Dating Mr. Darcy - Kate O'Keeffe Page 0,24

act of the Mean Girls set.

“We’ll all get a chance to get to know him,” Shelby says. “My attitude is to be open to the possibilities as I wait patiently for my time.”

Hayley gives a condescending shake of her head. “Yeah, you do that, Shelby.”

Camille giggles.

The scene is broken up when Mrs. Watson arrives, dressed as she was last night, right down to that shower cap balanced on top of her ‘do.

“Ladies. You look magnificent,” she says with a dramatic sweep of her arm. “What you’re dressed in now will be what you’ll wear during the day. For the soirées, you will wear a pelisse, a long garment worn in place of the spencer.”

“The what?” someone questions under her breath beside me.

“The jacket thing,” someone else replies.

“Well, why didn’t she say that?” she whispers back.

“You have each been allocated a pelisse, which you can collect later. Now. This afternoon we are going to learn how to act like a lady in 1813. If we all focus, this will only take a few hours.”

A few hours?

“First on our list is how to sit.”

“Oh, good Lord.” I roll my eyes.

“This is insane,” Kennedy mutters beside me.

“In terms of insanity, it’s right up there with the bloomers,” I reply and she stifles a giggle.

As we’re all made to stand up and copy as Mrs. Watson demonstrates how to sit with an unnaturally straight back on the world’s least comfortable chairs, my resolve hardens to stone.

Tonight, this ends. The girl drama, the Regency dresses, the whole Mr. Darcy mess.

Tonight, I go home.

Chapter 9

After losing time I will never get back learning such useful things as how to curtsy, sit, walk, and talk like a Regency lady, we’re given a measly hour to do some much-needed lounging around before we’re due back downstairs for the next soirée.

Now, we’ve been told to get changed into our “pelisses,” which are basically long versions of our cropped jackets but without the long sleeves, which we wear over the ivory petticoats we wore during the day.

I’m beginning to wonder how often the Regency ladies washed their clothes, because getting in and out of them isn’t exactly easy. Let’s just say my roommates and I don’t need to go to the gym today after all the straining and pulling and wrestling with spencers and garters and all things I never expected to wear in my life, let alone on national television.

And women dressed like this back then every freaking day! No wonder they spent half their time breathless or fainting.

Once we’re downstairs on the terrace, I thank a server as I take a glass of wine from his tray and look around. It’s a balmy Texas evening, and there are fairy lights hanging from the palm trees around the pool, stretching across to the oversized pergola. I take a moment. It’s breathtaking in its beauty, and filled with the contestants in Regency dresses as it is right now, it’s quite surreal.

Hayley shoots me a withering look. With her distinctly orange fake tan and her cream petticoats and lilac pelisse, she looks like an Oompa Loompa in period drag.

And that does it. Now, I’ve got the Oompa Loompa song stuck in my head.

I scan the room for someone I actually like. I spot Phoebe by one of the palm trees and head over to her.

“Emma, you look amazing,” Phoebe breathes as she pulls me in for a hug.

“Not as amazing as you, babe. You are beautiful. Mr. Darcy would be insane not to choose you.”

Color rises in her cheeks, making her even more gorgeous. Damn her. When I blush, I look like I’ve been dipped head first in glowing red Easter egg dye. So not pretty.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she replies. “There are so many gorgeous women here, and anyway, I’ve only been on one date with him. I don’t really know much about him yet.”

“How was the date?”

“It was great. We sat on these comfortable chairs on a beautiful lawn and talked.”

“And?” I lead.

“And he’s a really nice person.”

I try not to scoff. Sebastian is a really nice person? Maybe she knows more about him than I do, but I suspect she’s had the wool pulled well and truly over her willing eyes.

“Anything juicy to share?” I ask.

“There was no kissing, if that’s what you mean.”

“Shame.”

“Why?” she asks with a light laugh.

“It would really annoy a couple of people if you did.”

She looks down. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to do anything like that.”

Could this girl get any sweeter?

“Of course you