The Accidental Countess (22 page)

“Yes, where is Cassandra? Bring her here this instant,” her father added.

Lucy kept glancing around nervously. “If you’d all just come into the drawing room, I’ll be happy to fetch Cass and we can all discuss this like civilized adults and—”

“Cassandra? Cassandra is here?”

Cass closed her eyes slowly and swallowed. She couldn’t see the person who’d just said those words but she knew him just the same.

Julian.

Julian strode forward then. Apparently he’d happened upon the scene in the foyer just as she had.

“Who are
you
?” Cass’s mother demanded of Julian.

“Why, Auntie, don’t you remember him? That is Captain Swift,” Penelope offered.

Cass’s mother’s eyes went wide. “Captain Swift?”

“Captain Swift?” her father echoed.

“At your service,” Julian said, bowing to them. “I haven’t seen either of you in quite a long time. I don’t blame you for not remembering me, Lord Moreland, Lady Moreland.”

Cass’s mother continued to eye him up and down before turning back to Lucy. “I want Cass here this instant,” she demanded.

Jane and Garrett were obviously attempting to assist Lucy in herding the little group into the nearby drawing room. Unfortunately, they were having as much luck as Lucy was. “I told you, Lady Moreland. I’ll be quite happy to go get Cass just as soon as you—”

Cass’s mother narrowed her eyes on Lucy and pointed her finger at her. “I don’t care if you are a duchess now,
Your Grace.
” She sneered the honorific. “I will not have you leading my daughter down the primrose path with you. All this time I’d been under the impression that the two of you were at a house party together until my niece here came to my home yesterday after her carriage broke down nearby and informed me that you were both here, only a few miles away.”

Julian’s head swiveled toward Lucy. “Your Grace?”

Jane and Garrett groaned.

Penelope looked as she did when they were children and she’d tried to solve a particularly difficult maths equation, a cross between pure confusion and a bit of nausea.

Cass’s parents both stared at Julian as if he’d lost his mind.

“Surely you recognize your hostess, the Duchess of Claringdon? Though I daresay she brings the title down a bit,” Lady Moreland said.

Lucy winced and turned her head sharply to the side as if she’d been slapped.

That was it. Cass marched down the stairs. She’d been a coward for far too long. She couldn’t allow Lucy to be treated with such disrespect by her parents, devil take the consequences.

“Mother!”

All pairs of eyes turned to look up at her.

“Mother?” Julian echoed the word, looking back and forth between Cass and her mother.

Cass marched down the stairs and made her way to the center of the group. “I will not allow you to speak to my friend so indecorously in her own home.” Cass put her hands on her hips and glared at her mother.

“It’s all right, Cass—” Lucy began, reaching out as if to soothe her.

Cass brushed her friend’s hand away. “No. It’s not all right. They’ve had weeks to get used to the fact that you married Derek and I didn’t, and it’s high time they began treating you with the respect due your title.”

She knew that with each word, she was revealing herself to Julian. And she was still being a coward because this way, this way might be like quickly ripping a bandage from a wound, but everything would be out. Everything would be obvious.

She couldn’t look at Julian but she could feel his gaze on her, watching her, piecing everything together.

“You demand that I treat this little baggage with respect?” her mother said in a voice that clearly indicated how shocked she was that Cass was standing up to her.

“Yes, and if the duke were here, he’d toss you out for being so impertinent to his bride.”

“Yes, I’m about to toss you out as well,” Garrett added.

Cass’s mother opened her mouth to speak again but Julian intervened. He turned to Lucy. “Wait a moment. Am I to understand from this bit of conversation that you are, in fact, Lucy Hunt, the Duchess of Claringdon? Derek’s wife?”

Jane and Garrett winced.

This time Penelope piped up. “Of course she is, Captain Swift. Who did you think she was? You’ve been staying at her house for the last week.”

Julian narrowed his eyes on Lucy, who had the grace to look apologetic. “I thought her name was Lady Worthing.” He continued to watch Lucy, but he addressed his remarks to the others.

“I sort of … invented that title,” Lucy offered, biting her lip. Oh, this was not good. Lucy never bit her lip.

Julian quickly snapped his head to the side to confront Cass. “And you? You’re not Patience Bunbury, are you?”

Penelope’s mouth dropped straight open. “What nonsense are you talking about? That’s my cousin Cass. She’s been writing to you for years. Don’t you remember her?”

Tears burned the backs of Cass’s eyes but she held them in. She didn’t have the right to cry. She didn’t have the right to do anything, anything other than stand here and let Julian realize the truth. And hate her for it.

He searched her face. His eyes scoured her body from head to toe. For an aching moment, she felt his pain, his shock, his … anger. “Cassandra?” he whispered brokenly. “You’re Cassandra?”

“Wait a moment, did she tell you she’s Patience?” Penelope demanded.

Julian didn’t take his eyes from Cass. “Yes.” The one word echoed across the foyer, bouncing off the marble columns and slapping Cass across the face.

“Who in heaven’s name is Patience Bunbury?” Cass’s mother demanded next.

Penelope plunked her hands on her hips. “She’s my very close friend who does not exist.”

A cacophony ensued then. All of the occupants of the foyer began shouting out questions and explanations and more questions. It escalated to a thunderous boil while Cass and Julian just stared at each other, silently. Cass’s chest ached. She couldn’t breathe and she desperately fought against the tears in her eyes. Julian watched her with a look that could only be described as … disgust.

And she couldn’t blame him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Two hours later, Julian was standing on the terrace, his hands in his pockets, his shoulder propped against a large marble column, staring out into the gardens.

He sensed rather than saw Cass’s approach. Then, he watched her advance out of the corner of his eye. She walked toward him slowly, quietly, deliberately.

He finally turned to face her. She was so pretty, so heartbreakingly beautiful. Cassandra. Cassie. The woman he’d been wondering about, the woman he’d been dreaming about. She and the ethereal Patience Bunbury were one and the same? It had been all he could think about for the last two hours, but still, he could hardly credit it.

He narrowed his eyes on her face. He was a fool. How could he have not known? Not guessed? She had Cassie’s same flaxen hair. Cassie’s same cornflower-blue eyes. He even saw Cassie in the tug of her smile and the tiny dimple that appeared. How in the hell had he not noticed that? Very well. It was true that Cassandra looked little like she had seven years ago, but still, she was there, inside this swanlike beauty. She was there. His gut wrenched. She was there and she had been lying to him this entire time.

She stopped a few paces away from him. She pressed her lips together and swallowed. “I know I cannot offer any explanation that will make this right,” she began. “But I wanted to … face you. And say”—she hung her head—“I’m sorry.”

Julian looked up, squinted at her, and then went back to staring off into the gardens. “I have only one question.”

She was fighting back tears. He’d seen it in the way she’d been blinking too rapidly, swallowing too often. He didn’t want to care. If he didn’t look at her, he wouldn’t.

“Yes,” she murmured.

“Why?” he asked through clenched teeth.

She reached for him but quickly snatched her hand away. Good thing. He wouldn’t allow her to touch him. Instead, she wrapped her arms around her middle and spoke quietly. “Oh, Julian. I could try and explain it all to you. But it’s just as inexplicable as I’m certain you’ve already guessed. If I told you why, it would merely sound as if I’m trying to blame Pen and she doesn’t deserve the blame.”

He pressed his lips together tightly. Cassie wasn’t even going to do him the honor of explaining why she had lied to him. “I can’t understand why you would lie about who you are, to me.”

Cassandra blinked up into the blue sky, tears slipping down her cheeks. She was obviously losing the battle not to cry. “I’m sorry, Julian. So sorry. I just wanted to … spend time with you.”

“And you couldn’t do that as Cassandra?” he said, an incredulous look on his face.

She swallowed again. “No,” she whispered brokenly.

He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “What about all the letters, the friendship we shared? Did that mean nothing to you that you could lie to me this way?”

She swiped at her tears with the back of her hand. “I cannot explain myself. I only know that it made a little bit of sense to me at the time and … Oh, Julian, I’d do anything to take it back, to make it so that—”

He put up a hand. “Don’t. Just don’t.”

“You didn’t recognize me when we first met.”

He closed his eyes briefly. “So it’s my fault?”

“No. No. Not at all.” She paced forward, then turned to face him. The tears flowed freely down her face now.

He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. She took it with a small smile and a grateful sniff. “Always the gentleman,” she murmured. “The perfect gentleman.”

“I wasn’t last night. When I kissed you … or Patience … or whoever you are. But I interrupted you. You were saying?”

Cassie took a deep breath. “I just couldn’t believe you didn’t know me and then Lucy told you I was Patience and … you have to know Lucy. She’s— I’m a complete fool. I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”

“You let me kiss you, thinking you were another woman. That’s completely—”

“Wrong?”

He groaned and scrubbed his hands through his hair again. “Among many other things.”

“Julian, I know it seems mad and inexplicable, but you have to believe that I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never meant for it to go this far. I wanted to tell you a dozen times. Everything I wrote in those letters, all of it, was true. That’s me. I’m your friend Cassandra. Don’t you remember me?” She grabbed his hand then and held it to her heart.

He closed his eyes. Her fingers were cold but her chest was warm. A tingle went up his arm. But he fought it. He mentally smashed his physical reaction to her. “I knew Cassandra from her letters.” He yanked his hand from her grasp. “You’re not Cassandra. I don’t know who
you
are.”

He turned on his heel and walked away.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“Won’t you eat something?” Jane rubbed Cass’s back. She gestured toward the tureen of soup the maid had brought up to Cass’s bedchamber on a silver bed tray.

“I’m not hungry,” Cass choked out. She was lying on her bed, wearing her white linen night rail, stoically staring at the wall in front of her. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t cry anymore. Instead, she’d been silent. Silent and resigned, and that probably scared Jane more than if she’d been sobbing her eyes out.

“You’ve been like this for days,” Jane said, worry laced through her voice. “You must eat something.”

Cass pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. Yes. She’d been like this for four long days. Silent and inconsolable. The house party had quickly disbanded after the incident in the foyer. After Julian had left her on the terrace, she’d gone up to her rooms and asked Maria to quickly pack her bags. She’d traveled to her parents’ estate and taken Jane with her. She hadn’t so much as said good-bye to Lucy.

Lucy. Cass was filled with anger every time she thought about Lucy. She couldn’t even hear her name without clenching her fists. According to Jane, Lucy had been writing letters every day, hoping to be allowed to come over and speak to her, but Cass steadfastly refused. She’d also refused her mother’s insistence that she explain everything to her. Apparently, the afternoon Pen had left to return to London, an axle on her carriage wheel had snapped and she’d been closer to Cass’s parents’ estate than Lucy’s when it happened. Of all the luck. After all the scheming, the entire farce had been ruined by a simple axle.

After the debacle in the foyer, Garrett had quickly returned to his home. Julian had left for London immediately, and Owen had happily returned to town as well, obviously pleased to be through with his sister’s mad schemes. He’d taken Penelope with him. Their cousin was only too happy to have a ride. Dear Lord Berkeley had put a hand on Cass’s shoulder and told her how sorry he was that this particular charade hadn’t ended so well but he’d be honored to be invited to the next one.

That blasted carriage-wheel axle. Cass couldn’t stop thinking about it. Not that it made any difference. And not that it was Pen’s fault. But if only that axle hadn’t snapped, if only Pen hadn’t gone to Cass’s parents’ house that night, if only Pen hadn’t told Cass’s parents that Cass was, indeed, at the Upbridge estate, and if only the three hadn’t traveled back together the next morning … Cass might have got away with it all. Well, perhaps she would not have actually got away with it, per se, but at least she’d have had the chance to try to explain it to Julian by herself, without him finding out in such a horrible manner. Then he would have known that she didn’t intend to lie to him indefinitely, that she wasn’t the horrible person he thought she was. Oh, who was she fooling? She
was
horrible. Loathsome, actually. The only person she could summon true anger against was herself.

And Lucy.

Lucy she would never forgive.

“Tell me again what Julian said when he left,” Cass asked Jane in a shaky voice.

Jane took a deep breath. “He told Upton that he intended to return to London and was hoping for orders that would allow him to go to the Continent again.”

“He’s going to France,” Cass said quietly.