The Countess by Catherine Coulter

Her name was Lady Elizabeth Palmer. She was a very rich widow and couldn’t have

been more than twenty-five years old. I suppose that Lawrence was trying to

marry off his heir and thus had invited her. To be honest, he had excellent

taste. I didn’t like her, but then again, she hadn’t been particularly pleasant

to me when she had arrived with friends. She had looked through me, and that

made me want to. slap her, on both cheeks. But she was flawless, damn her. She

had lots of thick blond hair all plaited up on top of her head, with at least a

dozen tendrils falling haphazardly over those white shoulders of hers and surely

too much white bosom on display. My grandfather would have looked at that face

and bosom and not said a single word. He once told me he preferred to admire

perfection in silence. And he would have remained silent for a very long time,

curse him.

Evidently John was different from Grandfather, at least in this. He was laughing

and talking and hanging on to her every word. It was nauseating.

It didn’t hit me until I was chewing on a particularly delicious lobster patty

that I was jealous. I nearly dropped my fork I was so horrified at myself. I

simply stopped eating and stared down the table. They were speaking to each

other, their heads close, hers so blond and fair and his so dark, damn him.

But I couldn’t be jealous. It was madness to be jealous. I was married. John

could be nothing to me, nothing at all. He was my step-nephew. He would always

be my step-nephew. Eventually he would bring his wife to live in this house.

Maybe that wife would be Lady Elizabeth Palmer.

He had lied to me, like every man in this world, he had lied. And I was

surprised by it, I’ll admit it, more fool I. He was showering Lady Elizabeth

with all his attention, absolutely deluging her with his humor, his damned wit,

his observations, and he was doing this after he had poured out his innards to

me but the day before.

He had lied.

On the other hand, I didn’t want him to simply hang about, sullen and silent,

being unhappy because he couldn’t be with me. Besides, I didn’t want to be with

him. He was too big and too strong?and I nearly laughed my head off at my

ridiculous litany.

No, it wasn’t ridiculous. He had lied. Like my father. And I thought of his

letter just then and realized I hadn’t told John about it. Well, there was no

need to.

There was nothing for it. I spoke to my neighbors, a duke from Manchester who

was as desiccated as old bones and had a wit equally as dry as his bones, and a

marchioness who had the biggest bosom I had ever seen in my life, most of it

uncovered. I tried desperately not to stare at that bosom, unlike most of the

gentlemen nearby.

I was vivacious. I dredged up some wit, and laughed at theirs. The marchioness

with the bosom turned out to be rather amusing, what with her tales of all her

little Pekingese dogs, of which she had a hearty dozen, all of them sweethearts.

The desiccated duke loved to gossip about folk in London I’d never heard of, but

I laughed and carried on just as I was supposed to. I had to make Lawrence proud

of me.

As for how I looked, my own gown was glittery silver, and I knew I looked very

fine indeed. Perhaps I didn’t have as much white bosom as Lady Elizabeth, and my

hair was curly and red, brown, blond, and rust, all blended together like a

bunch of fallen autumn leaves; and perhaps it was not as stylish as hers, but?I

had to stop this. I didn’t own John. I couldn’t ever have him.

I was an idiot.

How could I have changed so much? He was still a man, actually a man I had seen

on three different occasions in London and managed to dismiss all three times.

Only I hadn’t, not really.