Page 70 of A Wicked Duke's Arranged Marriage
Everything inside Josephine’s brain stuttered to a halt, her eyebrows furrowing as she tried to make sense of Lady Brisby’s response.
Bitch? Did she mean her? Surely, she must mean her; she couldn’t possibly mean Martha.
“She thought she was in love with him too,” Catherine snapped, dispelling all confusion in one fell swoop. “My perfect, stupid sister.”
Catherine’s eyes flashed, fury twisting her features until she looked almost inhuman.
“Martha always got everything she wanted. Dresses, toys, suitors! Our father bent to her every whim and desire. But me?I had to beg for her scraps. With father, with mother, with all of our relatives. Pretty, perfect Martha and her pretty, perfect words. But then I met Lord Brisby, and I knew I had a chance to escape. Do you know how hard I had to work to get him to notice me and not her? How much effort I had to put in to secure his attention?”
“But you won him!” Josephine pointed out, backing away from Catherine’s advance until the branches of the bushes behind her pricked the backs of her shoulders. “Lord Brisby fell in love with you; he married you.”
And Martha was dead. So Josephine didn’t know why it was even a point of contention any longer, no matter what might have happened.
Catherine’s sneer grew, her hand disappearing into her dress, and Josephine almost stopped breathing entirely.
Because the glint of silver as she withdrew her hand once more showed just how much it did still matter to Catherine. It mattered enough for her to have brought a knife.
“I won him,” Catherine muttered. “Because my sister wanted me to win him. I should have known. Planning all those events that she didn’t come to. Planning his introduction to me and our entire courting period. It was too easy. Of course, she allowed it to happen. She had been hiding the duke in her back pocket all along! Hiding him away for herself. Wanting me tomarry my silly, simpering husband so that I would be out of the way!”
Josephine only knew a little of that story, but somehow, what she said didn’t quite add up.
“She got me off the marriage market just in time,” Catherine muttered. “She knew that Henry was meant for me! I was the eldest daughter! He was meant for me.”
“But he hadn’t met either one of you,” Josephine tried to reason, holding one hand up as she tried in vain to back even further away from Catherine. But the bushes stopped her, their gnarled branches poking through the fabric of her dress and scratching her skin.
“That’s just what she wanted us to think,” Catherine cried. “Do you know how hard it was to watch her suck the life out of him? To ruin him as I wasted away as some insignificant Lord’s wife?”
But she was dead.
Josephine fought not to say it, copper tinging her tongue as she bit down hard to hold the words back, her eyes careful to keep that glint of silver in sight.
“I tried to reason with her,” Catherine muttered, her nostrils flaring. “Over and over again, I tried to talk to her. And then that day here in the gardens …”
All at once, the pieces fell into place.
The manic look in Catherine’s eyes, the way she stalked Josephine, the two big ‘M’s: Martha’s Murder.
“It was you,” Josephine gasped, her eyes flying back up to Catherine’s face in shock.
“I tried to reason with her!” Catherine repeated shrilly. “Just as I tried to reason with you! But neither of you left me any choice.”
“Catherine!” Josephine’s voice came out a half-scream, her hands lifted with her palms out to try and get the woman to see reason.
But it was too late.
She felt the sharp edge of the knife before she realized that Catherine’s hand had flown, her breath wheezing out of her along with a scream from its burn.
Catherine’s arm lifted, the silver glare marred by a blotch of crimson splatters.
“You left me no choice!”
“Catherine!”
It wasn’t Josephine’s voice that time.
She staggered forward as Catherine was pulled away, her screams turning into that of madness as two footmen ran to detain her. Flailing in their grasp, she succumbed to hysteria, and it was all Josephine could do to tear her eyes away as she fell forward onto her knees.
She looked down, the ground swimming before her, the red she could see making her stomach churn.
