Page 60 of His Duchess of Scandal
How she had thrown herself into her new duties as Duchess in lieu of conversations with her sisters, or meeting with her friend for their usual walks.
“When I was exiled to Wickleby Hall after my failed Seasons, I thought I could not get any lonelier. I filled my days with my sisters—tutored them, guided them, even argued with them. And yet, here… loneliness is a weight I ignore. Sometimes I am successful, other times I am not.”
“You have a husband to love,” Josephine countered. “And a daughter—should you wish to see her as such—to help raise. What is going on, truly?”
“My husband prefers to spend countless hours alone in his study rather than endure a dinner with me,” Hermia muttered. “And I discovered that Phoebe often eats alone, so I have taken to dining with her. She is as lonely as I am, and my husband refusesto acknowledge any of it or change. Every time we take a step forward together, we clash once more and take three steps back.”
Her face burned with shame as she added, “He even rejected me on our wedding night. So I do not know what sort of honeymoon I should have had, but it certainly has not been filled with activities that leave a bride glowing.”
“There has been no intimacy between you at all?”
Hermia’s thoughts wandered to a hand cupping her face, fingertips pressing into her hip, a ragged breath between kisses, and her name stripped of title and etiquette, replaced with desire that had cracked his voice.
“Oh,” Josephine murmured, her eyes lighting up. “There has beensomething.”
Deny it. Deny it. Do not give any power to that kiss; has it not plagued your mind enough?
And yet the confession slipped from her lips, tangled in the memory of Charles’s desperation as he had pressed his lips to hers.
“Charles kissed me.” Hermia drew in a shaky breath. “He kissed me, and he has scarcely spoken two words to me ever since. It has been a week. I cannot sleep properly; I cannot think clearly. I try to distract myself with my duties here at the manor, but I-I am helpless to the memory of that kiss.”
Josephine stared at her, blinking. “Forget the macarons, Hermia. I think strong wine is in order if we are going to discuss this.” She gestured to the playing children. “At least, it would be if we were not being responsible. Heavens, I miss Bentley’s parties.”
Hermia narrowed her eyes at her friend. “Damn those parties! Had you not dragged me along to that one a year ago, I would never have been brought into this mess.”
Josephine’s eyes glimmered with mischief. Hermia had already explained her connection with Charles the day before her wedding, and her friend had been utterly delighted.
“So you wish to blame me for the most delicious night of passion you’ve ever had, and now I am to blame for everything else?”
“Precisely,” Hermia muttered.
She expected her friend to laugh. Instead, Josephine took her hand and gave it a squeeze.
As the eldest sister, the dutiful daughter, the lady who let herself go cold for others and told herself she was perfectly warm enough, the gesture was unexpected.
She looked down at Josephine’s hand.
“If you truly feel that way, Hermia, then Iamsorry in one regard,” Josephine said, surprising her. “However, you deservedthat last night of freedom, no matter the consequences. If you would like my opinion?—”
“I would not,” Hermia interrupted, half-teasing.
“Well, you will receive it anyway. Heaven knows nobody else can tell you this. You have sacrificed too much all your life. I believe Bentley’s party put an opportunity in your path. A hidden blessing. Ahardblessing, for certain, but a blessing nonetheless. You have a handsome husband, a beautiful home, a title befitting of a lady like you, and a little girl who looks at you as though you have hung the sun in a very dark world.”
Hermia blinked, turning to look at where Phoebe was instructing Thomas on how to draw in the soil with a stick. When Thomas thwacked the ground with his stick, she put a hand on his arm to slow the sharp movements. Then, she demonstrated with her stick.
Warmth spread through Hermia, and her lips curled into a smile. How could a tornado of a girl become a gentle whisper of wind so suddenly?
Was Josephine right? Was the situation Hermia had found herself in a blessing? She had escaped exile to France, certainly, but she had not considered it ablessing.
“How was the kiss?” Josephine asked when she failed to answer.
“It was… everything I have feared it would be,” Hermia whispered. “It was—it consumed me. It roused something I thought would forever slumber after I failed to secure a match. And Charles… he—he said my name. My Christian name. He said it like—” She broke off, uncertain of how much to say. “Like he was desperate, but he has ignored me ever since.”
Josephine’s mouth twitched with amusement, and Hermia fought the urge to scowl at her friend for finding humor in her predicament.
“Do you know what William did when he first proposed to me?”
“I do not.”
