JOSIE COULDN’T BELIEVE she was married to the man sitting to her right at the head of the dining table. The duke had dressed for supper, and it was hard to believe that this arresting man, in his formal attire, was the same one who’d spent the day in a blousy white shirt and tight-fitting pants cutting ivy from the windows.
She felt unaccountably nervous and searched for something she could say to break the silence that had fallen between them, as they waited for dessert to be served. She finally came up with, “Harriet is a wonder.”
“Oh?” Blackthorne replied. “Miss Carpenter, you mean?”
He hadn’t criticized Josie for putting herself on a first-name basis with the housekeeper, but he’d refused to call Harriet anything other than Miss Carpenter. Josie continued determinedly, “Harriet found the cook who made this wonderful meal.”
Blackthorne merely lifted a dark brow, which was the same reaction he’d had when he’d first been introduced to their new housekeeper. Josie had been relieved to see that Harriet’s chin remained up when she’d met the duke, although the young woman hadn’t been able to control the blush that rose on her cheeks. “I know she’s young,” Josie said, feeling the need to defend her choice, even though the duke hadn’t attacked it.
“She’s a veritable babe in the woods,” the duke agreed sardonically.
“I like her.”
“That’s important,” the duke conceded.
“Yes, it is.” Josie wanted to argue, but Blackthorne wasn’t giving her much of an opening. She’d been feeling increasingly on edge the closer they got to the end of the meal, which was to say, the closer they got to bedtime. Would he escort her to her bedroom door? Would he kiss her good night? Would he ask if he could join her? If he did, what would she say? She was tempted to say yes. Oh, how she was tempted!
“What are your plans tomorrow?” Blackthorne asked.
“There are dozens of things in the house that require my attention. Did you have something else in mind?”
“I’d like to show you the estate and perhaps visit a few of our neighbors. Can you ride?”
She wasn’t as comfortable on horseback as her twin sisters, but as a child, Josie had always enjoyed riding. “That sounds wonderful. And yes, I can ride. Do we have horses?”
“I had a few mounts transported here by train. They arrived late this afternoon.”
“Good.” Josie was about to ask which neighbors he planned to visit, when the newest footman set a bowl in front of the duke. “It’s a trifle,” she said. “I’d never heard of such a thing before I arrived in England. I didn’t know what you liked, but I thought—”
“It looks delicious,” Blackthorne said, cutting her off.
Josie realized she’d been babbling. Dinner was clearly almost over. The duke was planning to spend the day with her tomorrow. But what about tonight? Did he have plans for her tonight?
“You aren’t eating yours,” the duke pointed out. “Don’t you like it?”
“Honestly? It’s not a favorite of mine. Too many different flavors all mashed together.” A trifle contained sponge cake brushed with raspberry jam and then soaked with sherry, interspersed with some kind of fruit—in this case, strawberries—as well as custard and whipped cream, served in a glass dish, so all the layers were visible.
Josie watched as Blackthorne devoured the dessert. When his tongue lapped up a tiny bit of whipped cream beside his mouth, she shivered, remembering where he’d used that tongue on her.
She watched as the duke set down his spoon and arranged his napkin on the table. She’d taken only one bite of her trifle, but she didn’t think she could get a second bite past the sudden knot in her throat. She set down her spoon and dabbed unnecessarily at her mouth, before setting her napkin beside her plate.
“Shall I leave you alone to have a brandy?” she asked. “Or a cigar? Do you smoke?”
He smiled. “I do enjoy brandy and a cigar now and then. But I would rather have your company right now.”
“Oh.”
“Shall we go into the library? I can as easily have a brandy there. Perhaps you would like to read for a while before we retire.”
Anything that postponed bedtime sounded fine to Josie. “Yes, I would.”
She was half out of her chair by the time he got there to move it back for her. He reached for her hand to help her stand, even though she’d been getting out of chairs by herself all her life, and she reluctantly put her hand in his.
Once she was on her feet, he crooked his elbow and pulled her hand through it, so they were walking side by side. She was aware of a woodsy smell that she found pleasing and wrinkled her nose. She didn’t want to be pleased by anything about the Dastardly Duke. “Good evening, Harper,” she said to the footman who opened the dining room door for them.
“Good evening, Your Grace.”
“How are you tonight, Stanley?” she asked the footman who opened the library door for them.
“Very well, Your Grace.”
Once they were alone with the library door closed behind them, Josie turned to Blackthorne and said, “I think you intimidate our new servants.”
“That’s certainly not my intention.”
“Nevertheless, I thought I had Harper and Stanley convinced it was perfectly all right to call me Josie. Yet, in your presence, they reverted to that blasted British formality.”
Blackthorne chuckled.
“It isn’t funny!”
“What you don’t seem to understand, my dear, is that the consequence of a servant in England is raised by the consequence of those whom they serve.”
Josie frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s far more prestigious for my footmen to be in service to the Duke of Blackthorne and his duchess than to plain old Marcus and Josie.”
Josie shook her head and muttered, “I will never understand the English.”
The duke chuckled as he poured himself a brandy, while Josie perused the bookshelves, which were filled from top to bottom with still-dusty tomes. She would make it a point to put one of the maids to work in here in the morning.
“Is there something I can help you find?” he asked, as he turned with his filled glass in hand.
Josie had been a voracious reader most of her life. As a child, her parents had bought her so many books, her room was overflowing with them. The orphanage had possessed a surprising number of books donated after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and she’d read them all. On her ill-fated journey by Conestoga wagon to Cheyenne, she’d read by the campfire at night, devouring books from a wagonload of them being carried west by a teacher and his son.
She recognized many books in the Abbey library that she’d read but just as many that she hadn’t. A smile broke across her face when she found a large collection of Charles Dickens’s works. “Oh, my goodness!”
She ran her fingers across the spines, removing dust so that she could more easily read the titles: Oliver Twist, The Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, and her favorite, A Christmas Carol. She trailed her fingertips across the cherished novels, her heart caught in her throat, hoping against hope that she would find the two titles she’d heard so much about, but which she hadn’t yet read. “Oh! Here’s one of them!”
“One of what?” the duke asked as he moved to her side.
Reverently, she pulled out the copy of Great Expectations. “I’ve wanted to read this novel forever.” She turned to him with a rueful smile. “Well, ever since I started reading Mr. Dickens, anyway.”
“When was that?”
“In the orphanage. After my parents died. A girl who came to live there had a copy of A Christmas Carol. It was the first Dickens novel I read.”
He frowned. “You lived in an orphanage?”
Josie realized her mistake. She’d admitted her parents were deceased, but she hadn’t explained the horrible circumstances she and her siblings had lived through after their uncle had stolen their inheritance and sent them off to live in an orphanage. Their utter destitution had caused her sisters to seek new, more hopeful lives as mail-order brides.
“We were too young when my parents died to take care of ourselves. My uncle decided an orphanage was the best place for us.”
She didn’t explain that they’d been stuck there for three years before they discovered that their uncle had stolen their father’s fortune and left them to languish. Josie realized in that moment how much Blackthorne’s heartless abandonment of his nephews mirrored the behavior of her uncle, who’d turned out to be a villain indeed. No wonder she’d sympathized with their plight!
She was startled out of her dark thoughts by Blackthorne’s next question.
“You said you’d found ‘one of them.’ What’s the other Dickens novel you want to read?”
She was happy to have the subject changed and answered, “A Tale of Two Cities.”
He recited, “ ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…’ ”
Josie shot a look at him. “What is that?”
“It’s the way the book starts.”
“You’ve read it?”
He nodded.
She turned back to the shelves, unable to contain her excitement. “Is it here somewhere?”
“I’m afraid not. I took it with me to Town the last time I was here—a long time ago. I have no idea where it might be now.”
“Oh.” Josie couldn’t keep the disappointment from her voice.
“It might be in my library in London. Shall I write to my housekeeper and have her take a look?”
Josie held Great Expectations tightly against her bosom, hoping against hope that the other novel could be found. “Would you?”
“Of course. Would you like to sit for a while and read?” He gestured her toward one of two worn leather chairs facing the fireplace, and once she sat down, seated himself in the matching chair next to her.
She opened the book and began to read but couldn’t concentrate because she could feel her husband’s eyes on her. She kept reading the same paragraph over and over. Finally, she looked up and said, “I can’t read with you watching me.”
He smiled. “I was admiring the way your blond curls pick up the light from the fire.”
She frowned. “It’s just hair.”
He didn’t argue, merely reached out and brushed a tumble of curls behind her shoulder.
Josie shivered at his touch. She felt irritated without knowing why. She closed her book and said, “I think I’ll wait to start this until I have more time to read.”
“Very well.” He set his glass on a side table and rose, then held out his hand to her. “Shall we retire?”
Josie set her hand in his, because it would have been rude to ignore it, and allowed him to help her to her feet. She kept the book under her arm, causing him to ask, “Are you going to take that with you?”
“I thought I would, if it’s all right.” She hesitated, then added, “I like to read in bed.”
He lifted a dark brow.
Josie felt a blush heating her cheeks. His look suggested that he might have something far better for her to do in bed than read, if he were allowed to join her. She let him lead her upstairs to her bedroom door, then pulled her hand free and turned to him. “Good night, Your—” She stopped herself, met his gaze and said, almost defiantly, “Marcus.”
He smiled, and gave her a tender look that reached all the way back inside his eyes, before saying in a rumbling voice that reverberated through her body, “Good night, Josie.”
Josie stood there for a moment, until she realized she was waiting for him to kiss her. Appalled at her behavior, she shoved open her door, scooted inside, and closed it behind her. She leaned back against the door with her eyes squeezed closed and let out a ragged sigh.
She must have wanted his kiss, since she’d stood there, like a nincompoop, waiting for it. What was wrong with her? Her husband wasn’t a good person. Why did she find herself longing for his touch? She would never understand herself.
Josie pulled the book out from under her arm and stared at it with delight. At least she had a good book to keep her company for the evening. As she changed into the frilly white nightgown the dowager had intended for her to wear on her wedding night, she admitted she wouldn’t have minded being made love to again. If only Blackthorne were a better person. If only he’d kept his promise to return her to her family. If only she believed he was a man she could trust.
A good book was a much safer alternative than the duke’s lovemaking. She could probably read a great deal of Great Expectations before sleep claimed her. With any luck, it would distract her from unwelcome memories of making love to the Dastardly Duke.