Page 26 of A Duke to Undo her (The Husband Hunt #1)

Chapter Nineteen

“Are you quite comfortable there, Lady Josephine?” enquired a woman’s voice and Josephine looked up with a start, from her curled up position on the Persian rug before the fireplace in the library, disoriented at being called back from the pages of Frankenstein to reality.

Clad in an outfit of lilac silk, Dowager Duchess Nerissa stood near a bookcase, watching Josephine with kindly curiosity in her sky-blue eyes.

“Oh, Your Grace, yes, I am quite comfortable. But I am not disturbing you, am I? I could read in my room if you wish to use the library.”

Josephine wondered how long she had been watched and self-consciously hoped that she had not made too many excitable sounds as she read, the story being a very melodramatic and sometimes startling one.

It had been a relief to divert herself into Mary Shelley’s strange and absorbing world when the real world was so painful and confusing.

“Not at all, my dear. You stay right where you are, but do let me sit down on this chair and talk to you for a while, if you don’t mind pausing in your book.”

“I think I should pause,” Josephine said with a small smile, putting a bookmark into the volume and closing its covers as the older woman took a seat in a comfortable chair beside the rug.

“It is quite a frightening story, all about a man of science who uses the power of lightning to create a monstrous creature, and how hard his creation then finds life.”

“Dear me!” exclaimed the duchess with a little chuckle as she settled herself in the chair.

“I think I remember Benedict reading that story and unsuccessfully trying to explain it to me. You have succeeded where he failed, Lady Josephine, but I do not think I shall want to read it when you are finished.”

“No, I don’t expect that any of my sisters would like it either, or their husbands,” reflected Josephine, standing and fetching more cushions from another chair for the dowager duchess’s back as she saw her struggling to adjust her position.

She herself sat down on the rug again once Duchess Nerissa was seated comfortably. Josephine often preferred to sit like that when she could, on the floor and hugging her knees. She couldn’t remember now whether it was polite or not but her hostess didn’t seem to mind.

“Is that what you prefer reading, Lady Josephine?” Duchess Nerissa inquired pleasantly, seeming genuinely interested in her answer. “Fantastic and horrific stories?”

Josephine shook her head with a smile.

“I like romances and adventure stories better,” she conceded.

“I like valiant heroes and beautiful heroines and dastardly villains who get their just deserts in the end…Of course, I read more serious books too and my oldest sister Constance has a list I am supposed to read before I am one-and-twenty. I like Shakespeare but many of the others are so… I mean, I don’t have much time left. ”

Duchess Nerissa laughed and reached out to actually stroke Josephine’s hair, a gesture that was unexpected and comforting in the young woman’s present forlorn mood.

“You need not try too hard in pleasing me, Lady Josephine. You are very well as you are and need not be someone else in my company. Let us be only ourselves with one another. I could not like a serious young lady, or a prim young lady any better than I like you.”

Josephine blinked in surprise.

“Oh! I like you too, Your Grace. You have been so very kind to me at Ashbourne Castle.”

“Not at all. I appreciate your natural and spontaneous company, as I believe, do both of my sons.”

Sitting there on the Persian rug where Cassius Emerton had kissed her so outrageously and divinely, Josephine flushed the brightest red. Did he appreciate her? It did not seem the right word at all.

“I should like to know you better,” Nerissa Emerton continued. “I sometimes wish that I could be a little more free-spirited, as you are, but I suspect I am too old to learn.”

“My sisters wish I was a little less free-spirited, I think, although they love me,” Josephine admitted. “I know that I am too much for them sometimes.”

“Benedict doesn’t think so,” the dowager duchess assured her.

“It is well that he has a friend as light-hearted and well-intended as himself. Sometimes I fear that Cassius is too heavy-handed with the boy. He might send his brother into the company of less suitable, perhaps vicious friends, if only as escape from Cassius’ serious lecturing.

It is good to see Benedict safe and happy in your company. ”

“Benedict and I are great friends,” Josephine confirmed, believing this to be true. “But Cassius is not so very serious really, is he? He only sometimes seems so, when he is out of sorts.”

She blushed again, to the roots of her hair, on realizing that she had used their first names.

It was permissible, perhaps, with Benedict in such an informal context, given their common age and friendship, but surely not with the Duke of Ashbourne…

The dowager duchess, however, seemed either not to have noticed, or not to have minded.

“No, he is not. You and I see that, my dear, but it is not always obvious to Benedict. Cassius has been more father than brother to him, you see. Cassius raised Benedict after my husband Henry died and I was too ill to take care of them.”

“The duke mentioned something of that,” Josephine said carefully, not wanting to say anything insensitive about such a delicate family matter, especially in the light of Madeline’s more detailed story.

“Did he? Then I must suppose Cassius wanted you to know the story and I shall tell you more of it. My husband Henry, Duke of Ashbourne before Cassius, was the love of my life.”

Nerissa Emerton’s face came more alive as she spoke of her husband, her eyes brightening and forehead smoothing with her serene smile.

“We courted for three years and then had so many years of great happiness in our marriage, and two wonderful sons. Henry’s death was a great shock, to all of us, coming as it did from nowhere in the prime of life.”

Josephine only listened, already feeling great sympathy for this woman and the great love she had lost.

“I am ashamed to admit that the shock was too much for me, Lady Josephine. Despite my children, I felt that I had died too, or that I wished I had done so. My sister had to nurse me back to health and it took years.”

“It must have been very hard for you,” said Josephine respectfully.

“It was just as hard for my boys, perhaps Cassius most of all,” the dowager duchess continued, her voice light despite the heaviness of the story.

“He took on the title, the handling of the estate and the raising of his brother overnight, when he should have been only a schoolboy, learning his Latin and Greek and running races with his friends.”

“He is a very capable man,” Josephine remarked, thinking of his finding her lost in the woods, treating Apollo’s foot, and making her body sing with an ecstasy she had never imagined. “I imagine that he would rise to any challenge.”

Duchess Nerissa smiled warmly at this remark, maybe liking to hear her son praised as much as Josephine liked talking of him.

“Almost any challenge, Lady Josephine. Cassius is brave, principled and honest but he is only human, and he too was wounded by his father’s death in a particular way that worries me greatly.

I have tried over the years to help him, but I think a mother’s intervention is not enough.

He needs something, someone…more than that. ”

“What do you mean, Your Grace?” asked Josephine, deeply interested but puzzled.

“Cassius refuses to marry, my dear. I believe he is afraid to love…”

Tears sprang again into Josephine’s eyes, reliving again that awful moment on this rug when Cassius’ passionate embraces had so abruptly ceased. She looked down, hoping to hide how deeply these statements affected her.

“How can anyone be afraid to love?” Josephine could not help asking. “He should not be afraid. Surely, he should not…”

“There, dear girl, I did not mean to upset you with old stories,” Duchess Nerissa said, retrieving a handkerchief from her pocket and passing it to the younger woman.

Either her words or her expression must have given away something of her feelings, Josephine realized. She feared what more might show on her face if this line of conversation continued, however many burning questions she had about the duke.

“No, I am sorry, Your Grace. It is only that I…do not feel myself today. I would like to hear your stories another time, very much. Please would you excuse me?”

Josephine had initially welcomed talk of Cassius but had not expected to be so overwhelmed. Still, the gold-and-silver haired woman before her remained calm and kindly in her demeanor, making no judgement of Josephine’s reaction.

“Of course, Lady Josephine. Why don’t you rest in your room until luncheon? I will speak to your sister and keep your book safe for you.”

Giving her thanks and a small curtsy, Josephine sped away.

Outside the door, she caught sight of her face in a looking glass and paused in thought.

Her polite flight in the face of suddenly surging but hidden emotions mirrored that of Cassius the previous evening.

Had some unexpected feeling come over him even more strongly than it had come over Josephine? If so, what?

“Riding alone, little brother? I thought you’d be riding out with Lady Josephine again.”

The Duke of Ashbourne slid down from his own gray stallion in the stable yard and handed the animal off to a groom. Benedict Emerton was just preparing to mount his own horse but paused and smiled, coming over to speak to his brother.

“Lady Josephine is somewhat indisposed today. Likely, she is genuinely unwell, unlike some people whom I suspect of being merely anti-social.”

“She is ill? What is wrong?” Cassius asked far too quickly, although Benedict seemed to sense nothing odd in his questions and shrugged without any great concern.

“She says she slept badly. Lady Elmridge suspects a head cold and mother has dosed Lady Josephine with lemon and ginger at both breakfast and luncheon. I hope a day of rest, a peaceful night’s sleep and the thought of the ball tomorrow will be enough to revive her.

Life can be very dull without Lady Josephine’s company. ”

The duke nodded, somewhat pained and guilty in knowing that he was likely to blame for at least part of Lady Josephine’s indisposition today. Yet, if he had not stopped himself and left her, how much worse could matters have been? He must not let himself regret it.

“I’m sorry to hear that she is unwell,” he said mildly. “You will take good care of her, won’t you?”

Benedict frowned and then laughed.

“So, you have finally fallen under Lady Josephine’s spell, have you Cassius?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Cassius retorted stiffly.

“Oh, everyone with any sense comes to appreciate Lady Josephine in the end, Cassius. Isn’t she the most marvelous fun? I’m sure you must see it by now too. I can tell that mother does.”

The dark-haired man relaxed and made himself smile.

“Yes, Lady Josephine is a remarkable young lady and I concede that I was too judgmental in the earliest days of our acquaintance. In fact…”

Here, Cassius had to stop and fortify himself in order to continue. The words must be said, however hard he found it to speak them.

“…in fact, I wanted to speak to you about Lady Josephine, Benedict. I wanted you to know that you have my blessing to court her.”

Benedict laughed incredulously and scratched his head.

“Brother, you are entirely quixotic this week! I do not know what to expect from you from one moment to the next.”

“When you marry, you shall have the London house for your own. I will remain at Ashbourne Castle and never bother you both…”

“Cassius, stop,” Benedict now insisted, holding up a hand playfully, but with a note of seriousness in his voice. “It is far too early for these conversations. You are the only one thinking of marriage.”

The duke sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, happy enough to let the discussion end for now. Talking of Josephine was just as painful as looking at her.

“As you wish, but don’t leave matters too long, Benedict. Life is short.”

Cassius stalked away back towards the house, unfastening his already untidy stock as he went. One more dinner tonight, the ball tomorrow and then perhaps he need never see Lady Josephine again at close quarters, except at her wedding to Benedict.