“I wouldn’t even know where to start looking into it all.” Josephine sighed. “I’ve been so out of society for so long …”
“And you can’t ask the duke himself?” Caroline stated it plainly, phrased as a question despite how her voice didn’t rise at the end like it ought to have to be one. It was almost more of a statement saved only just at the last second.
Josephine’s lip twitched at the absurdity of the idea.
“Could you imagine? ‘I know we’ve only met once, Your Grace, but would you mind terribly walking me through what happened to your late wife? And, while we’re talking about it, you didn’t happen to murder her yourself, did you?’” Her laugh was quick on the tail of her words, though more choked than she meant it to be.
Caroline just looked appalled at the very idea.
“I can ask around,” she said with a shrug. “No one will think anything of me asking questions. It isn’t so very out of the ordinary after all,” she teased.
“We’re likely just making a mountain out of a molehill,” Josephine returned, trying to make herself believe the words as she spoke them.
“Very likely.” Caroline laughed.
Though neither girl quite met one another’s eyes with their reassurances.
For another long, awkward moment, neither spoke, both lost in thought as the too-serious nature of their conversation lingered over them.
“I think you’ve concocted all of this to make me feel better about not having succeeded in catching the duke’s eye myself!” Caroline burst out after a few minutes, offering Josephine one of her trademark bright smiles and tossing her hair over one shoulder as if to toss the grim mood they’d caused behind her with it.
Josephine laughed despite her still churning stomach.
“That might be the most absurd notion you’ve had yet,” she said with a chuckle. “He’s such an intense man. I’m not surewhat there is to envy me outside of the title and estate. Well, that and–” She stopped suddenly; her mouth had run away too far with her. Her entire face filled with heat, her teeth snapping to a close as she swallowed the words that had been about to tumble out.
“I knew it!” Caroline cackled, leaning forward eagerly once more. “Don’t stop now, Josephine; you were just about to get to the juicy details, I know it!”
“I was not.” Josephine sniffed. “Really, Caroline …”
“Do not really me! You’re redder than my father after a night at the gentlemen’s club! You like him!”
“I hardly know him!” Josephine protested quickly.
“Well, then you find him attractive,” Caroline countered.
Josephine felt her blush deepen, the noise she made in the back of her throat almost a squeak.
“He’s an attractive man,” she admitted, her voice going tinny. “I never said that he wasn’t.”
Caroline’s laughter grew.
“There’s a difference between attractive and attraction,” she teased bawdily. “Oh, don’t glare at me so fiercely! It only looks funnier as red as you are.” Her giggles were infectious. “Come now, Josephine, you can tell me.”
No, she couldn’t. Josephine barely knew the words for herself. That was the problem.
But facing her friend’s inquisition about the duke and her apparent attraction for him was far more preferable than the conversation they’d been having before. And Josephine was desperate to put that sick feeling in the pit of her stomach behind her.
Even if, amidst their laughter and teasing, she kept thinking back to the slew of questions that had come with Caroline’s revelation.
Murder.
Even just the word sat heavy in her thoughts, repeated over and over despite her best efforts.
Chapter 9
“The Lady Catherine Brisby here to see you, Your Grace.”
Henry jerked at the words, looking up from where he’d absconded in the sitting room with his book, his eyebrows rising. He hadn’t heard the bell; he hadn’t even heard the door to the sitting room opening. He’d been so far into the novel and the sword fight that had just begun.
