Page 63 of A Duke to Undo her
Josephine would not deny that she loved this man, but could she ever trust him again?
“Why did you come here, Cassius?” she asked directly, her voice sad but unwavering. “You must explain yourself.”
This weary composure did nothing to calm the Duke of Ashbourne’s agitation and rather seemed to increase it. Impulsively, and despite the protests of Lord Elmridge and the others, he seized her hands in his, making Josephine’s breath catch both in surprise and unexpected desire.
Even here, now, after everything, she wanted this man in the most animal way. She squeezed his hands in hers, encouraging him to speak while a primal energy seemed to flow between their palms.
“After my father died, I came to believe that I was doomed in the same way,” he admitted in a low but heartfelt voice, addressing Josephine alone.
“Doomed?” Josephine questioned and the Duke of Ashbourne nodded, closing his eyes.
“I thought that I had inherited some defect and was bound to die young, causing pain and grief to all who loved me, and passing the same evil fate on to any children. Believing that, I could never fall in love, never marry.”
“Oh Cassius,” she acknowledged, shaking her head. “Why should you believe that? What cause could you have?”
“Medically, no cause at all, I see now. It is only that I am so like my father, and it hurt so much to lose him. I could not see the truth, I could not weight the evidence sensibly against my fears. Then, I fell in love with you and I felt myself breaking all over again. I loved you too much to risk harming you.”
“You are not broken, Cassius,” Josephine stated slowly, her thoughts still forming as she took in his words. “No more than I am broken. We only seem broken sometimes because we are at odds to the world around us. To me, you are…not perfect, but better than perfect. Your love cannot harm me, only your rejection.”
The Duke of Ashbourne nodded, understanding and contrite.
“Josephine, will you marry me?” he asked her then, his voice rising in volume with his mounting emotion.
Gasps, whoops and cheers burst from the onlookers gathered around them and listening to every audible word, just as Lord Elmridge had warned.
The loudest gasp of all came from Josephine, feeling briefly for the first time in her life as though she might actually faint away. She had not realized it until he spoke, but his hand was the only thing the Duke of Ashbourne could have offered to rebuild her trust.
Josephine’s hands tightened on those of the duke and she looked back at him with both hope and challenge, the noise of the small crowd having brought Josephine partly back to reality and her senses.
“You’re proposing to me,” she stated incredulously. “You want me to marry you?”
“Lady Josephine Thompson,” the duke said again, more loudly now so that there could be no mistake, his voice carrying even wider across the park. “Would you do me the honor of accepting my hand in marriage?”
Instinctively, Josephine smiled and nodded, one of her hands releasing itself and finding its own way to Cassius’ face, where the touch of her fingers on his cheek seemed to melt the remaining tension of his expression into a pure smile.
“You are causing a far worse public scene than I have ever managed,” she told him. “You realize that you will never live this down, Cassius, Duke of Ashbourne? It will be in all the gossip columns and scandal sheets for days, weeks, even months. There will likely be cartoons in which we will both look like scarecrows.”
“I don’t care about any of that, as long as you accept me, Josephine,” Cassius responded, his hands now at her waist, despite their audience and Josephine’s brothers-in-law muttering and bristling nearby.
“Yes,” Josephine said for everyone else to hear and then rose on her toes to whisper into her lover’s ear. “I have always accepted you, Cassius, haven’t I?”
Now the clapping from their little audience was joined by whistles too.
“I hope this was part of your plan,” remarked Josephine, blushing and slightly rueful in the dawning awareness of how this public display must be received by her family although she was unable to really regret anything of the past few minutes.
The Duke of Ashbourne removed a golden signet ring from his little finger and the metal glinted in the sun as he held it up.
“My only plan was to find you and tell you that I loved you, Josephine,” he confessed, slipping the ring onto a finger of her extended hand. “I am terrified of hurting you, but I am yours ifyou will have me, broken or not. This is my pledge. Can you still love me, after everything? Tell me that you can, that you do.”
Josephine didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at such a question, her love for Cassius Emerton being so strong and so present in every part of her. They were both flawed and imperfect in the eyes of the world and therefore well-matched in a way that could never have come about with anyone who fitted her former stated ideal for a husband.
Did he really need to ask her this? Did he really need to hear the words? There were tears in her eyes as she looked back at him.
“If you don’t answer me in five seconds, Josephine, I swear I shall kiss you,” the duke warned her, a broad grin accompanying the plea in his gaze, seeing the truth of her feelings in her face but wanting the words anyway. “I might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb, might I not? Five, four, three…”
Before he could reach the end of this count, Josephine reached up and pulled Cassius Emerton’s face down to hers for a kiss that drew further sounds of amazement and rowdy good cheer from the watchers.
“That is my answer,” she murmured, her heart fluttering wildly and her heated blood demanding far more than kisses.
