Page 44 of The Austen Affair

Even after returning to my bedroom—thankfully without anyone from downstairs spotting me as I darted down the hall, naked as the day I was born—I don’t sleep. I can’t. There’s almost no point to sleeping right now, anyway. The world already feels like a dream.

Ever since childhood, my emotions have always been like a roller coaster.

I’d shoot to heights of ecstasy and then plummet to craterous depths.

I am decidedly in the clouds at the moment.

How could I not be? After all, I’m living out an impossible childhood fantasy, and I’ve just had the best sex of my life with a sensitive man with literal movie-star good looks.

And it seems very much like he likes me as much as I like him.

The dawn sky is flat with gray clouds, and the rising sun illuminates them with a soft lilac glow.

In this moment, my body loose with recent pleasure, hope nestled in the hollow of my chest, I know I was right from the very beginning.

It would be plain stupid to view our trip through the centuries as anything except a miracle.

Some higher power, somewhere, looked down on me and Hugh and gave us a gift.

And it’s even harder to imagine that this higher power was anyone but my mom.

I am nothing but deeply, madly, truly grateful.

In the romantic glow of this country sunrise, I feel one with the universe and everyone in it.

Not just with Hugh, although he is at the forefront of my thoughts as I reminisce over each hard curve of his sculpted body.

But everything and everyone that’s ever lived feels connected to me now.

If I can fall through time and make friends who lived and died two hundred years before I was born—then what isn’t possible?

It brings everything within reach. I believe, right here and now, that I was brought here for a reason.

And that’s to be with Hugh and to find that missing spark of happiness again.

I dress early, ready to walk in the garden in the midst of the morning dew. Even mist and English rain is refreshing and beautiful when you are newly in love. I put on a pale-purple gown, the same color as the sky, and go lightly skipping across the plush carpeting.

But at the top of the stairs, whom do I find but the man who put me in such a good mood in the first place?

He turns to face me as he hears my footsteps behind him. A knowing smile transforms his handsome face into something devilish and irresistible. My knees melt a little as I approach, stretching out my hand so that we can brush the tips of our fingers together before descending the staircase.

As we go down, side by side, we keep our hands held neatly behind our backs. But our eyes are locked on each other. We both know we’d rather not be keeping them to ourselves.

“It’s almost time,” he murmurs to me. “The machine might be delivered to the post office by now. Would you like to take a walk with me to the village so that we may check?”

“That sounds very pleasurable,” I reply.

We make our way to the front door, more than ready for a solitary stroll, when Aunt Fanny’s voice splits the early-morning quietude of the ground floor. “Not so fast, you two!”

Aunt Fanny is standing in the doorway to the dining room, hands on her hips. “I noticed you slipped off together rather early in the evening.”

Hugh might have arranged for the driver bringing us home and returning for the others, but he clearly did not plan ahead for an alibi.

“It was my fault,” I insist, laying my hand on my heart. “The heat of the room was too much. I felt very faint, and your nephew was so kind as to see me safely home.”

Aunt Fanny lets out a skeptical tsk. “I’m not the only person at the ball who became aware of your early departure. Let us say that were our neighbors not busy concocting enough scandals to go around, your behavior would have the entire village’s mouths flapping.”

Hugh and I share a sheepish but not entirely guilty look.

Aunt Fanny clocks our shared expression and makes another irritated noise.

“Now, listen. Cecelia did improve over the course of the evening, and I think I have you both to thank for that. Hugh, your dance did her a world of good. And Tess, I caught… snippets of your conversation yesterday. I think that was very useful to her, too. I hope you can both do me one more favor?”

Wary, we both nod.

“Take William with you on your walk to the village. Cecelia wants to speak to me alone this morning, and it will be infinitely easier without him wondering what we’re up to. Besides, having a chaperone can only help your unsavory reputations.”

Once Mr. Crawford was impressed into our village walk, with much the same ruthlessness from Aunt Fanny as a British young lad might experience while being similarly impressed into military service, it was a natural thing that George might come along, too, lest he sulk all day.

We set off in high spirits, although Mr. Crawford is in a state of some agitation.

I suppose he must be annoyed that Aunt Fanny banished him from the house, because he wears a deep scowl.

Still, I feel much less afraid about him picking a fight with Hugh sober and in the bright light of day, especially if Cecelia is doing better today than yesterday.

Hugh, meanwhile, has a spring in his step, and I, too, feel like everything is right with the world at this moment.

The countryside morning is cool, the air bracing, and the sky a lovely muted shade.

My muscles sing with the pleasant soreness that follows a night of energetic, athletic sex.

And we are on our way to check the post office to see if we finally have our way home.

I feel like stretching my arms wide and spinning in the lane, so I do. Hugh’s laugh rings across the gap, and he strides forward to close it, picking me up and spinning me around. “We’re so close—” he whispers into my ear, his smile just as broad as mine.

“Hardly appropriate!” Mr. Crawford chides us, stomping forward and pulling George by the hand. “What would Aunt Fanny say if she saw you two gadding about in public?”

He’s half joking, but I see his foul mood has extended to an uncharacteristic sense of propriety.

“Mr. Crawford,” I call merrily after him, “please do not tell me that the ball dampened your spirits instead of lifting them. I have never known you to be so strict.”

Mr. Crawford just scowls, fists clenched, as he makes his brisk way along the lane. Hugh and I share an amused look at his expense. Everything is funny today. The world is bright even if the sky is gray. What was it that Taylor Swift once said about not threatening her with a good time?

Almost immediately upon our arrival into the village, we are beset upon by the figure of Isabella Dixon, who is grinning from ear to ear. She practically hurtles into me in her rush to embrace me. “Captain Dereham’s been by the house this morning!” she squeals. “He asked me to marry him!”

I squeal with delight, returning her tight hug and jumping up and down with her. I cannot imagine a better fate than to escape her dreary home life and enter marital bliss with the kindest man in the militia. “I couldn’t possibly be happier for you, Isabella,” I tell her, squeezing her hands.

“You must come to our wedding,” Isabella insists. “I’m so looking forward to yours.”

I very consciously do not look at Hugh when she mentions our approaching nuptials. I don’t want him to see my blush.

“But I must go now!” Isabella says, pulling away from me. “I’m telling, oh la, everyone I know!”

And then she’s gone, sprinting down the street with her skirts hitched up, looking for the next person to share in her happy tidings.

“Well, what do you think about that?” I ask the group.

George just pouts. “Weddings are boring. Don’t adults ever talk about anything else?”

I ruffle his hair, and he squirms away—but I can tell from the sneaky smile on his face that he likes the attention.

As we pass the milliner’s shop, two familiar figures come bustling out of the store to flag us down. Mrs. Goddard and Kitty Foster rush toward us, arm in arm, squawking like excitable hens.

“Oh, Mrs. Bright! Mr. Balfour! You must have heard the news from yesterday evening?”

Hugh and I share another look, this time uneasy. I try to keep my guilt over our scandalous activities last night off my face, but repressed scion of the upper classes that he is, Hugh might as well have the words “I spent the evening getting spectacularly fucked” stamped on his forehead.

But even though Mrs. Goddard is the biggest gossip in the village, she’s not interested in slut-shaming us today. “Yesterday at the ball,” she hastens to inform us, “Captain Armstrong pestered Miss Phoebe Dixon so impertinently that she was finally forced to slap him across the face.”

I gasp, my hands flying up to my mouth. “No way! But I just saw Isabella Dixon, and she didn’t mention…”

“Oh,” Kitty says, waving a dismissive hand, “she’s just too busy bragging about her engagement. But it’s true! And it gets worse.”

I genuinely wish I had some popcorn. “Tell me everything.”

“It turns out,” she says, “that he was pressuring her to elope with him to Gretna Green. Now, what do you say about that?”

My cheeks pink with savage victory, remembering the advice I gave Phoebe last night.

I am so relieved I cautioned her rightly.

It’s a true tragedy of the time—that if I, in the twenty-first century, am deceived and ghosted by a man, I have a bad week.

If Phoebe, here and now, were to be deceived similarly…

the consequences might devastate her for life.

Nobody deserves that, even if I don’t like them much personally.

“Oh, I’m pleased she knew he was no good,” I say.

“No good at all,” Mrs. Goddard agrees. “And then what do you suppose happened, but Phoebe’s brother challenged Mr. Armstrong to a duel.”

So I was right about the effects of copious alcohol on the probability of duel-making. I just didn’t guess the combatants.

“But then,” Kitty adds, “he just tore off. Fled. Into the night. A coward and a rake.”

“A man of no honor,” Mrs. Goddard nods, looking smug. “Miss Phoebe should be proud she saw what he was worth and made her position clear. She would have been ruined if they’d eloped, of course.”

I glance over at Hugh, who looks baffled at all we missed.

Mr. Crawford, on the other hand, wears a face like a storm cloud.

“There are very many pitfalls for a woman of good virtue,” he intones, somber.

“And all of them seem to begin with untrustworthy men.” He then casts a significant look in Hugh’s direction.

The intensity of Mr. Crawford’s gaze forces Hugh out of our little huddle. With a small bow, he excuses himself to duck into the post office next door, while Mr. Crawford and I are left with the ladies.

I leap enthusiastically into a detailed gossip session with Kitty and Mrs. Goddard.

It seems like enough transpired with the Phoebe situation that no one cares a whit that Hugh and I departed early.

(I suppose even the stuffiest people can’t be too angry that an engaged couple was up to no good, at least not when something so much juicier was afoot.)

“I do hope Mr. Armstrong does return to us someday,” Kitty says, her head tilted romantically off to one side.

“Kitty!” I exclaim, laughing. “What can you be saying?”

“Indeed,” Mrs. Goddard agrees with me, though not at all in the same spirit of fun. “You cannot possibly want that scoundrel back in the midst of our proper little community.”

Kitty bites her lower lip sensuously, her eyes straying toward the horizon in obvious full-tilt daydream. “Oh, but I can. I think a little scandal is good for the soul, don’t you?”

While Mrs. Goddard clucks her way through a “Well, I never,” I stare at Kitty’s dreamy expression. Suddenly it clicks, and I give a tiny, unintentional gasp.

Kitty’s eyes sharpen back into focus, and as they land on me, we both know what I know.

All this time, Kitty Foster has been secretly boinking Mr. Armstrong behind her much-too-old husband’s back.

Cuckolding the overcontrolling colonel with one of his own militia men.

No wonder she didn’t much like the attentions Dick had been paying to Phoebe at the ball. She wanted him all to herself.

But Kitty doesn’t seem perturbed by my revelation. She raises a delicate eyebrow and lays a single finger to her lips, the universal symbol for Our little secret, ’kay?

Honestly… I can’t help but think, Good for her.

While the ladies chatter and Mr. Crawford looks on with his arms crossed in disapproval, I take a pause to remember this moment.

Just now, Hugh could be collecting the package that will take us home to the modern world.

And I will never again stand here. No one will ever again stand here. Because “here” will no longer exist.

This village, these people, this gray sky…

it will all be blown away. A number of these picturesque village homes will be torn down, the cobblestone streets replaced by asphalt roads and cell towers.

These people will die, their names confined only to fading gravestones or the dusty pages of record books.

These gathering clouds will fill with water and then empty themselves onto the verdant land. And repeat.

But right now—Kitty reaches out to touch my sleeve. Right now, tears of mirth gather in the corner of her eye. Right now, I am welcome in a town that doesn’t know me and didn’t know my foremothers. They greeted me with warmth. They’ve flagged me down. They’ve shared their news.

I’ve stepped into the pages of a storybook, and they’ve embraced me.

Perhaps it’s rose-colored glasses or graduation goggles. My chest burns with a bone-deep yearning to stay in this place just a little longer. This is dearer to me knowing that it is impermanent. But isn’t all of life impermanent? I’m just more aware of it now.

The bell in front of the post office jingles as Hugh steps outside, a heavy package in his arms.

My stomach sinks with dread.

But his face is alight with joy.