Page 77 of A Wicked Duke's Arranged Marriage
Only then did he claim her as his, filling and stretching her until she no longer knew where he ended, and she began.
And there, with the door to the balcony open and only the stars to watch them, he made her his wife in more than just name.
And there she learned that maybe he had a whole host of new things to teach her, too.
A whole host of things she was only too eager to learn.
***
Three Months Later
Time was a funny thing.
Josephine lost track of the days that stretched after her wedding, where she and her husband lay abed, whispering and learning about one another without the constant interruption of company. She lost track of how many hours they walked handin hand over his estate talking about everything they had been through and both of them healing.
He from the grief he’d carried alone for so long, and she the injury Catherine had gifted her.
She lost track of a great many things.
At least until the letters started.
It was the letters that forced them both back into reality and their new life together. Starting with a small parish fire in the district that Henry needed to attend to.
A small parish fire that resulted in Josephine running into Caroline. And Caroline being invited back to the manor for tea.
A tea that quickly became a weekly routine that neither lady liked to miss regardless of their new, more marked difference in social stature.
A tea that resulted in more letters, bringing Josephine full circle.
“Throw them in the fire,” Caroline suggested from over the rim of her teacup as she watched Josephine deliberate on her siblings’ latest batch of correspondence. “They never sent you asingle penny when you were handling things for your parents! You are not required to send them any either.”
Josephine shot Caroline a grateful, if somewhat censuring look.
“Not required,” she sighed, glancing back down at the papers in front of her.
“But you’re going to anyway,” Caroline deduced with a snort.
Josephine tapped her pen against the edge of the table contemplatively.
“Would I be so terrible if I put in requirements they had to meet if I were to send them any?”
It felt monstrous requiring anything of family, but the idea had been banging about in her skull for days by that point, and Caroline seemed the best person to discuss it with, given her having been there for the entirety of it.
“I suppose that depends very much on the requirements,” Caroline mused. She lowered her teacup to look at Josephine more completely, her blonde eyebrows raised in question.
“I was thinking that I require they visit Mother and Father,” Josephine admitted softly. “That they offer to help them with whatever non-monetary affairs they might need help with at the time … I know that I could go and do so as well, but–”
“But you know that you will regardless,” Caroline cut her off quickly. “I don’t think that there is anything wrong with you asking your siblings – who are not, may I remind you, at all financially supporting your parents, to also do the same.”
Josephine’s smile grew as she shot Caroline another grateful look.
“This is why I invite you to tea,” she said laughing. She bent over the desk to begin penning such a letter; her worries over it abated, at least for that moment.
“And I thought it was because we were friends,” Caroline quipped, the humour in her tone unmistakable.
Both of them laughed, lapsing into a comfortable silence as Josephine wrote.
They sat like that until Josephine finished her letters, folding each one up in preparation for having them sent off. She opened her mouth to ask Caroline for reassurance once more but stopped as the sitting room door opened and her husband entered.
