Very well. Cass didn’t need to know about this embarrassing little incident. Especially when it would make no difference to her and she was in the midst of such sadness for Julian. No. Lucy would not bother Cass with this news. Besides, if Lucy did her duty as a friend and did what she’d promised Cass, she would get rid of the overbearing duke, so what did it matter?
Lucy took a deep breath. “Very well, I won’t tell Cass about this incident on two conditions.”
The duke placed his hands on his hips and tilted his head to the side again. “Only two?”
She smiled at him sweetly. “I can add more if you’d like.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “What are the two?”
“First, you must promise never to take such a liberty again—”
“Done!” The relief on his face was irritating.
The swiftness of his reply caused Lucy to grit her teeth. He didn’t need to seem so blasted happy about that one. “Second, you must finally agree to leave off courting Cass.”
He dropped his hands to the side. “No, I cannot promise that.”
She slashed an arm through the air. “Why not?”
“Because I fully intend to take Lady Cassandra to wife regardless of this minor accident here tonight. Rest assured it will not happen again.”
“How can I possibly know that?”
Skepticism etched across his face. “While I’m certain you’re quite used to men being unable to control themselves around you, Miss Upton, I am perfectly capable.”
“Stop calling me Miss Upton and you didn’t seem so controlled a few moments ago.” She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her fingers along her elbows.
“I told you, it was a momentary lapse in judgment.”
“And how do I know you won’t have another inconvenient so-called momentary lapse in judgment with the next young miss you find in a library?” she shot back.
He let out a long, deep breath. “You drive me mad, do you know that?”
She snorted. “The feeling is entirely mutual.”
He turned, strode past Lucy, and opened the door to the drawing room. “Enough. Since you refuse to tell me why she didn’t attend tonight, I intend to call upon Lady Cassandra tomorrow and see for myself.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“I’ll make all the arrangements,” Garrett announced the next afternoon at Cass’s parents’ town house. The four friends were enjoying a lavish tea prepared by the Monroes’ cook in an attempt to lure Cass into eating something.
Cass had reluctantly come down to the drawing room to greet her friends, but she seemed entirely uninterested in anything on her plate. Cass’s parents had gone out to make some social calls and so the four of them were alone in the house with the servants.
Cass sighed. “I’m not certain it’s such a good idea.” Resting her chin in her hand, elbow propped upon the table, she pushed her biscuits and teacakes around her plate. She’d been doing so all afternoon and had yet to take a bite.
“Oh, but it is. I think it’s a brilliant idea. Don’t you, Jane?” Lucy kicked Jane, who sat next to her on the settee.
Jane barely glanced up from the newspaper she’d been reading. “Pardon? Yes. Yes. Brilliant!” She pushed up her spectacles on her nose and took a large bite of her own biscuit.
Lucy nodded. “See there, dear, everyone’s in agreement.”
Cass turned soulful blue eyes to Garrett. “It’s ever so nice of you to offer your house in Bath to us for the remainder of the summer, but I just don’t know that I should leave London right now. If Penelope receives another letter from Julian, I want to be here in town so I can learn the news right away. And there’s always the chance that he may write to me himself.”
Lucy patted Cass on the back. “But dear, you said yourself that Penelope and her mother are retiring to their country house for the rest of the summer soon. No one stays in London in August. We must go. The post will make it to Bath just as surely as it will make it to London. It’s even a bit closer to Penelope’s country house, is it not?”
Cass’s eyes brightened a bit. “I suppose that’s true.”
“It’s absolutely true,” Lucy said with a nod. Garrett quickly agreed.
“I, for one, am all for it. Any excuse to get away from my mother’s watchful eye,” Jane said. “I consider this the start to Lucy’s experiment to help me dissuade my parents from forcing me to marry.”
Garrett slapped a palm on the table. “The devil you say. Your parents are forcing you to marry? That’s news.”
“In theory,” Jane replied. “Aren’t all parents forcing their daughters to marry?”