Page 98 of Would I Lie to the Duke
Though Cynthia’s brow furrowed with concern, she seemed to know better than to press a point when it was clear that Jess didn’t want to discuss it. “We’ll have to rush back to Honiton to get the wheels turning. There should be space on tomorrow’s mail coach.”
“You can have the rest of the day to explore London. I recommend Catton’s, and Covent Garden Market.” Two places Jess could never go again, not withoutdrowning in bittersweet memories. She threaded her arm through her sister’s and walked toward the street.
Cynthia halted. “Aren’t you coming with me?”
“Before I return to Wiltshire, there are some things here in the city I need to take care of,” Jess said sadly.
“I’ll come with you,” her sister offered.
“I’ve got to go on my own. But don’t worry.” She made herself smile. “I’ll meet you at the coaching inn tonight and we can have supper together.” It would be a rare treat to spend the evening with her sister away from home, but there was no chance Jess would enjoy her meal. She would eat and sleep and go on, of course, but she’d never again feel joy in anything. That was certain.
“You’re telling me the truth?” Lady Farris studied Jess from the other side of the tea table. Like everything else in the countess’s home, it was graceful and restrained—which contrasted with the bright buttercup-yellow wall in the drawing room, a color more exuberant than elegant.
“You deserve complete honesty,” Jess answered. She looked down at her hands in her lap, then up again. “It was all my idea, not Noel’s—His Grace’s. I deceived him, and you, and everyone at the Bazaar.”
“That is... quite astounding.” Lady Farris sat back, her expression dazed.
“And true.”
The countess rose to her feet, and paced to the drawing room window, where she looked at the passing traffic. “If that’s so . . .”
Jess braced herself for Lady Farris’s condemnation. Though they hadn’t known each other for long, she’d come to value the countess’s camaraderie. Yet she had to be prepared to lose it.
“If that’s so,” Lady Farris said, turning to face Jess, “then it’s even better.”
Jess’s mouth fell open. “I— What?”
“English society, especially theton, is an ancient, crumbling castle that desperately needs leveling.” Lady Farris took several steps forward. “And you, Miss McGale, are the incendiary device.”
“But Ilied.” Jess stood. “To Lord Trask. To you, the duke. To everyone.”
“That’s something that you’ll have to live with,” the countess said evenly. “Which won’t be easy.”
Jess could only stare at Lady Farris. She had planned for many outcomes, but this had not been one of them. “You aren’t angry.”
“I am. I don’t enjoy being deceived.” The countess raised an eyebrow. “But I admire you, Miss McGale. You were no one’s pawn, which is no small feat for a woman in this world.”
“You humble me,” Jess murmured.
“Unfortunately, a small amount of humility is necessary. Even so,” the countess went on, tapping a finger to her chin, “I must ask, everything you did, the falsehoods you told, the role you played—what was the cost?”
A small, forlorn smile touched Jess’s lips. She touched the ha’penny in her reticule, which would, nodoubt, become smooth and worn as a pebble from her constant handling of it.
“In the case of the duke, it cost me everything.”
Noel turned the seashell over in his hand, its smooth surface cool against his palm. He set it back down in its cubby before moving on to the next object in his grandfather’s cabinet of curiosities.
He hadn’t been in this room since he was a child, when he used to find the collection of oddments and rarities fascinating. His grandfather once employed a man to travel in search of new additions to the cabinet, and as a boy, Noel had believed that line of work was far preferable to being a duke. To his young eyes, dukehood involved the dullest of tasks—interminable meetings with dust-dry men, tromping off to Parliament to hear and speak to more boring men. Nothing exciting like hunting down fragments of ancient pottery buried within the earth, or collecting jewel-bright butterflies from tropical latitudes.
This morning, he’d awakened—alone as usual, sober, less usual—and was seized by a powerful urge to visit his grandfather’s cabinet once more. Perusing the shelves and drawers of curiosities was preferable to pacing and brooding and staring out of his study window, which was all he’d been good for since McCameron had hauled him out of the chophouse and told him the circumstances behind Jess’s bid to save her family’s business.
He’d thought of no one and nothing else. Duringdaylight hours and in the evening, even in his dreams, where he still felt her touch and heard her sensual commands. When traveling around town, he directed his coachman to drive through Covent Garden, even if it was nowhere near his final destination. But he couldn’t keep himself from that place, burning with anger and sadness and aching to hear her voice again.
“Forgive me for disturbing you, Your Grace,” his butler intoned from the doorway. “A visitor is requesting a moment of your time.”
“I said I’m not at home to callers, Symes,” Noel said, an edge in his voice.
“Understood, Your Grace.” The butler bowed. “I will tell her.”
