Page 29 of A Duke to Undo her
“Sometimes, I wonder if it is my fault,” broke in his mother again.
“Your fault?” echoed Cassius, without any idea what she meant.
“I wonder if you will not marry because of what happened to me after your father died.”
Finally, the dowager duchess had said something with the power to cut through the erotic distraction of Cassius’ illicit interlude with Lady Josephine. Feeling her words like a punch in the stomach, he shook her head. It was easy to refuse all his mother’s efforts to push him towards marriage but always far harder to explain why.
“You were so wonderful, Cassius. Everyone said so. Only sixteen, and yet you picked up the reins to the duchy better than most men twice your age could have done. Technically, I know the lawyers and your godfather were your guardians but they’ve always said that they only ever signed off your instructions, from the very first day.”
“I always did whatever I thought Father would have done,” the duke said thickly. “For the estate, for Benedict, for you…”
“You did well, my son. I could not help what happened but I wish I could have been stronger for my children.”
Her voice was loving, wistful and full of regret, all at once.
“No, you were ill, Mother. I saw that, even at sixteen, and I made my brother understand it too. You were not capable of raising Benedict during those years. I am only glad that you came back to us in the end.”
“When Henry, your father, passed away, I lost a piece of myself, Cassius. My heart broke and my mind gave way under the strain. That is what you saw,” the dowager duchess spoke evenly and sadly.
“Yes, that is exactly what I saw,” the duke nodded.
“But you did not see, or maybe have forgotten, the love that Henry and I had between us. We were happy together, always. We knew one another for three years before we married, but I do believe we loved one another from the first moment we met, had we only known it. There was no one like Henry, for me, ever. I didn’t know that was love, at first.”
There was nothing to be said to that. What boy ever did look at his parents and appreciate their love? It was something implicitand assumed, a secure background, that was sadly sometimes whipped away without warning.
“I believe all that you tell me of your happy marriage, Mother. I am glad that you can take such comfort in the love you had with Father, even now. Still, I also know what loss looks like. I know grief. I know what it is like to see the people you love torn apart. I can’t be part of that. Ever.”
She looked at him with tears in her eyes as he gave this short speech and then reached out to smooth his rumpled hair.
“You remind me so much of your father sometimes, Cassius. It is in the way you talk, the stubbornness of your nature, the unruliness of your hair…”
The Duke of Ashbourne allowed this maternal caress for a moment but then removed her hand gently, instinctively not wanting to be touched by anyone else so soon after Lady Josephine.
“That is the problem,” he said with a small smile, getting to his feet, even as the dowager duchess regarded him with incomprehension at these words. “Now, you must excuse me, Mother. I have one more letter to write before luncheon.”
“Very well, Cassius. Still, please promise me that you will think about all that I have said? Think too about what it is that you really want, deep down in your heart.
As he closed the door and turned back to face the room, the image of Lady Josephine intruded on his imagination once more. He pictured her now kneeling on that chair, her white dress off her shoulders and her bosom exposed, just as she had been an hour earlier. In his head, she beckoned to him with heavy, hungry eyes and he knew he must have her…
“Damn it all,” the duke swore, turning from the chair.
Dowager Duchess Nerissa had no idea how foolish it was to encourage her eldest son to dwell on what he really wanted. His mother could never have done so if she suspected for one minute what this might be. She fondly imagined that Cassius would find he wanted a respectable marriage to proper young lady like Lady Belinda.
In fact, what consumed the Duke of Ashbourne was the urge to ravish the very improper Lady Josephine to the fullest extent of their shared pleasure, regardless of all social rules and conventions…
Chapter Fourteen
“Oh, how lovely!” declared Lady Josephine, jumping up from her seat in the drawing room after dinner that night and rushing over to impulsively kiss Dowager Duchess Nerissa on the cheek.
The Duke of Ashbourne watched her over the top of his book, unable to recall a single thing he had read in the last half hour while his attention had been on Lady Josephine. She wore a green silk evening gown tonight, with a high, tight sash that made her sweetly curving bosom an enticement she could not help displaying to him.
She had seemed rather quiet and pensive all evening, not even glancing in his direction, with more shyness in her attitude now than her usual defiance. Even Benedict had commented on Lady Josephine’s uncharacteristically quiet mood after their treasure hunt that afternoon. She had actually gone upstairs to rest before dinner and Cassius worried for her.
He hoped he was not entirely to blame for Lady Josephine’s disequilibrium. Their encounter in the study had been something very new for her as well as completely forbidden, and she was such an odd mix of innocence, confidence and passion that he had no idea of its after effects. Going to her room to reassure her would have been far too risky for both of them, however.
Thankfully, Lady Josephine’s spirits now appeared to have been revived by the dowager duchess’s announcement that she had sent express invitations for Lady Madeline Bennet and Lady Rose Williams to join the party, and that Lady Madeline had already accepted. This was what had precipitated her present dash across the room.
“Josephine,” whispered Lady Elmridge loudly, blushing a little at her sister’s unrestrained display of emotion as she noticed the bemused or disapproving expressions on the faces of other guests.
