Page 44 of A Wicked Duke's Arranged Marriage
“An expensive thanks,” Harbuttle snorted as he grabbed the bottle. “Thank you, Your Grace. Do you want me to prepare for your departure tomorrow?”
“It can wait till morning,” Henry assured him offhandedly. He knew that Harbuttle would have it settled in no time at all.
“Then I’ll bid you goodnight, Your Grace.”
Henry shot him another grateful look, leaning back even further as the sitting room door closed, finally leaving him in solitude.
He didn’t know just how much of that he had left. And for the first time, the thought didn’t bother him in the slightest. Not if Josephine’s company was anything like it had been thus far. It felt less intrusive than he would have imagined, more welcome …
And the more he was around her, the more he felt like himself.
Something he hadn’t even realized he had lost.
Chapter 15
“Eugh,” Caroline gagged from her perch atop the garden wall.
She looked like some blonde fairy, clothed in a rose-coloured dress with her hair half-down in waves around her shoulders. Or rather, she might have, had her face not been screwed up into such an obvious look of disgust.
Josephine snorted from where she kneeled in the dirt in the middle of the flowerbed just beneath the wall.
“How can you stand it?” Caroline asked plaintively, her eyes trained on where Josephine’s fingers were immersed in the dirt, pulling weeds out by the root gleefully and tossing them into the half-full basket sat off to one side. “Dirt smells, Josie. Don’t you hate it getting under your nails? Surely any one of those new servants that the duke sent over could be doing this for you now.”
Josephine’s lips twitched at her friend’s disdain, her eyes darting over to the house at the mention of the new servants.
“I’m sure they could,” she murmured, “but I quite enjoy taking care of the garden you know.”
Caroline made another face, her lips curling down as she stared still at Josephine digging in the dirt.
There was no doubt that if their roles had been reversed, Caroline would still be sitting just where she was supervising one of the new servants as they did the work Josephine took such joy in doing herself.
New servants.
Josephine hadn’t expected Henry to send them. He had only promised her the money he had already given her father. It was all that Josephine had expected. A boon that had left them all overjoyed when the funds had come through, and her mother and father had rejoiced over breakfast about it.
Three new maids, two kitchen maids, a groom, and a footman had been sent the same day, making the daily tasks in their house just that much easier to bear.
Josephine hadn’t even thought to worry about the tasks that she took care of falling into disrepair upon her leaving. But Henry had. And the fact that he had touched her in a way she didn’t quite know how to describe.
“I just know that you aren’t smiling like that about dirt, Josie,” Caroline accused suddenly, jerking Josephine from her musing.
“No, not the dirt,” Josephine acknowledged with a half-laugh.
“As I said, I’m well aware.” Caroline sniffed playfully, rearranging her skirts as she crossed her legs at the ankle and peered pointedly down at Josephine. “Are you ever going to tell me about the duke, or are you intentionally leaving me in the dark here?”
“I’ve told you about the duke,” Josephine countered, fighting the heat in her cheeks just at the mention of him.
“Josie!”
“Well, I have!”
She just hadn’t told her all of the sordid details. Like how he made her insides feel as if they were afire. Or how he had kissed her the last time they had been with one another.
“Yes, yes. You’ve told me about your arranged marriage and the practicality of it. You’ve told me about how it will suit your family and how kind he is. But a girl doesn’t smile at dirt like you just were over arrangements.”
Josephine bit back a grin at how peeved her friend sounded, her weeding slowing down as she tried to think how best to phrase the thoughts she hadn’t quite detangled yet.
“He is very kind,” she stalled, ignoring her friend’s huff. “And you are right. There is more than just pleasure at the arrangement being made and suiting the both of us there.”
