Page 24 of A Duke to Undo her
“I must retire with my sister,” Josephine blurted out and then dropped a brief curtsy before almost running from the room, sensing the Duke of Ashbourne’s gaze burning into her back as she departed.
Chapter Eleven
“Can’t I have breakfast in bed?” Josephine grumbled as Vera threw back the curtains and Betsy opened the wardrobe to lay out her dress for the day.
“At your age, as a guest in someone’s house, without any illness or infirmity? No, Josephine,” Lady Elmridge told her firmly but with good humor. “You must rise for breakfast and come downstairs with the rest of us. Betsy will lay out your white figured muslin and the green sash. It is very becoming for a young lady on a warm day like this.”
With a sigh, Josephine swung herself reluctantly from the bed. The final scene in the parlor room last night was no less confusing for the bright sunlight now streaming in through the windows. She already knew from past experience that there would be censorious looks, raised eyebrows and whispers when she met the rest of the party. There always were.
Worse than that was the thought of seeing the Duke of Ashbourne again. What should she expect from him? A disapproving scowl and orders she could merrily defy? An ill-groomed barbarian who might kiss her without warning? Or a civilized yet disturbingly attractive man who lost at cards so graciously that she wanted to beat him again only for the pleasure of seeing that handsome smile?
Josephine remembered waking in the night in a damp sweat, with her nightgown bunched uncomfortably between her legs and a frustrated tension in her body, and suspected she had dreamed of that kiss in the garden again, as she had done several times before. This made her feel cross at Cassius Emerton all over again for invading her dreams.
“The white muslin will get dirty while we’re outside,” Josephine complained vaguely as she watched Betsy setting out the necessary articles of clothing, but without offering any real resistance to her sister’s plans for her dress.
“Only if you and Mr. Emerton decide to entertain yourselves by rolling down a hill. Refrain from that and I am sure your white muslin will prove equal to the day,” teased her sister. “Now, there is warm water in your basin and your clothes are on the bed. I shall wait for you next door.”
Mr. Emerton? With a shock, Josephine realized that she had not thought about her supposed true love once since last night. In fact, she did not even know if he had remained in the room for the game of brag or had rejoined his mother in the main drawing room.
Josephine felt no guilt with her surprise, however, also being strangely confident that Benedict Emerton would not have suffered at all from her lack of attention. He liked her, and was generally a happy young man, but his happiness was not dependent upon Josephine.
Was it possible that he was not her true love after all..?
The breakfast room was already busy by the time Lady Elmridge and her younger sister arrived and took some empty seats at the large round table in front of the well-loaded sideboard from which guests filled their plates.
Fruit cakes, freshly baked rolls and pastries lay there alongside dishes of fried eggs, bacon, mushroom and other hot food. Butter, cream and several varieties of jam filled white ramekins scattered on the breakfast table and in its centre and bowls of fresh fruit sat beside pots of steaming coffee and tea.
While young ladies were supposed to eat sparingly, Josephine never held back from such good food and filled her plate. Rose might eat like a bird in emulation of her favorite heroines in novels, and Madeline because she feared putting on too much weight like her rather substantial aunts, but Josephine never let herself be influenced by either of these friends.
As Josephine had anticipated, there had been several smiles and hushed comments as she entered the room. She now distinctlyheard her name in some small conversation passing between Lady Belinda and the accomplished Lady Penelope.
“…Lady Josephine is known for it…Apparently, at a house party last season…"
Mr. Emerton, Miss Tewkes and Dowager Duchess Nerissa were all missing from the group, perhaps having eaten breakfast early, or being even later risers than Josephine. It was a shame, since they seemed the three least likely people to join in any effort of general disapproval against her.
Oh well, she had dealt with all this before and refused to be troubled by it. At least the Duke of Ashbourne had returned to ignoring her, sitting behind a large open newspaper and lowering it only to give Vera and Josephine a civil, if distracted, nod.
“Are you going to entertain us at breakfast too?” said the man Josephine remembered as Lord Carbury. “I do hope so.”
At first, she assumed this man was speaking to Lady Penelope but then realized that this young lady and her companions were hiding sly laughter behind their hands or coffee cups.
“I don’t know what you mean, Lord Carbury,” Josephine said calmly, intensely disliking his round, pink face, his slick mousy hair, and the nasty glint in his stupid eyes.
“Well, I’ve never seen a song and dance conclusion to a card game before. It was almost as entertaining a spectacle than the chorus at the Palladium theatre.”
One or two others at the table tittered and Vera began to look distressed, wanting to defend her sister but knowing that Josephine’s behavior had been decidedly indecorous. Josephine herself was tempted to pour her hot coffee straight into Lord Carbury’s lap and see how that entertained him. She bit her lip as she restrained herself.
“You of course would be a perfect model of manners, Lord Carbury, I suppose?” said a stern voice before Josephine could carry out this plan or any other. “You would never get embarrassingly tight at a house party, make a fool of yourself at cards and then confirm your lack of judgement and decorum by attempting to publicly humiliate a young woman fifteen years your junior?”
The Duke of Ashbourne had laid down his newspaper on the table and was looking at the rather soft and silly Lord Carbury with a dangerous expression. The sight of him made Josephine’s heart thump. Cassius Emerton was the opposite of soft and silly. Like him or not, he was a strong and masterful man whose personality had been forged in the fire of hard experience.
“I say, I never meant to…” the man stumbled, evidently no longer thinking himself so clever in the eyes of Lady Belinda and Lady Penelope who were now eating their breakfasts with great concentration as though they had no interest in present proceedings at all.
“I, well, I…” Lord Carbury tried again, struggling to meet the duke’s eyes and still failing to make his point, if he had one. “I mean to say…”
“Don’t worry, Carbury. I hold no grudges. There is no merit in unequal combat. You would do well to remember that.”
“Oh, ah, quite,” agreed Carbury, scratching his head, clearly unable to decipher the meaning of the duke’s last sentence, but understanding that one way or another, he had displeased his host.
