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  In Want of a Wife

  Pemberley House, Book One

  Noelle Adams

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Noelle Adams. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About In Want of a Wife

  About the Series

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from If I Loved You Less

  About Noelle Adams

  About In Want of a Wife

  HE CALLS HER THE ANNOYING One.

  Liz overheard him say it to his friend, and that's just fine. She doesn't like him anyway. Vince Darcy is cold, arrogant, and detached from genuine feelings, and he's become her closest rival in the local antiques market. He might be her new neighbor, and Liz's sister might be falling for his best friend, but that doesn't mean Liz cares what Vince thinks of her.

  Yes, he's hot. Very hot. Way too hot. It's another one of his infuriating characteristics. She's having trouble resisting his hotness, so she might consider a casual fling with him—as long as they keep it a secret and it doesn't become complicated.

  But she isn't going to like him. He thinks she's The Annoying One. She can't fall for a man after that.

  Pemberley House is a series of modern reimaginings of Jane Austen novels, and the books are set in a historic mansion in Virginia that has been converted into condos. In Want of a Wife is loosely inspired by Pride and Prejudice.

  About the Series

  EACH BOOK IN THE PEMBERLEY House series is inspired by a particular Jane Austen novel, but the books aren’t not Austen retellings. They are original contemporary romance novels featuring characters with (mostly) modern sensibility—including language and ideas about sex. I want to be clear about that from the beginning so you aren’t surprised or disappointed as you read.

  You will find echoes of Austen’s characters and pivotal plot moments in these books, but most of the themes, secondary characters, and scenes from the Jane Austen’s novels do not appear in the Pemberley House series. There have been wonderful true retellings of Austen written in the past twenty years, but these are not those books. The most you will find here are echoes and reflections.

  I haven’t kept the main characters’ names the same as an indication of this fact. Either of the first name or the last name of the main characters are different. And some of my characters take the place of more than one of Austen’s characters. (Riot Berkley, for instance, is acting for at least three of Austen’s characters in three different books.) Some of Austen’s characters don’t appear in my books at all. And Austen’s themes are not my themes—with very few exceptions. But if you love Austen, I hope you’ll find some fun echoes and reflections in the Pemberley House series and enjoy these books for what they are.

  One

  LIZ BERKLEY WOKE UP at five on a Thursday morning so that she could be first in line at an estate sale, but someone had beaten her to it.

  Her first clue was the shiny gray SUV already parked on the grass beside the long driveway. After pulling her own small, inexpensive sedan beside it, she encountered her second clue—the figure of a man on the front porch near the door.

  She scowled.

  She’d gotten up before dawn to be first in line. She’d been going to estate sales for her family’s antiques business for seven years now—ever since she’d been eighteen years old. She knew that arriving at a sale of this size and quality at six in the morning always allowed her to be first in line.

  What the hell was that man doing here?

  He better not be trying for her Brandt paintings.

  Since the oil paintings were the only items of real value at this sale—at least as far as could be discerned from the listing—it was likely that he was after the paintings.

  And he’d gotten here first.

  The man didn’t turn around as she approached the house. He made no sign that he’d even heard her. He was staring down at his phone, tapping out a message. He was significantly overdressed for an estate sale. Well-tailored trousers and an Oxford in a small gray-and-white-checked fabric. It was tucked in perfectly and unwrinkled, despite the early hour. His clothes and shoes and car were obviously expensive.

  She scowled again at his back.

  She’d barely formed the expression when he turned around, and she had to do some quick rearrangement of her facial muscles. “Good morning!” she said brightly, giving him a smile that was as sincere as she could muster.

  It wasn’t his fault that she had an overly competitive nature and a constant, low-level anxiety about the financial struggles of her family’s business. She’d still be in the first group of numbers to be admitted into the house. The company handling this sale was solid, but they always priced original paintings too low, so this was her best chance of getting her hands on Brandt paintings at a price low enough for successful resale. She could get to the paintings before him. She wasn’t going to hold it against him that he’d somehow arrived first.

  The man’s eyes made a quick route from her face and down her body. She was dressed casually in jean capris and a cute top and cardigan. He wouldn’t be able to tell that every piece she wore had been bought on clearance. She couldn’t tell from his expression whether he liked how she looked.

  “Good morning,” he said. He didn’t return her smile.

  Fighting a prickle of annoyance at his unfriendly expression, she kept her voice cheerful. “You got out here early.”

  “So did you.”

  With the same sober expression, the man scrawled a number on the top sheet of a pad of sticky notes and handed the note to her.

  Two.

  She was Number Two.

  She was used to being Number One.

  The man clearly knew what he was doing since he’d brought the pad of sticky notes. She had one in her small purse since she was normally the one to pass out street numbers.

  “I haven’t seen you around before,” she said, trying once again to be friendly. Since they were going to be standing here for a couple of hours, they might as well chat.

  “No.”

  Her attempt not to scowl again—right in his face—made her jaw sore. A normal person would have added a little more to the conversation, given her something to respond to.

  She wanted to know who this guy was and what he was doing here.

  He appeared to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He had steel-gray eyes, high cheekbones, and a strong chiseled jaw. He was about five inches taller than Liz’s five seven, and he had a straight posture and a very fine pair of shoulders.

  He was one of the best-looking men she had ever seen.

  That recognition and the bone-deep attraction that came with it vied with exasperation in her mind. It wasn’t clear which would predominate.

  She waited, but he didn’t say anything else. Annoyance was quickly subsuming her visceral appreciation of his appearance.

  “I’m Liz,” she said with a smile, holding her hand out to him. She was going to make him follow the basics of civility whether he wanted to or not.

  He slowly reached out and shook her hand, his eyes observing her with a quiet scrutiny she didn’t understand. His hand was big and warm.

  Her eyes widened as she waited several
seconds and wondered if he was actually refusing to return the introduction.

  Then finally he said, “Vince,” just before he dropped his hand.

  Vince.

  She was hit by another wave of attraction as his eyes held hers. The man was way too good-looking. It wasn’t entirely fair. That kind of sexiness could be a weapon when left in the wrong hands.

  “Do you go to estate sales a lot?” she asked, trying to think of a natural topic of conversation instead of standing there drooling over him.

  “Not if I can help it.” His tone was dry. Just shy of bitter.

  “If you don’t like them, why get up so early to come to this one?”

  The question was perhaps a little pushy, but it was still well within the bounds of politeness. She really wanted an answer because this man was a frustrating enigma.

  He responded only with a one-shouldered shrug.

  Her lip curled up before she could stop it, and she looked down at the sticky note in her hand to hide the expression. Could Vince be any less friendly?

  She was a nice, outgoing person. Other people usually liked her and talked to her easily. And yet trying to make conversation with this man was like pulling teeth—painful and achingly slow.

  The Number Two written on the sticky note taunted her.

  She couldn’t believe he’d beat her out here this morning. Her sister, Jane, always told her she was too competitive for her own good. That life wasn’t a race. That living like it was would only lead to needless frustration.

  She knew Jane was right, and she did (at times) try to work on it. Relax. Let go of her tight hold on the world. Mind her own business and let the universe do what it wanted. Gripping it so tightly wouldn’t necessarily keep it from falling apart.

  But the knowledge that a man as rude as Vince had beaten her this morning grated on her anyway. As she stared down at the scrawled number, she mentally planned her attack once she entered the house. She’d been to many estate sales organized by this company, so she knew how this one would be handled. At seven, someone from the company would arrive to take over the numbers, so she could leave the line then—go back to her car or walk around. At exactly eight, the first ten numbers would be allowed into the house as the first group. Vince would go in first, but she’d studied the layout of the house. She could get around him in the entryway and go straight to the dining room where one of the Brandt paintings was hanging on the wall.

  The paintings were small, so she could just pick it up instead of waiting for a staff member to mark it as sold. Then she’d head straight up the stairs to the master bedroom where the other painting was located.

  She could get to both of them while everyone else was milling around getting their bearings.

  Vince might have gotten here first, but he wasn’t going to get her paintings. They were done by Felix Brandt, a well-known local artist, and they were a rare find. They might look like normal landscapes, but their popularity was increasing, and Brandt had stopped painting about twenty years ago. He didn’t have long left to live. As mercenary as it sounded, his death would at least double the value of the paintings.

  Berkley’s Antiques had been existing on the verge of bankruptcy for years now. Her family needed those paintings.

  She just had to beat Vince to them.

  When she looked up at him, he was watching her again, and there was a slight glint in the charcoal gray of his eyes.

  Like he knew how she was feeling. Like it amused him that he’d won the first round of their unspoken competition.

  She stewed inwardly while she gave him an overly sweet smile with a challenge just under the surface—the one her friend Em always called her Blair Waldorf smile.

  Vince could laugh now.

  But he wasn’t going to get her paintings.

  TWO HOURS LATER, LIZ had to push through a crowd of about thirty people so she could get back to the front to be let in with the first group. While she’d been waiting at the door, she’d mostly played on her phone since Vince was obviously not going to be friendly. When the staff member from the liquidation company had arrived, she’d gone to walk around the yard and stretch her legs and then sit in her car to talk to Jane on the phone.

  It was almost eight now. They’d be let into the house soon.

  She had her plan of attack plotted and replotted in her mind.

  She was ready.

  She gave a cheerful greeting to Chad, who was handing out numbers and manning the door. She knew him from many estate sales in the past. She showed him her sticky note with the number two written on it and took her place behind Vince, who was idly scrolling through something on his phone.

  As if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  As if it didn’t matter to him whether he acquired the Brandt paintings or anything else.

  It mattered to Liz.

  This was her job. She’d worked with her father all through college, and then after she’d graduated four years ago, she’d taken on a lot of the buying for her family’s large antiques business in Abingdon, Virginia. She loved going to flea markets and searching out treasures. She also loved attending auctions and strategizing to get the best price on the most valuable items.

  Estate sales were different, but she was good at them too.

  Her grandfather had opened Berkley’s Antiques sixty-five years ago, and the store had been a success and supported his family for decades. When her father took over at her grandfather’s death, things should have continued in the same manner since antiques were thriving in this area.

  But her father had married her mother. Liz’s mother had a good heart, but she had no head for business and was a profligate spender. She’d decided she wanted to “help” with the business, and she’d almost run it into the ground.

  It was only two years ago that her father had admitted to Liz how dangerously close to bankruptcy they were. They’d even explored the possibility of a merger with Darcy’s, the most successful of their rivals in the Abingdon antiques market. But Darcy’s had refused to let them keep their own name on the store—even though the Berkley name had been established for sixty-five years and the Darcy name only ten. Her parents refused to sign a contract that would remove the Berkley name, no matter how the deal would have saved them financially.

  So Liz was constantly scrambling to acquire pieces that would turn a good profit so she could help dig her family out of the hole. And Jane had spent months of work and effort in improving the store’s website and adding online listings on eBay, Etsy, and Amazon Marketplace. Now more than half their purchases were online. Between Jane and Liz, they’d managed to salvage the business, but it was still always teetering on the brink.

  Liz couldn’t relax. There was too much at stake.

  This was more than a job to her. It was her duty. Her family.

  And Vince beating her here this morning wasn’t going to keep her from what she needed to do.

  He didn’t put down his phone until the very last moment, right as Chad was opening the door to admit the first ten people into the house.

  The entryway was wide, so Liz tried to get around Vince to head to the dining room, but she quickly realized that he was moving in that direction too. His long legs made fast strides down the hall.

  He was walking, but she had to speed up to a run to reach his side as they entered the dining room.

  That room was almost entirely filled with a huge dining table and ten big chairs—made to look impressive but only knockoffs that weren’t worth very much. Since there was so little walking space left in the room, Liz was able to block Vince’s access to the most direct route to the painting. He had to go around to the other side of the table to reach the Brandt, which was hanging on the wall above a brick fireplace.

  Liz moved fast, but Vince’s legs were a lot longer than hers. As soon as he accelerated to a run, she knew he was going to beat her, despite having a slightly longer distance to cover.

  He did beat her.

  He got to th
e painting she wanted first.

  Their eyes met across the few feet of distance. Both of them were breathing heavily. Liz was hot and frustrated and angry and ridiculously attracted to him.

  And he was gloating. Gloating.

  Not smiling. He never did that. But that glint appeared in his eyes again, the one that proved he was pleased he’d come out ahead.

  As if this was a game to him and not her family’s well-being.

  All this took place within a couple of seconds, but Liz was nothing if not a fast thinker.

  As soon as Vince’s hand closed down around the carved frame of the painting, she turned on her heel and started moving out of the room.

  If he was going to get this painting, she was going to get the other one.

  He was obviously faster than her, but he was slowed down by summoning a staff member over to the first painting so it would be marked as sold.

  There was someone in the room, so it didn’t take long, but it gave Liz a decent head start.

  She would have easily gotten to the other Brandt upstairs well before Vince had she not been delayed by an elderly couple making their way up the stairs side by side.

  Liz couldn’t get around them, and she was far too nice a person to just push through between them even if it meant Vince would catch up.

  He did catch up.

  He was right on her heels when the couple finally made it to the second floor.

  In the moment before she took the last step up, Liz saw Farrah, a middle-aged woman who worked for the liquidation company, loitering in the hallway. Liz had known Farrah since she was a little girl and had attended estate sales with her father.

  She caught Farrah’s eye and inclined her head slightly toward Vince behind her.

  Farrah knew what she meant.

  When Liz was clear of the older couple, she took off at a dead run toward the master bedroom. Vince was right beside her, and in normal circumstances he’d have outpaced her. But Farrah casually moved directly into his path, nearly causing a collision.