At the sound of his mother’s voice, Michael turned from his office window, from where he had been contemplating Josephine playing with her nephew out in the garden, and walked back to his desk.
His mother moved to the sideboard where he kept the liquor and poured two snifters of cognac. Approaching the desk, she offered one of them to him, as if she knew he would require fortification for the talk. His mother was never once to mince words or tolerate prevarication, so he answered honestly.
“Yes. But she doesn’t want me.”
“Balderdash.” His mother made one of her eloquent hand gestures, as if she were swatting at an impertinent gnat. “That girl has been smitten with you since the moment she met you.”
He raised his brows. “When we first met, she was engaged to my brother.”
“Oh, I know. But I have a feeling she was about to break that engagement. During that entire house party, she only had eyes for you.”
His gaze clashed with his mother’s. Two pairs of almost identical green eyes, his, wide with shock. Hers, smug with confidence.
“You knew?”
“I don’t know all the particulars. But I have eyes. And there’s no better use for them than to observe what is going on with my children. I saw the way you looked at each other during that house party. And realized her engagement to Henry was a mistake. She was the perfect girl for you.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
His mother shrugged. “I was waiting for you two to say something. To acknowledge your feelings. I know you are not duplicitous, Michael, and that you would never have betrayed your brother. If you and his intended had reluctantly fallen in love, I expected you would come forward and reveal the news on your own.”
“I wanted to talk to you and father. And Henry as well, of course.” He looked down into his brandy snifter, twirling the amber liquid in his hand. Anything to avoid his mother’s astute gaze. “She asked me to allow her some time to talk to her parents first. And I agreed. But her parents took her away precipitously. By the time I reached London, she was gone. Her brother convinced me she had eloped with another man, when in reality, she had been kidnapped.”
The succinct recount of his idiocy left a bitter taste in his mouth, so he chased it down with a swallow of brandy.
“I thought her disappearance was suspect and never fully believed the story that she had eloped. But when you came back empty handed and bitter, I thought you had reason to believe it was true. Then you went off to war. I fretted so much about you,Michael. The entire time you were in the army, I was sick with worry.”
He had to admit his mother had reason to be. On more than one occasion his bitterness and self-destructive behavior nearly cost him his life in the war. He had received a medal for valor in the battlefield. It hadn’t been valor. It had been suicidal recklessness.
It should have killed him. Instead, by the time the fog of despair had lifted, instead of landing him dead of crippled, he had been promoted to the title of Lieutenant Colonel after the Crimean war. A distinction he didn’t want or deserve. After that horrid war, he had been done with soldiering.
But he still stayed in the army, for there was nothing else for him at home. He was not the heir, so he was not needed. He had no wife or sweetheart waiting for him and was unfit to court any young debutante, set up a family, and settle into bucolic life. His father and brother were alive, so he thought his family didn’t need him. Until his father and brother died within two years of each other, and his mother begged him to come home.
How could he deny her that? It wasn’t for the title he had returned. It had been for his mother. She had lost her husband and a son. He was all she had left. And he was a duke now.
“I’m sorry, Mother. I have failed you, failed Josephine.”
“Don’t say that!” She stood and came to him. “I may have not agreed with some of your choices. I have worried and despaired of ever seeing you happy. But never once have I felt that you failed me.”
He stretched his arm to envelop her in a hug and after a brief hesitation, she relented with a sigh and leaned into him. His mother was always so stoic, every inch the duchess. But she must feel lonely living here by herself most of the time. Maybe that is why she wanted him to marry and have children.
“Sometimes I feel so inadequate,” he confessed.
“You are not!” His indomitable mother untangled herself from his arms to scowl at him. “You are a capable, compassionate man who’s been a credit to the name he bears. Now if you would manage to get to the altar and produce offspring post haste, you’d make me the happiest and proudest of mothers.”
He gave a dry chuckle. “That does not seem likely at the moment.”
“Why not? Josephine agreed to marry you. Now, I understand a proper wedding takes some time to plan, but with my help, it shouldn’t take more than a month. Two weeks, if you give me free rein and unlimited resources.”
If he told his mother he wanted to marry tomorrow, he had no doubt she would somehow make it happen. She seemed to thrive on impossible tasks.
“I have complete faith in your capability to arrange a proper event on short notice. Alas, my capability to convince the bride may not be up to par.”
“What are you talking about? Hasn’t she already agreed to marry you?”
“No. Our engagement is a sham.” God, it hurt to say it. “A ploy devised to help her retain custody of her nephew. She has no intention of marrying me.”
It wasn’t every day he managed to confound his mother. Her brows drew together in a gesture she didn’t allow herself often. “That doesn’t make any sense. For one, she loves you. And surely a marriage to a duke would lend her more gravitas than a fake engagement. Why wouldn’t she want to marry you?”
