The Accidental Countess (Accidental #2)(87)

Garrett pushed out his chair, and the dogs scrambled from their resting spots. He stood and tossed the letter on the stack of outgoing mail. He’d worked the last fortnight to catch up with his business matters to ensure that he could enjoy the time in the countryside.

His cousin Lucy would be there. Cassandra and Swifdon. Miss Lowndes. He growled slightly under his breath. Miss Lowndes always made his blood boil, but he could stand her for a sennight, he supposed. Why Lucy insisted on remaining such close friends with that bluestocking little harridan, he’d never know.

Cartwright remained standing at attention at the door.

“Ensure this letter goes out today,” Garrett said pointedly to the servant. Garrett might be the heir to the Earl of Upbridge, but the town house in Mayfair and all of its servants and contents were currently paid for due to money his mother had brought to her marriage to the second son of an earl, and an inheritance from his maternal grandfather. Garrett was a wealthy man in his own right.

“As you wish,” the butler replied.

Garrett pulled on his coat that had been resting on the back of his chair. The dogs watched him intently. As he shrugged into the garment, he stared down at the letter where it rested on the top of the stack.

Mrs. Harold Langton

12 Charles Street

London

Every two weeks he sent a similar letter. He’d sent it like clockwork for the last nearly ten years, ever since he’d been a young man of twenty-one. And yes, it always contained the same contents. The bank draft, the inadequate note, and one item that was completely unseen, un-see-able.

A hefty dose of guilt.

Garrett absently rubbed one fingertip across the top of the letter and then turned and strode out the door. The dogs followed close on his heels. He made his way down the corridor and into the foyer. Cartwright scurried to open the front door for him. Placing his hat on his head, he strode out into the street where he climbed up into the awaiting carriage. He settled into the velvet seat and glanced out the window, taking one last look at his London residence.

And with that, Mr. Garrett Upton, heir presumptive to the Earl of Upbridge, was off to spend a week at a country house party in Surrey.

*

“Young lady, I refuse to allow you to leave this house until you answer my questions to my satisfaction.” Mrs. Hortense Lowndes’s dark hair shivered with the force of her foot stamping against the parquet floor.

Her daughter, Miss Jane Lowndes, fought the eternal urge to roll her eyes. She pushed her spectacles up her nose and stared at her mother calmly. If only she had six pence for every time Mother said this or some similarly dramatic statement. Her mother was treating her like a child and Jane was through with it. She had been for quite some time, actually. In fact, Jane’s desire to be treated more like the twenty-six-year-old bluestocking spinster that she was and less like a girl fresh out of the schoolroom and in search of a husband was exactly why she’d invented this preposterous scheme in the first place.

Gracious. It was so difficult to be someone who didn’t like crowds or people or parties when one’s mother was a great lover of crowds, people, and any party. Jane’s mother was pretty, kind, and meant very well. It wasn’t Jane’s fault that Hortense wasn’t her daughter’s intellectual equal. Her mother spent her days reading La Belle Assemblee instead of Socrates, shopping for fabric and fripperies instead of reading the political columns of the newspapers, and gossiping with her friends instead of attending the theater. It didn’t make her mother a bad person, not any more than not wanting to do any of those dreadfully boring ladylike things made Jane a bad one. They were simply different. How many times had Jane wished that she’d been born someone who was petite and beautiful with good eyesight who loved nothing better than to attend parties? But it just wasn’t her. And it wasn’t going to be. The sooner her mother would accept that fact and let go of her dream of Jane marrying a gentleman of the ton in a splendid match, the better the two women would get on.

To date, however, Jane’s mother had shown very few signs of giving in. Hence, Jane was just about to employ her secret weapon: one Lady Lucy Hunt, the new Duchess of Claringdon, also known as Jane’s closest friend. Lucy had promised Jane that she would use her considerable talents with words to convince Mrs. Lowndes that Jane should be left in peace to live out her days quietly reading and studying and hosting the occasional intellectual salon and no longer be forced to attend an endless round of social events that left Jane feeling anything but social.

And to that end, Jane had employed the second-best weapon in her arsenal, her new pretend chaperone, Mrs. Bunbury. The idea had been inspired entirely by her other friend Cassandra Monroe’s unfortunate incident last autumn when Cass had been obliged to pretend she was a nonexistent young lady named Patience Bunbury. It had been unfortunate only because in so doing, Cass had been forced to deceive the man she had desperately loved for the last seven years and … well, the entire charade had been a bit questionable there after Captain Swift had discovered Cass’s duplicity. But it had all ended well enough, hence Jane’s journey to their wedding festivities today and her subsequent need for a nonexistent chaperone to escort her. Jane was going to Surrey for a week to attend Cass and Julian’s wedding house party and a nonexistent chaperone was the perfect companion. Jane need only settle the thing with her mother first.

“But Mother, didn’t Lucy write to you and tell you all about Mrs. Bunbury?” Jane pulled on her second glove and stepped closer to the door.