Page 69 of A Duke to Undo her
“You look so beautiful, Josephine,” sobbed Rose, in floods of happy tears. “I wish you both joy! If only I could find my perfect husband too…”
“I hope you will find someone better than perfect, Rose,” Josephine returned with a smile at Cassius who was shaking hands now with all his new brothers-in-law and many of hisneighbors and tenants. “I’m sure you will soon enough. Don’t you think so, Madeline?”
“No one as beautiful and sweet natured as dear Rose will ever be short of suitors,” Madeline observed. “But I shall vet every one to ensure they are worthy of her and she is not led astray by her dream men.”
“I wish you happiness also, Madeline,” remarked Josephine. “You too deserve to fall in love and marry well.”
Madeline shrugged, her expression philosophical.
“My dreams have always been more practical than yours or Rose’s, just as my features are not so pretty. We shall see what happens. I may keep house for father forever. As long as Melinda marries well and has sons, the title and estate will stay in our family.”
Young Melinda pulled a face at this distant prospect and wandered off to join the younger children being watched over by Ophelia and a nursemaid.
“It was a beautiful wedding and you are married well,” said Constance, as the bridesmaids fell back to allow her through. “I do hope you will be very happy together, Josephine.”
Josephine hugged her eldest sister tightly.
“Thank you for bringing me up, Constance, and for always loving me, no matter how my behavior might have puzzled or irked you. I know you would have liked a longer engagement and a big wedding in London and I am sorry we could not agree, but Cassius and I must begin our own lives.”
Constance kissed Josephine’s hair and patted her back, with an understanding smile on her face.
“There, all is well, Josephine. I do comprehend in part, you know. It is only that I am older now and see things differently. My engagement to Victor seemed to last forever, but we could not be married until Father and Mother returned from their latest travels. How I wished then to do as you and Cassius have done!”
“At least we did not elope,” Josephine put in with a grin. “It could have been worse, couldn't it?”
Constance actually laughed, seemingly relaxing for the first time in weeks now that the marriage ceremony was done.
“Your new brother Benedict told me exactly the same thing,” she remarked. “A small, swift wedding in Ashbourne is indeed preferable to a hole in corner affair on the Scottish border. He also noted that there was the advantage here in the countryside of fewer society gossips and professional scandal sheet writers in attendance.”
“Good old Benedict!” laughed Josephine. “Cassius and I really have been the talk of the town since he proposed like that, haven’t we?”
Constance shuddered slightly even recollecting some of the accounts of the Duke of Ashbourne’s proposal that had appeared in both the society press and certain publications of lower standing.
“I trust that you have not read the worst of the speculation, Josephine. It is not fit for your eyes. I only hope that your first child is in no hurry to arrive…”
On this point, her older sister caught herself circumspectly and changed course.
“But enough now, I see the Duke of Ashbourne is speaking to your carriage driver. He is eager to be off, I think. Oh, maybe not, the driver is getting down…”
“Oh, I must throw my bouquet, before we leave,” Josephine remembered.
Smiling, the new duchess held up the bouquet before the crowd and saw the alertness suddenly descending onto the faces of many young women. Turning about, she threw the flowers back over her shoulder and heard a cheer that told her it had been suitably caught.
After brief embraces from Ophelia and Vera, Josephine joined the Duke of Ashbourne beside the small open-top carriage.
To her surprise, the duke helped her up into the driver's seat and then jumped up beside her, taking up the reigns to the vehicle in his own hands with one arm around her.
“If I’m going to carry off a goddess, I can’t have someone else driving the chariot, can I?” he teased in response to Josephine’s quizzical expression.
As they drove off, leaving the wedding party far behind them, Josephine began to laugh. This was hardly the proper manner for the Duke and Duchess of Ashbourne to leave the church but she would not have it any other way.
Cassius took them to the Ashbourne estate woodland, just as Josephine was expecting. His body was solid and warm beside her as they drove, and his mouth gentle but persistent both in stealing frequent kisses and making playful promises of where she might later find his lips and tongue.
Made languorous and excited by these attentions in equal measure, Josephine soon could not bear to think of the good-willed reception of friends, relatives and neighbors awaiting them at the end of this drive. The last two weeks had been a special kind of torture, permitted to see Cassius each day but barely to touch him, under the eagle-eyed gaze of her older sisters.
She considered asking Cassius to slow the horses so that they might have more time. Then, rather than continuing towards Ashbourne Castle, the duke suddenly stopped in the middle of the woods and pulled over the carriage to the side of the path.
“Where are we?” Josephine asked with a yawn, stretching and looking around at the trees and sun-dappled moss of the forest floor as Cassius jumped down from his seat, and held out his arms.
