Page 36 of A Duke to Undo her (The Husband Hunt #1)
“As he should at his age,” Nerissa returned with a more genuine hint of smile herself.
“That Benedict should reject your guidance now is a measure of your success in raising him to manhood, Cassius. You would not want your brother to have become some pliable milksop without thoughts and feelings of his own, would you?”
The Duke of Ashbourne shook his head, recognizing the mild reproof in her words.
“It is time that I let Benedict go his own way. I accept that. Was this your design in bringing me here tonight, Mother? If so, your work is already done.”
“That was not my intention, no,” she said gently. “It is you I am concerned for now, not Benedict.”
“You need have no concern for…”
“Cassius, you are deeply unhappy.”
It was not a question, but a statement and it struck him like a blow. The Duke of Ashbourne closed his eyes, these words and the images in the painting before them too much to take in together.
“The past is done, my son,” Duchess Nerissa continued. “Benedict and I have both come to terms with what happened to our family, and yet, I feel that you – strongest of all us – have not. Why should that be?”
“Strong,” Cassius repeated with an ironic laugh, opening his eyes again and looking at his father’s face, seeing his own features there now far more than in the image of the youth he had once been.
“Father too was strong, was he not? I am like Father in face, in form, in personality. Even the strongest man cannot battle fate and hope to win.”
His mother shook her head firmly.
“I don’t believe in fate, Cassius. I believe in chance, and courage and love. Your father was not fated to die. He was only unlucky. You…Oh, Casssius, you are not fated to die young either. That is is, isn’t it? That is what you have been carrying all these years?”
“How can you be so sure of something like that?” the Duke of Ashbourne demanded, pointing to the portrait. “How can you know that it was not some inherited weakness that killed my father?”
“Cassius, you must not cut yourself off from life, from love…” she tried to stop him but the flow of thoughts into words was now too strong to be easily dammed or diverted.
“I am just like him, aren’t I? You have always said so. Look at the two of us. If I carry the same invisible flaw in my blood or my heart, how could I ever deliberately inflict such grief on any woman, or knowingly pass it down to children? I must live apart.”
“No!” she said more firmly now, raising her voice and seizing his forearms to bring his eyes to hers.
“None of that is true, Cassius! Three physicians examined Henry’s body, including the man who attended him before his death.
There was no one cause they could find. The best explanation is only that several factors combined and overwhelmed his heart. That was ill-luck, not fate.”
“How can I be sure? It is impossible to know,” he insisted, the idea of a gloomy and mysterious fate clinging too tightly to his soul to be easily shrugged off. “Doctors are not gods, Mother.”
“Use your reason in this, my son, as you use it so well in other matters.,” Duchess Nerissa urged him.
“Your grandmother, Henry’s mother, lived to almost ninety, even if her mind failed.
Your grandfather, the Eighth Duke of Ashbourne, died in a swimming accident at five-and-seventy.
Your great-grandfather William was almost eighty, when he was carried off by flu after painting outside in his nightshirt. ”
These were undeniable facts, clearly stated, and he could not ignore them as he might have ignored emotional pleading and attempts at reassurance.
“All three of Henry’s brothers and sisters still live today and your cousins too seem hale and hearty in recent letters,” continued his mother very surely. “There is nothing in your father’s family tree that speaks of inherited weakness. Nothing whatsoever, Cassius.”
The duke swallowed, feeling the burden on his shoulders loosen with the force of such evidence but unsure yet if something so long and so tightly attached could ever really be removed.
“Your father was unlucky, Cassius. We were all unlucky to lose him. That is all. Before that, we were very lucky to have him for as long as we did. I thank God for that every day, and for giving me my two sons.”
“I want to believe what you say,” the duke told his mother. “I really do.”
“You must believe me,” the dowager duchess insisted, still holding her son’s arms although her grip was lighter now. “Look at me, Cassius. You are punishing yourself needlessly for a past that was no one’s fault. Let yourself be happy now. Go to Lady Josephine…”
At this last statement, Cassius froze and stepped back, feeling the deepest reaches of his heart exposed and vulnerable. Had his mother known all along of his feelings for Lady Josephine and his struggle to contain them?
“Mother, I must…”
“You might be willing to continue hurting yourself, although I wish you wouldn’t. But are you really willing to hurt Lady Josephine too, Cassius? She loves you, and you must know it by now.”
Any attempt at denial would be futile. That final conversation at the fountain came back to him, along with that final kiss, so sweet and so painful.
Lady Josephine had been weeping and her tears had hurt Cassius too, cutting him to the quick.
Only the belief that he was acting for her own good had enabled him to speak as he did.
“Is Lady Josephine not better off without me?” he questioned himself as much as his mother.
The dowager duchess’s answer was again swifter and more decided than his own.
“No, she is not. That girl is deeply, deeply unhappy now, likely as unhappy as you, although her family don’t know why. She has told them nothing of whatever passed between you, it seems, as you have told me nothing.”
Cassius felt his face flush as he remembered his discreet but undeniably improper erotic advances and how Lady Josephine had responded in full measure. Could his mother have guessed even at that?
“For both of your sakes, I beg of you to put this matter right, and to do it quickly. Lady Elmridge wrote to me yesterday to thank me for our hospitality. She mentioned that Lady Josephine may go to Scotland with another relative shortly. They are worried for her health. Now, I have said my piece. I shall retire and suggest you do the same.”
“Scotland?!” the duke exclaimed. “But that is… so far away.”
“Indeed,” replied Nerissa, coming to kiss his cheek. “I imagine that if Lady Josephine goes, we will not see her for a full year. I suppose she might even choose to stay there, if society in Edinburgh is congenial.”
With this final rejoinder, she departed, leaving Cassius dumbstruck among the candles.
As disheveled and out of breath as his horse after the early morning ride from Ashbourne Castle to London, the Duke of Ashbourne’s already-thumping heart lurched as he heard the response to his enquiry from the white-haired and dignified butler at the front door of Elmridge House.
“Lord and Lady Elmridge are not at home, Your Grace,” the venerable retainer informed the duke respectfully after consulting the card Cassius thrust at him.
Was he too late? Please God no! He had risen at dawn and ridden as fast as care for his animal’s welfare would allow. Why had he not set off last night as soon as he left the gallery?
“What of Lady Josephine? She has not gone to Scotland already has she?”
“Not as far as I am aware, Your Grace,” the man answered, looking a little disconcerted by the manner of these questions.
“Would you care to wait in the drawing room for Lord and Lady Elmridge’s return?
I cannot say how long they will remain at the park in such clement weather, but I am sure they would wish me to offer you their hospitality. ”
Cassius shook his head. He felt he might go mad if he had to sit down in an elegant drawing room, sipping tea and listening to the tick of a clock. It had been hard enough to wait until sunrise before saddling his horse at Ashbourne Castle this morning.
He pulled at his stock, wishing he could rip off his entire collar and go about like a farmer or laborer.
Doubtless his hair was already wild and his clothing in dusty disarray.
The poor old retainer might think him a drunk or a madman, regardless of rank, but Cassius knew that Josephine would not care about his appearance, if he could find her.
Perhaps she would not wish to speak to him, but that would never be on account of his dress. It would be because he had already hurt her too deeply for forgiveness, never mind a chance to win her heart. If she was determined to go to Scotland and forget him forever, he could not blame her.
“You say they are at the park. Hyde Park?” the duke re-presented the butler’s words, not wanting to dwell too long on the worst possible outcome when there was still some chance.
“Perhaps, Your Grace. The family do often walk there, but sometimes they choose other parks. I should not wish to mislead you.”
“I shall go and look for them, in every park in London if I must,” Cassius declared, his fierceness provoking another flash of surprise on the butler’s previously impassive features.
“If they return before I do, please give them my card and let them know that I…I must speak with them. Most urgently.”
The butler nodded and seemed relieved when Cassius retreated down the steps towards his horse once more. Swinging himself back into the saddle, the Duke of Ashbourne turned his grey stallion towards Hyde Park.
Only one thing mattered now – not dignity, not dress, nor propriety. He must find Lady Josephine Thomson and take her back into his arms, if she would still have him…