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“Traditional for most women. But then, my lady mother is not most women. She has run Worthington Hall, and indeed all my affairs, successfully for years since my lord father died. Do you think I would displace her in favor of a silly, inexperienced young chit of a girl who has never had to manage a large, noble household?
“No, you will submit and learn your place within the family. While I am away at sea, you will answer to my mother in all things, just as the lowest housemaid does. My elder sisters will also be watching you in my absence.”
“My lord Earl,” Lady Josephine said, attempting to keep her temper, “it is clear we have very different notions of what makes a good marriage. I cannot share a life with you, much less bear children to you, under such a regime.
“I beg you to release me from my promise to wed you. We would not be happy. I would not be happy. Please, release me from my promise, and you can put any public blame on me that you wish.”
“I should indeed blame you publicly, were I to release you.” The Earl stood up and walked over to where Lady Josephine was sitting. “Because whose fault is this quarreling, but that of a spoiled little shrew who does not know how lucky she is to be engaged to me?
“But I shall not release you.” The Earl’s tone was cruelly humorous. “For I shall enjoy marrying you. I shall enjoy putting my will against yours, knowing it isyou, my dear, who will break first. And I shall so enjoy breaking your spirit, dear Josephine. It will be the goal of my marriage, to reduce you to the frightened, sniveling girl I know you are inside, for all your posturing and pretending to be courageous.”
He smiled, and there was pure evil in his smile. Suddenly, she was afraid of him. She did not want to be alone with him.
“Now, little Josephine, I am going to tell you what you will do. My mother is in the drawing room with some of your other guests. I know not who—it doesn’t matter. You will go to the drawing room and you will apologize humbly and profusely to my lady mother for your rudeness this morning.
“Say it loudly, so every guest can hear you. Curtsy to her and explain that you forgot your proper place, but it will never happen again.”
Lady Josephine hesitated.
“Go,” he urged her, looking her in the eyes, almost hypnotizing her. One last burst of spirit remained in her.
“No! I won’t! I won’t be treated thus in my own father’s house!” she exclaimed.
Suddenly she was startled by a sharp rap of hand against bone, and she realized he had struck her across the cheek.
But as she pressed her hand to her face, paralyzed with shock, a figure came barreling from behind the library shelves, knocking the Earl into the wall and slamming his jaw with his fist.
It was Ace, her faithful bodyguard.That must be the deadly expression he gets on his face when he battles men in the ring.It was her last thought before she fainted.
* * *
She awoke in her own room. Had Ace carried her there after she had swooned? The thought brought her a warm feeling of pleasure, until she started remembering all the details of the ugly scene with the Earl.
Ducky was sitting near her bedside. “My poor lady. I heard from Mr. Smith that the Earl struck you in anger.” She shook her head sadly. “In truth, my lady, you’re old enough to know about such things...it’s one reason I never married. There are men like that. My father was one such. My mother was a gentle person, but she had to watch every word she said for fear that she would set him off. We all walked on eggshells, particularly if Father had taken a few drinks.
“Well, Mr. Smith gave the Earl a proper right hook across the jaw. After that, the Earl said he’d have Mr. Smith dismissed without a reference. And Mr. Smith said it wasn’t the Earl’s place to dismiss him—he was in the employ of His Grace the Duke. He had been hired to protect you, Lady Josephine, and ‘by God, I’m going to do my duty,’ he told the Earl. ‘You won’t lay a hand on her while I’m on guard.’”
So he had just been doing his duty then. Just doing the job he was hired for. I had hoped, when I saw the look of rage on his face, that it meant he cared about me….
“His Grace asked me to send a message when you had awakened. I’ll just ring the bell for a maid to tell him, shall I?”
The Duke arrived in his daughter’s chambers within minutes. “Well, well,” he said. “More drama in this house than you’d see on a stage!”
“Please, my lord Papa, I can’t marry the Earl. If you heard the things he said to me….”
“I have already heard one highly emotional version of the story from your champion, Mr. Smith. By Jove, the fellow takes his duties toward you quite seriously! On the other hand, the Earl downplayed it—said it was a mere tiff between his lady mother and you. Two strong-willed women and all that.
“He was merely trying to explain to you what your duties toward the Dowager Countess will be, now and once you are wed. He said that the thought of being subject to his lady mother angered you.
“Josephine, it is natural that a mother-in-law may think of you at first as an interloper in her family home. It will be up to you to be diplomatic and respectful—”
“Papa, that’s not how it was at all. He despises me—he said he would enter into this marriage with the goal of breaking my spirit completely, he and his mother both. He said that in his house, I would be as subject to the Dowager Countess’ wishes and commands as the lowest of the housemaids.”
“Well those sound like words spoken in haste and anger. I cannot imagine he meant them.”
“But he did. My lord Papa, the Earl frightens me. Once he has wed me, I’m afraid of being left alone with him.”
“That is maidenly modesty, my dear, and most appropriate, given that you hardly know each other.”
