Page 7 of A Duke to Undo her (The Husband Hunt #1)

Chapter Five

“Look, how wonderful! We are sitting together too,” said Josephine happily to the handsome blond man on whose arm she was walking into dinner at Lord and Lady Kemp’s well-appointed London house.

Josephine and Benedict Emerton paused for a moment beside the large placement display, presented for consultation on a liveried footman’s silver tray beside the dining room door. Josephine was pleased to note that her companion seemed just as gratified as she was with their seating.

“I made sure of it,” confessed Mr. Emerton with a grin before dropping his voice to a whisper. “There’s so many old fuddy-duddies here tonight that I couldn’t risk being stuck with one of them. Philip Kemp was an old friend of my father and he was most understanding.”

For a second they both giggled together but then Josephine sensed the eyes of others in the party upon them and fell firmly silent.

She could easily guess who might be looking askance at so innocent a slip in decorum.

There was at least one guest here tonight who was likely to have found Josephine’s presence an unpleasant surprise rather than a happy one.

The invitation card from the Viscount and Viscountess of Kemp had been rather unexpected and puzzling when it arrived at Elmridge House earlier that week.

Part of an older and more musically-oriented London social set, Philip Kemp was only a slight acquaintance of Norman.

An invitation to dinner, and one so pointedly including Josephine, was something out of the ordinary.

Then, Josephine had learned from Madeline that the Kemps were close to the Emerton family. She had squealed with delight and jumped up and down in the Elmridge House drawing room when she realized that Benedict Emerton must have requested her inclusion.

“That is precisely what you must not do at Lord and Lady Kemp’s dinner,” Madeline had instructed her patiently once the squealing stopped.

“You should say. ‘How kind,” or ‘What a thoughtful gesture,’ or simply nod and smile. Respectable ladies do not express themselves so unguardedly, or enthusiastically.”

“You expect that the Duke of Ashbourne will be there too, don’t you?” Josephine had asked in alarm, almost dropping the invitation as her heart gave a lurch in her chest and a cloud of butterflies dispersed busily through her torso.

It did annoy Josephine that Cassius Emerton should have such a physical effect on her despite her best efforts to quell it.

She was determined not to be afraid of his unsmiling ill-temper.

Yet, even when she was sure she had succeeded in thinking of him with equanimity, the mere mention of his name could do this to her.

“The duke rarely allows his younger brother to attend dinners and balls alone,” Madeline had warned.

“Given that Lady Kemp is so friendly with the Dowager Duchess of Ashbourne too, I wouldn’t be surprised if you found her in attendance also.

You really must be on your best behavior and remember your manners at all times if you want to be thought of as a potential wife for Benedict Emerton… ”

Now that the evening of the dinner party had finally arrived, Josephine had been trying her hardest to follow her more conventional friend’s instructions, especially once she saw with her own eyes that the Duke of Ashbourne and the Dowager Duchess of Ashbourne were indeed both in attendance.

Josephine had been to the retiring room twice already to ensure that her hair and cream silk dress were both in order.

She had even tried to copy demure Vera’s tone and mannerisms ever since she and her chaperones had walked in through the front door.

She only hoped that the elder members of the Emerton family appreciated her efforts.

The unalloyed pleasure of finding herself seated beside Benedict Emerton did not last very long, with the Duke of Ashbourne soon taking his own seat directly opposite the pair on the other side of the table.

It was a further effort not to groan at the very sight of him.

Lord and Lady Elmridge were further down the table, close to the dowager duchess.

Josephine had managed to avoid direct conversation with Cassius Emerton in the drawing room before dinner, mainly due to Benedict’s own intervention in joining her relatives and then steering them firmly away from his own family.

The only distant impression gained of Dowager Duchess Nerissa was that she was close to fifty, had a pleasant voice, and physically resembled Benedict, especially in her faded blonde and silver hair.

The younger Emerton brother seemed actively disinclined to converse with his brother tonight. Despite this, or maybe because of it, the duke watched him like a hawk.

“Lady Josephine,” the Duke of Ashbourne acknowledged her once he was seated, inclining his head with a small but civil bow, his deep blue eyes far too interested for her liking.

“Your Grace,” she murmured, trying to keep her face blank as she returned his polite nod, a sincere smile being presently too much to feign.

Josephine felt that the duke was always deliberately watching and waiting for her to make a mistake so that he could find fault of some sort. No wonder she felt so nervous around him. She noticed smugly that his hair was already escaping the confines of any style that a comb had earlier imposed.

Men really ought not to judge others’ neatness so harshly when they struggled with their own…

“Unfortunately, my brother is a good friend of Philip Kemp too, and determined to sit near me,” Benedict Emerton whispered in her ear as she passed judgment on his brother’s appearance.

“Never mind, hopefully we can just ignore Cassius. The lady on his right, the Marchioness of Hellington, could talk for England, although I doubt England would wish to listen.”

Again they broke into shared giggles of laughter, despite Josephine’s best resolutions to be calm and dignified tonight.

“Is something funny?” demanded Cassius at once, drawing the attention of Lady Hellington too.

“Nothing important,” Benedict answered airily.

“Oh, do share the joke with the table,” trilled Lady Hellington. “I so enjoy good humor. My late husband, well, my second late husband, always said that no one appreciated good humor as well as I did, may God bless his soul.”

Josephine’s cheeks burned guiltily as the Duke of Ashbourne continued to regard them expectantly.

In her old-fashioned dress and grey-wig, Lady Hellington seemed the picture of a good-natured, if garrulous, lady of late middle-age.

They could not possibly admit Benedict’s unkind comments about her and Josephine felt ashamed of laughing.

Maybe they had both been too thoughtless and disrespectful.

“Yes, do share, Benedict. Or perhaps you would like to explain, Lady Josephine?” Cassius Emerton pressed pointedly. “An example of your usual wit, perhaps?”

From the duke’s accusing expression as he spoke, Josephine gathered that he rightly assumed that their laughter had been over something inappropriate. Worse, and wrongly, he assumed that it had been Josephine’s doing. Thankfully, Benedict Emerton came to the rescue.

“I have been telling Lady Josephine how very pleased I am to be sitting beside such an amiable and vivacious companion, Lady Hellington. I spend so much time in the company of my worthy and dutiful brother that such pleasant and light conversation as Lady Josephine’s is a relief.

Truly, women’s worth is more precious than rubies, as the Bible tells us. ”

“Why, you have quite the silver tongue, Mr. Emerton,” chortled Lady Hellington.

“You are almost as charming as my first late husband, may he lie easy in his grave. Be careful around such an eloquent and handsome young gentleman, Lady Josephine. Why, I had no intention whatsoever of marrying my first husband when he came to propose, but after ten minutes of conversation, our wedding date was set…”

“Virtuous women,” muttered Cassius Emerton as Lady Hellington continued to tell the story of her first marriage.

Had he meant Josephine to hear that or had he been speaking to himself? She looked quizzically at the duke, instantly distracted from Lady Hellington’s story, to which Benedict was still listening attentively.

“Virtuous women?” she repeated, frowning. “What of them, Your Grace?”

“I was clarifying my brother’s Bible quotation. It is the worth of virtuous women which is more precious than rubies, not women in general.”

At this statement, Josephine had to bite her tongue in order to hold back her natural reaction.

Was the duke actually slighting her virtue?

How dare he! Josephine might not be the most conventional young lady in London but that was going too far.

Or was she misinterpreting an innocent, if ill-considered, remark?

With an effort she tried to imagine what Madeline might say.

“How well you remember your Bible study,” she responded politely, although not entirely succeeding in keeping the sarcasm from her voice. “Your mother must be very proud. How fortunate we are that you are here to remind us of the importance of virtue in the fairer sex.”

Cassius Emerton looked hard at her with those penetrating blue eyes and Josephine shivered inwardly but declined to look away, refusing to be cowed.

She suspected that if they had not been at the table, he might have thrown back some further jibe or cutting remark.

The duke certainly looked as though he was restraining himself as much as Josephine. What a truly impossible man!

“Cassius,” said the sweet-tempered but persistent voice of the Dowager Duchess of Ashbourne, Josephine vaguely realizing that his mother had been trying unsuccessfully to get his attention for some seconds. “Cassius?”