Page 8 of The Duke’s Absolutely Fantastic Fling (The Notorious Briarwoods #15)

“Y ou seem a bit tense tonight,” Edna observed as she gently brushed Josephine’s hair as she sat before her dressing table.

Josephine loved the way Edna brushed her hair. There was a sort of attentiveness and kindness to it that really touched Josephine’s heart.

She understood why a maid might actually be quite perfunctory in the putting to bed of a young lady in the evening. After all, a maid had to stay up until the ball was over, take care of her mistress, then go to bed, and then get up quite early in the morning to start it all again.

It did not seem like the easiest life, and so Josephine was determined to make certain that Edna felt appreciated, which is why, after every ball, Josephine presented Edna with a small box of chocolates from one of the best shops to eat.

Edna seemed to find that quite acceptable, and the two of them often had an excellent chat, going over every single little detail of the things that had happened during Josephine’s outings.

Tonight, Edna had already eaten a particularly fine chocolate laced with lavender, which had put her in even better than her usual good humor. Still, Edna peered at her over her shoulder, their faces side by side in the polished looking glass that glowed from the amber light of the fire.

“Would you care to unburden yourself, miss? You’re not usually tense.”

“Oh, Edna,” she breathed, trying not to slump, for she liked her excellent posture. “If I must be honest with you, I have had a proposal of marriage.”

“Is this excellent or is this detestable?” Edna asked, hesitating in her brush strokes.

She reached back and took one of Edna’s hands and squeezed it. “I deeply appreciate the fact that you do not immediately rush to congratulate me or assume that I have said yes.”

Edna gave her a kind smile, then went back to brushing. “Well, a young lady must be extremely careful in whom she accepts, miss. Even I know that. It is your entire future. A bad choice will be most difficult indeed.”

Josephine let out a long sigh and folded her hands in her lap. “It rather frustrates me that the most important choice a lady can make will be her choice of a husband, but there it is. Edna, do you ever feel that way?”

Edna’s brow furrowed, then she stopped mid-brushstroke and propped her free hand on her hip.

“I don’t think I shall ever marry, miss, if I’m honest. The Briarwoods are very good to me, you’re very good to me, and I like the idea of spending a life in service to this family.

Most servants don’t. They have fantasies of a house by the sea, which they will eventually let out.

But they don’t have such wonderful families as the one that I take care of now.

So I hope to be with you for a very long time. ”

“As do I,” Josephine assured, turning and removing the hairbrush from her maid’s grasp and taking Edna’s hands in hers. She bit the inside of her cheek, then rushed, “I do not know what I would do without you, Edna.”

Edna’s eyes warmed. “I’m glad you feel that way, Miss Josephine. Now, out with it. Tell me all, and I shall tell you what I think you should do.”

Josephine laughed. It was something that Edna did almost every night because she requested it.

Josephine had been born a peasant. Her life had been very simple.

She’d eaten the simplest of bread, potatoes, and, when she’d been lucky, a little bit of bacon or some meat.

She’d grown up on the Continent, lucky to have decent clothes and a warm place to sleep because her parents had both had employment.

Now, she was surrounded by wealth and power and privilege, and she often thought that the people born to such a life had no idea of how lucky they were or had any sort of real perspective about the world.

How could they?

And Josephine never wanted to forget what regular people were like, what she had once been like, and she thought their opinion vital. And so she would always ask Edna for advice.

She sat up a little straighter. “The Duke of Rossbrea has asked me to marry him.”

“Oh, miss! How wonderful!” Edna cheered.

Josephine let out a groan. “Oh, dear. You think so?”

Edna tsked. “Of course, I do, miss. He’s absolutely charming, really beautiful, and you seemed to like him so much in Scotland.”

“I did.” Josephine pursed her lips. “I do. I just—”

Edna’s smile dimmed. “Don’t you wish to marry him, miss?”

“I don’t know,” Josephine groaned, putting her hands over her face.

“I want to. I think that I do. A large part of my heart insists that I should tell him yes and stick to it, but another part tells me that I must be careful. Edna, it’s just as you say, marriage is the most important choice that a young woman can make, and I do not want to let my adoptive parents down. ”

“How could Lord Achilles and your mother be disappointed in such a marriage?” Edna gasped.

“Oh, Edna, if it went all wrong, I would be the very first Briarwood to allow such a thing to happen. And being that I am not…” Her voice dropped off. She was shocked that she was saying such a thing aloud. She had not even known that she’d thought it.

Perhaps, it was only because she was speaking to Edna that she dared to whisper a fear she’d not even known she had.

She’d been raised with such love and assurance. She knew the Briarwoods would hate to hear her say such a thing. But there it was.

Edna’s eyes softened. “I see, miss. I always thought you were quite secure in your family.”

“I am,” Josephine agreed. “There is no part of me that doubts my place as a Briarwood, but if I were to let them down and was the first to do so and not actually a…” She sucked in a sharp breath.

She shouldn’t say it aloud. She couldn’t; she wouldn’t.

It would be the most insulting thing to her adoptive mother and father.

Her adoptive mother and father had always made her feel so special, so beloved.

She did not know why she thought the betrayal would somehow feel worse in the family if she got her marriage wrong.

Her the one wrong. It was a ridiculous thing to think.

She couldn’t allow herself to contemplate it, but evidently she had.

She had to do it right. She could not make a mistake in this marriage. She had to be very careful.

Yes. That had to be why she was doubtful. And what she had said to her aunts made sense now. She did fear she wasn’t the right one for him. She feared letting everyone down. She’d been given so much. So much more than all those children on the Continent who hadn’t been taken in. She couldn’t fail.

Josephine swallowed, ready to spill more of her fears to her dear maid.

The door suddenly swung open, and Emily and Anne rushed in.

“Where did you go?” Emily gushed.

Anne bounded in and threw herself on the bed. “We had the most divine evening without you, I will say. Oh, how wonderful those Scottish lads are! They make all the English boys seem as boring as milk when compared with the best tea from around the world.”

Emily nodded. “It’s quite true. I don’t know how anyone can ever compare to that fine lot of fellows.”

Josephine smiled. “I think Edna would agree with you.”

Edna winked. “Indeed, I do. They are a lovely bunch of boys. The only boys as good as the Briarwood ones in my opinion, so I think the lot of you should marry them, have done with it, and settle it all forever. I wouldn’t mind frequent trips to Scotland.”

“They haven’t asked us to marry them yet,” Anne said.

“Oh, but I do think they will,” Emily said. “Don’t you? We’ll lead them on a little bit of a chase, because what is life without some excitement? And then, of course, we’ll say yes.”

“That’s what you’ve done, isn’t it?” Anne said, turning to Josephine, giving her a mischievous look.

She let out a groan. “Is it so very obvious that he’s asked me?”

“I don’t think anybody in the ballroom knew it was obvious,” supplied Anne.

“Though there was some chatter about the fact that you two had left the ballroom floor and seemed to disappear together, but then he appeared later and we covered everything for you, of course, by saying that you didn’t feel well.

That you’d turned your ankle and all that. And that you had gone up to bed.”

Emily flounced her hair. “When in fact you had been kissed thoroughly, or so the Briarwoods’ whispers say. Then you were whisked away by the aunts and told to be quite sensible and follow your heart.”

Anne grinned. “You are going to follow your heart, aren’t you?”

“The heart is a very dodgy organ if you ask me,” Josephine said. “The head is really more reasonable.”

“Oh, you’re not going to be ridiculous, are you, Josephine?” Emily asked, folding her arms over her silk gown. “Please don’t be bullheaded. It never works out for the ladies. Everyone gets quite frustrated when ladies are strong-minded.”

“You’re a Briarwood,” Josephine exclaimed. “Are you suggesting I be wool-brained?”

“No,” Emily said, rolling her eyes. “I’m just suggesting that you don’t resist that which is good for you.”

Josephine contemplated her sister. “And you think he’s good for me, do you?”

Edna, Emily, and Anne turned to her. “Yes,” they said in unison.

“Should I have just said yes?” Josephine exclaimed, surprised by the joint vehemence. “With no codicils at all?”

Emily cocked her head to the side, causing her hair to dance against her neck. “No, I think gentlemen need codicils.”

“As do I,” Anne agreed. “I think a gentleman needs to feel as if it’s a little bit of a challenge, not a foregone conclusion.

They always value things that they have to work harder for.

” Anne scowled, then added, “Even though I don’t really like the idea of it, it does seem to be their nature.

I swear it’s all because thousands of years ago they went out on the hunt, walked for miles, tracked the beast, took it down and had to carry it back and present it to their clan. ”

“Wait a moment.” Josephine gulped. “Am I the beast being hunted?”

Emily pursed her lips. “I suppose in this story you are.”

“The beast ends up dead,” Josephine exclaimed.

“Don’t be a boring literalist,” Anne tutted. “But I think you should consider letting him work for it just a little bit.”

“Though that isn’t what I intended, in a way, that is what I am doing. For I will not truly agree to marry him until the end of the Season.” She bit her lower lip, worrying it. “This is all very confusing.”

“I don’t think it is,” Emily countered, playing with the delicate ribbons at her bodice.

“He wants you, you want him, and you’re just making certain that he wants you enough that once he marries you and has you, he won’t trot off to some country and leave you alone like the little wife.

I can’t see you left behind to tend the hearth and raise the children and wipe noses without respect and a bit of your own adventure. ”

“Briarwood ladies love to be mothers, as far as I can tell,” Anne added, “but not a one of us would want to be left alone to bear the burden of keeping the home fires lit. Nothing wrong with it, of course, if that’s what you want, but I think it would be utter calamity for you,” she finished softly.

“For the three of us, actually,” Josephine replied, grateful that her adopted sisters weren’t chastising her for not immediately assuming marriage to a duke was the only answer.

Josephine studied the fire and then, without holding back, she declared, “We were raised in too much chaos to choose peace.”

Emily’s face grew grave. “Just be careful you don’t choose chaos because that’s what shaped you.”

Shaped her.

The Briarwoods had shaped her, hadn’t they? She hoped so.

Chaos hadn’t been familiar to her since she was a child. But when she had been quite small, like Emily and Anne, it was all she had known when war raged across Europe, and Napoleon did not care who he destroyed in his determination to become an emperor.