The Accidental Countess (23 page)

“Upton wasn’t certain where he was going, but he thinks that it has something to do with Derek.”

“It does. Julian told me. Well, he told Patience. He said his brother and Captain Cavendish are missing in France. Derek’s looking for them now.”

“I do hope they are all careful,” Jane replied.

“What else did Garrett say?” Cass asked.

Jane winced. “He said he tried to warn you on the last night of the party that your parents were coming. He said you wouldn’t listen. Is that true?”

Cass nodded. “Yes.” More blasted tears burned the backs of her eyes. She resolutely shook them away. She couldn’t cry over this. It was all her own doing. “Did Garrett say anything else?”

“Yes, he said, ‘Please go back to your old ways, Miss Lowndes. I don’t know how to be in your company without your constant barrage of insults. It’s quite dull, really. Not to mention unsettling.’”

That actually brought a smile to Cass’s face momentarily.

“Ah, see there! I got you to smile,” Jane announced. “You should have seen it when I was forced to admit to Captain Swift that I am not only
not
named Miss Wollstonecraft, I am, in fact, no relation to the family.” Jane sighed.

Cass reached out and patted Jane’s hand. “You’re such a good friend, Janie. I’m lucky to have you.”

“Yes, well, our other good friend is eagerly anticipating my reply to her last letter. She’d very much like to speak with you.”

Cass pressed her lips together. “No. I refuse to see Lucy. She’s the cause of all of this. If we’d just simply told the truth and allowed Pen and Julian to see each other that first day, they would have broken their engagement and Julian wouldn’t hate me right now.”

“I know it’s difficult for you,” Jane said. “But Lucy really did think she was helping. Her heart was in the right place. It always is. You know that.”

Cass clenched her jaw. “I cannot even look at her.”

“All right. All right. I’ll tell her.”

Cass sniffed. “Thank you, Janie.”

“For what it’s worth, I do think she feels awfully sorry,” Jane replied.

Cass groaned and rolled over, hugging the pillow to her chest. “Oh, Janie, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Jane stroked her hair. “Let’s begin by you telling me where you’d like to be. We can go to Brighton or Bath. I’ll travel with you. We’ll make it a holiday.”

Cass took a deep breath. “I want to go back to London.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Julian finished writing the letter to Wellington. He folded it, sanded it, and sealed it. Then he pushed the missive across the desk away from him and leaned back in his chair. He was staying at Donald’s town house again, a place he truly didn’t belong. He glanced around the room, his brother’s study. Sparse, clean, functional, just like Donald.

Donald had been the perfect eldest son. The only son their father had ever wanted. And now Donald was missing.

Julian stood, walked over to the sideboard, and poured himself a drink. He downed it in one long gulp and poured another.

Warmth began to spread through his limbs, but no amount of alcohol would ever erase the memory of the screams of pain on the battlefield, some of which had been his own.

He took the second drink back to the desk and sat down again. A bit of it sloshed onto his hand. He cursed.

When he’d returned to London from the house party, his first order of business had been finding Penelope’s parents and telling them that he did not intend to marry their daughter. Mr. Monroe had been quite reasonable, actually. Apparently, Penelope had already explained the entire situation to them. They didn’t want their daughter to be unhappy any more than they wanted Julian to be unhappy. Penelope’s parents both wished him well and told him how thankful they were that he’d returned from the war. They inquired after his mother’s health as well as Daphne’s. The entire experience had not been unpleasant. At least something had gone right after that disaster in Surrey.

Julian’s next order of business should have been finding Cassie, but of course his plans there had drastically changed. He couldn’t even think about her. Not after what she’d done. All he cared about now was finding Donald and Rafe.

He grabbed an opened letter from the desktop. He’d received it from Derek today. Julian’s eyes scanned the page for the tenth time. It said the Hunt brothers had followed the trail they’d found when they originally arrived and had a good two more days to travel before they arrived at the location where Donald and Rafe had last been seen. If Donald and Rafe, were, in fact, the two Englishmen their informants had seen. It was all a gamble, but it was the only hope they had.

Julian took another drink. If Donald and Rafe were there, Derek would find them. There could be no one better to look for them, not even himself though he hated to admit it. He’d written that letter to Wellington, asking to join them, not because he didn’t trust his friends to do the job, but because he bloody well couldn’t sit here in a London town house and do nothing while his brother and his friend were missing and his other friends were on their trail. And the truth was, he intended to go after them with or without Wellington’s approval. He’d prefer the former but as soon as he got his answer, he’d be off, one way or the other, unless Derek had already returned with news.

Yes, Julian wanted to go to find them, but if he were being truly honest with himself—and the brandy made him honest, damn it—he’d admit that he didn’t want to stay in London because he’d be tempted to go see Cassie. The farther he got from her, the safer he would be.

When she’d apologized to him on the terrace, he’d been tempted, so damn tempted, to demand that she tell him who the hell she was in love with. She’d been remorseful the last time he saw her, with tears in her eyes. But her excuses made no sense. Part of the reason he’d left was because he couldn’t stand to look at her, her ethereal beauty, her perfection, and know that he could never have her, not the way he wanted her.

Why had she allowed him to kiss her? Was she so evil that she thought it was a funny game? “I’m your friend Cassandra,” she’d said. Some friend, a liar. The Cassandra he knew wasn’t a liar.

And for one moment, one awful, perfect, wonderful, hideous moment when he’d been standing in that foyer with all those people listening to the words coming out of their mouths, he’d realized that the woman he’d lusted after so unmercifully and the woman he’d cared about for so long were in fact the same human being. It had been an exquisite torture, one that ripped his heart from his chest as he’d realized that he could never have her. Patience might have wanted him, but according to Hunt, Cass wanted someone else. And even if she didn’t, it didn’t matter because she was a liar, an actress, someone who couldn’t be trusted.

Damn it. Who was the man she was in love with? Julian shouldn’t care, but he did. He took another drink. By God, he’d rip the blighter limb from bloody limb when he found out his identity. No, he wouldn’t. But he wanted to. God, he wanted to. Was it Upton? Upton had played along, hadn’t he? Had they been laughing at Julian behind his back during the house party? Had they all been? Upton and Jane Lowndes and Lucy? Even Owen had somehow not deemed it fit to mention to him that his sister was trotting around a house party claiming to be someone she was not. What the hell was the matter with the lot of them?

Julian tossed the contents of his glass down his throat and made his way unerringly back to the sideboard to get another.

*   *   *

When the Duchess of Claringdon was ushered into his brother’s study hours later, Julian wasn’t entirely certain what day it was anymore. The brandy had accomplished its purpose.

“Thank you for seeing me, Captain Swift,” the duchess said.

Julian bowed to her and nearly toppled over. “My pleasure, Your Grace, for it is not every day a true duchess visits me.”

Lucy Hunt smiled a little. Her unusually colored eyes flashed.

“May I offer you a drink, Your Grace?” he continued, sweeping an arm wide toward the sideboard.

“No, thank you, Captain.”

“More for me then,” he said. Blast. Had he just hiccupped? Bad form. “Tell me, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Pleasure might have come out a bit more like
pleather,
but no matter. She knew what he meant. He stumbled over to the sideboard and splashed the last of the brandy into his glass. Bloody hell. The bottle was empty. He tipped it upside down and shook it, then tossed the empty bottle into the air. He tried to catch it but missed. It thudded on the carpet and rolled under the sideboard. Julian kicked it into the corner and continued back to the sofa where the duchess was getting settled.

“I came to apologize,” she said softly. “And to give you this.” She pulled a letter from her reticule.

“Apologize for what?” Julian tried to focus his gaze on the duchess. At the moment there appeared to be two of her sitting there, weaving back and forth in a foggy haze like little duchess twins. “It is I who must apologize to you, Your Grace, for I am deeply in my cups.”

A small smile twitched across her lips. “Not to worry, Captain. I completely understand. I should have warned you I was coming, but I came to apologize for my part in the duplicity played upon you at the house party. I was not certain you would see me.”

“I wouldn’t turn away my closest friend’s wife.”

“I see that I was worried needlessly.” She glanced down at the letter in her hand. “But I’ve come to tell you something.”

He clenched his jaw. “If it’s an excuse for Cassie, I’d rather not hear it.”

The duchess leaned forward on the sofa and spoke rapidly and earnestly. “You must listen. The entire thing was all my idea, truly. Though Cass insists you won’t believe me telling you that, it’s true. I swear it.”

He pointed a shaky finger in the air. “With all due respect, Your Grace,” pronounced
grath,
“even if it is true and it was entirely your idea,
you
were not my friend, a person whom I’d known for years and traded countless letters with. Your lying to me was far different from Cassandra lying to me.”

“I completely understand, Captain,” the duchess replied. “I do hope you’ll believe it was all my idea, however. I am known for my schemes, as I’m certain my husband will tell you when next you meet. However, be that as it may, I can only hope you’ll reconsider your feelings for Cass and that you’ll—”

“That I’ll what?” He took another drink and nearly missed his mouth.

“That you’ll read this,” she finished, offering him the letter.

He snatched the letter from her outstretched hand. “What is it?”

“It’s from Cass.”

Julian tossed the letter onto the couch where it slipped between the cushions. “Bah. I already spoke to her. I don’t need any more of her excuses or her apologies.”

“No. It’s something far, far different, Captain Swift. Cass wrote it months ago when she thought you were dying.”

He closed one eye, the two duchesses appearing more like one that way. “And she asked you to bring it to me now?”

“No. Quite the contrary. She’d have my head if she knew I’d brought it to you.”

“If she didn’t ask you to bring it, how did you get it?”

The duchess took a deep breath. “She had it with her at the house party. She brings all her letters from you with her. It was in the same box. I sneaked into her room. I know I shouldn’t have, but I truly think … Read the letter, Captain. Please.”

He narrowed his eyes on her. “If you think Cassandra will be displeased that you brought it to me, then why have you?”

“Because I think it will make a difference. And I think it’s important. And”—she sighed—“the truth is that Cass already wants my head so I’m not risking much in coming here.” She smiled a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

The duchess stood and smoothed her skirts. “I’ll leave you, Captain. I hope you’ll read the letter.”

Julian stood, too, and watched the duchess go in a blurry haze. “Read the letter,” he mumbled. “No more excuses.”

And then he fell face-first onto the sofa.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

When Julian awoke the next morning, he was in his bed at Donald’s house and the devil was playing the drums in his skull. He sat up slowly and cautiously reached for the bellpull.

The butler arrived in a matter of moments.

“I beg you, Pengree, bring me something for my head,” Julian said.

“Right away, my lord,” Pengree replied, swiveling on his heel and leaving the room.

Julian braced his hands against his temples and squeezed. God, why had he drunk so much brandy? He’d been an untried youth the last time he’d got so out of control with drink. Bad. Bad. Form.

The barest hint of a memory formed in his brain. Last night. The study. The brandy. The duchess. By God, Derek’s little dark-haired duchess had stopped by to visit him and blast it if he couldn’t remember a word that she’d said. Surely, there’d been some reason she’d come. He barely recalled trying to make out her face in the blurry haze of two bright-eyed young women who sat wavering on his sofa.

Bloody hell. It hurt to try to remember. No doubt she’d come with more excuses and lies. Or to try to tell him that Cassandra was not to blame. Rubbish, all of it. By God, he— He groaned. He’d moved his head far too quickly.

He remembered a bit about what he’d done last night, mostly ruminated about Cassie and her penchant for lying. And hadn’t she played her bloody role to perfection? Even going so far as to pretend she didn’t know he had a brother or a sister. Asking if they were close. It was sickening. Cassie knew damn well that he and Donald had never been close.

Pengree came hurrying back into the room with a concoction that Julian’s friend Devon Morgan, the Marquis of Colton, had invented years ago when they were young men about town. It was green, it was hideous, and it worked like bloody magic. Donald had used it, too, upon occasion, and his butler obviously knew the recipe. Julian took the glass from the silver tray and stared at the vile liquid. Then he downed it in one awful gulp.

He breathed deeply, trying not to choke. “Pengree?” he finally said.