Page 19 of A Wicked Duke's Arranged Marriage
While they had been in the sitting room, Josephine had thought the duke to be distant, restrained even. Haunted, she thought she might have coined.
Ever since he had helped her off the loveseat to head into dinner, though, he was even more so. Reclusive even.
Oh, he said all the right things and remained polite and amiable throughout. He smiled, if it could be called that, and nodded. He even made several jokes of his own. But that light behind his eyes had disappeared. It was like looking into a solarium on a cloud-covered day. Like sitting just beneath the vertex of a storm.
And she’d seen the shift.
He had been looking at her, his eyes boring into hers and his hand so large and warm engulfing hers that she’d suddenly felt much smaller and more feminine than she ever had in her life.
And then he had winced.
Only it hadn’t quite been a wince; it was only the closest expression she could think to give a name to it. He had been staring at her, and then he wasn’t. His eyes had still been on her, but there was a pain in his face, his expression twisted into one so gravely impassioned that for a moment, Josephine had feared she had squeezed his hand too tightly or stepped on his foot.
But it was the briefest window into that pain. A glimpse and nothing more. Within seconds, his expression had become shuttered and cold, an ice fortress that seemed near impenetrable.
Josephine had struggled to figure out if she had said something that could have caused it. She didn’t remember speaking when she stood, but she had been so focused on the intensity of his green eyes and the strange feelings they inspired in her that she could have.
She had even tried asking when she had found her voice, so that she could offer him an apology.
But he skimmed over it as if nothing had happened and joined the rest of them without so much as another word.
And dinner carried on.
The ladies talked of their children and home, anecdotes about their pasts. At one point, Lord Fethmire started in on a story from his boyhood. It was merry, full of laughter. But Josephine noted just how little the duke interjected beyond what was strictly necessary.
And, what was more, it seemed like she was the only one who did notice. No one else seemed to recognize how carefully placed his words were or how flat his jokes fell regarding the lack of merriment in his eyes.
Before Josephine knew it, dinner was over, everyone at the table complaining of being overly full as Lord Fethmire made his apologies for having to leave so early.
“Children, you know,” he joked, winking at Lord St Vincent as he clapped the duke on his shoulder affectionately.
“You’ll have to bring them by for tea within the next few days,” the duke murmured, leading their little entourage out into the hall. “As my apology for their having to miss tonight.”
“Demons,” Lord Fethmire jested. “They don’t need apologies; they can survive without being invited to everything.”
“It is nice to get out of the house without them,” Lady Fethmire added with a smile.
“And yet you’re still so very eager to get back to them,” Lady St Vincent pointed out with a knowing grin. “I do miss those days.”
“Are you saying you aren’t eager to return home when I don’t go out with you, Mother?” Josephine teased, trying to cover her fascination with the duke once more.
She found it touching that he cared so much what his friend’s children thought. Enough, she realized, to go out of his way to try and ensure that they knew it wasn’t that they hadn’t been wanted, just that it had been an adult affair.
That didn’t at all match with the icy, withdrawn recluse that she had expected him to be.
She was starting to doubt the verity of any rumours that had swirled about him. Or at least her interpretation of them.
“I’ll write you for that tea,” Lady Fethmire promised as she shrugged into her pelisse, her husband’s steadying hand at her back. “The both of you!” she added, grinning over at Lady St Vincent.
Josephine didn’t think she’d ever seen her mother look so pleased.
Within a handful of moments, their number in the entrance dwindled by two, the St Vincents left standing with the duke as the Fethmires’ carriage pulled away from the manor.
A strange, heavy silence filled the space in the aftermath, all eyes falling to Josephine as if expecting something from her.
For the life of her she couldn’t think what. At least not until her father glanced not-so-surreptitiously at the duke.
“I’m very excited for our engagement,” Josephine quickly announced, prompted by her mother’s elbow in her side.
