Page 28 of A Duke to Undo her (The Husband Hunt #1)
How she wanted to touch him! Josephine’s hands itched to pull open all those buttons, rip off the duke’s collar and stock entirely and cover his chest with her kisses. The secret places between her thighs ached with the very thought of it, and longed for his caresses.
The longing in the Duke of Ashbourne’s own dark-ocean eyes was blatant by the time they came to a halt in front of him. Josephine saw him take a deep breath, and then another and was only glad that he too was struggling with the pull between them. Did he know the dress was only for his eyes?
Her determination not to be ignored seemed to be having its intended effect. One way or another, Josephine knew she must get to the bottom of her strange relationship with Cassius Emerton tonight. She could not leave Ashbourne Castle without understanding what had happened between them.
Cassius Emerton bowed, his eyes remaining locked with Josephine’s as Dowager Duchess Nerissa and Lady Elmridge greeted one another and traded compliments.
“How well your dress tonight becomes you, Lady Josephine,” remarked Duchess Nerissa with a warm smile. “Those emeralds are exceptionally well chosen too. I don’t believe I’ve seen a prettier young lady here tonight, for all the diamonds and finery on display. Don’t you agree, Cassius?”
Josephine blushed and the duke’s jaw worked for a moment before he found the words to reply to his mother.
“I am sure there are many elegant young ladies here tonight but none can match Lady Josephine,” he said with somewhat forced gallantry and another bow, this time looking down, as though he could not both gaze on her and speak. “Lady Josephine’s beauty is unique.”
“Thank you,” Josephine said to both of them, seeking and finding the duke’s gaze once more as soon as he raised his eyes. “I am glad you like my gown. I chose it particularly.”
Again Josephine saw that flash of pain in his eyes and reveled in knowing that Cassius felt something so strong in her presence, even if it hurt her too to inflict suffering on him.
“The emeralds in Josephine’s hair belonged to our mother,” Vera began to tell their hostess, conscious that there was something odd about the present conversation but unsure what, and hoping to steer it back to normality.
“There is a matching necklace, but it is little too much for someone so young…”
Duchess Nerissa’s ears seemed to prick up as the orchestra again began to tune and prepare for the next measure. None of them were really listening to Lady Elmridge as she talked of the family emeralds.
“Cassius, why don’t you take Lady Josephine to the dance floor?” proposed Nerissa Emerton. “I should like to have a proper conversation with Lady Elmridge and I’m sure you will find us dull.”
Both the duke and Josephine were speechless at this suggestion, which seemed to surprise them both even more than her placing them together for the musical performance earlier in the week.
Josephine looked at him with hopeful eyes and felt the corners of her mouth beginning to turn up.
Surely, he could not refuse a request from his mother?
“There you are!” called out Benedict Emerton’s cheerful voice as he pulled alongside them. “The next dance is to be a waltz and I need the perfect partner to show the room how it is danced properly in Vienna.”
For once, Josephine felt only dismay at Mr. Emerton’s arrival, not wishing to hurt her friend’s feelings but entirely unwilling to be torn away from the Duke of Ashbourne, especially at this crucial moment.
“Dear Benedict,” remarked his mother with an affectionate smile crinkling her blue eyes. “Do you know, I have never danced a waltz and I should like to very much. Will you teach me?”
The blond man looked startled for a moment, seeking and finding no clarity in any of the faces in the group.
His older brother’s expression was smoldering in a way only Josephine could understand, Lady Elmridge was bemused, his mother surprisingly enthusiastic and Josephine herself unusually uncommunicative.
“Of course, Mother. If Lady Josephine can do without me for a little longer?”
“Cassius is here,” declared Nerissa Emerton, taking her younger son’s arm firmly. “He is perfectly capable of taking care of Lady Josephine, aren’t you, Cassius?”
The dowager duchess had left him little choice. The Duke of Ashbourne offered Josephine his arm.
“Would you do me the honor of this dance, Lady Josephine?” he asked, the formal and forgettable arrangement of words made compelling by the roughening of his voice and perceptible unsteadiness of his breathing.
“You could decline politely if he really does not wish it,” Lady Elmridge whispered discreetly in Josephine’s ear, entirely misunderstanding the situation.
Where Vera perceived reluctance, Josephine saw the opposite: a longing so intense that the Duke of Ashbourne feared himself.
The problem was not that Cassius Emerton wished to avoid Josephine but that he wished to pick her up, carry her to some private space and carry out the most outrageous and erotic acts with her.
It was what they both wanted and she wished she could tell him so.
“Yes, Your Grace,” she instead answered politely and then as she laid her gloved hand on his arm, she added in a murmur, “Yes, Cassius.”
A perceptible shiver ran through the man at his side as she spoke his name.
“Josephine…” he breathed in response, raising every hair on her neck and making her blood pulse loudly in her own ears.
Then they were on the dance floor, one of the duke’s hands at her back and the other on her own hand. Their bodies were only inches apart and she could sense and smell the inviting warmth of his skin.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Josephine whispered as the introductory bars of the waltz played, but Cassius hushed her and the dance began, making her shiver at his touch.
“We must be careful here, Josephine,” he warned her softly. “Everyone can see and we both know that neither of us is made of stone.”
Josephine nodded, in understanding rather than agreement. She could not help enjoying this closeness, despite the torment of wanting more. Nor was she willing to lose perhaps her only chance to speak to the duke without an audience.
For a few moments, Josephine decided to let herself only enjoy the sensation of being steered and twirled in the duke’s strong arms. The waltz was a heady dance with a partner one desired, she found, feeling her body responding to Cassius just as if he had embraced her more intimately.
“How are you and Benedict getting along?” the Duke of Ashbourne asked unexpectedly, his question paining Josephine as much as her appearance had seemed to pain him.
“Benedict is my good friend and I enjoy his company,” she answered and then cut off this line of enquiry with a challenging question of her own. “Why did you leave me in the library like that, Cassius?”
His hand had slipped down to her waist and it now tightened there as he spun them both.
“I am so very sorry, Josephine. All the things I have done, all that I have shown you…However sweet, I should not have done it. Such things should be learned from your husband one day.”
“I wanted you to do it,” she replied fiercely. “I wanted every single second of it. Don’t you see that?”
Their fingers were now fully intertwined in their engaged hands while the duke’s other hand at her waist definitely felt like a caress. Josephine recalled how the nightgown had slid finally from her hips to the floor after such a caress on her bare skin.
“You are so passionate, so lovable, so desirable, Josephine,” Cassius told her in a low voice, close to her ear. “I can only be a danger to you.”
“You want me to believe something that feels so good can only be a danger?” she continued to challenge him, aching for his hands to be able to skim the curves of her bosom and hips rather than merely hold her.
“Yes! I have lived enough to see that and you have not. I am trying to protect you.”
At these words, the duke instinctively pulled her closer in their next twirl, bringing Josephine almost close enough to kiss.
“Then tell me why you left me like that, Cassius,” she insisted, feeling his slightly ragged breathing on her face.
“Because if I hadn’t…” he began with an agonized expression, but then shook his tousled dark head and straightened his face. “It is no use. Even talking of such things is a danger. You must keep far from me, Lady Josephine, and I from you.”
The music had come to an end now but Cassius was still holding Josephine in his arms as though he could not bear to release her. She knew that if they continued to stand there much longer, people would talk and she began to hope they would. Perhaps then he would have to give her proper answers.
Then, finally, his arms withdrew and Josephine was released, whether she wished it or not.
No, she did not wish it, she thought fiercely.
She wished to be in those arms forever, to be kissed by those warm lips every day, to embrace this man fully, body and soul.
She knew this now. Surely he must know it too!
“Cassius, I…” she began to say but it was no use; his expression was again as it had been in the library when he turned everything upside down.
“Thank you for our dance, Lady Josephine. I trust you will enjoy the rest of the ball and journey home safely tomorrow,” the Duke of Ashbourne said with a formal bow before striding away in the direction of the conservatories, leaving Josephine crushed at the edge of the dance floor.
Was that it?! It could not be. Josephine refused to let that incomplete exchange be the last conversation she ever had with the man she loved…