“Good afternoon,” Josephine greeted, pausing to take the woman in as she stopped before her.
She was a handsome enough woman, though her eyes seemed pinched and her smile almost too bright as she folded her hands and looked Josephine up and down rather like a butcher inspecting a cut of meat.
“Good afternoon, Lady Josephine,” the woman greeted, her smile tight. “My name is Lady Catherine Brisby …”
The way she said her name made it seem as if it was something of import, but for the life of her, Josephine couldn’t think of who the Brisbys were or why it should matter one way or another. She lifted her eyebrows all the same, trying to look impressed enough to avoid offending the strange woman.
“Lady … Brisby?” Josephine checked, trying to ensure that she had titled her correctly.
Lady Brisby nodded, a gleam of satisfaction entering her gaze.
“I’m delighted to make your acquaintance. I was just about to visit the seamstress. Was there something that I could do for you?”
Lady Brisby’s eyes narrowed, a look of affront stealing over her features as she straightened.
“Do you know who I am, girl?”
Obviously not.
The rush of having to speak to so many people, coupled with the nerves she had been battling, made it hard for her to swallow such words, but Josephine persevered all the same, her teeth clenching as she kept her polite smile in place.
“I’m afraid that I don’t. I’m terribly sorry. I’ve been rather distracted lately, forgive me. Were you an acquaintance of my mother or ...?”
“I’m Lady Catherine Brisby,” the woman repeated, her words clipped.
When comprehension didn’t dawn on Josephine’s features, she practically bristled.
“His Grace’s sister,” she snapped.
Josephine felt her stomach drop, her confusion warring with her embarrassment.
“I’m so sorry, I thought he was an only child–”
“He is,” Lady Brisby muttered, interrupting Josephine with a huff. “His sister-in-law, I might have said, though really the distinction shouldn’t have been needed. You ought to have known that I was Martha’s sister from the start. You did take it upon yourself to enter into a betrothal with His Grace.”
The venom in Lady Brisby’s words was unmistakable, Josephine’s whole body stiffening at the outright hostility. She took a half step back, tightening her grip on her things as she tried to find a polite way to answer the irritated woman before her.
“My apologies again, Lady Brisby.” Though she didn’t, at this point, know what she was apologizing for. And she hardly thought that she had ‘taken it upon herself’ to enter her betrothal either. “I’m sure I should have known your name. Like I said, I’ve been rather distracted lately.”
“I’m sure.” Lady Brisby sniffed. She looked Josephine up and down again, her eyes narrowing further.
“My sympathies for your sister,” Josephine continued after an awkward moment of silence. “And … my apologies if our engagement is unsettling for you …”
“Unsettling?” Lady Brisby laughed, the sound a high-pitched bark. “Is that what you’d call it?”
“Well, no,” Josephine murmured, “I’m not sure what I would. It is only that you seem to be rather … out of sorts. And I imagined it might have something to do with our announcement given our conversation, but–”
“There is no but behind that,” Lady Brisby said primly, pressing her lips in a hard, thin line. “I approached you to inform you how great a disservice you are doing to my dear sister’s memory. Something I wasn’t certain that you would be aware of but that I thought you needed to be.”
“A disservice?” Josephine blinked, her head spinning at the turn the conversation had taken from the congratulations she had first assumed that this would be.
“A disservice,” Lady Brisby repeated. “Were you aware that her passing had only been three years past? Surely you can see how that is too soon for the two of you to have met and fallen in love! Why, just imagine the gossip and what they will say after so short a time frame!”
Josephine hadn’t considered that. Although thinking about it then, she was almost certain that if any such whispers were going around either her mother or Caroline would have already brought them up.
Maybe it was just in grief over her sister. Clearly, Lady Brisby didn’t want Josephine taking her place.
“Lady Brisby, I can assure you, personally, that I only just met His Grace. And I can also assure you that love has no merit in this conversation one way or another. His Grace still loves your sister; no one means to dishonour her. I will do everything in my power to ensure that her memory remains as well.” Josephine reached forward, meaning to offer comfort to the distraught woman, but Lady Brisby recoiled as if Josephine were carrying the plague.
