“And there goes Mr. Right,” I said with a sigh, knowing that I’d just lost any chance I ever had with him. Not that I really had a chance—or for that matter wanted one—but still, it dinged my pride to know that he found me so repugnant he couldn’t even be bothered to ogle my boobs.
I looked down at the girls and sighed again. I had a feeling the monthlong race was going to end up feeling more like half a year.
JOURNAL OF DIXON AINSLEY
20 July
9:44 a.m.
New York City
I’m not quite sure how to start this. Or why I’m doing it, other than that it will be a good way to track expenses. And I suppose experiences.
JOURNAL OF DIXON AINSLEY
20 July
9:46 a.m.
New York City
I suppose I could write down my expenses. That would be a reasonable thing to track.
Expenses to date:
One journal, bought in hotel gift shop, $15
Three-pack of pens (black), same, $7
I guess that’s really the sum total of my expenses, since the production company is paying for lodging and food. I don’t know what else to write.
JOURNAL OF DIXON AINSLEY
20 July
10:13 a.m.
New York City
The weather is nice. Very sunny. Heard it’s raining back home.
JOURNAL OF DIXON AINSLEY
20 July
10:14 a.m.
New York City
Maybe this journal thing isn’t for me. I can’t think of anything more to talk about.
What I just wrote looks so lame. I wish I knew how people did this.
Those last two sentences also look lame.
JOURNAL OF DIXON AINSLEY
20 July
12:55 p.m.
New York City
Google has a lot of examples of people’s journals. Most of them are too . . . personal. But there was a nice example of a travel journal that a man did about his family’s journey across the States, so I will try to emulate him. He had conversations, and maps, and drawings, and lots of observations. I can’t draw, but I can find maps, and I have a good memory, so I should be able to write down conversations. Plus, I’m used to observing people.
OK. Decision made. I will make a travel journal.
I have to go back a little bit, though. Damn. I could have postdated this if I’d thought about it.
JOURNAL OF DIXON AINSLEY
20 July
1:01 p.m.
New York City, day one
“You need a vacation, Dix,” Elliott said in April. I was working on the projections for the upcoming wedding season, and although I’d already printed out the summary of our reservations for the Dower House bookings for the next six months, as well as the crop forecasts, livestock assessment, and income due in from tenants, I felt I was missing something.
“I had a vacation,” I said, hitting the print button on a pie chart illustration of the various sources of estate income. I hated pie charts. I also hated crop forecasts, livestock assessments, and tenant income schedules.
“Two years ago. It’s time for another.”
“I’m busy,” I said, waving my hand at the printer. “We’re coming up to summer, and you know how popular the Dower House is for weddings.”
“You have everything planned to an inch. Besides, Alice is itching for something to do.”
“Surely Jenna is keeping her busy?”
“Yes, but as Alice is the first to say, there’s more to life than chasing after our daughter.” Elliott gave me a look that was part pity and part warning. “I’m obligated by brotherly love to warn you that if Rupert continues to resist her attempts to make him settle down to just one woman, she’s planning on turning her sights on you.”
I dropped the printout I’d just plucked from the printer and spun around to face him fully. “What? Why? She knows about Rose, doesn’t she?”
“Yes, but she considers nine years long enough to move past your grief at losing a fiancée to cancer and opening yourself up to love again. Those are her words, not mine, by the way.”
“She has nothing to do with the matter,” I said firmly. “My romantic life is none of her business.”
“Not strictly so, I agree, but you know Alice—she wants all my brothers happily paired up with the woman or man of their choice.”
“Choice being the key word of that statement,” I said with surly distaste, and typed furiously at a report on the status of the fields currently lying fallow.
“Which is why I suggest you take a vacation. For about six weeks.”
“What? I couldn’t possibly be away that long,” I said, waving my hand at the computer.
“Why?”
“I’m the estate manager,” I said, glaring a little at him. Elliott might have been my elder brother, but he was also woefully ignorant as to what it took to run an estate this size, especially since now we were focused on tourists. “I have things to manage.”
“Fine, but I warn you—Alice is already reaching out to friends to find someone for Rupert. She’s even drawn Mercy into the scheme, and you’re next.”
A sort of dread-riddled panic filled me at the thought of the two women joining forces to match me up. “But I don’t want to find a woman! I’m happy on my own. And I had a woman I wanted. She died. End of story.”
“Not so far as Alice is concerned,” Elliott said, perusing some of the charts I’d printed out. “Looks to me like things are in pretty good shape and that you could easily take six weeks off for the race.”
“Race?” I snatched the papers from his fingers and put them into a file folder. “What race?”
“Some around-the-world thing that Roger d’Espry is doing. You remember him?”
“No.”
“That’s right—you were gone when the film crew was here watching Gunner and Lorina dig up Roman remains. Well, it’s the man who has a production company that specializes in reality TV reenactments of a sort. They did one with a Victorian setting, and now they want to do a New York to Paris race that follows the route of a 1908 race.”
“Hrmph,” I said. “Not interested.”
“You would get to race in an authentic period car,” Elliott said in a persuasive tone.
That made me sit up. There’s nothing I love so much as antique cars. “What kind of authentic period car?”
“Er . . .” Elliott pulled a folded scrap of paper from his pocket. “Nineteen twelve De Dion-Bouton.”
“What?” I took the paper from him and whistled. “It has an Antoinette aircraft engine. This is amazing. The car should be in a museum.”
“I gather that d’Espry made arrangements to have cars restored that were in bad shape, so it’s not in original form.”
“Still, parts of it are real.” I pursed my lips and thought. “What’s this race entail?”
He told me. In fact, he dragged me back to his office, where, after working our way through the obstacle course of baby toys, he pulled up an e-mail and let me read all about it.
I decided that it might be fun and, after making sure that Alice (who volunteered as my replacement while I was gone) was up to speed on monitoring the tourist activities and bookings, found myself packing for a monthlong race.
Rupert had also been roped into joining the team, although his reasons for doing so were less than sterling.
“Birds will dig it,” he said, shoving my elbow off the shared armrest between our seats on the plane flying us to New York City. “Plus it gets me away from Alice. She keeps throwing women at me.”
“I wasn’t aware you had any problem finding women,” I said, giving him a brotherly once-over. He had combed the wild mop of hair that usually stuck out at all angles and put on something other than the knee-length shorts
and T-shirt that were his habitual costume.
“I don’t, but this is a free trip around the world. I’ll be able to take tons of pictures, and I’ve got my tablet with me, so I can draw as I go.”
“I’m surprised you got the time away from your job.”
He shrugged and pushed his seat back, much to the annoyance of the person behind him. “I left it. They wanted me to design the most obnoxious dreck you’ve ever seen. It’s time I go out on my own anyway. Freelance design is where it’s at.”
I spent a good hour trying to make him see that dumping his job to gallivant around on a reality show for a month wasn’t, perhaps, the best career choice, but Rupert had always been one to go his own way.
He said as much when we arrived at our hotel, dumping his bag in the room next to mine and not even bothering to unpack before he appeared in my doorway. “Right. That’s me sorted. I’m off to see the ladies of New York.”
“I thought perhaps we could see some of the sights—”
He grinned. “Oh, I’m going to. But the last thing I need is a misery guts hanging around my neck like an albatross.”
“I am not a misery guts,” I said, annoyed.
“You are when it comes to meeting women. Hell, you don’t even like them touching you.”
“I don’t like anyone touching me,” I pointed out. “I don’t understand why people do not respect one’s personal space.”
“And that is exactly why you are the worst wingman in the world,” Rupert said, dashing in to ruffle my hair and give me a huge bear hug. “Have fun, brother.”
“Dammit, Ru!” I yelled after his fleeing figure, trying to restore order to my hair and my shirt, which he’d deliberately rumpled.
“I can’t help it if I don’t like to be touched,” I told my reflection. “People touch too much anyway. They’re always patting an arm or hugging or touching a shoulder—there’s no reason to be so exuberant. Moderacy, that’s what’s needed in this world—moderacy in shows of affection, and in the invasion of another person’s space.”
After putting my things away in the closet and dresser, I had a quick shower, shaved, and went down to the ballroom for the welcome party.
A gaggle of women was at the doorway, and I made sure to let them go first. By the time I was checked in by an assistant at the door, I could see the party was already going. I wondered if Rupert had remembered about it and was going to look for him when I heard a woman say in what I believe is called a smoky voice, “There goes my shot at sexual gratification with a handsome foreigner.”
She saw me as soon as she spoke, and was visibly embarrassed. I did my best to put her at ease, even going so far as apologizing for making the matter worse by chatting with her, and fortunately her blush faded quickly.
Unlike some women, she blushed prettily. In fact, she was very pretty, with high Slavic cheekbones, a pointed little chin, and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and upper cheeks. Her hair was shoulder length and straight, a glossy black that looked as if it felt like silk. But it was her eyes that gave me pause. They were brown, but a beautiful brown with all sorts of different colors mixed into it . . . reds, golds, even a little black flecked her irises. I quite enjoyed looking into her eyes, as ridiculous as that sounds.
“I’m Paulie,” she said, and we shook hands. She had a surprisingly strong grip for a woman, which was a nice change. Since there was no sign of Rupert, I spent a few minutes talking with Paulie. She told me about her plan to keep a journal on the race, an idea that appealed almost immediately to me.
Just as I was enjoying myself with her, we wandered over to the drinks table, and she suddenly leaned in to me, her straight black hair brushing against my cheek. It was as if she had been made of fire—a bolt of heat shot down my neck and settled in my belly. I took a step backward, startled by both the touch and my reaction to it.
I mumbled an apology, the hurt in her eyes making me feel like I was the biggest heel in the world.
That look haunted me, and I tried to explain that I was just startled and didn’t dislike her, as she seemed to think, but by that time Roger d’Espry had started talking and introducing the teams.
I was pleased to see, when it was time for my team to stand, that Rupert had made it to the party in time, although judging by the women at his table, he’d had no problem making new friends.
“Look, I want to explain about earlier,” I said to Paulie when it was all over, but she didn’t seem to hear me . . . or she chose not to. Either way, she hurried off with Tessa.
“Well? What do you think? Looks like it’s going to be fun, eh?” Rupert stopped next to me as people received their costuming appointments.
“That has yet to be determined,” I answered, glancing at my watch. “I have to be fitted for my costume in twenty minutes.”
“Mine is in an hour. Good. Gives me time to work on my new friends.” He grinned and waved across the room, where a clutch of people stood around the doors chatting.
“Yes, I noticed you didn’t have any trouble finding a couple of women to coo over you,” I said dryly.
“Finding them? No, but I did have a bit of a fight to get them past the bloke at the door since they weren’t on the list. Looked like you aren’t doing too bad yourself. That bird you were with is a looker. Where’d you find her?”
“Paulie? She’s one of the racers.”
“Really,” Rupert drawled, looking thoughtful. “Maybe Alice is right.”
For some reason that I refused to examine any further, I wanted to punch him in the shoulder. Hard.
“She’s out of your league,” I told him instead, and quickly changed the subject. “What did you think of Roger d’Espry?”
Rupert shrugged. “Seemed just like Elliott and Gunner described him—scattered, but competent enough. You going to the bar after your fitting?”
“I hadn’t planned on it.”
“Your loss if you don’t. I’ll be there with the twins, and from the sounds of it, the Italians are planning on hosting a party there. You could do a lot worse than to show up and meet a few bits of delectable flesh.”
I gave him a look of jaded exasperation and started toward the door. “You may get by thinking of nothing but sex, but some of us have other things on our minds.”
“Like I said, your loss.” Rupert punched me on the arm, then went to the corner to collect his twins and join the group surrounding the Italian team. I wondered idly where the third member of our team was, then went out to find the conference rooms that were currently housing the wardrobe department.
I consulted my assignment sheet and opened the door listed. “I believe I’m supposed to be—”
The words died on my tongue. Standing in the center of the room, facing a tall mirror, and clad only in a pair of skimpy lace underwear and a corset, stood Paulie.
Note to self: Expunge the following paragraph so as to avoid lawsuits regarding inappropriate thoughts.
I’ve seen naked women in my time, but never have I seen a woman who looked like a Greek statue brought to life. No, not Greek—that was too antiseptic and cold. Paulie was anything but that—she was warm, with curves everywhere, rounded breasts rising high above the corset, beautiful arms that she used in an attempt to hide first her bits, then her breasts, then finally her ass. And what an ass it was—gloriously round and smooth and . . . I had the worst urge to take it into my hands and just squeeze. She whipped around, a blush sweeping upward from her chest. I realized I was staring at her breasts and dropped my gaze, but that just led me to admire the sweep of her hips (good birthing hips, my mother would call them) and then down to two delicious thighs, round and silky looking, and for a moment I had an insane vision of me kissing my way up those thighs.
The look of horror on her face stopped those thoughts dead.
“Sorry. I thought . . . I was supposed to ge
t fitted . . . Sorry.” I ran out of the room before I could embarrass Paulie any further, and ran into Roger d’Espry a few doors down the hall. He was chatting with the couple who had been at my table, and turned to wave me over.
“Have you met Dixon? He’s the earl’s brother.”
“Elliott is a baron, actually,” I murmured.
“We have met,” Tessa said, smiling at him. “He was at our table with Paulie. Where is she?”
“Being fitted,” I answered, making a face. “I’m afraid I inadvertently walked in on her while she was . . . er . . .” I waved a hand at my torso. “Being corseted.”
“Oh lord.” Tessa gave a little laugh. “Don’t worry. I’m sure she’ll survive. If the corset was anything like what I wore, it covered up a lot.”
“I owe her an apology, but I doubt if she wants to hear that now.”
“Let’s see . . .” While we had been speaking, Roger had consulted a tablet computer. “You are scheduled to be in the Rosewood room five minutes ago. That’s around the corner and on the right.”
“My instructions are incorrect, then,” I told him, and shoved at him the piece of paper that had directed me to Paulie’s room.
“Ah. Yes, I believe that the rooms were switched around at the last minute due to storage constraints. Now, Max, let me talk to you about what I want you and Tessa to do to officially start the race . . .”
Dismissed, I left them discussing the festivities and went into the correct room.
An hour later I emerged, having been measured literally up one side and down the other and having tried on several pairs of trousers, waistcoats, and jackets, as well as Edwardian driver’s togs. I objected to the giant hat that puffed up on my head like a bloated mushroom, but felt somewhat dashing in the duster and goggles.
“This is rather nice,” I told the two wardrobe women, who slipped the dark chocolate brown duster over a matching suit. The suit was a bit short on me, and they hastily made notes and muttered things about ripping out the temporary stitching. “Arms are too long, Lydia. Half inch.”