Page 54 of The English Duke
He took it only when nothing else worked.
Right now, the exercise and heat weren’t working. He didn’t have many solutions. Alcohol didn’t ease the pain. All it did was leave him with a raging headache. The elixir worked, but it stripped him of any control over his life.
For now he would simply endure.
He knew, from previous experience, that he and agony would be doing battle until dawn.
The minute Josephine closed the door to her room, she began to undress. Tonight she wouldn’t ask for Amy’s help.
Martha was so puritanical. She didn’t understand that this was a perfect circumstance, one screaming at her to take advantage of it. Martha would have been satisfied to spend the rest of her life working with their father, fiddling with things that didn’t interest most men.
She never even tried to tame that atrocious hair of hers. Nor did she dress fashionably. She was an heiress, too, yet she didn’t seem to spend a cent of her money on herself.
Unlike Martha, she was not going to remain at Griffin House as if she was a novitiate at a convent. It was up to her to forge her own destiny, fix her future in the direction she wanted.
Her own dear Maman had always encouraged her to seize a likely opportunity.
“Women have to make their own way in life, my dear Josephine,”she’d said.“We can’t simply sit in the parlor and wait for a man to call on us. No, we have to give him the idea, first. We have to pursue him with single-minded determination, all the while allowing him to believe it was his idea.”
She had no doubt, whatsoever, that Maman would understand what she was about to do.
Josephine stared at herself in the mirror, pleased with her appearance. Her ivory complexion was enhanced with a delicate rose flush. Her eyes glowed with good health and her hair looked shiny and soft.
She was beautiful enough to be a duchess. Sedgebrook would be the perfect backdrop for her. She could entertain in style here. People would come from miles around. People would call her Your Grace. She might even add on to the Crystal Parlor with a few of her own pieces. She would most definitely change the Conservatory, perhaps add a few rooms to the house so anyone coming to Sedgebrook would marvel at the magnificent changes she’d made.
As to the lawn, she’d make some alterations there, too. Perhaps add in a few more topiary bushes and soften the approach somewhat so Sedgebrook wasn’t so imposing from the front. With those twin staircases, it looked almost like a dragon’s mouth stretched wide, ready to ensnare an unwary carriage. Or perhaps she might even have an architect redesign the facade.
The history of the Hamiltons would become hers. She would be immortalized in the Upper Hall where all of the portraits of the previous duchesses hung. She knew exactly where she wanted her painting to be placed: right beside the double doors so it couldn’t be missed when someone either entered the room or left it.
Instead of waiting for Sedgebrook to settle down around her, she was going to go to the duke’s suite now. She’d be in his bed when he turned in for the night.
He wouldn’t dare refuse her.
What man would?
Instead of undressing for the night, Martha remained in her lavender dress. Catching sight of herself in the mirror over the bureau, she sighed.
Regardless of how many minutes she spent with her hair, it was a disaster: curly, unmanageable, and definitely possessing a mind of its own. It was simply easier to allow it to do what it wanted. The humidity hadn’t helped matters. Now her hair formed a corona around her head, making it appear she hadn’t spent any time on it all day.
Sometimes she wished she could be more like Josephine with her beautiful hair that never seemed out of place.
How foolish. She was herself. Envying someone else would never fix her hair.
Sometimes, however, she wanted to know what it felt like to look in the mirror and be greeted by perfection. She certainly didn’t have it. Her nose was slightly long for her face while her mouth was too large. She had a mole near her left eye and it always looked like a spot of dirt on her face. Her chin was too forceful, her jawline too sharp. Yet her eyes were a warm brown and possibly her best feature, being clear and direct.
Her father had once said she had a way of demanding the truth with her gaze, that no one could lie to her.
She would like, just once, for someone—a man—to be swept away by her appearance. If he gazed into her eyes and wanted to see, not their color, but what lay beneath, to examine the person she hid from the world.
She knew full well she didn’t want just any man to be attracted to her. She wanted it to be the Duke of Roth.
Josephine didn’t see who he was; she saw only the title and Sedgebrook. Because Jordan had a physical impairment, she discounted his attractiveness. How could she overlook his beauty: the symmetry of his features, the perfect smile, those high cheekbones, and his striking deep blue eyes?
Of course, Josephine hadn’t seen the way his hands moved, the care with which he touched her father’s ship. His fingers had smoothed over the copper with almost a loving touch. The same gentleness he’d show a lover.
She stared at herself in the mirror, shocked. What was happening to her? She was thinking thoughts she’d never had before about a man who was nearly a stranger.
No, he wasn’t that, was he?
