Page 42 of A Duke to Undo her
Duchess Nerissa laughed and reached out to actually stroke Josephine’s hair, a gesture that was unexpected and comforting in the young woman’s present forlorn mood.
“You need not try too hard in pleasing me, Lady Josephine. You are very well as you are and need not be someone else in my company. Let us be only ourselves with one another. I could not like a serious young lady, or a prim young lady any better than I like you.”
Josephine blinked in surprise.
“Oh! I like you too, Your Grace. You have been so very kind to me at Ashbourne Castle.”
“Not at all. I appreciate your natural and spontaneous company, as I believe, do both of my sons.”
Sitting there on the Persian rug where Cassius Emerton had kissed her so outrageously and divinely, Josephine flushed the brightest red. Did he appreciate her? It did not seem the right word at all.
“I should like to know you better,” Nerissa Emerton continued. “I sometimes wish that I could be a little more free-spirited, as you are, but I suspect I am too old to learn.”
“My sisters wish I was a little less free-spirited, I think, although they love me,” Josephine admitted. “I know that I am too much for them sometimes.”
“Benedict doesn’t think so,” the dowager duchess assured her. “It is well that he has a friend as light-hearted and well-intended as himself. Sometimes I fear that Cassius is too heavy-handed with the boy. He might send his brother into the company of less suitable, perhaps vicious friends, if only as escape from Cassius’ serious lecturing. It is good to see Benedict safe and happy in your company.”
“Benedict and I are great friends,” Josephine confirmed, believing this to be true. “But Cassius is not so very serious really, is he? He only sometimes seems so, when he is out of sorts.”
She blushed again, to the roots of her hair, on realizing that she had used their first names. It was permissible, perhaps, withBenedict in such an informal context, given their common age and friendship, but surely not with the Duke of Ashbourne… The dowager duchess, however, seemed either not to have noticed, or not to have minded.
“No, he is not. You and I see that, my dear, but it is not always obvious to Benedict. Cassius has been more father than brother to him, you see. Cassius raised Benedict after my husband Henry died and I was too ill to take care of them.”
“The duke mentioned something of that,” Josephine said carefully, not wanting to say anything insensitive about such a delicate family matter, especially in the light of Madeline’s more detailed story.
“Did he? Then I must suppose Cassius wanted you to know the story and I shall tell you more of it. My husband Henry, Duke of Ashbourne before Cassius, was the love of my life.”
Nerissa Emerton’s face came more alive as she spoke of her husband, her eyes brightening and forehead smoothing with her serene smile.
“We courted for three years and then had so many years of great happiness in our marriage, and two wonderful sons. Henry’s death was a great shock, to all of us, coming as it did from nowhere in the prime of life.”
Josephine only listened, already feeling great sympathy for this woman and the great love she had lost.
“I am ashamed to admit that the shock was too much for me, Lady Josephine. Despite my children, I felt that I had died too, or that I wished I had done so. My sister had to nurse me back to health and it took years.”
“It must have been very hard for you,” said Josephine respectfully.
“It was just as hard for my boys, perhaps Cassius most of all,” the dowager duchess continued, her voice light despite the heaviness of the story. “He took on the title, the handling of the estate and the raising of his brother overnight, when he should have been only a schoolboy, learning his Latin and Greek and running races with his friends.”
“He is a very capable man,” Josephine remarked, thinking of his finding her lost in the woods, treating Apollo’s foot, and making her body sing with an ecstasy she had never imagined. “I imagine that he would rise to any challenge.”
Duchess Nerissa smiled warmly at this remark, maybe liking to hear her son praised as much as Josephine liked talking of him.
“Almost any challenge, Lady Josephine. Cassius is brave, principled and honest but he is only human, and he too was wounded by his father’s death in a particular way that worries me greatly. I have tried over the years to help him, but I think a mother’s intervention is not enough. He needs something, someone…more than that.”
“What do you mean, Your Grace?” asked Josephine, deeply interested but puzzled.
“Cassius refuses to marry, my dear. I believe he is afraid to love…”
Tears sprang again into Josephine’s eyes, reliving again that awful moment on this rug when Cassius’ passionate embraces had so abruptly ceased. She looked down, hoping to hide how deeply these statements affected her.
“How can anyone be afraid to love?” Josephine could not help asking. “He should not be afraid. Surely, he should not…”
“There, dear girl, I did not mean to upset you with old stories,” Duchess Nerissa said, retrieving a handkerchief from her pocket and passing it to the younger woman.
Either her words or her expression must have given away something of her feelings, Josephine realized. She feared what more might show on her face if this line of conversation continued, however many burning questions she had about the duke.
“No, I am sorry, Your Grace. It is only that I…do not feel myself today. I would like to hear your stories another time, very much. Please would you excuse me?”
