Excerpt from Seducing Mr. Darcy for Tumbling Through Time.

"You vill stretch out on the table, ja?" Madame K the masseuse commanded. "And clear your head."

But what Flip wanted to clear was her nose. The mellow orange-y scent wafting from the candle was making her a little woozy. Madame K tucked her in on the table, covered her with a warm sheet and snapped off the towel like a magician doing a tablecloth trick.

She worked in small circles, from Flip's shoulder blades to her hips, folding back the sheet as necessary to ensure every muscle got its proper work-out. Flip felt like a tube of recalcitrant toothpaste.

"You work at the Aviary here in Pittsburgh?" the woman said.

"Yes."

"How eez your work there?"

"Usually great, but today--ugh. Don't ask."

The woman made a sympathetic clucking noise and continued her Nobel-Prize-worthy kneading. Flip felt the tension begin to trickle out her fingers and toes.

"Are you clearing your head?" Madame K asked.

"Mmmm-mmm."

Flip considered the flowered carpet visible through the table's porthole, and watched the suede tassels of Madame K's odd little booties flop as she worked. But then her eyes grew heavier and her lids began to flutter in time to the rhythmic rearrangement of her muscles. Clearing her head was not easy. Whatever Madame K was releasing in her back seemed to come pouring up her neck into her brain in a soft focus, home-movie sort-of way: her girlfriends and their over-the-top fascination with Darcy, Pride and Prejudice and that whole weird historical romance thing; her loathsome ex-husband Jed jogging up the stairs of the Cornell Ornithology building like Rocky as he stole the birding fellowship from her; a black and white ivory-bill woodpecker soaring through the forest top; Jed's painful and all-too-frequent indiscretions during their marriage; that asshole Brit professor from the café today with the interesting topaz eyes; that asshole Brit professor from the café today in a pair of ivory breeches and an open linen shirt, turning her over his knee--

What?? Flip started. No.

Darcy in a pair of ivory breeches and an open linen shirt, tugging the laces of her chemise. There we go. Or even better: the hero in the romance she was reading, who'd been only too happy to serve his heroine on his knees in that Venice hotel bathroom, his shiny, dark head of curls bobbing between her--

"Hey." Flip, who had gone two years without any head bobbing, shiny, dark or otherwise, lifted herself on an elbow. "What about the imagining-yourself-in-your-favorite-book part? That's part of your advertisement for the massage, right?"

Madame K gave her a fish eye. "Indeed it is. Have you cleared your head?"

"Oh, yeah, absolutely."

"Very vell. There are two very important rules. You cannot imagine something that vould not naturally happen in the book. King Lear, for example, cannot fly a plane."

King Lear. Flip snorted. Like that's what she'd be imagining. "And?"

"And you cannot imagine the same book twice. Both rules observed or big trouble."

Flip waited. "That's it? That's the value-added favorite book service? You don't hypnotize me, or play the book on tape, or give me a crown and princess dress or anything?"

The woman slitted a frosted blue lid. "Our clients are very happy."

Well, this I could've done that in my own bed, Flip thought, and the only rule there would have been D-cells give out in about thirty minutes.

"Okay. Sure." Flip rested her head again.

The palms maintained their tireless efforts, bringing warm, healing heat to Flip's shoulders and neck. Her thoughts tried to drift to the sexy scene atop the bathroom vanity, but the tile marks, the steam, even the cool, hard marble under the hips of the heroine kept slipping away from her mind's eye, like sand through open fingers. She wondered for a long moment if Darcy had topaz eyes too then slowly drifted off.

An instant later--had she fallen asleep?--the scent had changed, from citrus to a heavy floral roses or honeysuckle. Yes, honeysuckle, that was it. Like my Grandma Thompson's powder room. God-awful.

Flip drew her eyes open, a momentous effort, to say as much to Madame K, and stopped, shocked.

The massage tables were gone. The room was gone. At least that room was gone. The room Flip found herself sitting alone in was easily eight times its size. And the quaint Georgian furniture of the massage studio was now enormous, expensive Georgian furniture. Brocade sofas as long as an Airstream. Curlique table legs. Impediment-topped sideboards, and silk-tasseled drawer pulls. She was resting on a chaise, her head inclined.

Oh, I get it. I'm dreaming. This must be the lobby of the hotel in the romance novel. Very Room With a View. Flip smiled. At the point she'd reached in the book, there hadn't been any scenes in the lobby, but, hey, she thought, one's sexual escapades had to start somewhere. But if this was Venice and Mr. Iron Knees was about to whisk her up to the bathroom, why was she feeling a strange niggle of unease?

She looked down, eager to see what sort of slinky outfit she'd provided herself for this dreamy adventure, only to discover her skirt covered her knees. In fact, her skirt reached to the floor. In fact, her skirt reached to the floor, and the bra she was wearing was so uncomfortable, it felt like she was wrapped in a picket fence.

God, I hope the hotel provides wire-cutters, she thought.

Flip grabbed an armload of the voluminous violet fabric and pulled it up before her eyes, examining the stiff satin and heavily beaded hem.

Cripes, no wonder I'm uneasy. I'm a freakin' bridesmaid!

She dropped the skirt and found herself looking straight into the embarrassed gaze of a bald servant in tails. Definitely not her Venice hero. Too curl-challenged.

He cleared his throat. "Lady Quillan?"

"Yes?" Flip answered.

Isn't it strange, she thought, how you automatically accept what happens in a dream: you're a one-legged avocado designer from Tunisia; the sky turns paisley at sunset; an English butler addresses you as Lady Quillan, and, boom, you're Lady Quillan. Weird.

"A messenger has arrived." He tilted his head toward the hall.

The words hit her like a bucket of ice. There was something in his tone, or perhaps it was the uncomfortable look on his face, that made all hope of an evening rendezvous disappear.

"He's been instructed to give the note to you directly, m'um."

"Thank you." Flip stood, feeling like a heavy weight had been dropped on her shoulders. Whoever she was, Lady Quillan was not looking forward to this message.

"You look unwell," the man said. "May I call for something?"

"A bathroom vanity?"

His forehead creased. "Bathroom?"

And then Flip saw it. Outside the room's intricately-paned window. A carriage and horses at the top of a long treed drive.

Oh, hell. There wasn't a bathroom vanity in the house because there wasn't even a damned bathroom. It was freakin' England, before freakin' plumbing! She was absolutely not paying anything extra for this massage.

"Nothing, Samuel."

Samuel, is it? Things were coming to her but in bits and pieces--and the oddest bits and pieces. She knew Samuel's name, just as she knew her right slipper was missing its second button, just as she knew this wasn't her house, just as she knew her hostess and her hostess's sister were in the room next door. But why this as-of-yet unseen note was making her feel like she'd taken a belly punch she didn't know.

Samuel bowed and gestured towards the door. Flip stepped tentatively into the cavernous hall. Tall and square and built to showcase the looming double-doored entrance, the hall housed a staircase that curved elegantly to the upper floor, a massive silver chandelier, and doors leading in every direction.

"There you are, Francie," a concerned voice said as she rounded the corner.

The man who had spoken was tall and expensively dressed, in an midnight blue coat, cream waistcoat and breeches, and gleaming black boots. Despite a disappointing lack of curls, his striking brown eyes, dark hair and strong patrician profile were oddly familiar. A footman stood next to him, holding a top hat and pair of riding gloves. Was the blue-coated man the owner of the carriage? The man accepted the items, but his eyes stayed on her.

"Has Jared arrived at last?" he asked.

"No," she said. "A messenger, it seems." Embarrassment throbbed in her like a fresh bruise. But why?

Samuel called, and a dusty-faced youth fiddling with a pouch emerged from a doorway. He scratched his nose unselfconsciously and extended the note. Flip accepted it with unsteady fingers.

The note was written in a neat, masculine hand.

"Clearly I have not made the supper. Nonetheless, I had thought I would be able to arrive in time to accompany you to Abbot House, but I find my business keeps me longer than I expected. Secure an invitation for the night from Louisa. I feel certain she would be pleased to keep you. I shall fetch you in the morning, and we can arrive at Abbot House as our servants do, which shall be more convenient in any case. -- Q"

Flip felt a black stone settle in her gut.

"Bad news?" the gentleman asked, oblivious to the footman who stood poised, waiting for the signal that would prompt him to open the double doors.

"No," she said. "Not at all."

Across from them, beyond another door, the sound of quiet female talk had been apparent for the past moments, but now, from the indistinct hum, a clear snippet rose. "Business, my foot," said a bemused woman's voice. "Quillan's with his whore in Stourton." Another woman tittered. "Ah, the poor, oblivious girl. Do you suppose she even knows?"

Flip stood rigid, drowning in the all-too-familiar waves of shame and humiliation. Husbands hadn't changed much in two hundred years.

The youth was the first to break the uncomfortable silence. "Is there a reply, m'um?"

"No." Her voice was barely a whisper.

The gentleman pulled a coin from his pocket and placed it in the hand of the boy, who immediately trotted to the back of the house.

Interpreting this as closure, the footman placed his hand on the knob.

"Sir, your phaeton--" Samuel began, but received an unspoken signal from the phaeton's owner and stopped.

The hall was silent now, save the pounding in Flip's ears.

"Has Jared been held up?" The gentleman held his tone even, as if he hadn't heard the women, giving Flip every opportunity to collect herself, though it was clear from the mild disgust in his eyes the women were not people whose claim on him was strong.

"Yes." Flip folded the note carefully. "My husband will not be arriving until tomorrow. I-I must ask Louisa if I might stay. I am a bit of trouble," she added with forced laugh. "I'm sure Louisa didn't expect a simple supper invitation to stretch into an overnight stay."

"Is there anyone else in Wiltshire to whom you owe a visit?" the man asked carefully. "A cousin, perhaps? You have so many. I should be happy to drive you anywhere you'd like to go."

The footman waited, motionless.

"No," she said. "No one." Wiltshire felt like a vast, lonely place.

The man nodded, understanding. There was no more to be said. He placed his top hat on his head and bowed a regretful good-bye. The footman clicked his heels and opened the door

Flip gathered her skirts, full of dread. Sadly, it looked as if the only person on his knees tonight would be her, deep in humiliation, asking the Wicked Witch of the Wiltshire for an extra bed.

She took a deep breath and entered the room, where the women were seated at a table playing cards. The first was reed-thin and brunette, too recessive to be the owner of this home. The other was horsy, plump and blonde. That one, Flip knew, was Louisa. Though her face bore the mask of polite concern, Louisa's eyes were lit with the spark of recently-shared amusement.

"Oh, Lady Quillan, you look hardly more rested than when you laid down. Pray, do not fear. I was just saying to Caroline I'm sure your husband is merely detained and--"

"I have heard from my husband," Flip said. "And I shall have to beg your indulgence. It seems--"

"It seems," interrupted the blue-coated gentleman who had appeared unnoticed at Flip's side, "my phaeton shall require an extra cushion, Louisa. My old friend Lord Quillan sent his man just now to ask me to give her ladyship a ride to Abbot House."

The man pressed his elbow very lightly against Flip's, a gesture invisible to their hosts.

"Abbot House," he went on, "is quite close to my destination, after all, and Quillan has arrived in Wiltshire more tired than he expected."

"Quillan is in Wiltshire?" Louisa repeated, unbelieving. "At Abbot House?"

The gentleman's eyes flashed cold, hard iron. "Without a doubt."

For a moment, the women sat silent under his chilly gaze then Caroline broke into a coquettish giggle. "Oh, Darcy, will you be always the knight who rescues the fair maiden?"

Darcy?! Flip's gaze shot to her savior, and her knees began to buckle.