Page 118 of The English Duke
She’d known her father’s marriage hadn’t been idyllic, but surely Marie hadn’t cheated on him to that extent.
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
Josephine shrugged. “It’s not important if you believe me or not.”
“Why would Marie tell you such a thing?”
“It was a present,” Josephine said.
Martha looked at her.
“When you went off to London and everyone could only talk about you. How pretty Martha was. How talented Martha was. How smart Martha was. She knew I wasn’t happy and she wanted me to know you weren’t my sister. We aren’t related at all.”
The worst part wasn’t Josephine’s comment, but the evident enjoyment with which she announced it.
“Does birth matter?” Martha finally asked. “Father treated you like his daughter. Gran treats you like her granddaughter. I’ve always seen you as my sister.”
“It matters to me,” Josephine said. “My father was an important man. A titled man. He didn’t fiddle with inventions all day long.”
“The man you so easily dismiss left you a fortune,” Martha said.
“Payment, don’t you think, for enduring this family? For putting up with your oddness and your father’s? For listening to all of Gran’s rules? Once I’m married I never have to see any of you.”
The words were said with a tight-mouthed hatred. What reason did Josephine have to feel vengeful? She’d always been the spoiled darling of the family, the princess who was never refused anything.
Martha couldn’t think of a thing to say. Not one word came to mind. Standing, she faced the woman she’d known as her sister.
Josephine had always been more concerned with herself and what she wanted than anyone else, but she’d never been actively cruel. She had more than a few saving graces. She adored her mother. She was pleasant to the servants. She ignored people who didn’t interest her instead of going out of her way to make them miserable. At least until now.
“Why did you help Reese?”
Josephine shrugged. “Why not?”
She pushed back the pain of Josephine’s betrayal and asked, “Why does he want the ship?”
“You should ask him, Martha. I don’t care.”
“Then why did you do it? Why did you tell him where theGoldfishwas?”
“To keep him quiet,” she said, an edge to her tone. “He knew I wasn’t with Jordan that night at Sedgebrook.”
“How did he know that?”
“Because I was with him,” she said.
Martha stared at her sister, unsurprised. “And you were with him last night, too.”
Josephine smiled.
She sometimes thought Josephine had the appearance of a cat, especially when she cocked her head just so and glanced at you out of the corner of her eye. Now her expression was of a particularly satisfied cat, one who’d devoured a saucer of cream or a tasty songbird.
“I wanted to make sure he didn’t say anything to Jordan. Tell me,” she said, “you’ve had him, is Jordan halfway decent in bed? Or is he lame there, too?”
Martha didn’t answer her. Instead, she said, “He knows. He knows it wasn’t you that night.”
She’d never seen anyone’s face change so quickly. The smugness in Josephine’s expression vanished.
“How does he know?”
