title: An Unlikely Countess: Lily Budge and the 13th Earl of Galloway
author:  Louise Carpenter 
description: "A spirited and sensitive account of one of the strangest lives imaginable. Louise Carpenter's portrait of the life of Lily Budge is a classic of its kind: elegantly written, with a rare eye for detail and a shrewd and warm understanding of its extraordinary subject." William Boyd
zlib_text: **The Foolish Friend**
  
  **By**
  
  **Elizabeth Bramwell**
  
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  **Also by Elizabeth Bramwell**
  
  The Dashing Widow
  
  His Darling Belle
  
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  **Forthcoming in 2017:**
  
  The Rebel Wife
  
  A Novel Miss
  
  ****
  
  ****
  
  ****
  
  ****
  
    
  
  **© Elizabeth Bramwell – all rights reserved**
  
  _For Katie_
  
  _Because we all need a best friend willing to laugh at our stupidity_
  
  _while helping us clear up our messes._
  
    
  
  **One**
  
  James Douglas, 4th Baron of Cottingham, smiled from the doorway of his
  lifelong friend's front parlour. He'd been able to convince the Marquess of
  Shropshire's butler - who had known him since he'd still worn leading-strings
  - that it would be a great joke for him to enter the room unannounced, and be
  able to surprise both Lady Shropshire and her granddaughter, Lady Henrietta.
  
  So far, it seemed like it had been a good plan. It was early in the Season,
  but already the Shropshire's afternoon callers numbered in the low teens. Lady
  Henrietta (although he struggled to think of her as 