“Ah!” Bri gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth. Tristan stared at Al, then me, slack-jawed.
Al’s cheeks became ruddy and through gritted teeth, he said to Tristan and Bri, “Kindly give us a moment?”
“Molly?” Bri asked me.
Knowing I might as well get it over with, I said, “Yes, it’s fine.”
Bri seemed doubtful but let Tristan escort her from the room.
“We’ll be right outside.” Bri sent Al a warning look before she door closed behind them.
“Molly—” Al began but I interrupted.
“You lied to me,” I said. I was furious that there was so much heartbreak in my voice, but I couldn’t control it. He had lied—the one thing I couldn’t abide. And he’d broken my heart irreparably. I couldn’t hide the hurt no matter how much my pride wanted me to. “About everything.”
“Not everything,” he protested. “Not in how I feel about you.”
“Are you kidding me right now?” I laughed without humor. “What is your real name?”
He sighed. “James Albert George Insley Whitmore.”
I blinked at him. “And you’re a viscount in line to be earl one day? Do I have that right, Al?”
He winced when I said his fake name with all the venom I could muster. “Yes, but most people call me Jamie.”
I looked away from him. He was too handsome for me to think straight. It was then that I noticed we were in the library, which was beautiful and at any other time I would have been in awe. I was too distraught, however. My one job while here was to charm the Whitmore family into lending more items to the Museum of Literature. It appeared I’d already botched that, so I had nothing left to lose.
“You left me standing outside the Metropolitan Opera House in the freezing cold waiting for you, and you never showed up,” I said. “Up until then, I thought the most horrible moment of my life was walking in on my ex and his old lady. But you managed to make that seem laughable in comparison.”
“Molly, I’m so sorry,” he said. “If I could just explain.”
I held up my hand. I didn’t want to hear it. He’d hurt me terribly and I wasn’t about to let him cajole his way out of it with his sexy accent, charming grin, and overall hotness.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t care anymore.” I held my arms wide, gesturing at the opulence surrounding us. “It’s pretty clear that you were just having a little fun in New York. I suppose I was a nice distraction for you. I get it.”
“It was more than that, Molly,” he said. “I wanted to tell you before I left that I’m in lo—”
“No, don’t you dare say it now. People who love each other don’t treat each other the way you treated me.”
I was never going to get a better exit line. I turned and headed for the door. I could have gone up to my room and hidden but I didn’t. I marched back out onto the terrace, plastered a smile on my face, and decided I was going to do exactly what I’d been sent here to do. By the time I left the Whitmore Estate, the earl and I would be the best of friends and he’d happily share the riches of their library with the museum.
Mercifully, Al...er...Jamie didn’t follow me, which was also annoying. The man had lied to me about who he was and what he was, basically, all the wases. He should have been chasing after me, groveling on his hands and knees. Instead, he never appeared at the luncheon. Spitefully, I thought it was because he was so good at ghosting.
It was just as well. I couldn’t even stand to look at him as the shame of being some rich boy’s plaything made me positively ill. I chatted animatedly with everyone at my table, including the earl, blaming my dizzy spell on dehydration. Bri watched me all through the meal with a speculative gaze.
The minute lunch was over, the earl announced that his groundskeeper would be taking us on a tour of the gardens. This suited me just fine as I wouldn’t have to answer any questions if we were in a group.
Bri had other ideas. As soon as we started off, she looped her arm through mine, dropped back and hauled me into a side entrance of the yew hedge maze. I protested but she was stronger than she looked, and her grip was fierce.
We walked around one corner and then another and several more until I was completely confused. When we arrived at an opening with a lion statue in the center of it, she released my arm.
“Start talking,” she said.
“About what?” I went with playing stupid, knowing full well it wouldn’t work.
“Either tell me what is going on between you and the viscount, or I will leave you in this maze which, given your horrible sense of direction, means you’ll be lost here until the end of time.”
I would have balked but I really did have the worst sense of direction in the world and would likely never find my way out.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” I said.
“Except that the sight of him made you faint.”
“I was dehydrated, and jet-lagged, and hungry.”
She snorted and waved her hand in a circular motion, signaling that I should continue.
“All right, I’ll tell you but don’t be mad,” I said.
Her eyebrows went up. She crossed her arms over her chest and tipped her head to the side. She was not giving an inch. Fine.
“I met Al...er...Jamie, the night of the Valentine’s Day Gala to open the Austen exhibit,” I said.
“What?” she cried. Bri dropped her arms to her sides. “You bagged yourself a royal Valentine and never told me?”
“I think a viscount is nobility, not royalty unless he’s actually related to the royal family,” I said. “Oh, no, you don’t think he is, do you?”
The mere idea made me lightheaded. Talk about a doomed romance from the start. A Vermont farm girl and British nobility. It was an even larger disparity of background than I’d had with my ex, and I’d promised myself I would never let that sort of heartbreak happen to me again. Never.
“Details.” Bri waved both of her hands at me as if I were a pesky house fly. “I can’t believe you didn’t say anything, especially after all of my “aim high” lectures, which quite frankly I thought you were ignoring.”
“I didn’t know he was a viscount,” I said. “I found him avoiding the gala crowd in my office, which I’d apparently left unlocked. He introduced himself as Albert George, and I assumed he was a grad student, or a doctoral candidate, and he never corrected me. He never told me his real name either.”
“Oh.” Her voice lowered, full of sympathy. I felt my throat get tight and my eyes stung. I soldiered on.
“We spent a glorious month together, truly, it was perfect. We enjoyed every bit of New York that I could think to show him because he said he wanted to see it all and then one day—poof!—he was gone. No phone call. No text. No note. No nothing. Just gone.”
There was no way I was dragging out my humiliation of being stood up at the opera house and dumping that on Bri. She was as loyal a friend as I could ever ask for and I didn’t want to have to spend the rest of the trip hiding the knives every time she and Al...damn it...Jamie were in the same room together.
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” Bri said. She opened her arms and I stepped into them. Thankfully my makeup was light because there was no way I could hold back the tears I’d been slamming the lid on for a month. When the crying jag passed, she handed me a fresh tissue from her purse and I mopped my face.