Page 55 of The Countess Caper

“Nonsense.”

Tessa blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“I would have heard.”

“Because we are such good friends, Mrs. Harris?”

The woman sniffed. She would never deign to associate herself with Tessa or Magpie House, and everyone knew it.

But a countess…

“This is another one of your stories,” Mrs. Harris insisted. “Spinning your falsehoods. An earl would never take you to wife. You are not suitable.”

Tessa froze, just for a moment. Barely a moment. But Mrs. Harris noticed—of course she did. She scented a weakness and would not let go.

“I’ve caught you in a lie, haven’t I? Pretending to be a countess and buying supplies for that baby. You with more credit than coin.”

Tessa was not lying, of course. It wasn’t why she paused, however briefly.

You’re not suitable.

The last time she had heard those exact words was in her father’s house—now George’s house. His mother had spoken them with a terse sigh when Tessa snapped at George for changing the sconces in the front hall. She’d been told her mother had chosen them. And her father had been dead all of a week. She’d been nine years old. She was sent to her room, only her room was no longer her room. She was sent instead to a narrow bed no bigger than a cupboard off the nursery. Then she was sent to Aunt Felicity, Great-Uncle Waldorf, and back to her cousin. Somewhere in between, she had spent a summer with Marigold, until the vicar decided Tessa was not a suitable influence. Because they had climbed a tree too high and got themselves stuck. She’d been fourteen.

You’re not suitable.

Until she learned to curtsy just so, to pour tea without spilling a drop, to flatter a lord’s vanity in French and Italian, to paint watercolors no one cared about, to organize a supper for twelve, to seat everyone in order of precedence, to memorize Debrett’s Peerage, to smile when she wanted to scream. To be frivolous and entertaining, like a sugar statue.

But she still wasn’t suitable. It wasn’t her manners or her deportment or her lineage. She was simply too much, too odd, too curious. It was just her. The essence that made Tessa Tessa was wrong.

She’d been reminded of that when Deirdre died in that alley and Tessa learned the true meaning of wrong. The Incident solidified it. She was no longer Lady Tessa but Punch Bowl Ophelia.

She straightened her shoulders. But it was too late. Mrs. Harris had everyone’s attention, just as she liked it. It wasn’t every day you could wield power over a viscount’s daughter as a village merchant’s wife.

“Madame Colette, you cannot possibly do business with such a person,” Mrs. Harris announced. Loudly. “If you do, we shall leave, and you will lose the patronage of the good, decent women of Fox Hollow and the surrounding villages.”

Madame Colette could not afford that. Especially as Tessa and her household rarely had cause to spend their money on ribbons or lace or velvet.

Mrs. Harris’s friends tittered. They sounded like hens at the seed trough, pecking, pecking.

Tessa kept her chin high, her expression bland. She would not let them see a reaction and feed on it. This was nothing. This was not a real problem. The roof caving in from rain and taking out the attics and the bedrooms below was a real problem with a very real likelihood of happening. This was just a small woman and her small friends.

Madame Colette forced a smile, apologetic and cornered as a mouse in a cat’s house. “I’m sorry, Lady Tessa.”

Tessa put the packet of hairpins down on the counter and turned on her heel. She’d use what was left of the curtains in her bedroom, all giant pink peonies instead.

She would not punch a woman in the nose.

Not today.

“It’s Lady Dartmoor,” Mrs. Harris trilled. “Didn’t you know?”

Maybe tomorrow.

The door closed behind Tessa on their laughter.

Chapter Seventeen

She was perfectly fine by the time she reached home.