“Henry,” she tried plaintively again, reaching out as if to pull him back to her.
He didn’t back away that time, but nor did he move towards her, his feet stuck to the floor as her face fell upon realizing that he wouldn’t be cajoled back into closeness.
She moved quicker than he anticipated, throwing herself at him again as if she meant to wrap herself around him, and Henry sidestepped her just a moment before she might have succeeded.
“Catherine,” he snapped, his patience coming to an end as he took her by both shoulders and moved her to the side. “I am not going to betray Josephine.”
He could see her readiness to argue, her expression determined, but he pushed forward regardless.
“Martha would be ashamed of you,” he ground out, hating how low a blow it was but knowing it needed to be said.
But Catherine didn’t flinch at the words.
She barely looked bothered at all.
It wasn’t until he pried her hands from his wrists and stepped out of the sitting room to leave that the fight finally bled out of her.
It was like watching all the wine leak out of a wineskin.
She fell to her knees as he turned, tears falling from the corners of her eyes as he turned fully from her.
“Henry,” she begged, hiccupping over his name.
He didn’t turn. He couldn’t. As angry as he was, she was still Martha’s sister. The only thing that saved her from him having said worse.
“Henry!” she screamed, her voice breaking over his name as he rushed from the estate as if the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.
Her scream echoed in his head even as he climbed back into his carriage, his thoughts a jumbled mess from everything that had transpired over the last half hour.
He had expected difficulty, but not that.
There was no hope of reconciliation left. No possibility of whatever familial bond there once might have been being reclaimed.
As his carriage carried him away from the Brisby estate, he knew he was closing the final chapter on that part of his life. The last living line to Martha.
And he didn’t know whether to be more disappointed or relieved that he was doing so after everything Catherine had done.
Chapter 17
“I think a yellow or pale pink gown would be lovely for the day of the wedding,” Josephine’s mother gushed, her head down as she pored over the fabric swatches that the duke’s butler had given her.
Josephine fought to keep from wrinkling her nose, quickly smoothing her expression and feigning interest as her mother looked excitedly up at her.
“Perhaps not,” the duke murmured, drawing her mother’s attention to him despite how his eyes were still firmly upon Josephine.
A small, fond smile played about the corners of his lips, his green eyes dancing in a way that let her know that he had caught her disapproval even as quick as she’d been to try and hide it. “What other colours did the seamstress send over?”
Josephine’s mother looked disappointed, but not overly so, as she looked back down at the swatches with a thoughtful frown. She wasn’t going to argue with the duke about colours, but it was just as clear that none of the other colours caught her fancy quite so well, either.
“Well, there’s a blue here,” she murmured, holding it up as she flipped through what remained. “Green, a darker blush colour–”
But Josephine had stopped listening as soon as she’d held up the blue swatch. It was pretty and light, almost periwinkle in colour.
“The blue matches her eyes,” the duke pointed out, stopping all conversation entirely as her mother held up the fabric closer to Josephine’s face in surprise.
“It does!” her father exclaimed with a chuckle.
Her parents quickly fell to teasing one another about missing such a thing, but Josephine only had eyes for her husband to be.
