The Unlikely Lady(85)

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.”

She crossed her arms tightly over her middle. “No. You were in your room. I saw you.”

“What?”

“You were there. I saw you.”

“You said you didn’t come.”

Tears stung the backs of her eyes. “I lied. I came. Only I was nearly half an hour late. But by the time I arrived you were…” She studied her slippers where they rested on the carpet, Verges snuggled up next to her foot.

“I was what?”

Jane closed her eyes briefly. “You were making love to Mrs. Langford.”

“What!” Garrett’s face went ashen pale. “Mrs. Langford was there? In my room that night?”

“Yes. I saw you, the two of you.”

Garrett knelt in front of her. He grabbed her hand. “Think hard, Jane, think. What exactly did you see? I wasn’t there that night. I swear it. Someone locked me in the wine cellar.”

Jane searched her memory. What exactly had she seen? “I saw … I saw Mrs. Langford standing near your bed and you … or someone … kissing her. I only saw the back of his head. He looked like you, tall, dark-haired, and he was in your room.”

Garrett’s face was grim. He cursed under his breath. “Isabella’s footman is tall and has dark hair. He’s not unlike me physically.”

“But how did she know? How would she have known we planned to—”