Page 59 of A Bluestocking for the Wicked Duke

Joane felt herself grow angry but reigned in her tongue. The man had a point. She was forming a relationship with a man her father dueled with, a man he had almost killed. No one would call her sane.

But it just feels right. I can feel it inside.

“Mr. William is a honourable man, a man held in high esteem and not just because he is the son of a Duke. Why would you ask that I don’t spend my days with him?” Joane asked her father.

She struggled but managed to keep a confused look on her face.

Her father calmed himself down. It was like he realized that his daughter was just trying to be difficult.

“Do you mean to tell me that you didn’t hear of the duel I had with him?” he asked her.

“I did.”

“And you know I am the first person said to have beaten him in a duel.”

“Father, it was a duel. Someone wins and the other loses. Thank God no one lost his life.”

“How do you think his losing to me makes him feel?” the Duke asked her.

Joane slapped the outside of her hand into the palm of her other hand.

“He’s taken it in stride father. There would have been nothing for you to fear from him if not that you used underhanded tactics to defeat him,” Joane said.

Her voice was no more non-committal. It had become forced and accusatory. Joane tried to keep the pique in but she knew the vitriol she felt at her father’s lack of honesty was written all over her face.

“It doesn’t matter how I won, what matters is that I won and now his pride is injured,” the Duke said.

He didn’t even flinch. He just swiped it away like it didn’t matter.

Joane walked closer to him.

“It matters father. Why are you disturbed about his new friendship with me?”

Joane waited for him to speak but after a few seconds she soon realized he wasn’t going to. So she continued.

“You are scared because you know you cheated a man out of his victory. And now you are scared he is going to have his pound of flesh through your daughter.”

“Isn’t that right?” Joane said.

The Duke didn’t respond. The only expression on his face was anger, pure anger.

“Isn’t that right?” Joane repeated, screaming it into his face.

The Duke broke into a smile.

“So you are aware of all these and are still willing to offer yourself as a sacrificial lamb for him to slaughter just to get to me. Just remember, if he gets to me through you, he has to get to you first. I won’t offer a shoulder for you to cry on,” the Duke replied.

“You never are, never were, never will be the shoulder I rely on,” Joane retorted, blasting it across his face in anger.

She turned around and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. She felt the tears hot and gushing, brimming and threatening to burst out of her eyes. She didn’t get to her room before it started to come down. She got into the room and met Eunice cleaning up. Averting her tearful face away from Eunice, she spoke up in a voice as steady as she could muster.

“Eunice please halt whichever activity keeps your presence in my chamber at once. Come back when I summon you or if you notice I have left,” Joane said.

Eunice turned and curtseyed. Joane held a tight expression till Eunice went out. As the door closed behind Eunice, Joane burst into tears. The tears wouldn’t stop coming.

It has to be the accumulation of emotion from yesterday’s confrontation with Emma and today’s argument with father. What if they are right?

Joane thought about the look on William’s face when he saw her; he was surprised but pleasantly so.