The Accidental Countess (Accidental #2)(32)

“So, what do you want, Miss Bunbury? Do you know?”

She glanced into the darkened foliage. You. Her heart screamed it.

What would Patience Bunbury say, though? “Marriage, children … love.”

His turned his head sharply to look at her. “Love?”

She looked down at her gloved fingers. She couldn’t meet his eyes. He would surely see the truth there, that they were two souls who already knew each other, knew so much about each other and had shared countless hours of secrets and thoughts. “Yes.” Her voice broke on the word. “Wha … what do you want, Captain Swift?”

He stared at his hands and the gravel. “I want to…”

Cass’s heart lodged in her throat. “I promise whatever you say will be held in the strictest confidence,” she breathed, leaning forward, nearly on the edge of the bench. She already held many of Julian’s secrets. She would never tell any of them.

He drew in a large breath. “I’ve had a great deal of time to think about life and what is important and I have decided that since I lived, since I returned…”

She nearly toppled from the bench. “Yes?”

“I want to start a fund, for soldiers, for war veterans and their families.”

She tilted her head to the side, considering his words. He’d never mentioned this in his letters. “A fund?”

“Yes, especially for the injured ones, the ones who cannot work. Their lives have already been shattered by war. They deserve better than to come home to nothing.”

Cass put her hand on his. “I think that’s lovely.”

He bent his head but did not move his hand away. “I may not have a title, but I have friends, connections. I intend to do whatever I can to help those men.”

“I’ll help you, too.” The words slipped from her mouth before she even had a chance to think about them. “However I can, that is.”

“Thank you, Miss Bunbury.” He paused for a moment. “There’s one more thing, though I fear I shouldn’t burden you with it.”

She met his eyes then. She had to. “What’s that?”

“You promise to keep it a secret?”

“Yes.” She swallowed.

He gave her an intense look and for a moment, a heart-stopping moment, Cass was certain he knew her. “It’s odd, but I feel as if I could tell you anything. I cannot explain it,” he said. “There’s only one other person on earth whom I’ve felt that way about.”

An ache formed in Cass’s chest. “Pen … Penelope?”

“No. My friend Lady Cassandra Monroe.”

Guilt and happiness collided in Cass’s belly, where guilt promptly proceeded to beat the sop out of happiness.

Cass smiled and looked away, breaking their eye contact. He didn’t know her. He hadn’t guessed. Oh, the guilt. The guilt. “I promise, Captain Swift. I won’t tell your secret.”

He pushed a boot through the gravel, crunching it beneath his heel. “As soon as I find Penelope, I intend to tell her I cannot marry her.”





CHAPTER FOURTEEN


Cass paced in front of the windows in her bedchamber. Pacing, it seemed, was her new pastime. But if anything called for some pacing and worry, it was this latest bit of news. Julian planned to break things off with Pen? How could that be? How? Everything Cass had always known and believed seemed to be changing before her eyes. It couldn’t be this easy, could it? He’d already intended to end his engagement with Pen. What did he intend to do after that? Cass hadn’t had the courage to ask him. Not even as Patience Bunbury. He’d seemed so pensive, so quiet, so affected. Instead, she’d promised him his secret was safe with her and merely nodded when he’d told her he intended to break things off with Pen.

The one question she’d truly wanted to ask had died a slow death on her tongue. “Is it because of your friend Cassandra? Is that why you want to end your engagement?” But she couldn’t ask that. Surely he would have wondered why she’d made that leap.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. Was it? Was it the answer to her prayers or the start of a nightmare? Pen? Jilted? Awful. Pen’s parents would be devastated. As for Pen herself, Cass wasn’t exactly certain how she would react. Her heart wouldn’t be broken, that much was certain, but surely she wouldn’t be pleased about being jilted by the man she’d waited seven years for. And none of this was like Julian. Julian was solid, and dependable, trustworthy to a fault. He would never hurt anyone or not hold up his end of a bargain. Something had happened to him in the last few months. He’d changed. She’d felt it in his letters but never dreamed it would be like this.

After his confession tonight, he’d quickly made his excuses and left the garden. Perhaps he thought he’d said too much to Patience Bunbury. And why had he told Patience and not Cass? He’d never hinted at anything like that in his letters to her over the summer.

And what about the news of Donald? It was unimaginable. Donald in France? Why would the earl be there? Parliamentary business, Julian had said, but that made little sense. Cass’s heart wrenched at the memory of the look on Julian’s face when he’d said, “If he doesn’t come back … I can’t…” She knew exactly what he meant. She didn’t know why, he’d never said why in his letters, but she knew that Julian had always felt like the unwanted son, the unnecessary son. He felt as if he wasn’t good enough to be the heir, the earl. She knew just how he felt because she’d played the same role in her family. Owen, eight years her senior, was a male, an heir. She was just a lowly female, whose only purpose lay in securing a decent match and aligning her family with another illustrious title. She’d wanted to reach out to Julian, run her fingers through his hair, comfort him, assure him that no matter what happened he could and would make his family proud. There was no possible way he could fail. As Patience Bunbury she couldn’t let on that she knew anything about his deepest fears. But as Cass she could. She could and she would.