britain for his father at the time.”
“Look at you with the knowledge,” I say.
She shrugs. “History major back in college.”
I scrunch up my nose. “Well, whatever you want to call it, I’m not exactly thrilled about it, that’s for sure. Not unless we get to kill zombies, of course.”
“What are you talking about?” Phoebe asks as Kennedy questions, “Zombies?”
“You know that movie based on Pride and Prejudice where the Bennet sisters are all trained assassins who kill zombies?”
They look at me as though my brain just fell out of my head and landed with a splat on the table.
“It’s a book and a movie?” When they continue to stare at me blankly, I say, “Forget about it.”
“Well, I for one am excited to wear these dresses,” Phoebe says wistfully, just as I expected she would. “I think wearing Regency clothes will add to the romance of the whole thing. The long dresses, the gloves, the up-dos with the ringlets around your face.”
Kennedy shakes her head. “Nuh-uh. I’m not doing ringlets.”
I shudder as I think of Mrs. Watson’s hair last night. “The ringlets are the worst part. That’s what hair straighteners are for.”
“Actually, I think the worst part is that