Page 37 of The English Duke
Her dress was a pale yellow, embroidered with bunches of pink-and-purple flowers. For someone who’d been unexpectedly waylaid by her grandmother’s illness, Miss York had a varied and extensive wardrobe.
He couldn’t help but wonder if Martha was going to wear her lavender dress today.
“Will your sister be joining us?” he asked.
The last thing he wanted to encounter first thing in the morning was Josephine’s artificial brightness. She was like a great many women he’d met since ascending to the title. He’d been invisible to them as a naval officer, but the minute he became the 11th Duke of Roth, he was suddenly charming, witty, and erudite.
That kind of shallowness irritated him on a base level.
“I’m afraid not,” she said, smiling at him. She gave him a sideways look, no doubt presenting her best profile. Was he supposed to be overcome by her attractiveness?
He supposed she was pretty, in a way that would fade quickly.
“Will Mr. Burthren be joining us?” she asked.
“I suspect not,” he said. “Normally Reese avoids breakfast.”
“A pity, then. We shall have to entertain each other.”
He couldn’t imagine a more hideous scenario. What was he supposed to say? Regale her with tales of the latest play he’d attended? He hadn’t left Sedgebrook in a year. Was she bookish? Perhaps he should ask her what she’d read lately.
“I’ve seen Ercole,” she said. “What a beautiful horse he is. Are you certain you want to sell him?”
He didn’t want to discuss his brother’s stallion.
“I can direct you to my factor,” he said. “If you’re interested in the horse.”
His comment seemed to silence her, at least for the moment.
He served himself breakfast, his appetite gone.
Why the hell hadn’t Martha showed up? At least with her he could discuss something that interested him. Even their silences were more comfortable than what he was experiencing at the moment.
Martha didn’t simper at him, either. She didn’t act coy. And she most assuredly did not stink up the room with some ghastly perfume smelling of dead flowers in a hothouse.
Had Josephine no idea of how overpowering the scent was?
“We missed you at dinner last night, Your Grace.”
“Yes.” He wasn’t going to go into why he hadn’t been in attendance.
But she, however, was not to be denied.
“I understand you didn’t feel well.”
Good God, was the woman going to pry even further? Common decency would have silenced most people before this, but Josephine evidently thought herself above the fray.
“Have you always been lame, Your Grace?”
He turned his head slowly, regarding her like he would if she was an experiment gone awry in a way he hadn’t expected.
She was smiling faintly, her green eyes soft. No doubt she thought her beauty gave her license to say anything she wished. Had she no inner barrier? No sense of decency? Or, at the very least, no concept of decorum?
“No, Miss York,” he said, the words spoken with studied care. “I haven’t always been ‘lame,’ as you say. It’s a recent acquisition of mine.”
He stood, desperate to leave the room and be quit of Josephine York. This time, he didn’t give a flying farthing if he limped because he held his walking stick almost like a club. If nothing else, if she approached him, he’d brandish the damn thing like a weapon.
Martha woke late, drank her tea in her bedroom, skipped breakfast, and went straight to the boathouse.
