Page 55 of The English Duke
She’d read every single one of his letters going back five years. She wept for him when reading about the death of his brother. The letters had grown more candid over the course of his friendship with her father. She knew the Duke of Roth wasn’t wealthy, that Sedgebrook was expensive to maintain.
When Amy knocked on the door she opened it, letting the maid into her room.
“Thank you, Miss Martha. I didn’t know who else to talk to about this.”
Amy’s hands smoothed down the skirt of her dark blue dress repeatedly as she talked, a habit she had when she was nervous.
She motioned Amy to the chair, but the maid only shook her head, still standing by the door.
“It’s your sister, Miss Martha.”
What has Josephine done now?
“I’ve been listening to some of the other maids here, Miss Martha. They were talking about Miss Josephine. I’m afraid they weren’t saying very many nice things about her.”
Gossip went on in any house, but she could imagine the sheer size of the staff at Sedgebrook made gossip almost an industry. Add in the fact that Josephine was beautiful and wealthy and it wasn’t surprising that she was being talked about.
Evidently, however, it wasn’t her beauty or her wealth but rather her behavior that was under discussion.
“She’s been asking for special favors, Miss Martha. Wanting to be treated almost like family I’ve heard it said. She’s given one of the maids enough money that it’s caused problems among the staff. She insisted on meeting with the cook this afternoon to revise the breakfast menu. And she told Mrs. Browning that some of the upstairs maids had been lazy. There was dust on some of the portrait frames in the upper hall.”
Amy’s usual pleasant face was contorted with worry.
“Mrs. Browning told one of the girls that if Josephine wasn’t stopped, she was going to the duke himself.”
She and Amy exchanged a look. Each of them knew that Josephine was nearly impossible to constrain. Gran was the only one who could do it. Even Marie had never tried.
What did they do now?
She went and sat on the edge of the bed, wrapping her arm around one of the posts. If she could, she’d magically transport them back to Griffin House where there was no hint of looming disaster.
Should she tell Amy what Josephine had planned? No, she wouldn’t be able to keep the maid from telling Gran. There was a possibility Josephine had been teasing her, but after what Amy said, she was beginning to think Josephine was serious.
“I’ll talk to her,” she said.
She didn’t have much hope that her words would be enough to change Josephine’s behavior. But surely her sister could see that she was putting herself in jeopardy? Servants talked. Rumors spread like fire. Something that happened in a country house could easily carry to London. Josephine would be tainted by the aura of her own rudeness before she even had a season. Playing Lady of the Manor at Sedgebrook was hardly the way to ease her way into society.
“I’ll talk to her,” she said again.
She closed the door after Amy, wishing she felt more optimistic about the outcome of any discussion with her sister.
Jordan tolerated the agony for two hours. Two hours in which he paced the library, called for more heated bricks, and cursed himself for not moving more during the day. During those one hundred twenty minutes he ignored the siren call of the drug.
He sat in the chair staring up at the dome above the second floor noting the small cracks he’d been measuring for a year now. He’d have to find the money from somewhere to repair the dome before it crashed in and destroyed the library.
Perhaps he could sell some of the books surrounding him, volumes clad in leather with gilt lettering, pounds and pounds of books purchased by his grandfather and chosen for their colors more than their contents. The bottom tier was scarlet leather, topped by a sea green. On the upper floors the books were blue.
He couldn’t attest to the fact, but he suspected most of them had never been opened. Despite the sheer number of books, he found Sedgebrook’s library lacking in what he needed. But, then, he wanted to read about the latest advancements in science. No one had purchased a new book for the Hamilton library in years.
The curved iron staircase captured his attention for a while. He made note of the intricate ironwork connecting the railing, tracing the pattern from the base to the top of the twenty-seven steps.
At the end of the two hours, he reached into the bottom desk drawer and uncorked one of the three bottles of the elixir he’d secreted around Sedgebrook. The second was in the boathouse and the third in his bedroom.
He drank two swallows, knowing it would be enough to numb the pain and dull his wits. In a few minutes it would begin to take effect, giving him enough time to laboriously make his way up the stairs to his room where he would surrender to the elixir and lose himself.
Chapter 16
Josephine crept out of her room, closing the door softly behind her.
