The Unlikely Lady (Playful Brides #3)(74)

He tilted his head and looked up at her. His smile was warm and welcoming. “I’m glad you came,” he said. Her heart, that traitorous organ, beat quickly, and for a moment she could almost believe he meant it. Almost. But the memory of him kissing Isabella Langford rendered in Jane’s mind. She wished she could scrub it away, but it remained like a hideous scar.

The dogs wagged their tails, obviously waiting to be greeted by their master. Garrett bent over and slapped his hands on his thighs. The dogs wiggled up to him and he petted each of them in turn.

Jane slowly made her way down the staircase. She came to stand a few paces from Garrett. She arched a brow. “Dogberry and Verges?”

His grin hit her in her middle. “The stars of the play if you ask me.”

“Not Hero and Claudio?”

“Certainly not.”

She tapped her slippered foot against the rug. “What about Beatrice and Benedick? They would be the names I’d choose. You surprise me, Upton. I didn’t know you were partial to dogs.”

“I’m not. My friend, the Countess of Merrill’s sister, Miss Andrews, gave me these two. She works with the Royal Society for the Humane Treatment of Animals and she’s forever rescuing animals in need. When I saw these two little scoundrels, I couldn’t say no.”

“They are darling,” Jane allowed, scratching Dogberry behind the ear.

“Would you care to sit?” Garrett asked her.

Jane followed him to the settee near the center of the room. She sat on one end. He sat on a chair at right angles to her. He looked handsome today, blast him. Unbearably so. His long legs were encased in buckskin breeches, his feet in black top boots. He wore an emerald green coat and white shirttails and cravat. His dark hair was a bit mussed and it looked as if he hadn’t shaved in a day or two, which Jane quite liked, actually.

“You’ve been keeping a large secret from me, Upton.”

His forehead burrowed in a frown, but his hazel eyes sparkled. “Secret?”

She spread her arms to indicate the room. “I had no idea you had … this.”

Half of his mouth quirked up in a smile. “You never asked.”

“I would never have guessed. I can’t understand why Lucy never mentioned it to me.”

One of the dogs rested his large paw on Upton’s lap. “Would you believe me if I said I asked Lucy not to tell you?”

Jane blinked at him. “Why would you do that?”

“Because you’ve always enjoyed giving me endless grief over the fact that I’m not a reader.”

She wrinkled her nose. “But you are a reader, or so your butler says.”

Garrett leaned back and crossed his booted feet at the ankles. “You find that so difficult to believe?”

Jane made a show of reaching for a third teacake. “I’ve never seen you with a book in your hands.”

“Some of us read despite being able to conduct ourselves in polite Society without hiding behind books.”

Jane stiffened. She dropped the teacake back to the plate. “I don’t hide behind books.”

“Don’t you?”

“No.” She stood to leave with jerky movements. Why had she even come here? She should have known nothing good could come of it.

“Don’t go,” he said, standing also and reaching out to her.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why should I stay?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and bent his head. His words were quiet. “Jane, why didn’t you come that night? Why did you change your mind?”

She turned around, facing away from him. She couldn’t look at him. “What does it matter?”

“It matters very much. I thought we had something special. I thought we were becoming close.”

She nudged her spectacles and turned her face to the side but still didn’t look at him. She laughed a humorless laugh. “Closer? Special? That’s rich considering what you did that night.”

“What do you mean?” His voice was full of confusion.

She whirled to face him, anger replacing the sadness in her chest. “Don’t pretend you don’t know, Upton. It’s not becoming.”

“I thought I missed our assignation and I apologized for that. I was unavoidably detained, but you said you didn’t come so what did it matter?”

“Unavoidably detained?” She snorted. “Is that what you call it?”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, obviously frustrated. “What else should I call it? I spent the night locked in the blasted wine cellar, attempting to break down the bloody door and hoping you wouldn’t hate me forever.”

His use of such profanity shocked her. She snapped up her head to look him in the eye and searched his face. “Wine cellar? What are you talking about?”

He rubbed the back of his neck and paced to the windows. “I went to the cellar to get a bottle of wine for us. While I was there, someone clubbed me over the back of the head and the next thing I knew, I woke up with a hell of a lump on my skull and no way to get out. I nearly tore off my arm trying to break down that door.”

Jane sat down hard, her skirts whooshing around her. She rubbed a fingertip between her eyes. “Wine cellar? You weren’t in the wine cellar.”

“Yes, I was. God knows I wish I wasn’t.”