Page 34 of A Duke to Undo her (The Husband Hunt #1)

Chapter Twenty-Four

“You’ve been to London and back?” Nerissa Emerton exclaimed with surprise upon meeting her youngest son in the hallway as he returned late that evening. “You really should have told us, or left a note. No one knew where you had vanished to.”

“I am sorry, Mother,” Benedict said penitently. “I didn’t intend to worry you. It’s only that I argued with Cassius last night, after you went to bed. I was still so angry this morning that I got straight on my horse and went to London.”

Pleased to have him safely home but her face still creased with worry at his explanation as much as his absence, the dowager duchess rang a bell and asked for a tray of cold food to be brought for him to the library.

“But why did you go to London?” she probed as they walked together into the library. “What did you and Cassius argue about that made you want to do that?”

Benedict looked rather sheepish as he considered his answer.

“Cassius told me that I should marry so I went to London and proposed to Lady Josephine Thomson. I thought that if we married, I could move out and live independently in the London house, like Cassius promised.”

Duchess Nerissa looked as though she had been struck by a thunderbolt, a horrified sound forced from her throat as a hand flew to her mouth.

“Lady Josephine refused me, don’t worry,” he added quickly, not having expected quite such a strong reaction from his mother. “Here, let me help you to a seat.”

The blond man took his mother’s arm and settled her into a comfortable chair, propping her with cushions and offering brandy. As her color returned, she waved him away.

“What possessed you to do such a thing, Benedict?” she demanded quite crossly, with far more feeling that he had realized she carried on this subject. “Lady Josephine is…not for you.”

“Oh, she has explained that to me already. We are friends again. Do not think too badly of Lady Josephine mother. She is nothing like all the nasty sniping gossips say. I like how fresh and natural she is. I could not like her more if she were my own sister.”

His mother made another odd sound and Benedict saw her blink away tears as she nodded.

“I do not think badly of Lady Josephine at all, Benedict. In fact, I may like her quite as much as you do, after seeing her here this week,” Duchess Nerissa assured her son.

“I only deplore so much confusion and misunderstanding, including with your brother. If only there were a simple way to untangle everything.”

“There is. Cassius must live his own life instead of trying to make me live it for him,” Benedict said grimly. “Only he won’t, will he?”

“You are very right,” she agreed, calm again after her shock. “What a wonderful life Cassius might have, if only he could see what is in front of his own nose. My poor boy…”

Benedict laughed now, taking the tray of food that had arrived and settling beside his mother.

“Don’t feel too sorry for, Cassius, Mother. I am the one who is suffering, remember.”

The dowager duchess smiled and shook her silver-gold head.

“You will be fine in the morning, my son. There is no real damage done, since Lady Josephine has refused you. How much worse it might have been… I shall speak to Cassius again about his expectations of you, Benedict. Do not argue further with him, for my sake. The consequences could be…dire.”

“Thank you, Mother, although I do not expect he will take any notice of either of us. He will only go his own way, as he always does, taking no account of anyone but himself.”

“I understand Cassius better than you, Benedict, and I think perhaps there is a way to get through to him. I can only try…”

Cassius ignored the second knock on his study door, just as he had ignored the first. He recognized Benedict’s step in the corridor well enough and did not wish to talk to him.

For three days now, the Duke of Ashbourne had buried himself as deeply as he could in estate business, dealing with every small matter he might sometimes have delegated to his agents or long-running issues that might have waited another week, month or even year.

This also allowed him to avoid meals with his family and he’d had only the briefest of contacts with his mother. Benedict, he suspected was happy to avoid him too, likely still smarting after their quarrel.

Despite this frenetic activity and busyness, every time Cassius sat still, especially when he closed his eyes, his mind conjured up a green-eyed young woman with waves of tousled red-brown hair down to her shapely naked breasts, her arms extended to him and her lips slightly parted in desire…

Sleeping was even worse, his dreams even more vivid and frustrating. In these, Lady Josephine often lay naked across his bed or on the forest floor, damp, moaning and eager to be mounted, but an invisible wall preventing him from reaching her.

Every day was torture, and the nights worse still. He could not even flee to London, where he would run the risk of running into the real Lady Josephine or her family.

“I’m not going away until you let me in, Cassius,” Benedict’s voice called out cheerfully, making Cassius think that perhaps their quarrel was over. “I know you’re in there.”

“I’m coming,” answered the duke unwillingly at last, standing and going to the door. “What is it, Benedict?”

“That’s no way to greet your only brother,” grinned Benedict, with his usual sunny smile. “Anyway, I’ve brought you a gift.”

He held up a decanter of brandy.

“My own brandy,” Cassius said drily, although he could not help smiling back. “How kind of you.”

“It is a particularly fine batch,” his younger brother continued. “I thought we might share a drink tonight since I haven’t seen you for days, despite living under the same roof.”

“You were the one who went missing for a day,” the duke pointed out, although standing back to let Benedict into the room. “You left no word and Mother was very worried.”

“Well, you’ve been missing for three days, by my count, even if you’ve been sleeping here and leaving word via servants. That worried Mother just as much, in its own way. Anyway, I believe your offense and mine together must cancel one another out. Let us call it quits.”

The blond man was now at the small sideboard where a line of clean glasses stood, pouring a good measure of brandy into two and presenting one to Cassius.

What Benedict said was true, and the duke could neither deny these words nor criticize his brother for making them.

There was simply no way to explain either to his mother or his brother how sore his heart was and how hard he was finding it to live through each day without Lady Josephine Thomson and no hope of ever having her.

“I’ve already told Mother, and would have told you sooner if I could,” Benedict said without any preamble as they sat down on the sofa by the window together with their brandy. “I proposed to Lady Josephine on Tuesday and she immediately rejected me.”

Thunderstruck, Cassius almost spat out his brandy with the force of the reaction that passed through his body at this casually expressed revelation. He coughed and spluttered as some of the drink went down the wrong way, causing Benedict to stand and slap him on the back.

“That’s rather how Mother reacted too,” he observed. “Since you were the originator and the cause of the proposal, I didn’t expect you to be as shocked.”

Cassius tried to speak but only a croak emerged from his throat and Benedict went to the sideboard to fetch him water.

“I had no idea you might have done that,” Cassius admitted after a gulp of water. “You did not seem taken with the idea last time we spoke.”

“I did it to spite you, Cassius,” his younger brother confessed, his voice more serious now. “I did it in hope of escaping from you. I am the greatest fool in the world and I am grateful that Lady Josephine dealt with such silly addresses with such understanding.”

“Benedict…” Cassius groaned, seeing very clearly now what had happened after their argument at the dinner table on the night in question. “I should have known that I was driving you away, driving you to…this. I didn’t realize what I was doing.”

His brother shrugged.

“I am a grown man and should know better than to listen to you when I know you’re wrong, Cassius, even if I’m reacting against you instead of obeying you.

Lady Josephine pointed out the obvious – I am not in love with her and she is not in love with me.

I should never have let you put the idea in my head. ”

“No,” Cassius agreed, downcast, guilty and overwhelmingly relieved. “So, is that what you wished to tell me over this fine brandy?”

“Partly. I also wished to tell you that I will never listen to you again on the subject of marriage. Feelings matter to me, even if they don’t to you.

Love matters. This is something else that Lady Josephine has made clear in my mind.

When I marry, it will be to a woman who loves me, and whom I love in return. I will accept no interference.”

“Josephine…” Cassius murmured, feeling as though he could hear her voice speaking through Benedict.

“Do you agree not to interfere further on the question of my marriage, whenever it occurs?” his younger brother persisted, thankfully not noticing where Cassius’ attention had become stuck.

“I do,” accepted the duke after a few further moments thought.

“Within reason. You must find your own wife and I will support you, barring only women with traits of criminality, insanity or dipsomania… But not all you say is true, Benedict. I am only a man. I do…feel, and it does matter to me. Sometimes I feel a great deal, even if I cannot show it.”

“Well then, you too may one day fall in love, and I shall support you when you do. Can you imagine how happy Mother would be to see us both well-married?”

Cassius looked away and then took a sip of brandy, not willing to risk going any further along that road with Benedict and accidentally revealing feelings that were best hidden forever.

“How is Mother?” the duke asked instead. “I will come to breakfast tomorrow. Perhaps you should take her back to town with you after that, Benedict. I’m sure she must be bored out here when she could be attending concerts and musical evenings with friends in London...”

The study door opened again, this time without any knocking and Nerissa Emerton’s smiling face looked over to them, as though summoned by their change of conversation.

“I heard your voices and thought I would join you. You have been so busy recently, Cassius, and I must take my chance to catch you while I can. But you are not having a private conversation, are you? I do not want to interrupt.”

“Cassius was just trying to convince me that you and I should return to London and leave him to haunt this old place alone in his present foul and lonely mood,” Benedict announced blithely, drinking the last of his brandy and getting to his feet.

“You are a pest, Benedict,” Cassius pronounced, irked but only in an affectionate way, and this mild reproof seeming to have no effect on his younger brother in any case. “You willfully misinterpret my words and intention.”

“You must be the one to talk him out of it, Mother, for Cassius has already acknowledged me right once tonight, and I won’t risk another throw of the dice. I am going to bed.”

Kissing his mother’s cheek, Benedict left the room, humming a tune to himself under his breath.

When they were alone, Nerissa turned to Cassius with an expression of sober compassion and intent.

“Benedict told you what he did in London, I suppose?” she asked and the duke nodded wordlessly.

“I was very glad to hear that Lady Josephine would not entertain such silly ideas and declined him at once,” the dowager duchess observed circumspectly, watching her older son’s face as she spoke.

“She is…” Cassius began but his words failed him.

Josephine was so many things to him and he could admit none of them to his mother.

“Lady Josephine is not for Benedict,” Duchess Nerissa said, still choosing her words carefully.

“I told him that and I hope he understands. It is not that I have any objections to Lady Josephine as a daughter-in-law. It is only that there are none of the feelings between them that must exist for a marriage to succeed.”

“Lady Josephine doesn’t love Benedict,” the duke said with certainty and some guilt.

“Nor does Benedict love Lady Josephine,” added his mother, slowly and carefully once again. “Yet, she is so very lovable, is she not?”

It felt to Cassius as though she had almost put a hand on an open wound in his body and he physically flinched from it, trying to disguise this involuntary gesture in moving to the sideboard to offer his mother a brandy.

“No, I will not drink anything more tonight,” Nerissa Emerton declined. “But there is one favor I would ask, before you retire, Cassius.”

He inclined his head in agreement, hoping that this request signaled a welcome change of subject.

“Would you come to the gallery again with me now? I should like to look at that portrait of you and your father tonight.”

Ah, why this again?! It was the only thing almost as bad as talking of Lady Josephine, and also the one thing Cassius knew he could not refuse after his promise to his mother on their last viewing.

“Very well,” he answered quietly, offering an arm to the dowager duchess.

One more difficult conversation before bed. He was equal to that, no matter how much it might hurt.