Page 2 of A Duke to Undo her
“Thank you, Mr. Emerton,” she corrected her speech, finding his informality both refreshing and relatable. “I wish I could be plain old Miss Josephine Thomson but my sisters are very proper and it would never be allowed. One of them is over there on that bench with her husband, Lord Elmbridge.”
“Then I can now leave you safely in their care, Lady Josephine. Apollo, my horse, has had a long ride this morning and is eager for his oats. It is lucky for your outfit that I dismounted to check his tack. Farewell, I trust we will meet again.”
Mounting his horse and tipping his hat to Josephine, Mr. Benedict Emerton, rode away. As the blond figure passed into the distance she almost did a little dance of glee and then walked back to Vera.
What a story she would have to tell Madeline and Rose tomorrow!
“Oh, how marvelous!” breathed pink-cheeked Rose, clapping her hands as Josephine finished the tale of her encounter in St James’s Park the previous morning. “He really had a big black horse too?”
“Yes, just like Sir Edmund’s in ‘The Fated Lovers of Fentimore’!” Josephine confirmed excitedly as they sipped their lemonade together in the garden of Logan House, Lord and Lady Elmridge’s London residence where she was spending the Season. “It was huge and glossy, and must have been ever so clever. It just stood there waiting for him without even being tied.”
“Wonderful!” Rose sighed. “I wish a handsome stranger would rescue me in the park.”
Beside them, Madeline rolled her sensible blue-green eyes and put on her most superior expression.
“I couldn’t call it a rescue. Pelicans are hardly dangerous wild beasts, are they? Lord Benedict does sound nice and polite, I admit. He was passing and stopped you taking a fall because he’s a gentleman. I see nothing more to it. Think yourself lucky that he was there or you would have made a public show of yourself, wading about in the lake with those birds.”
“Don’t make everything so mundane, Madeline!” Josephine protested, sensing some fundamental truth in her friend’s words but ignoring it. “And don’t call him Lord Benedict – he doesn’t like it.”
“Very well, Mr. Benedict Emerton does sound nice and polite.”
“Nice? Polite? You should have seen him. Mr. Emerton looked just like a Greek god, tall with golden hair, broad shoulders and a firm jaw… His stock was tied perfectly neatly too even though he’d been out riding. Most men get so sweaty and disordered when they exercise.”
“How lovely. I do like well-dressed men,” commented Rose approvingly even while Madeline smiled and shook her head. “Was your heart racing, Josephine? Did you feel faint like Lady Jane when she first encountered Sir Edmund?”
“I suppose my heart was beating quite fast,” reflected Josephine after a few moments’ consideration. “I never feel faint, as you know. I did notice the carnation in Mr. Emerton’s buttonhole and thought it a very fine choice with his outfit and coloring.”
Madeline now gave a very loud snort of laughter.
“Your heart was only racing because you’d just been surprised by an unhappy pelican,” she told her friend. “The poor bird was probably even more startled than you. I’ll grant that Mr. Emerton was likely very well-dressed, though. It’s something I’ve heard people say of him, in contrast to his brother the Dukeof Ashbourne, who is apparently too sensible to care for fashions and buttonholes.”
“His brother sounds dreadful! Have you no romance in your soul at all, dear Madeline?” huffed Josephine with pretended offense, determined that Mr. Emerton was going to be her true love, regardless of the failure of her own reactions to align with those of fictional lovers. “Would you really settle for a man who sweats all the time, wears a crumpled stock and rides an old nag?”
“If he was a good man, and seemed likely to treat me kindly, yes, I would,” Madeline returned with immediate frankness. “There are far more important qualities in a husband than those you find in the heroes of your silly books. Looks and charm aren’t everything. Just look at what happened to Lady Lucinda.”
For a moment, all three young ladies were subdued as they recalled their acquaintance who had made a match two years ago with the devilishly handsome and reckless Marquess of Jedburgh. Josephine and Rose had both sighed enviously over Lucinda’s luck at the time while Madeline had joined older and wiser women in doubting the wisdom of the young lady’s family.
After burning through much of Lady Lucinda’s dowry in cards or at the racecourse, and humiliating his new wife through his continued liaison with the morally dubious Dowager Countess Wetherhorn, Lord Jedburgh had crowned his unfortunate career as a husband by being shot and killed by a hot-headed Italian nobleman in a ridiculous duel over obscene remarks on the ladies of Florence.
Poor widowed Lucinda now resided with a spinster aunt in Bath, becoming both a tragic and absurd figure who seemed to have dropped out of London society.
“Sir Edmund is nothing like Lord Jedburgh,” Rose piped up after a time. “The only time he gambled was when he staked his life on that card game in order to win Lady Jane back from the kidnappers. He was good and honest and true to her for the entire book. When he looked at her, the rest of the world vanished and he saw only Lady Jane.”
“That’s what you want, is it?” Madeline asked cynically. “A man who dotes on you to the extent of ignoring everyone and everything else around him? Do you not think you might get bored or irritated? Imagine hearing only one voice all day, every day. I would much rather my husband and I went out into the world and we could discuss something new every time we met.”
“I’m sure I could never get bored with my true love,” claimed Rose with some vehemence. “Anyway, in my marriage we will communicate with our eyes and tell one another everything without even speaking.”
“Dear Rose,” sighed Madeline, patting the blonde woman’s shoulder. “I do hope for your sake that you find a good-hearted man who is far more practical than you. How could you ever talk about your children, or your servants or your estate, if you communicate only with your eyes?”
“I believe Rose only wishes to talk about love,” Josephine said. “For that, eyes often do seem perfectly sufficient. I see my sisters and their husbands do it all the time.”
“Not all the time, no,” Madeline disagreed cheerfully. “Do be reasonable, Josephine. You know very well that Constance, Ophelia and Vera all take an active interest in the running of their homes and families as well as charitable works, music and other pastimes. They speak with their mouths like normal people.”
As if summoned by the mention of their names, the three ladies in question now came out from the conservatory door of the house and made their way towards Josephine and her friends.
“Lady Norfield, Lady Kilderhorn, Lady Elmridge, how lovely to see you,” said Madeline, standing and giving a small curtsey of respect to the older women whom she knew well and normally addressed on first name terms.
Josephine guessed that Madeline was unobtrusively reminding Rose of her older sisters’ titles, knowing that their bashful friend would be tongue-tied if she could not remember. Madeline was a considerate and thoughtful person, even if she did have no romance in her soul.
