Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler Page A

computer, he had no problem bookmarking and presumably logging on to longlankychicks.com and various other tall-thin-naked-girl websites, which were all in a neat and tidy folder.
    Boots crunch the gravel path behind me. “Have I offended you?” Edgeworth says, out of breath.
    “Absolutely not. I just…” Suddenly I am unable to form words. There’s so much vulnerability in those emerald eyes, so much pent-up emotion in that clenched jaw that for a moment I am actually tempted to say yes, I’ll marry you. Just take me right here and rip my bodice from my heaving bosom.
    Suddenly I am seized by an explosion of laughter, complete with snorts and gasps and doubling over. I’m not stuck inside someone else’s life. I’m stuck inside a romance novel with pretensions to Jane Austen.
    “Dearest, sweetest Jane,” says Edgeworth, raising my hand to his lips. “You have made me the happiest of men.”
    Apparently he’s interpreting my mirth as an affirmative.
    “Whoa,” I say, still giggling at the thought of Edgeworth posing on the cover of a romance novel with embossed gold lettering, like the ones my mother always had on her nightstand. “I won’t deny I’m attracted, but don’t you think this is way too fast? I mean, I haven’t even slept with you.”
    Edgeworth drops my hand, his face instantly red.
    “That is cruel, Jane.”
    “What?”
    The ensuing pause feels endless.
    “You’re angry,” I say.
    “I am not angry.” He paces back and forth, shaking his head, and then kicks a tree trunk with his boot. He winces in pain, clenching his fists.
    Definitely not angry.
    “This is madness. Absolute madness.”
    My mouth goes dry. Calm down, he doesn’t mean it literally. Nevertheless, laughing like a hyena and making lewd jokes is clearly not the safest mode of behavior for someone in my position.
    “Can you tell me, Jane, how two people who once understood each other perfectly could come to this?”
    “I wish I could tell you,” I say, struggling to sound like the Jane he knows. Or thinks he knows. “But the truth is, sir, that I have not the honor of understanding what you mean.”
    “Ah. I will not pretend I do not understand you.”
    “And I will not pretend that I do.”
    “You do me a great injustice. Granted, I am a man of eight-and-thirty, and I am no saint. But can you truly believe such a dishonorable portrait of me?”
    Trying to figure out this conversation is like trying to do the New York Times crossword puzzle with half the words in Swahili. But I don’t have to understand it. I just have to sound like I do.
    “I don’t—I do not know what I believe. Nor do I know what ‘dishonorable portrait’ you are talking about.”
    His brows lift, then his eyes scan my face, searching for what? The truth? I watch as his face shifts from distrust to puzzlement, and finally, a relaxed sort of calm. “I must confess I do not understand you, but I am relieved that you do not seem to think ill of me.”
    I am so moved by the naked vulnerability in his eyes that I find myself touching his hand. He looks away, his other hand quickly swiping at his eye. Was that a tear?
    I fight the urge to gather him in my arms and cradle his head against my breasts. And rip off his clothes.
    What difference would it make if I changed my mind and said yes? Who would it hurt? After all, this parallel reality, or whatever I’m in, is only temporary.
    Wait a minute. Am I that starved for a commitment, that desperate to be married? Wherever I am may be temporary, but how long is that? It could be days, hours, weeks, or years. Do I really want to gamble whatever “temporary” is on marriage to a stranger, whether or not I am passing up the chance of a lifetime? Or a reality? Or even two realities?
    Guess I’ll just have to take that risk.
    Edgeworth clears his throat. “May I still have the honor of calling on you again when I return from town?”
    “You had better.”
    He smiles. “You are a mystery that I am