Dating Mr. Darcy - Kate O'Keeffe Page 0,36
out helpfully, “or you’ll miss out on a chance to have dinner with Sebastian. And you never know what could happen over a bottle of wine at a romantic candle lit dinner for two with the luscious Mr. Darcy.” She waggles her brows at me suggestively.
“Dinner with Sebastian, huh?” I tap my chin in the internationally recognized sign for thinking. “Somehow, I think I could sacrifice that to hold on to what dignity I’ve got left.”
Although I don’t want it to, my mind goes to the way he looked at me in his room last night, and I know I’m not telling the whole truth. Despite the fact he’s the total opposite of the kind of guy I go for, dinner with Sebastian might be ... nice. Maybe more than nice.
Wow. I so need to get out of here.
“I’m going to try my best. I’d be more than happy to win that dinner,” Kennedy says.
“Me, too,” Phoebe adds as her face flushes Santa-suit red. “What? He’s hot.”
“He is hot,” Kennedy agrees. “A little pompous maybe, but the guy’s got the goods, that’s for sure. And that sexy accent of his?”
“Yeah, okay,” I admit, “I agree about the accent. But it makes him even more stuffy, don’t you think?”
“I think it makes him even more attractive,” Phoebe says. She hops up to her feet. How she does it in her floor-length petticoats is a feat of major dexterity. “Okay, girls. I’m going to go practice my song. And Emma? You’ve got to sing, so choose something good. You’ll just have to pretend you’re in your car.”
“How about I bust out All the Single Ladies, Regency style?” I say with zero intention of doing so.
Kennedy bats me lightly on the arm as she too gets up to leave. “Hey, that’s my jam, girl.”
I rub my arm theatrically. “Okay, you can have it. No need to beat me up over it.”
She flashes me a gorgeous smile before she and Phoebe make their way to quiet corners of the garden to practice. I reposition myself up against the large, old tree, rearrange my petticoats that were rising scandalously high, as Mrs. Watson would no doubt inform me in that friendly way of hers, and lean back. I take a deep breath of the warm, fresh air. I can hear contestants around me practicing different songs to varying degrees of proficiency. It’s weirdly relaxing, kind of like listening to the squawks of unharmonious tropical birds.
I’m not going to practice anything. Besides the fact my singing voice sounds like a chimpanzee with a sinus infection, there’s absolutely no point. Winning today’s little game of humiliation will only take a dinner date away from one of the other contestants. And anyway, wouldn’t it look weird if I won, went to dinner, and then got booted off the show at the next card ceremony?
It’s all about the optics, people.
As I take another deep breath, my eyelids grow heavy. After my deal-making with Sebastian last night, I didn’t get nearly enough sleep. I could catch a few z’s now and no one would be any the wiser ...
“Sleeping on the job, are we?”
Oops. I must have dozed off in the heat. I open my eyes a crack to see Sebastian peering down at me. Dressed as Mr. Darcy once more, he looks achingly handsome, and his presence quickly wakes me up.
I sit up straighter, smile, and try not to look at the camera hovering nearby. “Sebastian. How long have you been standing here?”
“Long enough to see a little line of drool make its way down your chin.”
I wipe at my chin. It’s perfectly dry. I snap my eyes to his. “You’re messing with me.”
He shrugs. “Perhaps I am. You did look very angelic, though.”
“I am angelic, don’t you know?”
His lips quirk. “I must have missed that part of your personality.” He gestures at the ground beside me. “May I?”
Despite the insult, I nod. The cameras are on us, after all.
He sits down next to me. “I’ve come to check how the practice is coming along, but it looked to me like you were catching up on some sleep, instead. Late night last night, was it?”
I shoot him a look. Having not left his room until the small hours, he knows exactly how late my night was. “I’m fine, thanks.”
“That’s good to hear. We don’t want you missing out on your sleep, now. Do we?”
“Err, no,” I reply uncertainly.
What is he playing at?
He tucks a finger inside his cravat and