The Unlikely Lady (14 page)

Jane squinted at the woman, not liking the tone she continued to use. Not one bit. “Yes, the library.”

“That's right,” Mrs. Langford added. “I nearly forgot you're a bluestocking. Where else would you be but the library?”

Jane straightened her spectacles. She'd begun this encounter a bit embarrassed to be sitting across from Upton, but if this woman intended to be rude to her, she could give as well as she got.

“A fact of which I'm infinitely proud.” Jane gave Mrs. Langford a tight smile.

“As you should be, of course, dear. If one cannot find a husband, one ought to make the most of one's intellectual ability.” Mrs. Langford's eyes were barely slits.

Jane clenched her jaw and waved her wine glass in the air. Why was this woman being so awful to her all of a sudden? “Funny. I've always thought if one cannot use one's intellectual ability to any effect, the only option would be marriage.”

“Who would like some bread?” Cass's overly enthusiastic voice rang out.

“I would!” was Julian's immediate reply. Cass set about handing her future husband a basket of bread that had already been sliced into big, fluffy pieces by the servants.

“Well,” came Mrs. Langford's silky voice, still directed toward Jane. “Perhaps you learned something about attracting the interest of a man while you were in the—ahem—library last night? Any books about that in there?”

Cass gasped. Lucy's head swiveled back and forth between Jane and Mrs. Langford. Garrett studied his wine glass. Julian and Derek shifted in their seats.

“I wouldn't know,” Jane replied sweetly. “If such a book did exist, I'd be singularly uninterested in it.”

“You've never taken a fancy to a man?”

Jane pressed her lips together. Something in the smug look on Mrs. Langford's face made her think the woman knew something. Or seemed to suspect. Twenty-four hours ago, Jane could have said “no” without a shadow of guilt on her conscience, but considering that last night she'd just had her first kiss … and more, she wasn't able to stand on the moral high ground any longer.

Once again, Cass, the dear, waded into the silence for her. “Jane is a confirmed intellectual. She's not interested in marriage at all.”

“A pity.” Mrs. Langford pulled a piece of bread from the basket that had made its way to her. She set the slice on her plate. “Marriage can be ever so agreeable, if it's done with the right partner.” She turned toward Upton and batted her eyelashes. “Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Upton?”

Upton cleared his throat. “Considering that I am a bachelor, Mrs. Langford, I wouldn't know.”

Jane hid her smile at his answer behind her wine glass but inside she was simmering. The nerve of that woman. What was Upton about, bringing this odious person into their midst? He couldn't possibly relish her company, could he? Oh, no. He didn't … He couldn't have thought that
she
was Mrs. Langford last night, could he? A knot formed in Jane's belly and sat there like a hard, jagged rock. She glanced up to see Upton's gaze sliding away from her again.

“I'm quite certain marriage is ever so agreeable,” Julian said, a sparkle in his eye as he pulled Cass's hand up and kissed the back of it. Cass beamed at him.

Derek tightened an arm around Lucy.

Jane found herself fighting back … tears of all things. It wasn't as if she'd never
thought
about marriage, never considered it. As a younger woman, she'd been inclined to daydream, to wonder what it would be like to be swept off her feet by a handsome stranger, told she was beautiful, fall in love. Those things were not for her. She preferred solitude to parties, books to fripperies. She was plain and dowdy, not fashionable. Nothing like her gorgeous friends Lucy and Cassandra. Jane had never had one suitor. Not one. Not even the hint of one, the whiff of one.

Upton had said she was gorgeous last night. Had he meant it? Or was that what rakes said to all of the ladies they had assignations with in drawing rooms? More than asking her to remove her mask, telling her she was gorgeous had caused her to push him away. He couldn't mean it. It wasn't true. She wasn't gorgeous. The thought that he'd lie to her like that, that any man would lie to a woman like that, had made her go cold inside.

She was plump and plain. Well, perhaps not plump, not any longer, but she'd always be plump in her head. And the plainness, that would never go away. Perhaps with the demimask on her face and the large quantity of alcohol Upton had obviously consumed last night, he'd been momentarily lulled into the belief that he was with a beautiful woman. But nothing about last night had been true. That's why she hadn't told Lucy or Cass about it. That's why she could never let Upton suspect it was her. It wasn't just the potential embarrassment. It was because it was only a figment of her imagination, or might as well have been.

*   *   *

Garrett glanced away every time Miss Lowndes, uh, Jane—he needed to think of her as Jane now that he'd kissed her senseless last night—looked at him. He was beginning to feel conspicuous about it and was certain she'd noticed. Jane was intelligent. She may have already realized it had been him last night. He couldn't look at her. But he did. Again. As if his eyes were drawn to her. He wanted to see her, really see her. In the past he hadn't given a passing thought to her looks. She was just Miss Lowndes, Lucy's friend who drove him a little mad with her know-it-all attitude and penchant for making fun of him.

Now, all he could think about was her luxuriant hair, the smell of her perfume. Lilacs. Why did it have to be lilacs? That little spot just under her chin that tasted so damn sweet. Christ, what had come over him? The urge to snatch off her glasses and pull the pins out of her hair and look upon her face and see the woman he'd been with last night was nearly overpowering. If they were alone, if they weren't at a table full of people in the open air, he just might do it. What would Miss Lowndes do if he dared?

He tried to concentrate on chewing and swallowing his food. Somehow that had become a difficult task. It was a mad, mad day already. Why was Isabella being so unpleasant to Jane? At first, he suspected Isabella had been as bothered by Jane as he always had been. Jane didn't back down from a fight and Isabella had got a taste of Jane's sharp tongue. But he couldn't help feeling admiration for Jane when she stood up to Isabella. It truly was none of the other woman's concern why Jane preferred to remain unmarried. He'd always had the same preference, and felt a sort of closeness with her. He needn't have worried. Jane had promptly snapped back a volley of replies that had surely left Isabella thinking she just might do better to keep from engaging Miss Lowndes in a battle of words in the future.

He'd been in his share of word fights with her, himself, and often came out on the losing end. He smiled to himself and looked at her once more. She turned to speak with Owen Monroe, who happened to be sitting next to her again. She didn't notice Garrett's slow perusal of her. Today she was wearing a white gown that did nothing for her considerable assets. It was the type of thing she normally wore. Where in God's name had she got that blue gown she'd been wearing last night? It had transformed her.

Garrett took a long sip from his wine glass and watched her over its rim. He growled under his breath. Owen Monroe was sitting a bit too close.

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Garrett was sitting alone in the library, reading, with his booted feet propped on an ottoman and crossed at the ankles when Cassandra found him that evening just before dinner. There was to be a dinner and a dance—not a ball, Lucy had insisted, just a dance. Garrett looked forward to neither.

“Garrett, there you are. This is the last place I expected to find you,” Cassandra said, a bright smile on her face. Her blond hair was swept up atop her head and she wore a fetching lavender gown with pearls at her neck.

Garrett quickly uncrossed his feet, stood, and bowed. “Don't tell Miss Lowndes. It may ruin the bad opinion she has of me and my lack of reading habits.”

“I won't tell if you won't,” Cassandra said in a conspiratorial voice.

“Agreed,” he answered.

Cassandra made her way to him and sat on the settee across from him.

“It's interesting that you bring up Jane, however”—Cassandra plucked at her sleeve—“because that's precisely who I wanted to speak with you about.”

Garrett's gaze snapped to her face. “Jane?”

“Yes.” Cassandra calmly folded her small hands and placed them in her lap.

“What about her?”

“I wanted to say … It's come to my attention…” Cassandra blushed beautifully and glanced away.

“Yes?” he prompted.

“It's come to my attention that, well, there's no easy way to say it…” Her words fell from her mouth in a mad rush. “It appears that Jane is madly in love with you.”

Garrett's jaw dropped. All he could do was blink. “Jane is— Pardon?”

Cassandra didn't meet his gaze. Her hands remained unmoving in her lap. “Yes. She is.”

Garrett stood and scrubbed his hands through his hair. He strode to the fireplace. “That is preposterous. That is ludicrous. Why, that is—”

“Impossible?” Cassandra supplied.

He turned to face her. “Yes. Impossible.”

Cassandra's deep blue eyes rose to meet his. “I'm afraid it's quite possible and we, Lucy and I, thought you should know.”

Garrett narrowed his gaze on her. “Lucy is often wrong about these things, Cassandra. You know she was convinced I was in love with
you
until recently.”

Cassandra fluttered a hand in the air. “I know. And it's not like that. This is different. It's quite confirmed.”

“Confirmed, how?” His eyes remained narrowed.

Cassandra cleared her throat. Her voice went up a notch. “By Jane.”

His hand dropped like a leaden weight to his side. “Jane said that? She
said
she loves me?”

Cassandra bit her lip and nodded. “As I said, Lucy and I thought you should know.”

Garrett leaned back against the window frame; the air rushed from his lungs. It was as if he'd been slammed to the earth. He struggled to breathe. It couldn't be true. Could
not
be true. It made no sense.

But if Jane had told Cassandra …

He stared unseeing into the fireplace and rubbed a hand roughly across his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut. “Thank you for telling me, Cassandra.” Not that he knew what the hell to do with the information.

*   *   *

Cass hurried out of the library, wringing her hands.

“Psst.” Lucy motioned to her from behind a potted palm at the far end of the corridor. “Over here.”

Cass peeked over both shoulders to ensure no one would see her before picking up her skirts and hurrying to join her friend behind the tree.

“Did you do it?” Lucy asked, her multicolored eyes sparkling.

“Yes. I did it.” Cass groaned. “Heaven knows I shall be struck dead by a lightning bolt for being such a fibber. I deserve this red spot on my nose. I deserve another for what I've done. I deserve an entire face full of them. I detest lying.”

Lucy's dark eyebrow rose in a semblance of skepticism. “Oh, really? You detest lying? After pretending to be Patience Bunbury last autumn? If that didn't cause a face full of red spots, nothing will.”

Cass scowled at her fiercely. “Point taken, but we should have asked Derek or Julian to tell Garrett that awful lie instead of me.”

“We've been over this,” Lucy replied. “Derek and Julian wouldn't have agreed to this in a hundred years. They would have given us a lecture about how it isn't the right thing to do. And it's not an awful lie. Not really.”

“Perhaps it
isn't
the right thing to do, Lucy. Lying to our friends feels wrong.”

“Look at it this way.” Lucy pushed a palm frond away from her forehead. “You're not fibbing so much as you're helping them. You saw how Garrett and Jane acted at the picnic. Something is definitely happening between them. We're simply giving them a small push. Now, tell me, what did Garrett say?”

Cass tugged at one of the leaves on the palm tree. “He was shocked to be sure, quite shocked.”

“Did he believe you?”

Another tug on the long green leaf. “I do think I was able to convince him, though he was skeptical for certain.”

Lucy clapped her hands together. “Perfect. The first phase of the plan has gone off splendidly.”

“What about you?” Cass let go of the palm leaf. It sprung back into place. “Have you told Jane yet?”

Lucy shook her head. “I'm on my way to speak to Jane now. The second half of the plan is to commence shortly. I call it
Much Ado About Something.
”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY

“You
must
be jesting,” Jane said five minutes later as Lucy sat on the end of the bed in Jane's guest chamber. “I cannot believe for a moment that Upton is in
love
with me.”

“I didn't believe it either, at first,” Lucy said with a nonchalant shrug, “but Derek and Julian both told me the same thing. When Garrett was in his cups the other night, he admitted it to them.”

“Then he's a loon when he's in his cups,” Jane replied, shaking her head.

Jane's voice was protesting, but her mind was preoccupied with examining this news. It couldn't be true. Could it? Garrett? Garrett Upton? Rake, gambler, and general profligate, in
love
? With
her
? If Lucy had told her this news two days ago, Jane would have laughed her out of the room. But today. Today was the day after she'd nearly been ravished by Upton on the settee in the upstairs drawing room—and liked it. Today was the day she'd gone on a picnic and noticed Upton glancing at her every time she looked at him. Today everything had changed and Lucy's story didn't seem quite so far-fetched.