Page 47 of A Wicked Duke's Arranged Marriage
Josephine flicked dirt at her, her lips twitching. “And I think … if I really think about it? I could imagine myself happywith my life with Henry as my husband. A handful of children … living on his estate.”
“Being duchess,” Caroline tacked on with a grin.
Josephine rolled her eyes.
“And knowing that my parents will be taken care of as well?”
“That’s why you were worrying,” Caroline pointed out knowingly. “You started thinking that it was too good to be true.”
Josephine exhaled heavily.
She was right.
“Not to be a storm cloud over this bright sunny future myself,” Caroline murmured, pausing as Josephine looked up confusedly. “But, I take it then, that your worry concerning the late duchess has been assuaged?”
Josephine blinked.
And then she blinked again.
The murder.
How had she forgotten it so quickly when it had tied her up in knots only a day previous?
“I am certain that he didn’t kill her,” Josephine said emphatically.
And she was.
“But your mind has been put to rest concerning her murder otherwise?”
Josephine shifted, looking down sheepishly as the truth dawned on her.
“I’d forgotten to think about it,” she admitted softly.
Caroline stared at her silently for a moment. And then she laughed. “You’d forgotten? Oh, Josephine. I think you’ve started worrying too often about too many things; you’re forgetting one to start on the next now.”
“I will put more dirt on your pretty pink skirts,” Josephine threatened with no real heat. “Weren’t you supposed to be finding more information out about that for me in the first place?”
Caroline dimpled, unbothered in the least by Josephine’s half-accusatory look.
“The best gossip gathering takes time, dear friend.”
Josephine snorted. “Or you forgot as well.”
Caroline shot her a look of mock outrage. “I did no such thing! I can’t just go around asking a bunch of questions about a murder out of the blue, Josie. I have to be careful about what I ask and when. And with your engagement, it's brought up naturally enough on its own. Finding the truth of matters is more often discovered just through listening, you know.”
Josephine eyed Caroline with one raised brow.
“I think you have your finger on the pulse of all the gossip out here, Caroline. I can’t decide whether I ought to be more appalled or impressed.”
“Impressed, of course,” Caroline assured her without any hesitation. “It’s a delicate art form what I’m doing. Years of practice, you know.”
Their back-and-forth teasing died out as Josephine pulled the last weed in sight and sat back once more.
“I want it to be nothing,” she whispered, the truth easing out of her.
“I don’t have to keep looking, Josie.”
Josephine shook her head. “No, that isn’t what I meant. I do want to know what happened to her. Not just to reassure myself of my own safety. But can you imagine how devastating it has been for Henry this whole time? Not knowing what happened to her. I imagine it would bring him a great deal of comfort to put it to rest.”
